Better Your Brew Series || Volume 1 Ch. 3 of 3 || Next Level Brewing: Advanced Techniques & Tips

Welcome to Volume 1, Chapter 3 of a series of articles focused on everything you need to know to brew better coffee. In the first post, we covered the essential gear needed to get started with specialty coffee. In Chapter 2, we explored the optional gear and gadgets that can help take your brew to the next level.

Now, in this final chapter of Volume I, we’re shifting away from gear and diving into technique, tips, and theory. This chapter is aimed more at the coffee enthusiast—the kind of person who’s always chasing marginal gains or simply enjoys the process and science behind brewing. Some of the techniques below can have a major impact on your cup, while others offer subtle, nuanced improvements. But together, they can elevate your brew to a level it’s never been before.

NEXT LEVEL BREWING || Chapter 3. Advanced Techniques & Tips

"Freeze" Your Beans

There’s been debate for eons about whether or not you should freeze your coffee beans—or even store them in the fridge. Well, I’m here to tell you: freezing your coffee is 100% the best option if your goal is to slow the degradation process. This has been proven in numerous studies, and the only thing left to argue about is how to freeze them properly. P.S. don't put them in the fridge, too many smells.

One quick note: coffee beans don’t actually freeze—they just get really cold. Roasted coffee contains only about 2–3% water, so there’s no internal freezing happening. Also, grinding beans straight from the freezer has been shown to improve particle size distribution. Cold beans fracture more cleanly and evenly—so, bonus. With that out of the way, let’s talk about why freezing works, and how to do it right.

Storing coffee in the freezer helps reduce the impact of the three main enemies of freshness: light, oxygen, and heat.

• Light: Freezers are dark, so that’s handled automatically.

• Oxygen: The goal is to limit the amount of air inside the storage container. Less air = less oxygen = less oxidation and diffusion (both of which age your beans).

• Heat: The freezer is cold... so, self-explanatory.

This is why storing beans in the original coffee bag can actually work fine. Just roll the bag tightly to squeeze out excess air, seal it well, and you’re almost there. One extra tip: tape over the degassing valve so that no freezer smells can seep in and affect your beans. This is not an issue if the beans have already rested and finished off-gassing—which they should be before you freeze them.

Some folks like to store their beans in individual pre-weighed doses. That’s useful if you want the convenience of grabbing and grinding without measuring every morning. But if you're doing it just to maintain freshness, it’s honestly not necessary. A common worry is that taking beans in and out of the freezer might create condensation or cause moisture to build up. Unless you’re leaving the bag out for several minutes or you live in the middle of a jungle, humidity is not an issue. Take the bag out, scoop your dose, and toss it back in—no harm done.

Still nervous about air exposure? Then toss the whole bag inside a Ziplock or vacuum-seal it for long-term storage. But honestly, for most people: roll up the bag, tape the valve, and stick it in the freezer. That’s plenty.

There’s research showing that for every 10°C drop in temperature, you slow the aging of roasted coffee by roughly a factor of two. Room temp is around 20–22°C. A typical home freezer ranges from about –15°C to –23°C. So if we keep it simple and say you’re storing beans at –20°C, that’s a 40°C difference from room temp. That means you’re slowing the aging of your coffee by a factor of 8. So, beans that sit in your freezer for a month will have aged the equivalent of just 4 days on your counter. That’s huge.

This is not only due to reduced light, heat, and oxidation, but also because cold storage slows the release of CO₂, which acts as a natural preservative in roasted coffee.

Bottom line: freezing your coffee works, and it’s not just some nerdy trick for obsessive home baristas. If you’re not freezing your coffee and you care about freshness, give it a shot. If it doesn't work, yell at any chemist friends you may have.

Filter Choice

Filters might not seem like a big deal—after all, aren’t they just there to keep grounds out of your cup? Well, yes... and no. Filters affect far more than clarity. They can influence your final cup’s body, mouthfeel, bitterness, and overall flavor balance. In fact, filters can be a powerful tool when dialing in a coffee’s profile, giving you the flexibility to grind finer or coarser and manage the unique behavior of your brewer.

