Fine ground coffee and coarse ground coffee. A question.

[Weeks]

OK I bougt a cafetiere, a plunger type device. It says I must use coarse ground coffee and not fine ground coffee. But how coarse is coarse and how fine is fine?

I've been told that fine ground coffee bit is the same as a bit of salt. Is this true?

And my supermarket (Tescos in the UK, damn them) don't even say whether their coffee is coarse or not. They just use vague words like 'medium'.

Care to enlighten me?

Aider-moi.

Thanks no end, Weeks.

 

[Weeks]

For example it say nothing of the grain size here.
http://www.alotofcoffee.co.uk/coffees.php

 

[javahill]

As for grind size, find yourself some commercially ground pepper. Snag one from McFood or Burgers-R-Us. That is the size of coffee for drip coffee. Something about 2x that size would work for French press.

The real test for French press - coffee maker with a plunger attached to a screen - is the resistance you get when pushing down on the plunger. If you bend the rod or feel like you are going to, the grind is too fine. If the plunger goes down like... ok, hmm, so many tasteless anaolgies - ok, if it goes down without much resistance then the grind is too coarse.

From a taste perspective, too fine a grind will also taste bitter. Too coarse will not have much body - it will feel like water.

Experiment a little. If you are buying coffee from a grocery store bulk and they have a grinder, get a couple little bags and mark on them what the grind is. The machines go in and out of calibration, so if you don't have one, eventually you will want a burr grinder - NOT one of those grinders with blades.

Weeks, a final suggestion. You might want a smaller version of your icon. It is so big I could see it before I logged on.

 

[mcohveca]

Ground Coffee

You may want to use this as a simple rule, if the coffee gets through the screen, then it is too fine. If the grind is too fine it will be very difficult to push the plunger down, and you may end up spraying coffee all over!
Hope that helps,
Alex
http://www.cohvecacoffee.com