Bring your coffee game to a whole different level with Sinister’s guide to the perfect roast...for you. No matter your preference we’ve got you covered. From our light roast to dark roast and everything in between. This blog is intended for anyone hoping to understand more about types of roasts and what flavor differences they bring to your coffee drinking experience. Today’s topic is all about Dark Roast Coffee. Read on for more and stay tuned for upcoming blog posts.
Check out how to brew dark roast coffee. Read more about dark roast characteristics and check out our organic dark roasts Shadow and Relic.
The Dark Side of Coffee
The darker the roast, the less caffeine the coffee beans will retain, but some dark roast makes up for it with bold flavor characteristics instead. If you are worried about the amount of caffeine in your final product, it can be altered by adding more dark roast to your brewing method of choice. Dark roast coffee beans are very dark in color often with a shinny finish. Dark roasts characteristically showcase low acidity, strong body, and tend to reveal deeper flavors like chocolate, tobacco and nuts. Dark roast works well in drip, espresso, french press, aeropress or clever coffee extractors.
Dark Roast Identifiers: Dark roast, Italian roast, French roast, Spanish roast, Espresso roast
the Best is yet to come
The heavily caramelized sugars and compounds in a dark roast are accented very well in milk based coffee/espresso drinks. Creamy dairy (or non-dairy) based drinks highlight the more robust flavors of dark roast coffees. Helpful Tip: Water to coffee ratios are important with the espresso method. Dark roast coffee works well with a 1:2 coffee to water ratio. Try starting with 20 grams of dark roast coffee to 40 grams of water and your espresso pull will be on point. However, if you have your home brew espresso machine instruction manual handy, it’s definitely best to follow those instructions as there sometimes are differences depending on your specific machine.
Tamping for Espresso
Helpful Tip: When making espresso, tamping the grounds, or pressing fine ground coffee into your puck evenly is an important process to work on. Check out this video from Clive Coffee and add some technique to your coffee game! The short of it is that it’s important to tamp your coffee evenly. Even tamping ensures the same amount of water pressure through the grounds resulting in a quality shot. Helpful Tip: Getting a great espresso pull is also dependent on how the grounds are distributed. When pouring fine ground coffee into your portafilter, trying to get as much as you can in the middle helps with distributing the grounds during tamping. These two techniques will be incredibly helpful to getting great espresso pulls. Making espresso drinks at home can be a lot of fun, and because of that, we’ve added a link to a specialty coffee drink you can make with your new and improved espresso shots below!
Brewing Method
Helpful Tip: For brewing dark roast coffee, use water before it boils. 195 degrees Fahrenheit or about 90 degrees Celsius if you are measuring. That’s about 10 degrees below boiling and your ideal water will be at a simmer if you are familiar with boiling water terms. Helpful Tip: You want some bubbles and movement in your water but not lots of bubbles and movement in your water. Slow brewing in a french press allows the user to utilize water temperature and brew time to produce an exceptional cup of coffee! Making french press coffee will require a coarse grind, feel free to request that when you order! Helpful Tip: Using a machine or method that will keep your brew times between two to three minutes helps extract the most flavor from your dark roast coffee beans. Using a French Press style coffee maker allows the user to utilize both of these coffee making tricks! Interested in learning more? Follow the link for a more in depth look at dark roast coffee brewing!
Want More Sinister?
Check out this complimentary Sinister-tini recipe featuring our Relic dark roast for a little coffee drink making inspiration! Interested in more brewing tips? Check out Roasts & Brewing! Interested in how we picked our coffee names? Check out our Coffee Behind The Name series! Ready to try some dark roast coffee? Click the button below!