Any suggestions for a _quiet_ bean grinder that won't disrupt a small office with its noise?
Handbrewing Coffee
181–190 of 217 posts
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#182For 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…
My alternative for about $45 US in equipment. Buy an Aeropress (~$30) and a cheap hand burr grinder from Amazon. (~$11) Always buy freshly roasted beans. Read and follow the instructions that come with Aeropress. Water temperature matters! Stirring duration matters! But if you can simply follow instructions, it's very easy to get consistent results.
If you're a bit lazy, you can substitute a cheap blade grinder, and still have the same equipment outlay.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
> ..."you can have strong coffee without having burned coffee" just noting that when people say strong coffee, they usually mean "more caffeine", not "darker roast". and coffee people generally know that darker roasts have less caffeine. i actually like darker roast too, when i want a caramelly coffee (by adding cream and sugar). my theory is that not only does a dark roast better hide lower quality beans, but starbu…
Darker roasts having less caffeine is another bit of folk wisdom that actually turns out not to be true. https://www.kickinghorsecoffee.com/en/blog/caffeine-myths-da...
interesting! the weight vs volume point is something that's not obvious on first blush.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#184Since others are listing their process, I'll document mine. I rarely drink any coffee, but I try to make a morning cup for my wife when I can. In return, she often makes me hot chocolate, which I prefer.
About once a year, we buy 20-30 lbs of green beans from http://sweetmarias.com at about $6/lb. Her preference is mostly for dry-process East Africans, but we also buy pounds of varieties from elsewhere that have words like "fruity" and "berry" in their descriptions.
About once a week, we roast an 8 oz batch or two in a Behmor Roaster (left over from a failed business venture). Roasts depend on the variety, but usually we try to stop somewhere between first and second crack. Depending on bean size and origin, this means 14:00 to 15:30 at P1A.
Then each morning, a portion gets ground in a Baratza Encore (at about setting 12), and put in a stainless steel filter cone (Bonzercraft from Amazon). Two cups of water is heated in a kettle on the stove. I add enough hot water to "bloom" the grounds when the kettle first starts to whistle (about 160F), then heat the rest of the water to about 195-200F. Then I start adding water to the filter, where it drips through at about 180F.
Over the course of a minute, I add the remaining water as the filter continues to drip into the cup. Meanwhile, I froth ~1/2 cup of cold whole milk in a Breville milk frother (set to about 140F). A minute or two later, the frother finishes at about the same time the remaining water drips through. Then I leave the milk and black coffee separate for her to combine when she comes down.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#185I’ve been hand brewing for nearly a decade. I use an Aeropress when I’m in a hurry, and a Kalita Wave or a Chemex when I’m not. The brewing method is only one variable. Freshness of beans and the quality of the grind are another.
Speed tends to be a factor people mention a lot with Aeropress, but I guess I'm not as busy as most people, because I rarely find myself in a situation where that difference of 2 minutes is a make or break thing. Once I factor in time for boiling water, it's like 5 minutes vs 7 for Aeropress vs a drip cone.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#186Has 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...
Avoid headaches by tapering/titrating yourself off the caffeine using no-doz pills (or equivalent caffeine based pills).
In the morning take a whole pill, and over say 10 to 15 days, linearly decrease the amount you take by using part-pills (ending with a nibble of a pill).
This has worked great for me twice now when I was about to go somewhere I wouldn't be drinking coffee regularly.
I also once titrated myself off coffee by using instant coffee. Day 1 is a full teaspoon, and decrease the amount slowly over many days.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#187> The drip cone maintenance is easy, too. Washing the cone after each use takes only a couple of seconds.
This line really resonated with me. I think there's a general principle at play: simple systems take more effort to use but require less maintenance. It's at the core of the original vi versus emacs divide (although vim with vimscript and its plugin ecosystem has muddied the waters.) Vi's power comes from its simplicity: a limited but highly effective feature set. Emacs users on the other hand often end up spending a significant amount of time maintaining their emacs configuration, which makes their actual text editing tasks go much faster.
In this analogy emacs is the automatic coffee maker, and vi is the drip-cone. At the risk of complicating the analogy, emacs may in fact be able to brew coffee.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use a French Press abut 90% of the time. But the different methods are better at extracting certain kinds of flavors, so it really depends on what kind of coffee I'm using. For most coffee, the FP is great at extracting deep, earthy flavors (and the oil, obviously). So that's always my go-to coffee in the morning. For brighter, more citrus-y coffee (Intelligentsia brand excels at these lighter ones), I favor the po…
Hmmm, hadn't thought about the oil part of the equation - I just assumed the oils would pass through a filter as well as through the mesh on the press. I'll have to try pour-over sometime to see if I notice a difference. Generally I prefer a rich, chocolatey, nutty flavor - I guess that's what you describe as earthy?
Paper filters remove much more of the oils.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went through a similar search for a cheap homemade espresso and ended up landing on the 3-cup Moka pot. It's not exactly espresso, but I find it's good enough for me, especially if I put it into a cappuccino or something else.
My wife makes her coffee in an moka pot. IMO it's fine for cafe cubano or maybe a latte, but I'd never drink it straight. It's much too bitter and lacks the natural sweetness and full body of a proper espresso shot. So while you can make passable espresso-type drinks with it, it's not really espresso.
Can I ask what grind you're using? I'm a big fan of the bitterness of what my moka pot produces, though I agree that it's not "espresso" per se. It's fantastic for mixing with vanilla ice cream or mixed drinks.
Re: Handbrewing Coffee
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try using a fine mesh metal screen with the aeropress. I find it is better than a filter.
To add onto this, Fellow makes an attachment (the Prismo) that builds up pressure giving you a more espresso-style cup. It comes with a metal filter, too.
I don't really believe that claim about the Prismo. I don't think that it builds up enough pressure to make any significantly noticable difference.
The advantage of a Prismo, and why I use one, is it stops the leakage of under-brewed fluid into your cup until you start pushing on the plunger. (Otherwise, I use the inverted brewing technique.)