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kim jong-illin posted:Any recommendations for coffee in Paris? I'll do being a romantic weekend getaway with my partner there next week and drinking a hand-pulled expresso while smoking Gauloises is on my to-do list. Coffee is generally pretty terrible in Paris, surprisingly enough. David Lebovitz has a diatribe in his book that enumerates the reasons for that, but it basically boils down to everyone buying the same awful beans, and laziness (sometimes reusing coffee grounds ugh). There are a few good spots, but they're hard to come by. My favorite is the Cafeotheque, near Metro Pont Marie. Basically just look for places that serve Italian coffee. (As a side note, the hot chocolate there is, in fact, incredible. Check out a little cafe called Comme a la Maison, in St. Paul. Also comes with atmosphere.)
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Mar 15, 2013 22:01
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Neena posted:My fiancé has a Keurig and is okay with it, but I think the coffee it makes tastes like poo poo. It's weak, watery, and just overall way shittier than what I get even out of our automatic drip (and that thing is a bit crappy itself). He's not as picky as I am when it comes to coffee, but I actually like to taste it and I've never had a good cup out of the Keurig. Regarding the K-Cup. I've been super lazy recently and been using it all the time for the past few months. The brew quality isn't that great, but the convenience is definitely there. The Starbucks K-cups are decent, but found on Amazon the San Francisco Bay Coffee K-Cups are fantastic for the K-cup system. They don't use much plastic (they have a paper mesh filter), the beans are organic, and they produce a much richer coffee brew than any other K-cup I've ever had. Oh, they're much cheaper too, at $27 for 80 cups. http://www.amazon.com/San-Francisco-Bay-Coffee-80-Count/dp/B007Y59HVM However, I'm a total coffee snob and just recently found and read most of this thread. Previously, I used to brew exclusively with a vacuum Bodum pot for many years, along with the French press, etc.. I was shopping for a Chemex and checked this thread first. I had a cup of Chemex brewed coffee at MoMa and it blew me away! So good. But because I'm also lazy, I decided on buying the Technivorm drip maker. It's for an office setup, so others will be using it too. Can't wait until it arrives next week!
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Mar 16, 2013 23:32
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Has anyone tried the new Francis Francis X7 Pod machines? They're being touted by Illy whose pods are "hyper-infused" in a 2 phase process or some marketing bs like that. Illy though, so I'm curious. (And I know what crap the original Francis Francis was sotheres that).
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Mar 17, 2013 03:53
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Have they invented a way for pods to contain not-stale pre-ground coffee yet?
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Mar 17, 2013 03:55
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Is Illy supposed to be good? I was at a Sur La Table buying kitchen stuff and they had cans of pre-ground Illy brand coffee. Looks like Folgers.
Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Mar 17, 2013 |
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Mar 17, 2013 10:19
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Me in Reverse posted:Have they invented a way for pods to contain not-stale pre-ground coffee yet?
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Mar 17, 2013 15:41
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Oh cool we are having the loving pod coffee machine discussion again. Great! So excited! Diddle that button and drink that garbagewater, y'all.
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Mar 17, 2013 16:24
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Now that I know what I've been doing wrong I will be donating my Keurig to a worthy cause. It's a commercial model anyway, best suited for many others to use.
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Mar 17, 2013 17:51
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Now that I know what I've been doing wrong I will be donating my Keurig to a worthy cause. It's a commercial model anyway, best suited for many others to use. If I've learned anything from this thread you should piss on it and then set it a blaze in hell flames.
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Mar 17, 2013 17:56
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I thought you all might enjoy this. From Conan, Jordan Schlansky buys an "elite" $500 espresso machine that still uses pods.
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Mar 17, 2013 18:19
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Florida Betty posted:I thought you all might enjoy this. Yeah, I caught this segment when it aired and got a good laugh out of the whole thing. You can't really be a coffee snob and use a pod based espresso machine.
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Mar 17, 2013 21:15
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Mu Zeta posted:Is Illy supposed to be good? I was at a Sur La Table buying kitchen stuff and they had cans of pre-ground Illy brand coffee. Looks like Folgers. Pre-ground coffee is never good.
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Mar 17, 2013 21:38
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Google Butt posted:If I've learned anything from this thread you should piss on it and then set it a blaze in hell flames. Nah, he should just sell it to someone who wants to spend a ton of money on lovely stale coffee, or Corla Plankun posted:Diddle that button and drink that garbagewater, y'all.
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Mar 17, 2013 21:39
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Is there a certain time at which after roasting coffee is ideal for brewing? Should I wait 24 hours after I roast a batch of coffee to use it? Or like 3 days?
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Mar 17, 2013 23:35
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You are supposed to wait at least a few hours after roasting before you use them, but you can use them right away and still get perfectly good coffee.
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Mar 17, 2013 23:49
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le capitan posted:Is there a certain time at which after roasting coffee is ideal for brewing? Should I wait 24 hours after I roast a batch of coffee to use it? Or like 3 days? The taste develops over time, some types of coffee hit their stride after a few days. Having been roasting my own coffee for a few months I can definitely taste when the beans are too "young". I generally wait 24 hours before trying a new batch.
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Mar 17, 2013 23:57
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Had brunch at a restaurant today called Outerlands and they surprisingly made and served coffee in a 6 cup Chemex. A girl was manually grinding the beans in some huge contraption too. Felt sorry for her but the coffee was pretty good. I feel like a snob now because I noticed they weren't using a scale or a timer while making it  It's a busy restaurant though so understandable.
