Best Practices Bypass Brewing
Best Practices Bypass Brewing
The ability to brew coffee with by-pass has been around for decades; however,
help in understanding the effects on the brewing process has not always been
readily available. It is not easy to find published guidelines for use of by-pass.
The only mention of it that is generally available to industry professionals is one
paragraph in Chapter 6 of The Coffee Brewing Handbook by Ted Lingle, First
Edition.
There are a variety of purposes and reasons to include using by-pass brewing in
the repertoire of coffee brewing methods:
1. To prevent over-extraction
2. To allow adjustment of brew time to match grind size
3. In order to gain brew filter margin and so prevent overflow
4. Any number of other reasons
While by-pass can be used for all of the above, it is especially useful when
optimizing each volume for flavor/ taste control on multi batch-size brewing
equipment.
This guide shows how to calculate new values for the existing Coffee Brewing
Control Charts and the percentage of by-pass for the new values.
Rationale
For example:
Using 100 grams of coffee per 2 liters of water (100 grams/2 liters), the resulting
beverage strength measures 1.20%. Figure 1 shows the extraction percentage is
21.5%.
When the brew formula is doubled to 200 grams/ 4 liters, the bed depth of
ground coffee has increased in the funnel and the water cycle time must be
increased. This may easily result in stronger brew strength and an extraction
greater than 22.0%. This is a common issue when coffee is delivered in pre-
portioned packs.
To use this same chart for larger volumes, simply calculate the Brewing Ratio values.
Example: 50 grams/ 1 liter equals 100 grams/ 2 liters.
How is the percentage of by-pass volume calculated? The simple way is to use basic
algebra.
Example 2
To use the printed Coffee Brewing Control Chart (CBCC) requires a calculation to
determine the revised value for each formula line to plot the brew results.
Example: 50 grams/ 1 liter equals 200 grams/ 4 liters.
Again, using the printed Coffee Brewing Control Chart (CBCC) requires a calculation to
determine the revised value for each formula line to plot the results.
Use your brew strength readings and brew formula values. Method (1) of calculating the
concentrate strength is to measure the brew strength of the finished brew (concentrate
and dilution/ by-pass).
Rounded to 1.32% strength and plotted on the 55-gram line. The extraction percentage
would be 21.3% yield.
Method (2) would be to brew 3640 ml/ 200 grams and measure the brew strength without
the dilution/ by-pass volume, then add (blend in) 360 ml, measure brew strength again.
As the finished beverage strength after 360 ml of dilution / by-pass volume is blended in
to complete the brew.
15500 TDS
100 Grams /
1.50% 15000 TDS 2 Liters
50g
14500 TDS
13500 TDS
STRENGTH - Solubles Concentration
11500 TDS
40g
10500 TDS
9500 TDS
8500 TDS
.80%
14% 15% 16% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24% 25% 26%
Figure 1
15500 TDS
200 Grams
/ 4 Liters
1.50% 15000 TDS
50g
14500 TDS
13500 TDS
STRENGTH - Solubles Concentration
11500 TDS
40g
10500 TDS
9500 TDS
8500 TDS
.80%
14% 15% 16% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24% 25% 26%
Figure 2
15500 TDS
14500 TDS
50g 300 Grams /
6 Liters
1.40% 14000 TDS
13500 TDS
STRENGTH - Solubles Concentration
11500 TDS
40g
10500 TDS
9500 TDS
8500 TDS
.80%
14% 15% 16% 17% 18% 19% 20% 21% 22% 23% 24% 25% 26%
Figure 3