Coffee

Recipes and such

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Manveer
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Coffee

#1

Post by Manveer » Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:38 am

I rarely make coffee at home, but I want to start doing it more. What fancy methods do you guys use? What beans? What are the keys to great coffee?

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Root
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Re: Coffee

#2

Post by Root » Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:39 am

Aeropress coffee is best coffee

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cwd
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Re: Coffee

#3

Post by cwd » Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:54 am

Levels of coffee:
1) supermarket pre-ground beans, tap water, dirty coffee machine, left out too long and stale (aka free coffee at the office, coffee at a bad restaurant)
2) instant
3) same as (1) from a clean machine & fresh (what I drink)
4) same as (3) but filtered tap water (McDonald's quality coffee)
5+) varying levels of fussiness

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slowmotion
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Re: Coffee

#4

Post by slowmotion » Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:55 am

I just use whatever coffee beans I can get hold of, a grinder and a Technivorm.

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Hanley
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Re: Coffee

#5

Post by Hanley » Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:04 am

Coffee: Costco carries 5# bags of a good local roaster. We use that for our daily coffee. We use local roasters for fancy shit.

Brew methods:

11 year old technivorm mocca master (can't believe this thing still works).
Chemex
Aeropress
About 5 different single-serve pour over gadgets.

Best prep method is a Japanese pour over thingy that uses cloth filters. But it's way too fucking fussy. Oxo's new pour over gadget is really convenient & makes a tasty cup. Aeropress is great.

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Re: Coffee

#6

Post by cgeorg » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:03 am

48oz vacuum walled stainless french press
Local coffee, have a burr grinder but let them grind it for me because their's is a little nicer and I don't actually have my grinder with me now
filtered water

I go 4tbsp grinds for about 24 oz water, which yields me 2 regular coffee cups. 8 min steep, pinch of salt a la Alton Brown.

I feel like I need to get on the Aeropress game but this has been my EDC for years now.

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Re: Coffee

#7

Post by chromoly » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:37 am

I've been drinking a lot of pour over coffee recently. I use one of the single serving ones and a reusable filter, but I'm thinking about getting one of those Bodum or Chemex ones that make multiple cups.

I like my Party Press (Ikea Anrik french press) a lot too. 1 L of coffee, and it's vacuum insulated stainless steel. Not sold in the US anymore for some reason. Keeps the coffee hot for a long time.

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Re: Coffee

#8

Post by Manveer » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:49 am

OK, I will get an Aeropress. Seems easy. I normally use a French press, but it is a little annoying. Chemex seems like way too much fuss for me.

Roasting your own beans is ridiculous, right? Seems like something I shouldn't do myself.

Are there any good beans I can order online that I should get? Amazon, preferably.

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Re: Coffee

#9

Post by SpinyNorman » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:13 pm

Manveer wrote: Roasting your own beans is ridiculous, right? Seems like something I shouldn't do myself.
If it's ridiculous, them I'm pretty fucking happy to be ridiculous. It's well worth roasting your own beans.

Browse around this site. http://www.SweetMarias.com Be warned, there is a ton of cool coffee shit to buy from them. It's worth it.

I bought a behmor coffee roaster a couple years ago. It will do up to a pound at a time and is pretty easy to use.

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Re: Coffee

#10

Post by Root » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:25 pm

SpinyNorman wrote:
Manveer wrote: Roasting your own beans is ridiculous, right? Seems like something I shouldn't do myself.
If it's ridiculous, them I'm pretty fucking happy to be ridiculous. It's well worth roasting your own beans.

Browse around this site. http://www.SweetMarias.com Be warned, there is a ton of cool coffee shit to buy from them. It's worth it.

I bought a behmor coffee roaster a couple years ago. It will do up to a pound at a time and is pretty easy to use.
I can attest to this. Spiny made me the best cup of coffee I've ever had.

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Re: Coffee

#11

Post by Manveer » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:56 pm

SpinyNorman wrote:
Manveer wrote: Roasting your own beans is ridiculous, right? Seems like something I shouldn't do myself.
If it's ridiculous, them I'm pretty fucking happy to be ridiculous. It's well worth roasting your own beans.

Browse around this site. http://www.SweetMarias.com Be warned, there is a ton of cool coffee shit to buy from them. It's worth it.

I bought a behmor coffee roaster a couple years ago. It will do up to a pound at a time and is pretty easy to use.
What I mean is - for a n00b to all this fancy coffee making business who drinks, on average, less than one cup per day, it's not worth going to the level of roasting my own beans, right? I have a small place - not a lot of counter space, so that's a limitation as well.

Like if I was going to start cycling or something, I probably would just dip my toe in with a decent budget bike and some basic safety gear first. Then if I got into it, I would spend a ton of money on gear and a carbon fiber bike, etc.

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Re: Coffee

#12

Post by SpinyNorman » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:41 pm

Manveer wrote: What I mean is - for a n00b to all this fancy coffee making business who drinks, on average, less than one cup per day, it's not worth going to the level of roasting my own beans, right? I have a small place - not a lot of counter space, so that's a limitation as well.

Like if I was going to start cycling or something, I probably would just dip my toe in with a decent budget bike and some basic safety gear first. Then if I got into it, I would spend a ton of money on gear and a carbon fiber bike, etc.
Go on, dip your toe in.

All you need to start is a hot air popcorn popper (that you'll never use for popcorn) such as https://www.sweetmarias.com/product/nos ... orn-popper and then order yourself a sampler pack of green coffee: https://www.sweetmarias.com/product/gre ... ee-sampler.

That's what I did to get started. It gives you a chance to try it out with a fairly minimal investment. Read some of the stuff on sweet marias website though. You do get a bit of chaff flying around with the popcorn popper, but it actually does do a good job of roasting in very small batches.

