The Ultimate Cup of Java

Millions of Americans jump-start their mornings with a steaming hot cup of coffee.

The Saturday Early Show invited Chris Kimball, editor of Cook's Illustrated, to demonstrate how to roast coffee beans and then brew them up into the ultimate cup of joe. He's walked us through the three-step process of roasting, grinding, and brewing.

Roasting
There are many factors that influence the quality of a cup of coffee, and many of them have to do with the beans: type, origin, quality, time of harvest, and roasting method and temperature.

The most important question: To what extent are the beans roasted? Typical roasts range from an American roast, which produces a coffee light enough to let the subtle flavors of the beans shine through; a Viennese or French Roast, in which the beans are deeply roasted; and and Italian Roast, which is the darkest roast.

Kimball says the quest for brewing the perfect cup of coffee at home begins with roasting your own beans. He roasts his own beans at home, and says it's actually quite easy. Roasting at home gives you a wide range of choices in terms of types of beans (country of origin, etc.) and it only takes about 15 minutes (10-12 minutes to roast and 3 minutes to cool).

Grinding
Home coffee tends to taste best if the beans are ground fresh before they are brewed. Also, different brewing methods require different types of grinds, from fine through coarse. Kimball's team at Cook's Illustrated tested two kinds of grinders: burr and blade. Blade grinders are the most common and cost about $20. Burr grinders have more than two rotating blades that crush the beans. Taste-testers liked coffee made from beans ground in blade grinders the best.

Brewing
The best coffee is made with water between 195 and 205 degrees, but most electric machines don¹t produce water that hot. The extraction time (the time it takes the water to pass through the ground coffee) should be 6 minutes. Many coffee makers have varying extraction times depending on how much coffee one is brewing. Coffee left on electric burner plates on automatic machines will deteriorate rapidly, tasting either flat or burned.

Cook's Illustrated tested six different coffee brewing methods: percolator, French press, basic electric drip machines (the Krups Pro Aroma and the Black & Decker,) manual drip, and vacuum coffee maker.

Kimball says that with percolators, you often end up with weak flavor since hot water is sprayed over the grounds and then quickly drains through.

He says the French press is trendy, but too much sediment passes through the mesh. The coffee also tends to be rather cool unless the container is preheated with hot tap water.

According to Kimball, electric drip machines usually take too long (10 minutes or longer) to brew a pot of coffee, which results in over-extraction and bitterness. The Krups Pro Aroma makes good coffee, however, and the Black & Decker uses a thermal carafe, which mitigates problems with the hot plate. Cook's Illustrated suggests buying the Krups and then pouring the coffee into a separate thermal carafe.

The manual drip or Melitta method is the cheapest method and, says Kimball, it makes terrific coffee. He recommends using a thermal carafe.

Finally, Kimball says the vacuum coffee maker brews great-tasting coffee, due in part to the fact that the water is heated to just the right temperature. There is no sediment, and the extraction time is right. Kimball adds that it's fun to watch, too!