Can you use coffee grounds twice? More than once? If you hate the idea of trashing coffee grounds, you may have contemplated reusing them. The good news is that there are great ways to reuse coffee grounds. But before you use your grinds for the second, third, or sixth time, it is good to know the following:
- Coffee is over-extracted or burnt when you instantly reuse your grounds. The resulting brew is often very bitter and astringent.
- The resulting brew is often weak and dull in flavor if you let your grounds cool down and dry out before using them later.
Luckily, there are ways to enjoy a perfect cup of joe after reusing your grounds. Here is what you can do to dodge that bitter taste and weak flavor:
- First, cover them as they cool. This helps hold the remaining flavor.
- Next, let the grounds cool down. This will prevent them from burning.
- Don’t tamp the second time. If using your espresso grounds, don’t even bother to reuse them. The resulting brew will not taste good anyway because the grounds have already been weakened.
- Don’t reuse more than two times. You will not enjoy your brew. It will be a waste of your valuable time.
How much caffeine is left in used coffee grounds?
When you’re done with your morning cup of coffee, there’s still caffeine on the grounds. How much is left depends on how much coffee you drink, how strong it is, and how long the grounds are steeped.
Suppose you want your coffee prepared with reused grounds to have the same amount of caffeine as the initial brew. In that case, you must adjust the amount of water used, the brewing duration, and the water temperature, among other factors.
Applying the same brewing process with old coffee grounds will extract caffeine, but not as much as the first time. Indeed, it may not be enough to make a significant difference.
According to one source, most coffee beans have a caffeine content ranging from 10 mg/g to 12 mg/g. However, according to a different study, such levels reduced between 3.59 mg/g and 8.09 mg/g when old coffee grounds were utilized.
By examining those data, we can observe that, despite the decline, used coffee grounds still contain a good quantity of caffeine.
The flavor change
First, let’s get one thing out of the way; if you’re concerned about your coffee‘s taste profiles and ratios, you don’t want to reuse your coffee grounds. The second cup will almost not taste the same as the first one, so if you’re looking for that second-fresh pick-me-up several times a day, you’ll need to cough up additional ingredients and add some flavor to your coffee.
That said, if you’re someone who puts a decent amount of creamer and sugar in your coffee, you may not notice that much of the difference.
Reusing the same coffee grounds twice daily is one thing, but waiting for a whole day or more is probably not a good idea. If you’re dumping and thoroughly drying the grounds between uses, you’ll probably find the moist, soggy coffee grounds are an ideal breeding ground for bacteria, fungi, and even molds. And if you leave them sitting for three or more days, you’ll want to throw them away.
In addition, it is also important that the grounds are never used more than two times, max. Not only does the coffee taste terrible, but you’ll also be wasting water at that point, so there’s no point trying to push things this far.
The art of making coffee is science; the ratio of water to coffee, the temperature of the water, steeping time, and the brewing process is all well done to make perfect coffee. Additionally, coffee has an optimum amount of extract required to produce the intense flavor that we all enjoy; reusing the grounds would water down your coffee and leave you with a bittersweet taste that I doubt you’d want to experience again.
Don’t get me wrong, if you’re desperate for a cup and you don’t have any fresh grounds, try reusing your grounds and adding a little milk and sugar to compensate for the watered-down flavor of the coffee.
How about reusing coffee grounds for cold brewing?
You certainly can. Cold-brew allows you to use any standard ground coffee. In addition, you may use either coarse or fine ground coffee.
When brewing a cold brew, you usually let the coffee steep for longer, making the flavor even stronger. However, you may mix your cold brew coffee with ice or milk to dilute it, and you may not notice the taste difference.
Here is how you can use our coffee grounds:
- To fertilize your garden: Coffee grounds are naturally acidic, and you can leverage them as an alternative to artificial fertilizers.
- To create and remove smell: Coffee grounds are an excellent alternative to air fresheners in the market. They make your house smell good. Is that not great? You can also use them to remove bad smells. For example, you can use them to remove the bad smell in your fridge in no time. All you have to do is place them inside your refrigerator. It is that cheap and straightforward to eliminate bad odor in your fridge.
- To improve skincare and complexion: Need a hand in the beauty department? Coffee grounds will not disappoint. They have been used multiple times to address skin and complexion-related issues, and there is no way they will backfire on you if you follow the proper guideline.
- Get rid of puffy eyes: You can use coffee grounds to get rid of puffy eyes fast. Just wrap cold coffee grounds in a towel and place them under your eyes for about 20 minutes.
- To scrub your face: Mixed with a facial cleanser, coffee grounds can do good work in removing dead skin.
- To improve the structure of your skin: Caffeine in coffee helps tighten your skin. So instead of buying expensive creams, why not use coffee grounds?
- As wood furniture polisher: You can quickly turn coffee grounds into a wood furniture polisher. To do that, soak used grounds for a few hours and filter them into a large glass. Then add about 100 ml of olive oil and two tablespoons of strained mixture and stir for roughly 30 seconds. There you have your polisher!
- To repair wood scratches: Some people claim that a mixture of coffee grounds and olive oil can make scratches disappear. We are yet to test that, and we would be happy if you could test the mixture and share your experience.
- To attract and repel insects: You can use coffee grounds to trap insects such as cockroaches as they love coffee. For example, you can put some in a jar they can’t crawl out of and leave it overnight. By morning that jar will probably be full. You can also burn coffee to repel mosquitos.
More ideas of what you can do with leftover coffee.
You can also use coffee grounds to protect your plants from snails and slugs. Just scatter the grounds around the plants, and you will never see them near your plants again.
As you can see, there are countless ways of reusing coffee grounds. So, before you trash them next time, see how you can put them to good use.
Conclusion
Can you use coffee grounds twice? The answer is yes. But consider:
When preparing a cup of coffee, the coffee grinds undergo an extraction process, regardless of the technique you employ.
This essentially implies that their soluble components dissolve in water. Furthermore, the water you use is essential in the coffee extraction process.
Editorial Staff
The editorial staff at Crazy Coffee Crave is a team of coffee enthusiasts & Baristas who enjoy the one thing we all think about as soon as we get up in the morning. Trusted by thousands of readers worldwide.