When choosing a filter, consider the size, thickness, material, pore size, and pore uniformity. Filters are one of the biggest factors in how fast water flows through the coffee. A thicker filter or one with smaller pores (like a Chemex filter) will slow the drawdown, which might require a coarser grind, a lower dose, or an adjustment in water temperature—depending on your goal. If you switch to a slower-flowing filter and leave everything else the same, water will sit in the bed longer. This can mimic immersion brewing, changing the extraction and the flavor dramatically. Not necessarily a bad thing—but definitely a noticeable one.

Sibarist filters are a great example of how filter quality makes a difference. They’re known for fast flow rates and highly uniform pore sizes, which helps maintain consistency across brews and allows you to grind finer—potentially boosting extraction and clarity. On the other hand, poorly made filters with uneven pore distribution can lead to uneven extraction, as some areas may allow water to pass through faster than others. This is especially frustrating if you’re chasing consistency and repeatable results.

Material matters too. Alternatives like cloth or metal filters provide very different cups. Metal filters tend to produce a heavier-bodied, oil-rich brew with more texture from the fines that pass through. Cloth filters can yield a creamy cup, but can be a pain to keep clean. Even for "paper" filters they can be made out of materials like bamboo or abica, or a true paper filter can have a different texture that manages the fines in your coffee grounds more or less.

And when it comes to paper filters, the bleached vs. unbleached debate still rages. Some swear they taste the difference, claiming unbleached filters leave a papery note in the cup. This is why I always recommend rinsing your filter before brewing. It helps wash away paper dust, removes potential off-flavors, and also preheats the brewer, which adds consistency. Plus, with conical brewers or flat filters especially, rinsing helps the filter set properly to manage consistency with bypass and flow. I personally use the Origami filters for my conical, and Kalita wave for flat-bottom brewers. The CAFEC filters are good too, and they have filters of various thickness to experiment with. The CAFEC T90 filters are popular. Many people tend to shy away from the tabbed Hario filters. They changed where the filters are produced awhile back and the consistency just seems off.

Water

When it comes to water, temperature isn’t the only thing that matters. The mineral content of your water plays a huge role, too. In pour-over or drip coffee, you're extracting somewhere around 1–2% total dissolved solids—actual coffee. The remaining 98–99% is just water. So if your water is bad, your coffee will be bad. In espresso, this changes to around 10% TDS coffee in the cup, so still around 90% water.

One of the main culprits is bicarbonate, which is often found in tap water. It can block or mute the flavors we typically look for in specialty coffee. Calcium and magnesium also play a key role, either enhancing or dulling the perceived sweetness and fruitiness in your cup. Having a balanced mineral profile in your water can be the difference between bad and good coffee—or even good and great coffee.

Some places in the world are lucky enough to have tap water that’s actually well-suited for brewing coffee. You can usually check your local water utility’s website for a general breakdown of your area's water. Some coffee enthusiasts go further by using distilled water (which has zero minerals) and adding back specific amounts of minerals to hit a precise recipe. That’s a deep rabbit hole if you’re up for it—but luckily, others have done the hard work for us.

Products like Third Wave Water and Lotus Drops make it easy to dial in your water without doing all the math and chemistry yourself. Third Wave Water comes in powdered packets—you just mix them into a liter, gallon, or more of distilled water. Lotus Drops, on the other hand, are liquid concentrates you can also add to tweak the profile.

There are also companies like Apax Labs that offer proprietary mineral concentrates designed to hit specific target profiles. With Apax Labs, for example, you can focus on enhancing sweetness, fruitiness, or florality, depending on which drops you use and how much you add. You can either make larger batches of coffee water or just add a drop or two directly into your cup.

If this sounds interesting but also a bit overwhelming, there’s a simple and inexpensive way to get started. My go-to method involves a small upfront investment: I get 5-gallon bottles of distilled water delivered each month and use Third Wave Water’s 5-gallon mix packets. I usually add about 1/3 to 1/2 of a packet per bottle, which gets me to around 70–90 PPM (parts per million)—a range I personally like.

