I keep a Melitta cone and Bodum kettle at my desk in my office at work. I can work and make coffee at the same time. I grind my coffee at home before I leave in the morning. Beats having to buy coffee somewhere or depend on whatever shite is in the hallway.
Handbrewing Coffee
121–130 of 217 posts
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#122I buy pre-ground beans from the store (usually what's on sale), chuck them in Mr. Coffee, and have a wonderfully enjoyable carafe of coffee everyday.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#123Has anyone here managed to quit coffee completely after being really into it? I have 1-2 a day, can't imagine starting starting a day without it, but despite really loving the taste I would rather not feel the need to have it.
I quit twice. Both times it took me about two weeks. Splitting headaches and very foggy brain the first week, and less pronounced symptoms afterwards. The coolest part about weaning myself off caffeine was waking up feeling genuinely rested. But both times social pressure drove me back to the nasty habit...
I have been forced to quit when on holidays to places that don’t have coffee, or perhaps I couldn’t find it. It was terrible.
I’d have 3-4 a day (espressos, standard basket), and I suffered.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't buy the article's "study" whatsoever. From the pictures, they are testing the "flavor" using a drip method and don't control for the temperature. Using a drip method the ground should be fine. Fine is fine. .05mm coffee grains should mechanistically speaking soak through just as well as .08mm coffee grains. It also strikes me as odd that each of the grinders was exactly consistent across an entire week for it…
Low quality grinders will result in unequal sized grains of coffee. Given that the flavor of coffee is largely based on the degree of extraction, having an even sized grounds will improve the consistency of the produced coffee.
My point is that once you get to a fine enough granularity of coffee (as required per drip makers), you are likely getting the full extraction regardless at which point the quality of your grinder is moot.
Further, I have a hard time believing that inconsistent extractions is consistent with "better" flavor. It seems to me that the flavor would just be "different".
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#125An added benefit is that you don't make as much coffee as you would with a machine.
It depends on the machine - I’m picking you don’t mean espressos?
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#126French press for me. I buy my beans weekly from a local roaster and grind them at purchase. I think I get mot of the upside of 100% fresh ground and pour-over with a bit less work. And I start cooking breakfast while the water boils, so no time lost. At work, it's generic machine coffee. It doesn't taste great, but it keeps me going.
I love my French press, but recently picked up a pour over pot with a metal filter. I find myself preferring pour over lately...
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#127I got ruined for regular coffee when I found a local shop that roasts its beans sorted by size . So it doesn't taste scorched. Apparently most commercial coffee makers roast them in arbitrary batches, which means by the time the big ones are roasted the small ones are burned. I know there's a lot more that can be done with roasting. But that one small change means you can have strong coffee without having burned coff…
You may as well find value in looking up “density sorted” coffee, where they concentrate the high-density beans for roasting to max our flavor per cup.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really funny to me to just how much junk information there is in the coffee world and just how strongly people believe it. Even here on hackernews it seems. This is the exact sort of 'fact' that sounds good, and makes you feel like you know what you're talking about. I'm a roaster. All coffee is sorted by size, or at least all quality coffee. It's necessary, not only for an even roast, but it's also an inherent…
Hello! Coffee enthusiast here. I'd like to follow-up on this statement: > They roast it until the oils come out and then the oils go rancid because it has been sitting on the shelf for the last 6 months getting to you. Are you saying that it's bad if my coffee beans are glistening with oil? I usually took that to be an indicator of freshness. Or do you mean that if they're no longer glistening that the bag is probabl…
Oil exposed to air can start to go bad after a month or so exposed to oxygen. So if your coffee beans have visible oil, they’ll be slightly more likely to taste worse sooner, just because the oil’s right there on the surface. But it doesn’t necessarily mean anything negative otherwise. If it helps, think of it like butter: you can reasonably leave a stick of butter on the counter for a while, and then it doesn’t taste as good anymore. Coffee is the same way, oil or not :)
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hello! Coffee enthusiast here. I'd like to follow-up on this statement: > They roast it until the oils come out and then the oils go rancid because it has been sitting on the shelf for the last 6 months getting to you. Are you saying that it's bad if my coffee beans are glistening with oil? I usually took that to be an indicator of freshness. Or do you mean that if they're no longer glistening that the bag is probabl…
Light to medium roasts won't extract oils to the surface and IMO have a much nicer flavor, especially when using good beans. To me a dark roast Ethiopian tastes the same as a dark roast Costa Rican. They taste very different with a lighter roast. You lose the bean's uniqueness when you go darker which is one of the reasons cheap coffee tends to be dark.
I feel like I am the only one but I find that "uniqueness" - sour/fruity taste disgusting and can't stand the lighter roasts.
I prefer a dark roast with heavy cream :)
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#130For anyone interested I did a fair bit of research into how I could step into the passable home espresso / coffee game as I WFH a lot. Given that : - I make at most 3 coffees a day, usually 1. - I prefer espresso I found the traditional options lacking. I'd need: - a machine costing about £600 - a solid quality grinder. - machine needs 20 minutes warmup minimum before you can pour a consistent shot (or you need to le…
I'm curious about your hand grinder and if it does a better job than my automatic Baratza Encore burr grinder (priced at about $129 US). I've been hearing over and over that the grinder is the most important part of the whole process, but I haven't been willing to jump up to the $400-ish price point for something like a Eureka Mignon Silenzio....