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Coffee Grind ChartHow fine should I grind my coffee? This is a tough question to explain to someone without showing them. Each style of coffee brewing has its own optimal grind requirements. The three most common grind types are fine, medium, and coarse. You'll find those terms used in many of the brewing tutorials here on INeedCoffee. However, one of the problems with using these terms is that without a point of reference, it's difficult to explain what coarse or fine mean. This article uses high quality photographs of ground coffee against a U.S. dime to visually explain these terms. For those outside the United States, the coin below is 17.9 millimeters in diameter. The bridge of the nose on the coin head is just over 3 millimeters long. The Most Common GrindsCoarse - A coarse ground coffee is primarily used for the press pot, which is also known as the french press.
Medium - A medium ground coffee is what is required by drip pots and vac-pot brewers. There are different degrees of medium depending upon filter type, but the picture below shows a normal medium grind.
Fine - Espresso requires a fine grind in order for the extraction to be perfect. Turkish grind coffee is slightly finer than espresso and will be finer than this picture.
ComparisionThe last photo is a side-by-side comparsion. This will be helpful to those of you with blade grinders.
ConclusionJust as roasters will disagree about how dark a particular coffee roast should be, some will disagree with the above photographs. These photographs should be used as a starting spot for those learning a new style of brewing. Play with your grind until you find the size that best matches your style of brewing. As you tweak your grind, some general rules are that if your coffee tastes weak you may need to grind finer. And if the coffee tastes bitter, experiment with a slightly coarser grind. Good luck and happy grinding! DownloadFor those interesting in larger photos. Here are links to the 800x600 original images of the above photographs.
About the PhotographerThe photographs were taken by Carl Melville, an amateur photographer living in North San Diego County. |
