# Milder / lower caffeine recipes?



## webnik (Nov 13, 2013)

This is probably a stupid question but I haven't come up with a good answer for myself - thanks for your patience.

After about ten years of grinding fresh beans and brewing in Aeropress or V60, recently I'm finding I more and more reach for a bag of Taylor's Lazy Sunday because my favourite coffees are blowing my head off and making me feel jittery. I guess I've gotten more caffeine sensitive. I have the same problem in the local coffee shops - a really nice filter brew just has too much caffeine for me.

I now only drink caffeine until about lunchtime and have got to the point where the jolt from even just one cup of my favourite tasting aeropress recipe is a bit too much and I'd often rather put a couple of teaspoons of supermarket coffee in a cafetière (and - because it's naff coffee - add milk). Not the end of the world, but it's a shame as I really like proper coffee!

I've tried DIY half caff blends before but they weren't as nice as the individual components. I guess I could try again.

Before I cancel my subscription with my local micro roaster I wondered if there are any brew recipes or techniques for Aeropress/V60/Clever Dripper that give a tasty result without just reducing down to nearly espresso quantities of brewed coffee?


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

You won't find low caffeine recipes without severely under-extracting the brew. Maybe you can find a point where this tastes OK, maybe by using half as much brew water in V60/Clever & dilute with water to taste?

How big a dose do you brew with? Reducing the amount of coffee you use will have the biggest impact.

Some do lighter roasted (but not necessarily light) sugar cane decaf that are OK as brewed, like Round Hill, Horsham & Crankhouse.


----------



## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

Have you looked into Laurina, a naturally low caffeine bean?


----------



## webnik (Nov 13, 2013)

MWJB said:


> You won't find low caffeine recipes without severely under-extracting the brew. Maybe you can find a point where this tastes OK, maybe by using half as much brew water in V60/Clever & dilute with water to taste?
> 
> How big a dose do you brew with? Reducing the amount of coffee you use will have the biggest impact.
> 
> Some do lighter roasted (but not necessarily light) sugar cane decaf that are OK as brewed, like Round Hill, Horsham & Crankhouse.


 So the thing is that I still want to enjoy my morning caffeine - I just find the proper stuff blows my head off whereas if I put about 8-10g of supermarket stuff in a one mug cafetière, it just tastes mild rather than grossly underextracted and I can have 2-3 mugs and be fairly steady. Whereas proper coffee I will have one mug, go nuts, and then about four hours later fall asleep at my desk!

I mostly use the HasBean Aeropress recipe - which to be honest is probably already on the underextracted side. 17g of slightly finer than filter, quite hot water, 10s stir, 30s brew. I water it down a little for smaller cups or nearly 1:1 for a tea sized mug. I could try cutting to 12g and seeing how that goes?

For V60 I stick to the standard 60g/l ratio and spend about 1-2 minutes over it. I'm not very precise with it! You think putting less water through the same amount of coffee could work?

(I have come to respect how tolerant to totally incorrect brewing the Taylor's coffees are - they taste the same whatever you do with them!)


----------



## webnik (Nov 13, 2013)

MildredM said:


> Have you looked into Laurina, a naturally low caffeine bean?


 I have not. Thanks for the tip. Is it any good?


----------



## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

webnik said:


> So the thing is that I still want to enjoy my morning caffeine - I just find the proper stuff blows my head off whereas if I put about 8-10g of supermarket stuff in a one mug cafetière, it just tastes mild rather than grossly underextracted and I can have 2-3 mugs and be fairly steady. Whereas proper coffee I will have one mug, go nuts, and then about four hours later fall asleep at my desk!
> 
> I mostly use the HasBean Aeropress recipe - which to be honest is probably already on the underextracted side. 17g of slightly finer than filter, quite hot water, 10s stir, 30s brew. I water it down a little for smaller cups or nearly 1:1 for a tea sized mug. I could try cutting to 12g and seeing how that goes?
> 
> ...


 OK, you see that you are using twice the coffee with your Aeropress?

60g/l is a ratio, not a dose. You can still brew a V60 01 at around 8-10g of coffee at that ratio.

Darker roasted coffee is more intense in flavour, so sure, you can go lighter on the dose for the same amount of water, maybe down to 1:20? It may not be very under-extracted, as it may be more soluble.

Half the water in the V60 can only "work", it can't do anything else...whether it tastes good is another thing  The coffee will under-extract, but it may under-extract to a point that tastes OK, like a fast Aeropress brew, it'll be a bit stronger than normal so add ~10% more water?


----------



## MildredM (Feb 13, 2017)

webnik said:


> I have not. Thanks for the tip. Is it any good?


 Yes, the batch from The Barn a couple of weeks ago was excellent. I think they're starting a new batch this week.


----------



## webnik (Nov 13, 2013)

MWJB said:


> OK, you see that you are using twice the coffee with your Aeropress?
> 
> 60g/l is a ratio, not a dose. You can still brew a V60 01 at around 8-10g of coffee at that ratio.
> 
> ...


 I get the ratio - though I've never checked what ratio the HasBean Aeropress method is because the water quantity is 'three quarters full' and I've never put it on the scales. It always looked like too much coffee for too short a time but I liked the taste! Maybe I need to try a different recipe but all the championship recipes seem to use loads of coffee and longer times which probably isn't gonna scratch my itch!

My V60s are both 02s and I tend to use about 12g and top the mug up afterwards. It still seems to set my heart racing way more than the exact same thing with supermarket coffee - maybe because of the lighter roast?


----------



## americanheroescoffee (Jul 22, 2019)

There are many ideas you can try for a mild coffee one is that I simply love to have on those winter days Take a spoon of brew coffee and sugar and blend it completely and then add a spoon of dark melted chocolate in it and pour hot milk in it and mix it well enjoy this amazing and tasty coffee with your favorite webs series and fries.


----------

