the coffee water conditioning experiment

I do not know if this qualifies me as a coffee snob or not, but I do grind my own beans and use a very specific amount of water to brew a mug's worth with. The coffee I use is not any highfalutin stuff by any means. All I use is Community whole bean Breakfast Blend. The coffee maker I use is a cheap drip coffee maker thing from Walmart. I don't even know who made the coffee maker as it has no branding on it. Very not-fancy.

Over the years I've learned the water used matters a lot. Never use distilled water because that causes the coffee grounds to swell, and results in nearly tasteless coffee. Bad idea.

Professional coffee brewers use conditioned water, which is a fancy way of saying water with a specific amount of mineral content in it.

The cheap way to get water like this is to either:

1. Buy a gallon jug labeled "Spring Water" at the grocery store.
2. Use tap water.
3. Boil tap water for 10 minutes first, then brew.
4. Filter tap water first, then brew.

I decided to try an experiment with the last option, filtering, just to see what would happen.

What I did was throw a filter in the coffee maker, then ran tap water through it into the carafe.

After that, I put coffee grounds in the filter, then used the same water and ran it through the coffee maker again. Doing this is effectively using double-filtered water.

The end result?

The coffee tasted a little bit darker, and the aftertaste notably improved.

Aftertaste is a big deal with coffee, as it should have some bitterness to it. Not a whack-you-over-the-head bitterness. Just a nice little note left behind. I definitely got that with double-filtering.

Will I brew coffee this way from now on? Maybe. I'll have to brew a few more mug's worth to see if that improved aftertaste is consistent.

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