Can You Burn Coffee With Hot Water?

While many coffee enthusiasts visit specialty shops to enjoy “single-origin” coffees, some coffee drinkers roast and brew their coffee at home to get the best and freshest roast possible. Perhaps you, too, want to prepare your coffee at home but don’t know how to do it. You might even ask yourself if you can burn coffee with hot water.

You can’t burn coffee with hot water. Coffee only releases a burnt, bitter taste when boiling water (212°F or 100°C) is poured onto it, which might not be a problem as your hot water may not even stay boiling as you pour it into your coffee. Often, over-roasting is the cause of the burnt coffee taste.

This article will discuss coffee preparation and tips on making delicious coffee so you can enjoy coffee anytime, at home.

What Causes Burnt Coffee Taste?

Well-roasted coffee tastes pleasant; it should have a smooth, well-balanced acidity, sweetness, and bitterness in one sip. A lousy coffee tastes burnt, charred, raw, too sweet, bitter, or acidic. You know coffee has a burnt taste when it is bitter, with an odd ash-like flavor.

There are several reasons why your coffee tastes burnt. Perhaps you over-roasted your coffee — it would look overly brown. If your coffee is over-roasted, your coffee will taste different from what’s considered “good” coffee regardless of the brewing method you use.

Another reason why your coffee tastes burnt is that your coffee beans are stale. Stale beans will taste sour. Stale beans may not be good-tasting coffee, but they’re still drinkable (grind them before brewing) or used for compost.

Keeping fresh coffee for many hours on coffee warmers can also make coffee taste burnt. That’s because hours of the coffee sitting on heat warmers will cause the coffee to become overcooked. Some people use heavy-duty travel mugs or carafes to keep coffee hot without compromising the taste.

Can Coffee Burn With Hot Water?

If you have never prepared coffee at home, some people might fool you into thinking that you can burn coffee with hot water. Is it possible for hot water to burn coffee? Unless you’re going to cook the coffee continuously for hours, then the answer is no.

Coffee releases its aromatic oils at 205°F (96.11°C) — which’s slightly below boiling. By the time you pour your boiling water into your coffee, the water isn’t boiling anymore, so it won’t burn your coffee. It would be helpful to know how to differentiate between the taste of a deep-roasted coffee and a burnt one.

Coffee makers typically brew coffee between 194 and 203°F (90 and 95°C) to achieve the best aroma, and they won’t ever use hot boiling water because it will scald the coffee and kill the flavor. It’s not that coffee cannot handle temperatures higher than 212°F (100°C) — coffee is roasted with higher temperatures, so preparing them with boiling water won’t cause them to burn right away. Many coffee makers now come with built-in thermometers.

You can only burn your coffee if you overcook or overroast it. If you overroast or overcook your coffee beans, their flavors will be over-extracted from the grounds and cause your brew to be bitter. That said, it’s not the hot boiling water that’s the problem, but it’s the amount of time your coffee spends immersing in hot water.

How To Stop Coffee From Burning

As discussed, you can’t burn coffee with hot water unless it boils for hours. Overcooking coffee beans will release tannins. Tannins give your coffee the bitter burnt taste.

Overcooked coffee, although it tastes burnt, still contains caffeine. You can drink it, but it won’t taste good. Instant coffee, even if it does not have a burnt taste, cannot compare with well-roasted high-quality coffee as it loses much of its flavors from the time its beans get roasted and grounded until it is packaged and ready to sell.

In Greece, coffee makers use finely ground coffee to make coffee and boil it in briki, a tall, narrow pot. The ground coffee is served in a cup, usually a Demitasse cup, “half cup” in French. The grounds settle nicely in the small cup as coffee drinkers slowly sip it.

Making the best coffee is not always easy, though. It makes sense why most people prefer to hit the coffee shops to have their morning fix. However, you can learn to make good coffee at home as long as you get the basics right — don’t overroast or overcook the coffee.

Don’t Overroast Coffee Beans

Always use a thermometer to monitor the temperature of your cooking process. When you hear the first crack, that’s when you know that your coffee beans are ready for brewing. The first crack makes a light roast.

To achieve a medium roast, you need to cook your beans before the second crack pops. Once you go past the second crack, that’s when you know you’re getting a dark roast. Dark roast coffees usually reach between 430-450°F (221.11-232.22°C) in the roaster.

It would be best not to prepare big coffee roasts’ batches to maintain the best coffee quality. That’s because, within time, coffee quickly loses its original flavors. Therefore, it would be best to roast enough coffee beans for a week or two.

Don’t Pour Boiling Water Into Your Coffee

When you pour boiling water on freeze-dried grounds, you’re going to get a bitter coffee. It would help if you waited until the ground powder’s temperature matches that of a room before brewing to get a good taste. If your hot water is boiling and you don’t have a thermometer, wait for at least 30 seconds for the water temperature to go down.

Avoid leaving coffee on heaters for an extended period as this will affect the coffee taste quality. Reheating coffee isn’t recommended, either. If you have to make another cup of coffee, brew it on the spot.

What Is the Best Method for Making Coffee?

You can prepare coffee in two ways: boil or brew. Preparing boiled coffee is similar to preparing tea. You only have to pour boiling water into your coffee (it won’t burn the coffee!)

It’s okay to boil coffee; your coffee will taste alright, depending on who you’re asking. The preparation of boiling coffee lacks built filters, so the taste will not be as strong as a brewed coffee — and it has less caffeine. Some people prefer drinking coffee with less caffeine because too much caffeine can make them anxious and disrupt their sleep.

The second method to make coffee is by brewing coffee using electric coffee machines. Electric machines filter coffee and hot water mixture. Brewing coffee produces high caffeine concentrations.

So which method is healthier? Researchers found that unfiltered coffee (like boiled coffee or French press) has a limited cholesterol-raising coffee effect in a Harvard Health study. The Aha Journals stated that unfiltered boiled coffee might cause a slight but significant increase in systolic blood pressure. However, a new study found that drinking boiled, pressed unfiltered coffee increased cardiovascular mortality in men aged 60 and above.

While it might seem like filtered coffee is better than boiled coffee, we should not forget that brewed coffee has high coffee concentrations. In other words, brewed coffee, when consumed in a high amount for a prolonged period, can be unhealthy in the long run. Coffee with high caffeine is highly addictive, and it can impact you neurologically.

Coffee is good for health when consumed mindfully. Coffee has been proven to be useful in protecting against diseases. You can get antioxidants and other essential substances that may reduce internal inflammation from coffee.

Final Thoughts

You cannot burn coffee with hot water. Your coffee can only get burnt if you overroast it or overcook it with boiling water for a prolonged period. To prevent the burnt, ashy flavor of coffee, use a thermometer to help you monitor the temperature of your roast or hot water.

Even though researches have shown that filtered coffee is safer than boiled coffee, we must consume coffee mindfully. Although brewed coffee is a better option than boiled, unfiltered coffee, it contains high caffeine concentrations. When drunk adequately, coffee can be healthy.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Coffee Roasting
• Javapresse: The Perfect Temperature for Coffee Brewing
• WebMD: Coffee Alternatives
• AHAJournals: Boiled Coffee and Blood Pressure
• Edition.CNN: The healthiest way to brew your coffee — and possibly lengthen your life
• Healthline: The Effects of Caffeine on Your Body
• Hopkinsmedicine: 9 Reasons Why (the Right Amount of) Coffee Is Good for You