<p>We need more information to give you good answers. The current question is rather vague and open-ended. </p>

<p>Is your end goal brewed coffee or concentrate? For yourself or as a commercial product? Is quality (taste) a primary consideration or are you concentrating on yield and/or caffeine and don't care much about taste? You should also describe your brew method in detail, tell us how you are grinding your coffee, how much coffee and water you use (brew ratio) and if you measure it, TDS (total dissolved solids).</p>

<p>You are almost certain to degrade quality if you press or "spin" your grounds to increase yield. If you proceed anyway, a centrifuge is more likely to both produce a better product and maximize yield. Pressing grounds will over-extract and create a bitter result.</p>

<p>You might want to consider brewing espresso, rather than coffee if yield is important. Better quality espresso machines will have quite dry pucks (grounds) and you have the advantage of a concentrated product, if that is a goal. Otherwise you can just add hot water to make an <em>Americano</em> or <em>Long black</em> which is an end product quite similar to brewed coffee but with the higher yield you desire.</p>

<p>Assuming that taste is important and it is to some degree for most people, then you have to consider the detrimental effect that pressing or centrifuging wet grounds will have on taste. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-25T18:15:36.153Z
2018-02-26T06:25:58.550Z
2018-02-26T06:25:58.550Z
Modslacfilio
<p>Actually, this is implicitly answered <a href="https://coffee.stackexchange.com/questions/3328/does-a-percolator-make-better-coffee/3329#3329">here</a> or <a href="https://coffee.stackexchange.com/questions/411/how-is-instant-coffee-made">here</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Percolators have mechanisms to re-brew and re-brew coffee till eternity.</strong></p>

<p>You can continue or stop the process whenever you want. That's why, instant coffee producers use percolator columns to gain the maximum yield from the same amount of beans. And, of course, that's also the reason why instant coffees taste (relatively) quite terrible.</p>

<p>I hope this answer may lead you to have some sense about the trade-off in between taste, yield and process of brewing coffee.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-16T07:24:27.507Z
Correction: Somewhere in time, all water will vaporize if the system is not closed, so eternity may not be correct. Even if the system is closed, the system will collapse at some point. Eternity is absurd by itself. So is this comment.
MTSan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-16T07:22:45.400Z
2018-03-16T07:22:45.400Z
MTSan
<p>By my estimate 1 pound of course ground coffee leaves about 900 grams of concentrate in the wet grounds after filtering.<br>
In a perfect world with 100% extraction we could get about 54 cups of coffee from a pound of coffee. Using a drip filter I only get 28 cups.
Using a modified salad spinner I retrieved about 142g more per pound or enough concentrate to make about 4 cups of coffee which is an increased yield of about 13%.
Has anyone found other methods of retrieving the wasted concentrate? I'm thinking something like a press or high speed centrifugal filter. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-02-26T10:56:33.213Z
Hi @BobCampbell welcome to Coffee SE. I advise yo take the [tour] and check the [help] pages to see how you should ask. I have modified the title to fit it into a question form. I hope this is OK.
MTSan
<brewing-process><filter><extraction>
How could I improve extraction and yield more coffee when brewing with a filter?
Bob Campbell
# How could I improve extraction and yield more coffee when brewing with a filter?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-02-25)

By my estimate 1 pound of course ground coffee leaves about 900 grams of concentrate in the wet grounds after filtering.  
In a perfect world with 100% extraction we could get about 54 cups of coffee from a pound of coffee. Using a drip filter I only get 28 cups.
Using a modified salad spinner I retrieved about 142g more per pound or enough concentrate to make about 4 cups of coffee which is an increased yield of about 13%.
Has anyone found other methods of retrieving the wasted concentrate? I'm thinking something like a press or high speed centrifugal filter.

**Tags:** brewing-process, filter, extraction

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Hi @BobCampbell welcome to Coffee SE. I advise yo take the [tour] and check the [help] pages to see how you should ask. I have modified the title to fit it into a question form. I hope this is OK.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2018-02-25. Score: 1

We need more information to give you good answers. The current question is rather vague and open-ended.

Is your end goal brewed coffee or concentrate? For yourself or as a commercial product? Is quality (taste) a primary consideration or are you concentrating on yield and/or caffeine and don't care much about taste? You should also describe your brew method in detail, tell us how you are grinding your coffee, how much coffee and water you use (brew ratio) and if you measure it, TDS (total dissolved solids).

You are almost certain to degrade quality if you press or "spin" your grounds to increase yield. If you proceed anyway, a centrifuge is more likely to both produce a better product and maximize yield. Pressing grounds will over-extract and create a bitter result.

You might want to consider brewing espresso, rather than coffee if yield is important. Better quality espresso machines will have quite dry pucks (grounds) and you have the advantage of a concentrated product, if that is a goal. Otherwise you can just add hot water to make an *Americano* or *Long black* which is an end product quite similar to brewed coffee but with the higher yield you desire.

Assuming that taste is important and it is to some degree for most people, then you have to consider the detrimental effect that pressing or centrifuging wet grounds will have on taste.


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### Answer by username_1 on 2018-03-16. Score: 1

Actually, this is implicitly answered [here](https://coffee.stackexchange.com/questions/3328/does-a-percolator-make-better-coffee/3329#3329) or [here](https://coffee.stackexchange.com/questions/411/how-is-instant-coffee-made).

**Percolators have mechanisms to re-brew and re-brew coffee till eternity.**

You can continue or stop the process whenever you want. That's why, instant coffee producers use percolator columns to gain the maximum yield from the same amount of beans. And, of course, that's also the reason why instant coffees taste (relatively) quite terrible.

I hope this answer may lead you to have some sense about the trade-off in between taste, yield and process of brewing coffee.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Correction: Somewhere in time, all water will vaporize if the system is not closed, so eternity may not be correct. Even if the system is closed, the system will collapse at some point. Eternity is absurd by itself. So is this comment.  

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