Coffee

I decidedly do not like to drink coffee from stainless. Something about it seems to boost acidity. Borsillicate glass is my preference for mugs, but to keep my chemex brew warm in between the Chemex and my mug is there any reason to get a glass lined carafe (bit more fragile) vs a pure stainless carafe?

Edit. Oh, and would either one fare better for also being washed out well and being used for ice water in the summer without any coffee flavors bleeding through?

I'm sur a lot of you have seen this video from James Hoffmann discussing the massive differences observed when spritzing some water on the beans before grinding.

So I took the plunge and bought a spray bottle, and tested it immediately on my mildly-disappointing, home-roasted medium-light Yrgacheffe in my Mythos-modded DF64.

Of course I don't have a particle analyzer to replicate the results, but I can still count on my senses to see if there is an actual difference between dry and spritzed beans.

The beans were dialed-in at 18g in, 45g out, 30s when dry.

Then, the 3-spritz beans went in. I didn't see much difference when grinding (maybe a bit less retention), but when pulling the shot, wow. It started to drip much later and slower, and took around 42s to complete the shot. There was a bit of spraying so channeling may still be happening though. The taste was incredible compared to the baseline. Every flavor was turned up to 11, with much more body, sweetness and complexity, with still a clear acidity cutting through the syrupy goodness, and a taste that lingered in my mouth for a very long time.

I dialed back the grinder for a 30s shot. This one was very disappointing and obviously under-extracted: sour, with a lingering astringency, and the flavors were kind of muted. So the beans really seem to benefit from extra contact time with seemingly no drawbacks in terms of overextraction, or the initial delay acted as a sort of preinfusion.

So my takeway is this: invest in a $£2€ spray bottle, either dial-in with dry beans or aim for a 35-45% longer extraction compared to your baseline, and enjoy!

Have you tested it? What are your results?

I have started my journey in coffee some years ago, and I can tell when I like coffee based on its flavour, texture, acidity but the only thing I cannot taste is sweetness. What do I need to look for?

Not with their end product - the powder itself is excellent. But every little packet is plastic, and doesn't have to be. The world has such a serious problem with plastics, and for a lot of products it's kind of necessary, but this is not one of them.

Restaurants have had the same size single serving packets for sugar, salt, and pepper for decades now and those are paper, which is much more environmentally friendly. It's even better for usability! With paper, I don't need to go find my scissors like I do for TWW's plastic packets.

I asked TWW if they would consider using paper instead, but got a generic reply that they'll bring it up, but evidently nothing has been done about this.

Is anyone else as disappointed as I am with their use of plastic packets? I care a lot about having clean water for my coffee, and I care just as much about not polluting the rest of the world because of it.

The nice thing I just learned about the Sette 30 ( which I just received as a Christmas gift) is that you can upgrade it to the micro-adjustment ring from the Sette 270/270wi model, and it's a direct replacement. This allows adjusting the grind between the "steps" on the adjustment ring.

The part is $90 (plus tax/shipping), and it does make it nice to fine-tune your grind between steps. The adjustment ring is easily removed (just press up slightly, and spin it out). The burr assembly pops right out, and you just replace it in the new assembly (press it until it clicks), and reinstall. Easy peasy, with no tools required.

The Sette 30 also came with shims to raise the burr, as it can be reset after extended use. I haven't installed the shim, since I don't need it yet, but it's nice to know that Baratza will sell parts to repair/replace over time.

Happy new year, my fellow caffeinated lemmings!

My wife gifted me a Baratza Sette 30 grinder this Christmas, after last year's first espresso machine, the Gaggia Classic Pro. Using the 'ol reliable Virtuoso for grinding was ok, and I could pull decent shots from the Gaggia, but the Sette 30 makes it so much easier. I love being able to put 18.5g of beans into the grinder, and get 18.5g out (usually). I did just pull the trigger on the 270 Adjustment Assembly, so I'll be able to dial in the grind even better soon.