Alternatively, you can pick up a $5 TDS meter, buy distilled water, and just add your tap water little by little until you reach your preferred PPM—say, 70–90. It’s not as precise as crafting a specific mineral balance, but simply controlling water hardness can significantly improve your coffee flavor. When you hear people talk about how significant your grinder is in getting a good cup of specialty coffee, but you don't believe it until you try, this is the same. Water is extremely important at this level of brewing. It is also important for maintaining healthy equipment when you are brewing espresso. If you have too many of certain chemicals it can deteriorate your machine and its internal parts, as well as spit out bad espresso.

Temperature Profiling

Water temperature isn’t just about what temperature to set to and brew your coffee. You can intentionally change the temperature throughout your brew to change the cup. Hotter water has more ability to extract more compounds, faster. That can be great for certain coffees, but it also means you’re pulling out stuff you may not want as well—bitterness, sharp acidity, or delicate aromatics that just disappear into thin air, never to be smelled again.

Most people stick with one brew temp for the whole process—say, 92°C—and that can work. But you want to take things a bit further, so you can try breaking your brew into stages with different temps. This is called temperature profiling, and one of the easiest ways to start is with something called a cold bloom.

Let’s say you’re brewing a natural Colombian at 92°C. Instead of using that temp right out of the gate, try blooming your coffee at 70–75°C for the first pour. It only takes a small tweak, but it can seriously shift the flavor in your cup. There are many ways a cold bloom may enhance your coffee.

• It can help reduce bitterness - Cooler water slows the extraction of the more bitter stuff—things like chlorogenic acid breakdown products that come out fast with heat. Starting cooler can give you a sweeter, rounder cup without that harsh bite.

• It can bring out more sweetness - Lower temps let sugars and other sweet compounds come through early, without being overwhelmed by harsher elements. You’ll especially notice this in naturals or fruity coffees.

• It can tone down sharp acidity - Ever had a washed Ethiopian that tasted a little too bright or sour? Cold blooming can help smooth that out. More balanced and juicy instead of sharp. Essentially it can help round out the cup more, with the compounds you want.

• It can promote less channeling - A cold bloom lets the coffee degas more gently and saturates the grounds evenly, which can help reduce channeling when you start pouring hotter water. This makes for a more consistent brew overall. Hot water in a bloom only adds more energy, which can pull out more bitter compounds. Water helps rid the grounds of CO2 at lower levels, it does not have to be scalding hot.

• It preserves more aroma - Floral, fruity, and tea-like notes can vanish fast if hit with boiling water right away. A cold bloom helps keep those volatile compounds in the cup, where they belong.

• It can be great for light roasts - Light roasts can be dense and tricky to extract. Giving them a gentler bloom may allow them open up slowly and brew more evenly—less chance of grassy or sour flavors, more chance of sweetness and nuance.

And no, this isn’t just for pour-over. You can try it with immersion brews, or even play with pre-infusion temps on an espresso machine if yours allows. The bigger idea here is just to stop thinking of temperature as a fixed number. Instead, treat it as a way to shape your brew—like seasoning as you cook.

Chilling Ball

There are 1000's of compounds in coffee, but actually only about 30 at a level we can actually detect. So we should be trying to preserve as many of the ones we like as much as possible. I mention a chiller ball in the last post, but given we just discussed temperature profiling and the cold bloom, I thought it relevant to briefly mention again here. The magic of great coffee isn't just in the taste; it's also in the smell. Those light jasmine notes, the ripe berry fragrance, the honey and spice—those are volatile aromatics, and they don’t stick around forever. Especially when things get too hot. These aromatics also enhance our ability to taste, allowing us to taste "peach" rather than just "fruit".

A chilling ball is a metal ball, usually steel on the outside, that you keep in the freezer and pull out when ready to brew. The espresso or pour over drips onto the ball and instantly chills the coffee, locking in volatile compounds and aromas. You might’ve seen them used for whiskey or cocktails, but they actually work great for coffee—especially when you want to cool your drink down a bit without killing the aroma or watering anything down. There are actually a few reasons you should consider trying one out, especially for more fruity or delicate natural and heavily processed coffees.

