Brewing Great-Tasting Swedish Coffee
Source of Recipe
HalfDan's Top 10 Tips for Brewing Great-Tasting Swedish Coffee
Recipe Introduction
You know how good coffee smells when you first sniff it? Don't you wish you could brew it so it actually tastes as fresh as it smells? Well, you CAN! Here's how...
List of Ingredients
Start with FRESH COLD water
The better the water tastes, the better your coffee will taste!
If you use hot water or let water sit overnight, it will build up
up calcium deposits and other slime and taste bitter!
Grind your coffee FRESH, preferably from whole beans *
Grind beans for at least 12-15 seconds - if you want more of
that "fresh-ground" coffee flavor, grind the beans longer, which
cuts the beans into smaller pieces, making a finer grind and
leaving more fresh-cut surface area, resulting in fresher-tasting coffee!
Store your coffee beans or grounds double-bagged in the freezer
Pre-ground coffee loses its freshness and becomes stale
within a few days, even if it is kept stored in the freezer.
If you must use pre-ground coffee, it is always best to
grind it fresh again just before you brew it - this will recut the
coffee bean chips and make more freshly cut surface area on the beans.
Use 1 scoop of fresh coffee grounds per cup of coffee
Make sure it is flavorful! - If you brew your coffee too weak,
you can taste the bitterness of the filter and your water.
If it tastes too strong for you, you can always add cream and/or sugar
to dilute it down, but make sure that it has plenty of coffee flavor!
(I prefer 2/3 of a cup of strong coffee and 1/3 cup cream, and
I add Swedish "Vanillin socker" (vanilla powdered sugar) to sweeten it)
To make REAL old-fashioned Swedish kaffe, add egg whites
Adding egg whites makes a kind of "egg coffee", which according to
some Swedes is believed to taste smoother. I have heard that you can
use half an egg white for 2 cups of coffee, or a whole egg white for an
entire pot.
REMOVE THE GROUNDS as SOON as the coffee is finished brewing!
Leaving the grounds over the coffee for any period of time allows the
bitter oils to drip down into the brewed coffee - sometimes you can
even see the bitter "oil slick" floating on the surface of the coffee!
REMOVE THE COFFEE FROM THE BURNER IMMEDIATELY!
After you have poured the first cup of coffee, REMOVE the coffee
from the burner as soon as possible! Do NOT leave the remaining pot
of coffee sit DIRECTLY on the burner - this will cause the coffee to burn
on the bottom of the pot to taste and smell BURNT!
Place a ring of pennies on the burner, and leave the coffee
pot sitting partially on the pennies and partially off the edge of the
burner. The copper pennies will retain and transfer the heat to keep
the coffee warm, but by leaning the pot slightly off the edge of the
burner, it will keep the coffee from sitting directly on the heat and burning.
Pour the left-over coffee grounds down the garbage disposal,
then grind them up to scour it out and leave it smelling fresher.
Rinse and clean the coffee pot and grounds cup IMMEDIATELY
after each use to eliminate coffee stain buildup and stale flavors. Clean
the coffee maker with vinegar every few weeks to remove any buildup.
Make "Iced-coffee" from the leftovers (ok, an additional free tip!)
Pour left-over coffee into a container and store in the refrigerator for
"iced coffee" later. (It tastes even better with a little Kahlua on the rocks!)
Recipe
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