How to brew exceptional coffee at home

A comprehensive guide from Folk's founder and Q Grade

Making exceptional coffee at home doesn't require complexity—it requires presence, and presence starts with simplicity.

This guide from Sean, Folk founder and a licensed Q Grader, covers everything you need to brew coffee worth slowing down for, from the three fundamentals that matter most to common mistakes and how to turn precision into ritual.

The Folk approach to home brewing

At Folk, we look at brew differently than most specialty coffee companies. Rather than roasting to standardized profiles (ie- light or dark roast), each of our coffee are roasted according to the unique qualities it carries from its origin, elevation, and processing.

For your home brewing, this means the process becomes simpler.

When you're not constantly adjusting for light, medium, or dark roast levels, you can stick to one or two solid brew methods and change only small variables like water amount or grind size.

You can still get all the complexity in flavor without complexity in the process.

The three fundamentals that matter most

After years of cupping and countless conversations with home brewers, I keep coming back to the same three essentials:

1. Water quality (it's 99% of what you're drinking)
2. Grind consistency (blade grinders need to go)
3. Coffee-to-water ratio (precision without overthinking)

Get these three things right, and you're 90% of the way to exceptional coffee at home.

Water: the foundation of every cup

Let's start with something that sounds almost too obvious: water quality matters. A lot.

Water makes up 99% of what you're consuming in every cup. If the water tastes bad, your coffee will taste bad. It's that simple.

The simple solution

For most people, running tap water through a basic filter solves the problem. A Brita pitcher works perfectly.

If your tap water has a noticeable taste or smell, filter it.

For the nerds: Understanding water chemistry

Every city has different water. There’s varying mineral content, chlorine levels, and pH. If you want to get technical, you can test your water to see if it falls within the Specialty Coffee Association's ideal range of 75-250 parts per million total dissolved solids. The ideal is 150. But for most people starting out, that's overkill.

For anyone wanting to get into it, companies like Third Wave Water sell mineral packets you can add to distilled water. This creates ideal mineral content for extraction.

Grinders: why they're non-negotiable

If you take away one piece of equipment advice from this entire guide, make it this: get a burr grinder.

Anything that's not a burr grinder shouldn't be used at home for your coffee.

Why blade grinders fail

Blade grinders chop beans unevenly, creating a mix of powder and both small and large boulders. When you brew that, the powder over-extracts (making your coffee bitter), the boulders under-extract (making your coffee sour), and you end up with a muddled, inconsistent cup that's somehow both bitter and weak at the same time.

How burr grinders work

Burr grinders, whether conical or flat burr, crush beans between two surfaces, creating uniform particle sizes. This gives you even extraction, which means you can actually taste what makes your coffee special.

Understanding grind sizes

Different brew methods need different grind sizes. Here's how to think about them:

Extra fine

• Brew method: Espresso
• Texture: Very powdery, like cocoa powder. When damp, it can clump together because it's so fine.

Fine

• Brew method: Pour-overs with faster flow (like V60)
• Texture: Similar to fine salt. It won't clump when you squeeze it between your fingers.

Medium

• Brew method: Flat-bed brewers like Kalita Wave
• Texture: Larger table salt or sand. This grind size works for brewers where the brewer itself slows down and restricts water flow, so you can grind a little coarser.

Coarse

• Brew method: French press, cold brew
• Texture: Looks like turbinado (raw) sugar.

What grind size should you use?

When in doubt, start medium and adjust. If your coffee tastes bitter, grind coarser. If it tastes weak or sour, grind finer.

Coffee-to-water ratio: your starting recipe

This is where precision creates simplicity.

The ideal ratio range is 1:16 to 1:17—meaning for every gram of coffee, use 16 to 17 grams of water.

That's your starting point for virtually every brew method.

How to think about ratios

The easiest way to approach this:

• For a stronger brew: use 16 parts water (1:16)
• For a lighter brew: use 17 parts water (1:17)

You can experiment with any number in between—1:16.25, 1:16.5, 1:16.75—to find what you like best, then stick with it.

What about those trendy ratios?

There's a trend toward going to 1:15 or lower. It's really strong and you're likely missing complexity and clarity. It may taste sweeter and will definitely be heavier bodied, but it also has an easier chance of tasting salty or under-extracted because there's not enough water to pull out deeper complexities in the coffee.

Then there's the opposite trend of going 1:20, which is also interesting but easy to mess up. It lets too much water pass through your ground beans, pulling too many solids into your final cup. It can be complex and exciting, but it's really easy to get over-extraction.

Anything outside the 1:16 to 1:17 range is just much easier to mess up and get a bad cup.

Water temperature: the often-overlooked variable

Aim for water around 200 to 205 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hotter water excites molecules and extracts too much.

Cooler water will extract less.

How to hit the right temperature

Start with water in this range and brew in smaller pulses, keeping the water in the kettle for as long as possible. If you brew really large pulses, you're allowing the water to cool too much before it passes through the coffee bed, which can affect extraction.

Most kettles boil at 212°F (though boiling point varies with elevation). Wait until the rolling boil stops and subsides, usually less than a minute, then you can start pouring.

Brew methods: finding what works for you

The best brew method is the one you'll actually use day after day. Here are the most approachable methods, starting with my top recommendation for beginners.

Pour-over: recommended for beginners

If someone is just starting their coffee journey, my favorite brew method for simplicity and repeatability is the Kalita Wave.

Why the Kalita Wave

1. You can buy any of the versions: ceramic, glass, or pottery.
2. It has good water flow. It doesn't leave the brewer too fast or too slow.
3. Its flat-bed surface has more surface area for extraction, meaning you can grind a little coarser without extracting too deep into the bitter compounds.

There's honestly less chance of things going wrong with a Kalita Wave.

