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I love doing blind taste tests of things. When I first got into roasting my wife and I did some identical green beans done to 3 different roasts, had samples of each to crush and smell, and tried each of the three both black and with cream and sugar. It was really eye-opening (and fun.) But I don't recall ever really delving into water other than once trying (bottled) filtered water vs. tap water and easily choosing filtered.
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Dec 7, 2012 01:35
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min posted:Do you have any information on the "something" from Culligan? I've been thinking about getting a better water filter. We use an aquasana and quite like it. Used pur and brita faucet mounts in the past they always ended up getting stress cracks and leaking after 6 mos or so. Aquasana's been going for 2.5 years now, not a leak, and they have an scheduled replacement filter shipment program.
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Dec 7, 2012 01:44
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I always use water from my brita filter. The trouble is that we keep it in the fridge so it takes longer to heat up the water. The improved taste is worth it though.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:26
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NYC tap water tastes good enough for me to drink normally so I just use that. I haven't noticed a difference when using my Brita water (I have a brita just so I can have super cold water at all times)
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Dec 7, 2012 17:34
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Doh004 posted:NYC tap water tastes good enough for me to drink normally so I just use that. I haven't noticed a difference when using my Brita water (I have a brita just so I can have super cold water at all times) It's all the live floating crustaceans.
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Dec 7, 2012 17:43
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GrAviTy84 posted:It's all the live floating crustaceans. Holy poo poo you weren't kidding: http://gothamist.com/2010/08/31/nycs_tap_water_delicious_and_filled.php Still delicious 
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Dec 7, 2012 20:57
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I just got hired for the second Birch Coffee location on 96th and Columbus. Pretty sweet. It's my first foray into a real coffee place.
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Dec 7, 2012 23:29
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I moved to a new apartment and this place has deficient electricity. My microwave runs at noticeably lower power and my hot-air popcorn popper just ran for 12 minutes and barely got past first crack. :-/ At the old place it got to that point is 4-5 minutes. I guess I need to look at stovetop options.
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Dec 8, 2012 06:00
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Also, to add another data point to the grinding variability with roast question, coffee roasted barely to something like American is definitely harder to grind in a hand grinder compared to coffee roasted to something like Full City. I think I almost sprained my elbow this morning.
withak fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Dec 8, 2012 |
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Dec 8, 2012 19:54
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If you have a hand grinder and haven't done something like this, then what are you using effort for?
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Dec 9, 2012 00:47
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There was an image attached
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Dec 9, 2012 00:48
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Johnson Brothers in Milwaukee is pretty fantastic, with great customer service. The owner personally emailed me to let me know their roasting schedule for my order. I picked up their Sumatra batak, Rwanda bufcafe, and Wata dara sidamo. The Sumatra is really well balanced, good acidity and nice dark fruit notes (blueberry).
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Dec 9, 2012 01:47
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I want to get a nice coffee maker for my girlfriend -- she loves coffee. Is the one on the front page still the go-to recommendation? What's a good budget grinder?
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Dec 9, 2012 01:52
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tarepanda posted:I want to get a nice coffee maker for my girlfriend -- she loves coffee. Is the one on the front page still the go-to recommendation? For the grinder, if you can swing 80-120 you can get an entry level burr grinder in the form of the Capresso Infinity or Baratza Encore. If you only have about $40, the Hario hand grinders will suffice for coarser grinds but will quickly require more effort for finer grinds. For coffee makers: it depends on what you're looking for. If you're looking for a regular drip maker, the technivorm and bonavita offerings are supposed to be pretty solid. I don't know anything about the zojirushi one on the second post. The OP also has a pretty good rundown on other coffee making methods that are good and affordable as well. gwrtheyrn fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Dec 9, 2012 |
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Dec 9, 2012 02:11
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Which of the goony rear end people at augies today are on sa right now? Also, the ethopian top lot is great.
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Dec 9, 2012 02:12
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So the roaster I've been getting beans from has Jamaican Blue. Priced at $70/lb. Is it really that drat good?
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Dec 9, 2012 04:24
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ded posted:So the roaster I've been getting beans from has Jamaican Blue. Priced at $70/lb. Is it really that drat good?
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Dec 9, 2012 04:39
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For some reason I've only seen big (bad) roasters using Kona and Blue Mountain beans, but I haven't been following coffee for long so I may have missed out on good roasters using them.
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Dec 9, 2012 05:21
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How temperature sensitive is coffee? I use a vacuum water boiler and it keeps my water at 205. When I'm using the aeropress is that hot enough or should I be boiling water every time?
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Dec 9, 2012 05:47
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inferis posted:How temperature sensitive is coffee? I use a vacuum water boiler and it keeps my water at 205. When I'm using the aeropress is that hot enough or should I be boiling water every time? You shouldn't let water hotter than 205 touch coffee. 195-205 is the sweet spot.
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Dec 9, 2012 06:00
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ded posted:So the roaster I've been getting beans from has Jamaican Blue. Priced at $70/lb. Is it really that drat good?
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Dec 9, 2012 18:06
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JBM is very good but I just find that there's nothin unique about it to warrant its price. It's an exceedingly smooth cup and has a great finish, but if I'm shelling out that money for coffee I need something more flavorful, like an Ethiopia Beloya sequence.
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Dec 9, 2012 19:23
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http://www.sweetmarias.com/coffee.islands.jamaica.php
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Dec 9, 2012 22:08
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i am not so sure posted:JBM is very good but I just find that there's nothin unique about it to warrant its price. It's an exceedingly smooth cup and has a great finish, but if I'm shelling out that money for coffee I need something more flavorful, like an Ethiopia Beloya sequence. Yeah, the reason Hawaiian and Jamaican are so prized is because coffee used to be of exceedingly low quality. Those two and maybe a couple of others were very clean and tasted like coffee rather than rear end. The boringness is the selling point. Today, we have high quality beans that are far more interesting. I'd compare it to apples. The red delicious was prized because it looked good and traveled well, so when it got to where it was going it was in good condition rather than bruised and ugly. We have now perfected other breeds (and transportation) so we want honeycrips and such which are far more interesting. (The difference is that JBM is good, if boring coffee and a red delicious is mealy and tasteless, but ignore it for these purposes.)
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Dec 9, 2012 22:26
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I know cold brew is the way to go when getting low-acidity coffee brewed, but is there a good way to minimize acidity using hot brew methods? I'm really bad for forgetting things in my fridge.
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Dec 9, 2012 22:32
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I want to take a mypressi twist to work on my longer days, but I am not about to lug around a Baratza grinder! Would it be absolutely terrible to grind 1-2 basket worth and keep it sealed in something airtight until I use it a few hours later?
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Dec 10, 2012 13:12
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Associate Christ
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Kaluza-Klein posted:I want to take a mypressi twist to work on my longer days, but I am not about to lug around a Baratza grinder! Try it and see what you think. I did a blind trial of pre-ground versus fresh ground where my friend brewed the coffee so I didn't know which cup was which and I couldn't tell the difference. Some people are more sensitive tasters and can.
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Dec 10, 2012 13:55
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kim jong-illin posted:Try it and see what you think. I did a blind trial of pre-ground versus fresh ground where my friend brewed the coffee so I didn't know which cup was which and I couldn't tell the difference. Some people are more sensitive tasters and can. Hopefully I will be ok then :p. I just need to find something to store it in that won't have a lot of dead air... Is tamping the grinds into the basket and keeping it ready to go like that for hours better/worse than keeping it loose?
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Dec 10, 2012 14:04
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Wouldn't needing to preheat the basket preclude that?