I think I've reached my level in terms of coffee gear for now. I've got good options for a quick cup with the Moccamaster Cup-One, and when I'm in the mood for espresso or a latte, I've got the Gaggia.

I haven't tried grinding drip coffee with the Sette yet, though. I'll be giving that a try later this week. If that works well, I guess I'll have to take the Virtuoso to the office, and maybe donate it to replace their cheap blade grinder...

Happy holidays, all!

Curious what folks like to do with spent coffee grounds / espresso pucks / stale beans. Personally have tried to use as fertilizer with limited success, used as a substrate for growing oyster mushrooms, and in cooking (brown bread made with some stale espresso grind really helps the flavor).

I usually brew 2-3 cups of coffee in the morning in the Moccamaster. Sometimes around midday I’ll make a single cup of decaf in my v60.

It has been a while since I made a cup of decaf and didn’t feel like finding/digging out my kettle and this setup occurred to me, so I went for it.

As it was brewing, I realized I probably should have just brewed into the Moccamaster pot, but my brain was still focused on decaf=v60.

Should I surrender my self to the authorities now?

So about two weeks ago my 9-cup pot started failing. Instead of a nice rich flow, it did nothing until it started to boil, and then produced about 3 of it's 9 'cups' via a disgusting tasting over boiled sputtering mess.

I changed the filter. I cleaned the interior with a toothbrush. I blamed the beans. I blamed the grind. I was wrong every time. I was in despair. I youtubed.

https://youtu.be/4yGinq5NaCA?feature=shared

TL;DW: use thread tape to correct the fit between the funnel and the top of the water container. Works great!

For the ones who find ourselves in the second slide of this strip.

Tried it on my Sette and it does indeed change the extraction time significantly. I'll do a few more controlled tests tomorrow and submit a data point in James'es survey.

Tinker's coffee is making yet another appearance. It seems every time I start thinking, "I should order some more coffee." I'm getting a text from them informing me they just got a new coffee in. So I'm still happily stuck on the Tinker treadmill. As always I prepared my coffee in French Press using the James Hoffmann method.

The fresh grounds were a bunch of chocolate, generic nuttiness, and a tart berry fruitiness (so basically what it says on the tin). When I went to break the crust in the French press prior to letting things settle I was smacked in the face with a sweet chocolate. Once I poured a cup the nuttiness had reasserted itself but I really wasn't getting any of the tart berry on the nose. The tart berry popped back up as once I started sipping as part of the after taste so it certainly reads chocolate and nutty dominate for me. It isn’t the most intriguing cup of coffee I’ve had but it is damn solid and I'm happy with it.

P.S. Given sweet chocolate can be interpreted a lot of ways they really missed the chance to give brigadero as a tasting note given it is a Brazilian coffee. Though I suppose that'd leave a bunch of people wondering what in the hell that is (for the curious).

Spoiler, its RDT

In case people do nto know what RDT is, which they really should if they have been into coffee for a little while as it makes a big difference:

RDT is Ross Droplet Technique, which is very much adding water to beans. Named after David Ross who came up with it back in 2005

The postman delivered a new to me DF83 Gen 1 with SSP HU burrs. Just had fun dialing it in over lunch for espresso. It is a huge step up from the Niche Zero it replaces for espresso.

I've been trying out a few palm tampers was pretty disappointed at the current offerings.

After spending the night looking at pretty expensive ones like Normal Dose and Happy Tampers I'm pretty glad the Normcore is coming out with a new tamper that looks like the Happy Tamper style.

For anyone not familiar Normcore one of the value brands for Espresso accessories.

This is the current Normcore palm tamper which was a rather odd design. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/42oSPq7LPRY

Profitec pro 500 PID paired with an ECM S-Automatik 64.

Excited to finally have a legit and dependable setup, had always bought broken machines and fixed them up (to varying levels of success) before this.

Any other Profitec users out there?

This post is mostly for me to look at alternatives. I currently subscribe to Trade. But recently I've been hearing about their bad practices like sending packages with wrong weight, or paying very little money to the roasters.