Sean's daily Kalita recipe

I brew with a Kalita almost every day. Here's my method:

Equipment:

• Medium-fine grind
• Kalita filter
• Kalita brewer
• Decanter

Ratio: 1:16.5 coffee-to-water ratio (for me thats 40 grams of coffee and 660 grams of water)

Brew method:

1. Boil water and let the rolling boil stop
2. Measure and grind coffee
3. Bloom: The first pour of water should equal the weight of grounds (40g coffee = 40g bloom water). This should just covering the grounds.
4. After the bloom, pour your water in 100-gram pulses until reaching final water weight.
5. Let the water drain completely.
6. Total brew time: 3:00-3:30.

French press: full-bodied and forgiving

French press sometimes gets a bad rap, mostly because people just throw coffee in, pour water on it, and call it done. But you should still use proper grind size and ratio and be ready to fully decant your coffee after your brew time.

How to brew French press well

Unlike pour-over (where you'd never stir the bed after blooming), stirring a French press is recommended—especially with coarser grinds. You really want all the coffee saturated and extracting well, which takes some agitation.

Ratio: 1:16

Brew time: 3.5 minutes

Folk tip: With French press you need to fully decant your coffee after your plunge. If you can’t, your coffee will keep brewing and steeping.

AeroPress: versatile and travel-friendly

AeroPress has a cult following, and the versatility is why. You can do eight-ounce brews, espresso-style shots, all kinds of methods with various grind sizes.

The one potential downside is that it's very personalized. You can really only get one cup at a time. It's not for brewing for multiple people.

How to brew AeroPress

Ratio: 1:16

Brew time: 2-3.5 minutes

Folk tip: You may have heard about people doing an inverted method for aeropress. This is basically where you brew it upside and flip it over to plunge. That flipping motion can add agitation at the end for a potentially deeper extraction. So if you’re interested in a slight more rich coffee, flip away.

Auto drip: the convenience choice

Let's be honest, we’ve all got an auto drip at home. And while we love the beauty of slowing down and manual brewing our coffee to take in every little step, you can still build rituals around your coffee experience with the convenience of a automatic brewer.

How to brew Auto Drip

Ratio: 1:16-1:17

Brew time: 4 minutes

Folk tip: The key for any auto drip machine is to find one with the SCA certification. This certification means the machine gets water up to the proper temperature (around 200°F) before brewing. Most home brewers don't, and that will make a big difference in your coffee quality.

Iced coffee: flash-chilled, not cold brew

This may be a hot take, but not a fan of cold brew.

You need hot water to extract volatile compounds from coffee, and cold brew is never going to be flavorful, bright, or complex. If I’m wanting a cold coffee, I’m making iced coffee.

How to make flash-chilled iced coffee

1. Weigh and grind your coffee.

2. Pre-weigh your total water amount for your ratio.

3. Split it between hot water and ice—anywhere from 70/30 to 50/50 depending on how cold you want it when brewing finishes.

   Example: For a 990-gram brew with 30% ice: 693 grams hot water/ 297 grams ice

4. Put the ice in the bottom of your decanter.

5. Brew with the reduced hot water amount.

6. When the hot coffee melts the ice, you'll hit your target weight of 990 grams.

Ratio: 1:16.5

Brew time: 3:30 minutes

Folk tip: Use a 70/30 or 60/40 split (more hot water) because you want enough water to extract fully. Then add more ice when you drink it, or put it in the fridge to cool down further without using ice.

At home coffee brewing common mistakes

Even with the best equipment and beans a few common mistakes can derail your coffee.

1. Not using a proper grinder: Anything that's not a burr grinder shouldn't be used at home.
2. Not filtering your water: Every city has different water. You need to filter to get the right mineral content, chlorine levels, and pH for your coffee.
3. Not having hot enough water: Your water need to get hot enough (around 200-205°F) to extract all the volatile compounds that lead to a more complex or balanced cup.
4. Not pre-weighing your water: If you're eyeballing your water or pouring to a line on your machine, you’re never going have a consistent water amount. Ratio matters enough that those inconsistencies will be noticeable in taste.
5. Not wetting the paper filter: Some filters (especially natural brown filters), can give paper flavors. Wet with hot water first to rinse away those off-flavors.

Getting started: what to buy

You don't need to spend a fortune to brew excellent coffee at home. Here's how to prioritize your investments.

If you have $100 to spend

• Kalita Wave brewer
• Kalita Wave filters
• Escali scale
• Hand grinder

If you have $250 to spend

• Kalita Wave brewer
• Kalita Wave filters
• Escali scale
• Electric grinder

Brewing Folk coffee

Unlike roasters that focus on roast levels, Folk coffee is roasted based on terroir—which means you can keep your brewing method remarkably consistent.

With Folk coffees, you're open to that full range of 1:16 to 1:17 depending on the country of origin.

• High-altitude, mineral-rich coffees (Guatemalan, Rwandan, Kenyan) might lean toward 1:16 for more body and sweetness.
• Delicate, floral, low-altitude coffees might work better at 1:17.

But here's the key: brew it the same way every day and let the coffee do the changing for you.

When your method stays consistent, you can actually taste the differences between origins. The coffee reveals itself. That consistency is what creates presence.

Making brewing a ritual

Looking back on years of brewing, the biggest mistake I ever made was thinking that brewing needed to be more complex than it actually is. I over-fixating on different brew method types, siphons, full immersion versus filter, or combinations of both.

The simplicity of a Kalita Wave or V60, done the same way every time, is what really matters.

Coffee brewing at home is as simple as good water, consistent grind, and proper ratio. Get those three fundamentals right and you're 90% there.

The rest is just giving yourself permission to slow down and actually taste what you've made.