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Re: Coffee

#13

Post by Murelli » Mon Sep 25, 2017 5:23 am

I like these:

1) Farm grown coffee beans, roasted and ground by my dad and brought to me when he visits (currently out of it);
2) Kona coffee that I bought in Hawai'i, medium roast, coarse grind (currently out of it);
3) Medium or high end roasted and ground, vacuum bag, bought at the supermarket, medium or dark roast, medium grind (using it now);

Method for 1-3: warm up filtered water (from the activated coal water filter at home) until little bubbles start to form (DON'T BOIL IT - if you do you'll have to wait until it goes back to ~80°C) -> pour some hot water in the filter (paper or cloth) and in the thermos, close the thermos -> warm the water again and if filter=paper, then put the coffee on the filter and over the thermos, else put the coffee on the water and mix a little -> pour the water (paper) or coffee (cloth) in the filter and let it fill the thermos.

Drink with no sugar or sweetener, like a real man -> earn your coffee drinker badge here.
Sweeten with rapadura -> earn your rural man badge.

4) Nespresso machine (I own a Maestria)
Image

5) Nescafé Dolce Gusto machine
Image

4 & 5 machines are great for lazy times! Throw some milk in the steam nozzle on that Maestria and get a cappuccino with little effort!!!

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Re: Coffee

#14

Post by SpinyNorman » Mon Sep 25, 2017 6:11 am

Murelli wrote:I like these:

1) Farm grown coffee beans, roasted and ground by my dad and brought to me when he visits (currently out of it);
Wet or dry process? I love Brazil dry process coffee. I've had a bunch of different ones and they have all been fantastic.

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Re: Coffee

#15

Post by Murelli » Mon Sep 25, 2017 6:44 am

SpinyNorman wrote:
Murelli wrote:I like these:

1) Farm grown coffee beans, roasted and ground by my dad and brought to me when he visits (currently out of it);
Wet or dry process? I love Brazil dry process coffee. I've had a bunch of different ones and they have all been fantastic.
Had to look it up on google to figure out this wet vs. dry stuff. My dad's family and our friend's family (both our sources of dry beans, one is in the hills of Espírito Santo the other is on the Cerrado of Minas Gerais) both use the dry process - dry the beans prior to removing the pulp and skin. You should see the huge drying patios on our friend's farm, just beautiful.

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Re: Coffee

#16

Post by SpinyNorman » Mon Sep 25, 2017 7:09 am

Murelli wrote:
SpinyNorman wrote:
Murelli wrote:I like these:

1) Farm grown coffee beans, roasted and ground by my dad and brought to me when he visits (currently out of it);
Wet or dry process? I love Brazil dry process coffee. I've had a bunch of different ones and they have all been fantastic.
Had to look it up on google to figure out this wet vs. dry stuff. My dad's family and our friend's family (both our sources of dry beans, one is in the hills of Espírito Santo the other is on the Cerrado of Minas Gerais) both use the dry process - dry the beans prior to removing the pulp and skin. You should see the huge drying patios on our friend's farm, just beautiful.
I bet. I've seen pictures and it looks cool. Being there to see it in person would be awesome.

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#17

Post by Allentown » Mon Sep 25, 2017 7:30 am

I like the Aeropress, but I'll be honest, I prefer the Chemex. I could use better temp control with my water- I let it get too hot then just pour it over as it goes from too hot->too cold, because I am lazy. My brother-in-law is a big coffee guy, and will be moving in a few blocks away in the next month or two, so hopefully we can do some "Sunday morning coffee roasting/brewing" and actually get some proper stuff, like kitchen scales and hand-grinds and long-neck kettles and junk. For beans, I really like one of the local places, it's the best coffee I've had using the same half-assed method I normally use.

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Re: Coffee

#18

Post by Manveer » Mon Sep 25, 2017 7:31 am

So, with respect to roasting, what is better about doing it at home? Better control over the roast? Freshness of the roast? How much does this improve the quality of the coffee?

I'd guess that a coffee shop would have some fancy roasting equipment with better process control than I would have at home.

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Re: Coffee

#19

Post by SpinyNorman » Mon Sep 25, 2017 8:40 am

Manveer wrote:So, with respect to roasting, what is better about doing it at home? Better control over the roast? Freshness of the roast? How much does this improve the quality of the coffee?

I'd guess that a coffee shop would have some fancy roasting equipment with better process control than I would have at home.
Freshness is HUGE. I'm pretty sure I do not have better knowledge of control over the roasting process than professionals, but I almost never drink coffee with beans that were roasted more than a week or so ago.

The other area you can have fun with is the variety of coffee beans. I think consistency is really important for most roasters, both in the beans they buy and the roast levels they take them to. I like variety, so I buy a lot of different beans from all over the world (all ordered from the website I linked). I also like experimenting with the roast levels. My favorite tends to be a medium-dark roast, but I'll do some lighter and some darker to change things up.

For me, fresh roasted high-quality beans are more important for coffee than the brewing method (as long as it's a good method). Actually, it's quite a bit of fun to brew the same beans with different methods. Once I started roasting, I also got fussier about brewing. I started with a french press, then did a single serve pour over for a while, then bought a chemex, then an aeropress (mainly for traveling or a quick cup). I like the chemex because you have really good control over the water temp, you can make a lot at one time and it's pretty bean efficient.

I've had some coffee from a local roaster a couple of times and it's good, but it's not better than what I make at home for a fraction of the cost.

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Root
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Pour Over method

#20

Post by Root » Mon Sep 25, 2017 9:21 am

Does anyone have some tips for a good pour over? I usually use my Hario cone when I'm making more than one cup, and I always feel like something is off compared to aeropress coffee. I mean like bean grind, water temp, do you pour slowly or just fill the damn thing up and let it drip?

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