If you like your current subscription, please place a link so that others can check it out. If you don't, and want to switch, tell why so that I can avoid it too.

At visiting my parent's this holiday weekend I tired to gently tell my parents that their coffee brew is very bitter. The response I get back is something like, " I like it strong."

I wasn't too sure how to respond, but then they told me my coffee is to watery. 🤔 I told them it's not that is watery, but it's a light roast and not bitter tasting.

So my question is how do you convince someone that bitter coffee is not good coffee? I might bring my scale next time to help measure and perfect the coffee brew there. Maybe even see about cleaning their been grinder, which I think has never been cleaned.

Oh well.

Update: Thanks for all the tips and thoughts. I agree with basically everything posted here and sorry no butter (I fixed the title)

For the last few months, I've been splitting a bag of coffee beans into 2-3 portions and freezing them. I've seen that it extends the freshness by a bit. Now, I've been storing them in older coffee bags (the standard sealable ones) since they take up less space than jars and also I'm just reusing something that would've gone to landfill/compost.

I do clean them of residues of older beans and don't use a bag more than 2 times since I get new bags whenever I buy beans anyway. Are there any health/quality issues that might arise from this that I should be aware of? Should I just store them in sealed glass jars instead?

I've seen the pourover advice given and referenced unquestioningly: always pre-wet your paper filter. But why? What is the benefit of doing this step?

Anyone have a recommendations for non plastic cones for pour over?

I usually use one like this (#2) for individual cups. I also use this larger one (#6) to make coffee directly into my large thermal coffee carafe when people are coming over. Being able to sit on top of the carafe is a great feature.

It’s been almost 10 years since I bought these so wondering what else people are using now.

Local supermarkets not had any in stock for many months now. Is it just out of style or something up with the supply side? Google-fu has failed me in my quest for the answers.

So can we talk mugs? I tend to make a half liter (~17 oz) of coffee in a French Press in the morning. I run into the problem that I get about a half hour to 45 minutes (I've never timed it this number might be wildly off) in before the, "Crap! Its getting cold!" moment and feel like I have to accelerate my consumption to avoid cold coffee when I'd prefer to keep going at a leisurely pace. I realize the most obvious solution is a couple of smaller batches but I'm lazy, easily distracted, and have a bit of a cutoff in the morning as my wife hates the smell of freshly brewed coffee and I catch a bit of drama if I'm brewing while she's awake or just before she wakes up.

I do have a Contigo Autoseal stainless steel travel mug that I use occasionally for cheap tea and it works well for retaining heat. I can sip on hot tea for hours but the lid has all sorts of nooks and crannies that retain coffee oils that is a pain in the ass to clean and it has a very small drink hole limits the orthonasal olfactory pathway (aka you can't sniff your coffee). The ability to take my drink somewhere is kinda nice but strictly speaking isn't critical for me.

So anyone mind sharing their experiences with features or even specific recommendations? Don't worry about if it is available in the US (where I'm located) I can always look at the features your favorite insulated or travel mug so it can still be handy to share. Or you may have a solution so elegant and obviously I'm going to facepalm when you point it out.

Overdue Update: I ended up going with a Carter Move and I'm quite happy with it. I appreciate everyone who gave me ideas and things to think about.

Looking for some troubleshooting advice. I've had to spend a lot of time away from home lately so haven't been taking as good care of my Wilfa Uniform grinder as much as I usually do, so I gave it a rather thorough clean at the weekend after months of just letting it build up.

On Monday I noticed that when grinding it sounds like it's struggling; as if there's a bean in there that's catching and throwing things off every second or so, even when there are no beans in there. It's not a motor whine or anything like that; the only way I can describe it is it sounds like it's grinding on empty, and then suddenly coming into contact with something every now and then. I've opened it up and cleaned it out again and there's no signs of a anything obstructing the burrs, and no sign of damage. It still seems to be grinding fine, but the sound is pretty worrying.

I think I might have accidentally cleaned off some of the lubricant on the ball bearings, but this is purely just a guess. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance!