Coffee

Who joined in? How was your experience? Planning to follow along later / async?

I have been discovering the joy of mixing different types of whole bean coffees before preparing them in my French press. I find that as long as you don’t do something crazy like mix a very light roast with a very dark roast you can end up with a lot of extra depth and roundness to the flavor. Thoughts? Am I insane? A heretic??? Have you tried it?

I live in a super hard water region. So hard in fact that it destroys every appliance despite regular descaling. I've remineralized 5l jugs of demineralized water for years but I feel it's not very sustainable in the long term. Plus demineralized water is not supposed to be safe for human consumption.

I'm looking for an affordable RO system that removes most if not all TDS so I can remineralize it using my favorite recipe.

Do you use any? What are your thoughts? Thanks !

Because I don't have a espresso machine I bought some cold brew in a bottle. I got some nice tonic water too and ice cubes, and now I can make a nice Coffee Tonic every morning to enjoy. Ok I agree that it's better during summer, but every now and then during winter I still want to have a refreshing glass of fruity coffee.

Over the past few years I've gotten a small handheld blade grinder, an Aeropress, a French Press, and started roasting my own beans.

The problem is that while some changes stick (like the grinder and the bean roasting), some changes just take up space (I usually use my Mr. Coffee over the Aeropress or French Press).

With that in mind, I'm looking for an espresso maker that is low budget, since I may not use it that often; but is still nice enough that I'm not going to hate espresso making because the machine is bad (ie: low pressure, low heat, leaks, etc).

Most espresso makers I've seen are a few hundred to a thousand USD; but since I'm worried I may end up almost never using it (or just using it to froth hot chocolate), I'm looking for one that's around 100 USD or less.

While I expect you all have loftier targets for your espresso machines than that, I am hopeful if you don't have any specific recommendations you can tell me what signs to look for that an espresso machine is of decent quality.

EDIT:

As you may have gathered I'm hardly an expert on coffee matters, so I really appreciate your help.

It sounds like for the time being I should stick with the Aeropress I already have and maybe upgrade to a Mokapot (or even a medium range espresso maker) down the line if I really take to it.

For what it's worth, I did watch the recommended James Hoffman video and was able to make a decent (to me) cappuccino using the Aeropress and French Press I already had on hand!

Thanks again for all your help!

Trigger warning: animal cruelty adjacent

A friend of mine was gifted an 18g bag of Kopi luwak and asked me to brew it for them.

I would never buy it myself. The bag makes claims of being “processed naturally in the wild,” which sounds just like the thing where caged chickens that briefly touch dirt are basically well treated.

I will be educating my friend about this, but the bag was gifted to them and they take that very seriously. The way I see it is this is going to be brewed either way and I have some change of showing it’s just coffee and this should be a one-time thing that only happened because it was a gift.

With all that said… I’m thinking AeroPress no-dial recipe. I could conceivably make two 9g brews to have a second chance or I could take my chances on the 18g.

What should I expect in terms of roast level? Would this generally be a hard coffee to brew? Is the AeroPress no-dial recipe a safe bet or is there a new option out there to get it right on the first and only try?

For gear, I have a Eureka Mignom and a Hario Skerton Plus. I’m not above asking my friend to chip in on a better hand grinder if that’s what it takes. I have an expresso machine, which was my friend’s original request for a method, but that’s just out of the question, obviously.

There you go. I didn’t expect to find myself in this position, but I am, and I’ll like to make the best of it.

Thanks for reading.

Does any one have any experience of this low cost conical burr grinder? I'm getting sick of my (rather good Timemore C2) hand grinder.

Need to talk about coffee stuff today guys. Gotta keep my mind off the news as much as I can.

I still use my chemex for washed multicup brews. I think it excels at this, and I love the asthetic. I have a handmade wool cozy for it and a 3d printed lid to keep these larger brews warm though and while the cozy is protective, I do worry about breaking this fragile brewer.

It seems like the Miir directly addresses the thermal and fragility concerns and still allows use of the chemex filters. Seems hard to argue with that.

Other than nostalgia and maybe not wanting to spend a cool $80 right now, any reason to hold on to the Chemex?

I’ve been pretty happy with my home setup for a while. I have progressed from the Sage Barista Express to the Sage Oracle and never had any issues at all. I recently bought a hand grinder for when I have a speciality blend or am on the road and so purchased a KinGrinder K6. I have found that it is actually a lot better than the grinder built into the Sage.

I am now looking at upgrading to a separate grinder and maybe swapping to a more manual Espresso machine also.

I have looked at Niche and Eureka as well as the Df83 grinders but honestly am a little lost. I only drink Espresso based drinks and am UK based.

I have also looked at the La Pavoni and Eureka machines for Espresso.

Just really looking for some guidance. I have an independent coffee roaster that I get my beans from and like a darker roast and am happy with what I get. I very rarely change blends or if I do I switch between one or two blends.

Lately I've had some obviously inaccurate measurements from my Timemore Black Mirror scale. That would happen occasionally but not always. I was charging it today and as luck would have it, I was sitting beside it. I typically charge it unattended. I noticed that it took a very long time to charge and multiple times it seemed to restart charging. I grabbed it to check the cable and noticed it was quite warm in one spot. I though - that's alright, it's likely where the battery cell is, it's charging, lithium cells get warm during charging. Later I took it off the charger and while handling it I examined the hot spot a bit more. I noticed that when I squeezed the scale at that corner, the top plate wouldn't sink towards the bottom as it does in the other corners. A few mental calculations later I figured this could be a swollen cell that has grown so large that it impacts the plates and doesn't let them come together as they do normally. I took it apart. Lo and behold this spicy pillow:

The marking on it means it's supposed to be 8mm thick. It's currently closer to 12.5mm. Removing the battery allowed the two plates to come together in all corners as normal. That confirmed the hypothesis. Further, the reason why it only occasionally impacted the measurements is likely due to the weight of the cup I was using. When using a lighter cup, the total weight would be lower than needed to get the two plate to touch the battery and produce inaccurate measurement.