• It helps preserve delicate aromatics - Hot coffee tends to push aromatic compounds out of the cup into thin air. If it cools too fast (or too unevenly), you miss out on a lot of the good stuff. A chilling ball helps hold your brew at a sweet spot—trapping those easily escapable compounds in the cup for longer.

• It keeps your drink cold without melting or diluting - Ice is fine, but it melts. When it melts it changes the entire structure of your coffee and dilutes it to a different ratio than you intended. A chilling ball can be used like ice. It stays cold and solid, so your coffee keeps its flavor (and its fragrance) from start to finish. Or even if you just use it during extraction, it still gets the final cup closer to the ideal temperature to maximize the flavors.

• Perfect for light roasts and delicate coffees - Those wild Ethiopian naturals or floral washed coffees that smell like a bouquet of fruit and flowers? They’re full of volatile aromatic compounds that vanish fast. Using a chilling ball can help you hold onto those notes just a bit longer—enough to actually enjoy them all the way through the cup.

When using a chilling ball, you only want to use it for the first 30-40% of the water you use to brew. At a certain point you can actually do more damage than good, helping to maintain some of the more unwanted compounds in the cup. You can also get creative if you do not have a brew stand. For example, I put the chiller ball in my Orea V4 brewer and then put my V60 on top. Then they sit on my carafe, and boom, I have a makeshift chiller set-up. When I no longer want the chiller ball, I simply remove the Orea and continue my brew. If you have the money to spare, a Paragon or similar stand is a nice tool to have.

Sifting

Sifting your coffee grounds means you will separate the fines, or very small particles of coffee, from your grounds. When you grind coffee—even with a solid grinder—you don’t get perfectly uniform particles. You get a mix of sizes: some that are just right, some a bit too big (boulders), and some tiny bits (fines). This is not necessarily a bad thing, as a cup of coffee is essentially a sum of all parts. This means you will have some sour, some sweet, and some bitter due to the varying size of the coffee particles. The trick is to get an ideal balance between these flavor profiles. Fines can over-extract very easily, and also migrate into the filter when brewing pour over, slowing or clogging the filter. So what happens when you sift them out?

• It can create a more even extraction - Fines extract faster because they’re tiny and have more surface area. That means they often end up over-extracted while the rest of your grounds are still brewing. By removing the fines, you’re creating a more consistent grind bed, which helps everything brew at the same rate. More even extraction = more balanced coffee.

• Less bitterness - If your coffee sometimes tastes a little harsh, dry, or bitter, over-extracted fines might be part of the reason. Sifting them out can mellow things out and let more of the sweetness and clarity come through—especially in light roasts or fruity coffees.

• Cleaner cup, increased clarity - Fines can clog your filter (especially with pour-over), slow down your flow rate, and add some murky texture to your brew. Taking them out often results in a cup that tastes cleaner and feels smoother.

  
  

• Improved consistency - Sifting gives you more control. Your grind size won’t be perfect, but if you take out the extremes (especially the fines), you remove a big variable. It’s a solid move if you’re trying to get your brews to taste the same day after day—or if you’re dialing in a new coffee and want fewer wildcards. It also helps if you do not have a very good grinder and get a lot of fines or very uneven particle size when grinding.

  
  

• Can improve espresso - Espresso is super sensitive to grind size. A few too many fines can lead to channeling, bitter shots, or slow, uneven extractions. If you’re pulling espresso at home, try sifting your grounds before you dose and tamp. You might be surprised how much more stable your shots get.

Sifting is not necessary if you are using an immersion method, like AeroPress or French Press. The grounds will all even out in extraction during the immersion process. You also may want to consider sifting if you do not have a high quality grinder. This may help remove a layer of extraction that is not improving your final cup. You can also re-introduce the fines later in the brew recipe, something I do regularly. I will sift the fines and in a four pour recipe I will add the fines back to the coffee bed after the 3rd pour has drained so they are extracted with the final pour only. This allows me to get the best cup by adding the layer the fines have to offer, improving complexity. You can also discard the fines and this will tend to make your cup less complex but more clear.

