Sharing hand brewing skills | What is water injection stirring? What is its function?

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Stirring is to improve the extraction rate of coffee. We can roughly divide it into two types: one is to stir with water flow, and the other is to stir the coffee grounds with external objects. Whether it is through additional vessels or water flow, it is just to extract coffee more perfectly.

Today we will take a look at what to pay attention to when stirring hand brewed coffee and how to do this stirring step well!

| Purpose of stirring

1. Uniform extraction

If the extraction degree of the coffee powder in the filter cup is different, the upper and lower layers, the edge and the center are different, then it is obviously impossible for you to control the final extracted flavor and replicate the performance every time. Even with the most perfect brewing parameters, you can only get a cup of "complex" and turbid coffee with most of the extraction normal, part of it sour due to insufficient extraction, and another part of it bitter and even woody due to over-extraction.

2. Improve extraction rate

There is a very common problem with the filter cup after filling it with water, which is the "channel effect". It sounds familiar, right? Doesn't it immediately remind you of the holes in the powder cake when making espresso? In fact, the "channel effect" does not only exist in Italian coffee, we can also encounter it in hand-brewed coffee!

Of course, there is a difference between the "channel effect" of hand-brewed coffee and espresso! Unlike espresso, which directly perforates the powder cake, the channel produced by hand-brewed coffee is usually above the powder layer - especially in the middle and late stages of extraction, when most of the coffee powder has been exhausted, absorbed water, and sunk to the bottom of the filter cup. At this time, the water surface is higher than the powder layer, so it is easy for water to directly pass through the surrounding filter paper, along the gaps in the ribs, and directly bypass the coffee powder and flow down the filter cup.

The "channel effect" is because water is inert. When passing through the coffee powder layer, it usually chooses thin and easy-to-pass channels to flow through, causing the coffee powder near the channel to be over-extracted, while the coffee powder in other places is under-extracted.

| Stirring with an additional vessel

Using spoons, stirring rods and other tools to stir the coffee powder bed is probably what people usually think of as stirring.

Usually we use a stirring rod to stir the coffee during the steaming stage, so that the water can fully contact the coffee powder and increase the release of aromatic substances. Of course, there are also stirring after the first, second, or third stage of water injection, and even stirring while injecting water... As long as it is controlled properly, all methods are acceptable.

This method can effectively increase the release of aromatic substances and also has a significant effect on the special flavor. The disadvantage is that it is difficult to control the degree of stirring. If you stir too much, it will have a harsh and sour taste, and if you stir too long, it will be bitter, and the strength must be gentle.

It should be noted that if you use external objects to stir, the amount of steaming water should be more, otherwise it will not be able to stir...

Although the flavor of the coffee after stirring is more obvious, its aftertaste is much weaker. Moreover, this method requires very high quality of coffee beans. If inferior coffee beans are used, it will only infinitely magnify its bad flavor. In addition, if the coffee powder used in this method is very finely ground and stirred sufficiently, it is easy to over-extract if not properly controlled. Therefore, everyone should fully understand the properties of their own beans before deciding whether to stir and how to stir.

| Water stirring

Hahaha, you didn’t expect that the water flow when pouring water can also be used as a stirring tool!

By adjusting the speed of water pouring in circles or the force of the water flow, the coffee powder at the bottom of the powder layer is stirred up and rolled in the water. This water pouring technique breaks the fixed thinking that "hand-pouring water cannot reach the filter paper" and directly flushes the coffee powder that is too high on the edge back below the liquid surface.

Usually when we brew, we often choose to use water flow to stir. Compared with stirring with external objects, stirring with water flow is more controllable.

When you are doing hand brewing, you can also try out the differences between these two stirring methods! You can try whether to stir or not, and how to stir! After all, hand brewing is very playable, and you can choose how to brew and express it according to your understanding of the beans!

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