I ordered this as a replacement. It fits the dimensions and it's got some safety certification.

To check if your scale is a fire hazard, squeeze this corner:

Normal squeeze action looks like this. Unfortunately I didn't record a video prior to removing the battery.

If it the two plates come together as the do in the other corners, you're probably okay. If the plates don't come nearly as close, you've got an unlit petard in your hands.

I'm currently looking to replace my gaggia classic. I don't want to upgrade. I want to replace it, so I just went to eBay thinking I could take my pick of hundreds of machines, but I was surprised to find none at all.

Where else do home baristas sell their gear in the EU? I'd rather not import one from the UK or US

• 40 grams of coffee ground fine to medium fine.
• 24 hours in the fridge.
• Filtered with an Aeropress allowing it to naturally drain, and then filling the Aeropress with fresh water to rinse the grounds and drain again.
• This clip shows the press pushing the remaining coffee through after draining twice and the previously drained coffee poured on top.

I had never really thought about using an immersion brewer as a pure pour-over device but just had a mind blowing honey process Ethiopian, and I noticed barista was brewing it in a Hario switch with the switch open the whole time. Tasted as good as a v60 brew to me. I've been wanting to try immersion brewing for a while. I get the sense this forum and many others lean more strongly towards the clever dripper. I imagine that device could also be kept open and used as a pour-over. Do you think an open Hario switch basically IS a v60? That sounds like the ultimate multi-Tasker to me. Am I missing something here? Any thoughts on the perceived lean toward clever? I've ruled out the plastic version and would be looking at glass clever vs switch.

I mostly do drip coffee (shh, I'm basic), but I'd like a more consistent, fresh brew, and potentially something that could do an espresso grind, as well.

I've seen good things about the Capresso Infinity Plus, but thought I'd ask about the personal preferences from more experienced folks here.

It'd be lovely to have something that can easily fit on the counter, and with a simple mechanism and/or reparability (even if that means looking for old stock of a certain model).

Thanks!

Anybody else in Denver tune their water for brewing? Denver city water is insanely hard. I'm using a simple two-phase under-sink filter since I live in an apartment, but it doesn't touch the hardness problem. I've also read the city has drastically changed the pH to reduce lead leaching from old pipes.

I'm about to pay for water testing to see what I'm getting out of the tap and measure how much I'll need to adjust, but was curious if anybody else had numbers.

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In our house, we generally go for variety in our coffee beans. That means when we are finishing one bag, we're going to open a different bag with totally different beans inside.

What do you do if there aren't enough old beans to make a full serving of coffee?

It may be heresey, but I mix the final old beans with a few beans from the new bag and call it my "bonus blend".

Finally, AeroPress made of glass and metal, came out. Its double-walled design should reduce heat loss.

Price: $149,95.

Official site

Was introduced on Williams Sonoma first

Picture driving home after picking up a 12oz bag from a local roaster I haven't tried before. The entire car smells gloriously of Carmel and peach. The aroma is powerful and invigorating.

Pan to Me only thinking, "damn that is some piss poor packaging"

I usually prefer to just store beans in oem bag with a good bag clip. I've tried other containers and feel like it's typically no better or worse. Going to throw a ziplock around this one.

Any other favorite storage methods?

I've been using James Hoffman's recipe since I bought AeroPress, and I was pretty satisfied. While being simple, it produced rich, balanced cups of coffee for both light and medium roasts. I was happy with it. But then I started noticing that some light-roasted coffee was too bitter. It rarely happened, but when it did, it wasn't possible to get rid of that excessive bitterness. When I tried to increase the grind size, I got watery, but still too bitter coffee. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the coffee beans, but then I thought, maybe immersion brewing was just not suitable for them. So, I decided to find another recipe.

I wanted to try a hybrid recipe containing a percolation phase, as I believed it could produce more balanced cups. So I searched on the Aeromatic app and found a recipe from The Real Sprometheus. It has a long percolation phase and quite a short immersion phase. And this recipe fixed my coffee. I got a balanced cup without excessive bitterness and with more detailed acidity. Now, this is my recipe to go, as I think it's superior to James Hoffman's recipe.

The civet processed beans? I'm wondering if it's all hype? Or worth buying a bag to try?

Edit: Thanks for the responses everyone! I'm gonna pass on it 👍

My wife and I go through about 4lbs a month using mainly Chemex and Areopress. Used to get (decent) crummy coffee at Aldi and Grocery Outlet, occasionally splurging for local roasts at the coffee shops. Still, I calculate that's about $35 or so a month on beans, Chemex filters should probably be calculated with how pricey they can be - napkin maths say $11 roughly for a months supply.

$46USD ain't bad compared to my other vices 😪

Curious to hear if I'm around the average spender or how it tracks! Maybe you have some tips on cheap but amazing coffee? I wouldn't know unless I asked y'all

I've just reached the point where'd id say I have full control of the process (just bought a grinder, kettle has temp, I've got an accurate scale)

I've got a basic understanding of how for example water temp affects the taste, but not how to combine the right grind size with the right temp with the right beans at the right ratio

I do pourover

thank you all