Brewer Dose

Most brewers have a recommended max and minimum dose. For example, the Hario V60 (Size 02) has been used by some folks with doses as large as 40–50 grams. But just because it fits, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

In a conical brewer, that kind of dose creates a very deep coffee bed. By the time your water reaches the bottom, it’s already saturated with extracted compounds—meaning you’re now trying to extract more coffee with coffee water, not clean water. Not ideal.

And if you're thinking, "Well, I'll make sure I get a flat bed and pour perfectly, so this doesn’t matter." Well, you lose jabroni.

In a flat-bottom brewer, your bed depth is more evenly distributed, but if you go too deep, you run into similar problems. First, more coffee means more water. That means you're pouring more solvent, and doing more work to try to extract from all those grounds—especially the top layer, which gets hit with fresh water every pour. This can really increase bitterness and astringency.

On the other end, the bottom layer of grounds ends up under-extracted because the water loses energy and compounds as it travels down. Combined with the top getting over-extracted, you end up with a cup that’s uneven, astringent, and muddied. Not what we’re after.

If you absolutely have to brew a larger dose (because mornings are rough and you need your 400ml), here are a few ways to help:

• Use a flat-bottom brewer for more even distribution.

• Grind slightly coarser to speed up flow and avoid over-extracting the top layer.

• Lower your water temp by a couple degrees, which can soften the extraction curve.

• Layer your grind size — yep, this is next-level. Grind half your coffee medium-fine, half medium. Put the finer grounds at the bottom and coarser on top. This way, water still has some energy when it reaches the bottom, where the finer grinds are easier to extract.

Or you can do what I do when I am lazy and do not want to brew two 15 gram cups and combine them:

• Brew a concentrate and use bypass. For example, use 30g of coffee and brew with a 1:10 ratio (300g of water). Once it’s drained, add 150-200g of water as bypass to hit your final brew ratio. Easier, more consistent, and less risk of muddy extraction.

Overall my main point, play with dose size. It can seriously change your cup.

For me, the V60 shines with 15g of coffee. I get a bright, juicy, super clean cup—and I can grind finer because the bed isn’t too deep. If I switch to a fast-flow flat-bottom brewer like the Orea V4, I can go even finer and push extraction even more.

Mixing

This is a short and sweet one. There isn’t a ton of science behind it, but how you mix your coffee does matter—especially if you want a balanced cup. Most people just give their pour over a quick swirl in the carafe or swirl their espresso in the cup. Swirling is a good start, but coffee extracts in layers, and swirling alone doesn’t always mix those layers. Sometimes you're just spinning them around without actually combining them.

For espresso, a quick stir with a spoon is key. This helps mix the crema with the rest of the shot, evening out the flavors and softening any bitterness.

For pour over, you’ll get better results by stirring first, then swirling. Use a spoon to gently pull from the bottom up before giving it a swirl. The coffee that hits your carafe first is different from what comes in the middle or at the end—it can be heavier, lighter, more acidic, or more bitter. Stirring helps blend those differences into a more balanced final cup. And if you’re sharing your coffee, stirring is even more important. Otherwise, one person might get a sweet fruity first pour, and someone else might get a heavy, flat last pour.

There’s also a benefit to aerating the coffee a little while you mix. It helps release volatile aromatic compounds—the ones that give off all those amazing smells. But don’t overdo it. Too much aeration and your coffee can lose those aromas before you even drink it, making it taste flat or muted. If you really want to take it to the next level, there are carafes designed specifically to mix and aerate coffee better, like the Avensi Cyclone, which looks cool and actually works well. But honestly, a regular carafe and a spoon will do the job just fine.

Cup Choice

The cup you use to drink your coffee can noticeably impact your overall experience for a few key reasons. First, the material of the cup can influence flavor—not just from contact with the surface, but also based on how the material handles heat.

