Brewing a great cup of coffee is what we all strive to do daily. Over the years, our own understanding of how to do this well has grown as the body of literature and content regarding brewing science has increased. Most recently one such resource has been published from someone who has applied their expertise and scientific rigor to the subject of brewing coffee, thus creating one of the most thorough treatments on the subject to date.
On today’s show e are talking with the author of the new book, “The Physics of Filter Coffee”, Jonathan Gagné !
Jonathan Gagné is a scientific advisor at the Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium in Montreal, and adjunct professor at Université de Montréal. He completed his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 2015 and moved to the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. for a 3-year postdoc as a Sagan Fellow. He came back to Montreal to start a second postdoc at the Institute for Research on Exoplanets before he was hired by the Planetarium. Jonathan’s expertise is focused on brown dwarfs, young stars, exoplanets, and stellar associations. He uses various telescopes throughout the world to carry his research, from the Observatoire du Mont-Mégantic in Québec, the Infrared Telescope Facilities in Hawaii and Gemini-South in Chile.
In his free time, Jonathan is also passionate about coffee brewing and has dived deeply into all many aspects of how physics affect coffee preparation for pour overs and more recently espresso. He maintains a blog of his findings and understanding of coffee physics at coffeeadastra.com, and he is the author of the book The Physics of Filter Coffee.
This is a wide-ranging conversation that addresses many of the key elements that impact our brewing and how we can apply practical solutions to create wonderful coffee both at home and at at scale in the shop
We cover:
- Motivation through frustrated brewing
- Beginning his experimentations in coffee
- Studying the most significant aspects
- Relying on the community and their experience
- Applied physics in how water moves through coffee
- Building and refining you mental model
- Accounting for the variability in coffee’s behavior
- Tracking your brews
- What shops can do to improve extractions at scale
- Different way of thinking about batch brew
- Coffee freshness and extraction
- Recommendation for appropriate bicarb levels in water for brewing
- Recommended tools to assess your coffee quality
Links:
Jonathan’s Blog : www.coffeeadastra.com
Jonathan on IG: @jgagneastrocoffee
Buy the book! The Physics of Filter Coffee
Related episodes:
- 347 : Brewing Coffee and a Career w/ U.S. Brewer’s Cup Champion, Elika Liftee
- 333: Bridging the Professional and Home Barista Gap w/ Lance Hedrick of Onyx Coffee Lab
- 286 : Coffee Roasting Best Practices w/ Scott Rao
- 148 : Exploring the Ground Control Brewer w/ Eli Salomon
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