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Dec 10, 2012 15:37
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My husband wants a new ceramic pour-over single cup thing. He referred to it as a Melitta. I'm not sure if that's the brand, or the style, or what. Any recommendations? He has one now that is plastic, but wants a nicer ceramic style. I guess I'm confused because the only Melitta ones I see seem to be the same plastic style he already has. EVG fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Dec 10, 2012 |
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Dec 10, 2012 15:57
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EVG posted:My husband wants a new ceramic pour-over single cup thing. He referred to it as a Melitta. I'm not sure if that's the brand, or the style, or what. Any recommendations? Other brands have melitta style filter cones (single small hole) or you can get him a ceramic Hario v60. If you opt for the Hario you should also consider getting him a gooseneck kettle.
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Dec 10, 2012 16:33
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....or if you are a horrible klutz with ceramic tile floors like me, just save yourself the time and $ and get the plastic Vario V60 cone and #2 filters. The Clever Coffee system (plastic) is also very good and lets you steep the water in the grounds for full buzz effect. Also, remember that Cost Plus usually has a bunch of coffee supplies ranging from electric kettles to Ibrik's, Chemex brewers and various cheap ceramic (very heavy) pourover cones.
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Dec 10, 2012 16:56
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The funny thing is, Tom at Sweet Marias put the spergometer (refractometer for TDS) to the various filter cones and the plastic single small hole melitta was the one that most consistently hit the sweet spot.
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Dec 10, 2012 17:01
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I'm not looking for a plastic or cheap one (he already has one). I'd like a good quality one for a Christmas present. Problem is they all look the same to me. Weird that the plastic one performed the best... but he's hard to buy for and requested a ceramic pour-over, so that's what he'll get!
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Dec 10, 2012 17:16
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Kaluza-Klein posted:Hopefully I will be ok then :p. I just need to find something to store it in that won't have a lot of dead air... That would be my concern. The more air there is in the container/bag, the more opportunity for flavor molecules to partition out of the grounds. You may want to try it out with something like the FoodSaver Handheld system or just make sure you squeeze out as much air as possible when you put it in a bag.
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Dec 10, 2012 17:19
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EVG posted:I'm not looking for a plastic or cheap one (he already has one). I'd like a good quality one for a Christmas present. Problem is they all look the same to me. Have you considered something like a roaster or a bonavita bv1800? or a temperature sperg kettle?
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Dec 10, 2012 17:21
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GrAviTy84 posted:Have you considered something like a roaster or a bonavita bv1800? We have a really nice coffeemaker, vacuum siphon pot, espresso machine, great grinder, aeropress, and toddy maker. He's not interested in roasting. Not sure what you mean by the last?
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Dec 10, 2012 17:38
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EVG posted:We have a really nice coffeemaker, vacuum siphon pot, espresso machine, great grinder, aeropress, and toddy maker. He's not interested in roasting. Not sure what you mean by the last? I assume he's referring to something like the bonavita variable temperature kettles that can hold water within a degree or two of temperature. It comes in gooseneck, so it'd be good for pourovers as well
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Dec 10, 2012 18:21
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So I kind of mistimed my order of two bags of coffee (drat you Verve roasters for being so fast!  ) and I have a week or so of dead-time before I can bring it to my parents' house for the holidays and, where, presumably, they will freeze the other bag of coffee until they finish the first.Would it be bad to freeze both bags now, take them out for an about ~24 hour trip (transport, 14hr plane, etc), then freeze them again? They're used to preground/starbucks so I'm not too worried about minor flavor loss, but I am worried the freeze-thaw-freeze cycle might screw up the beans more than just leaving them a week. Beans were roasted on Friday, I assume, because that's when they shipped (I was expecting a Monday roast-ship). Other questions: Is there a method to freeze them "well"? IE, do I have to worry about humidity or moisture in the freezer or something (I have a dinky minifridge). For any east-coast goons (I'm CT), any roaster recommendations? I don't really like the local roaster in my rather small town, but ordering from CA seems rather expensive and far, considering the time it usually takes for them to get here.
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Dec 10, 2012 19:06
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Archer2338 posted:
Where in CT? J. Rene in West Hartford is really good. The owner is really professional, super friendly, and knows his stuff.
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Dec 10, 2012 22:34
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