Ceramic and glass are the most popular choices among coffee enthusiasts. Ceramic is efficient at retaining heat, has a smooth feel against the lips, and doesn’t impart any flavor to the coffee. Glass shares those neutral qualities, but differs in how it manages temperature. Standard glass doesn’t hold heat as well as ceramic, though double-walled glass comes close and can even rival it. Glass also lets you see the brew, which is something many enthusiasts appreciate. Personally, I like using glass because it allows the coffee to cool faster, helping it reach the temperature I prefer to drink at.

Then there are cups made from plastic, wood, or metal, but these are less common for everyday use due to how they can affect the coffee. Wood can mute flavors—especially if it isn’t sealed properly—while metal often adds an off taste. Plastic is common in cupping labs for its practicality, but it’s rarely a first choice for drinking vessels among enthusiasts.

Beyond the material, the shape of the cup also plays a big role in how coffee is experienced. A tapered or narrow-mouth cup—like a tulip or something shaped like a wine glass—focuses aroma directly to your nose, boosting your perception of florals, acidity, and brightness. These shapes are great for coffees with nuance and complexity.

On the flip side, wide-mouth cups spread the liquid across more of your tongue and allow aromas to disperse. This can emphasize body and bitterness while toning down some of the brighter, more volatile notes.

You’ll also see bowl-shaped cups, similar to those used in cupping. These tend to cool quickly and highlight mouthfeel more than aroma. Just like wine glasses are designed to bring out the best in different varietals, the same logic applies to coffee. The shape and material of your cup aren’t just about aesthetics—they help reveal the full character of what you’ve brewed.

Palate Development

One area you really want to focus on if to level up your coffee game is palate development. I don’t have a long list of hacks here, but I do want to emphasize just how important your ability to taste truly is. Highly trained Q-graders can pick out specific notes like dried apricot or jasmine, while you might just register “fruity” or “floral.” And that’s totally fine—you don’t need an advanced palate to enjoy coffee. But if you’re into exploring coffee on a deeper level, developing your palate can make coffee even more enjoyable.

A good starting point for most people is getting clear on the difference between sour and bitter. These two are often confused, and it can send you on a wild goose chase when you’re trying to dial in a brew. It’s a simple but foundational skill—just try a bit of lemon juice (for sour) and a drop of bitters (for bitter), and take note of the difference. That alone can change how you approach tasting. Another helpful practice is mindful eating. When you’re eating, don’t just consume—pay attention. Try to isolate flavors, recognize individual spices, and mentally label each element. This helps train your brain to notice flavor distinctions that you might otherwise overlook in coffee.

It also helps to expand your flavor memory. You can’t recognize a flavor if you’ve never tasted it before. So try new foods, taste with intention, and build that mental library. A great exercise is to grab a handful of similar foods—say, an orange, apple, lemon, lime, and maybe some berries—and taste each one slowly and deliberately. Do the same with spices, chocolates, or even nuts. Notice how each flavor is unique and how it lingers or changes.

Another angle worth exploring is your sense of smell. We can only taste five core flavors with our tongues—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. But once aroma is involved, that’s when things open up. The combination of taste and aroma gives us the full picture of what we perceive as “flavor.” So the more you develop your sense of smell, the better your tasting ability becomes.

There are aroma kits designed to help train your nose, and they’re incredibly useful if you’re serious about tasting. They’re not cheap, but they can speed up your development by giving you direct access to reference scents. At the end of the day, developing your palate isn’t about being pretentious—it’s about deepening your connection to what’s in the cup. And the more you notice, the more there is to enjoy.

Comparative Brewing

Now that you have some brewing techniques to explore, you need test out how noticeable each of these approaches may be by comparison. Brew two cups using the same recipe, except change one variable. You will never know if you have the best cup until you know that you don't. Use your usual recipe to keep it simple, then add in one of the methods discussed above. See if you like what it does to the final cup. THen brew your new recipe and brew a second cup trying another of the above adjustments. This is how you will find your favorite recipe, and then you just have to slightly tweak it based on coffee type.