If you are new to making filter coffee, or have acquired some 'gourmet' coffee that you want to try for the first time we would suggest using less. Even fine gourmet filter coffees take on an unpleasant heavy treacly mouth feel and lose the delicate elements if they are prepared too strong.
If you like your coffee to have a heavy tarry taste that coats your the inside of your mouth then that might be what you want, but you certainly won't get to taste the delicate elements in the coffee that you have paid for. You might as well stick with something less exotic and save yourself some money into the bargain.
As always, a set of fine digital scales helps enormously if you are wandering around in the coffee wilderness wondering if the coffee you have prepared tastes as the roaster intended. These days they are relatively inexpensive at around the GBP10 mark, and if you take care of them you will get a benefit from them for years to come.
While we enjoy espresso, which is obviously regarded as a 'strong' coffee, we think a common mistake is filter coffee being made up too strong. This might sound odd, but we think filter coffee should be weak enough that you can taste the water. That is to say, it should taste like water, that has been flavoured by coffee. It should have a 'clean' taste to it. It should be so strong that there is no 'cleansing' taste to the coffee. If the inside of you mouth feels like it has been coated by the coffee and your thirst has been slaked to any degree by the end of the cup we would suggest you might be making it up too strong.
Each to their own obviously, but if you are looking for some guidance then that's our suggestion. The term 'filter' grind is also rather misleading as we grind to espresso fineness for the Swissgold filter if we are in a hurry and dont want to alter a grinder and it works fine. If we are setting the grinder specially for filter use we will set it slightly coarser than an espresso grind, but only slightly. Again we find it preferable to grind slightly finer and use a little less coffee. If the coffee tastes wooden you may be grinding too coarse for the water to extract sufficiently from the coffee.
As alway we would recommend the Swissgold filters, so one-eyed are we in this respect that we cant understand why anyone bothers with paper filters anymore. If you wondered why Swissgold filters arent more frequently seen for sale if they are as 'wonderful' as pontificate about we believe the reason is purely commercial. The selling price is low (cf a more elaborate machine), there are no servicing revenues to be had, and barring stupidity (eg damaging with an item of cutlery in the sink when washing) they last for years and years. Ours has been used more than once a day since 2004 and is not damaged in any way. Expect to see Londinium restocking them soon as we believe the Swissgold filter is one of the best, cheapest & fastest ways to enjoy gourmet coffee. You wont see them for sale in the high street much as there simply isnt enough money to be made from them, so it falls to the small gourmet houses to ensure the commerical survival of one of the simplest, yet best, methods of making coffee. There are other 'gold' permanent filters available on the market which you are welcome to try, but in our view they are a distant second. The Swissgold is proudly made in Switzerland still, being one of the few consumer items whose production hasnt been transferred to a low cost economy. When you open the box the build quality will be immediately self evident. For example hold the filter up to the light & you will see how consistently fine and even the laser cut is in the stainless steel mesh. Years of wonderful coffee from a device that costs just a few pounds. You could pair this with a manual grinder if funds were limited and have access to some of the best coffee in the world. It doesn't have to cost thousands.
http://londiniumespresso.com/collections/filter-vacuum-beans