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Mar 18, 2013 01:46
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le capitan posted:Is there a certain time at which after roasting coffee is ideal for brewing? Should I wait 24 hours after I roast a batch of coffee to use it? Or like 3 days? I usually give it at least 12 hours, but unless you're making espresso its not that critical. Giving it time will give you a better cup as its not conaminated by the degassing. (Espresso made with a young roast will ve horrific. You are basically making carbolic acid with the addition of pressure).
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Mar 18, 2013 02:00
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porktree posted:I usually give it at least 12 hours, but unless you're making espresso its not that critical. Giving it time will give you a better cup as its not conaminated by the degassing. (Espresso made with a young roast will ve horrific. You are basically making carbolic acid with the addition of pressure). I would say that you should really learn the bean you are roasting and know when it reaches a balance of flavors that you enjoy best because between days 1-2-3-4-5 you can get some really incredible difference in flavors. Especially if you stick with lighter roasts.
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Mar 18, 2013 04:34
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Landrobot posted:Regarding the K-Cup. I've been super lazy recently and been using it all the time for the past few months. The brew quality isn't that great, but the convenience is definitely there. The Starbucks K-cups are decent, but found on Amazon the San Francisco Bay Coffee K-Cups are fantastic for the K-cup system. They don't use much plastic (they have a paper mesh filter), the beans are organic, and they produce a much richer coffee brew than any other K-cup I've ever had. Oh, they're much cheaper too, at $27 for 80 cups. http://www.amazon.com/San-Francisco-Bay-Coffee-80-Count/dp/B007Y59HVM Cool, I'll pick some up for patients. I'm not about to make freshly ground coffee for everyone that walks into the door, thanks.
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Mar 18, 2013 06:23
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So my sugar keeps not fully dissolving in my coffee. Some just floats on top. I don't use much, so I know the coffee isn't oversaturated. WTF is going on? Halp.
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Mar 18, 2013 15:19
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djfooboo posted:So my sugar keeps not fully dissolving in my coffee. Some just floats on top. I don't use much, so I know the coffee isn't oversaturated. WTF is going on? Halp. May sound like a stupid question but how hot is your coffee?
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Mar 18, 2013 16:41
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djfooboo posted:So my sugar keeps not fully dissolving in my coffee. Some just floats on top. I don't use much, so I know the coffee isn't oversaturated. WTF is going on? Halp. ...stir it? Use syrup instead? Drink better coffee that doesn't need sugar?
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Mar 18, 2013 17:15
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Here is my saeco aroma kicking off some shots. Really need to get a thermometer on it, or a pid or a new machine.
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Mar 18, 2013 17:22
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Try finding a non pressurized portafilter first and see how you like it.
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Mar 18, 2013 18:06
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Doh004 posted:May sound like a stupid question but how hot is your coffee? As hot as this little piece of poo poo gets it!  Bob_McBob posted:...stir it? Use syrup instead? Drink better coffee that doesn't need sugar? I do stir, even stirring while pouring and directly after pouring into cup so coffee is at its hottest. I drink it both ways, with sugar and without, it depends on my mood. I found these recipes for syrups. I would just be using the simple syrup but have no clue how long that would be safe for since don't bacteria love to breed in sugary liquids? For reference the coffee I am using is Eight O'Clock French Vanilla (whole bean, blade grinded). Don't hate, I am a student on fixed income 
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Mar 18, 2013 19:36
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BraveUlysses posted:Try finding a non pressurized portafilter first and see how you like it. I hacked the existing one, removed all the pressurized stuff already.
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Mar 18, 2013 19:36
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MrEnigma posted:I hacked the existing one, removed all the pressurized stuff already. How are you liking this machine? I was looking to jump into espresso and from my research the aroma seems to be the cheapest one worth buying.
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Mar 18, 2013 19:47
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MrEnigma posted:Here is my saeco aroma kicking off some shots. Really need to get a thermometer on it, or a pid or a new machine.
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Mar 18, 2013 22:12
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Google Butt posted:How are you liking this machine? I was looking to jump into espresso and from my research the aroma seems to be the cheapest one worth buying. I don't have much to compare it to, but I think I paid $130 for it from seattlecoffeegear.com, removed the pressurization from the portafilter, got a tamp, and have been using it daily for 2-3 months. The only bad part is getting a really bitter or sour shot if the temp isn't right. The temp range on the 'ready to brew' is quite insane, something like 30-40 degrees. You can put a probe next to the boiler and then 'temp surf' to get it right (or just time from machine turn on to when the best shot is), or auber instruments sells a PID just for it, but it's ~$160. My goal is to switch to the Breville 900xl dual-boiler, so trying to avoid spending more on this one.
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Mar 18, 2013 22:18
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kim jong-illin posted:Any recommendations for coffee in Paris? I'll do being a romantic weekend getaway with my partner there next week and drinking a hand-pulled expresso while smoking Gauloises is on my to-do list. While the coffee scene in Paris is nowhere near as developed as some other European cities, you can find a good cup of coffee if you plan ahead a little. From this list I visited a few of the places mentioned and really enjoyed the coffee at Télescope. This is probably too late anyway, so hopefully you managed to find a decent place!
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Mar 19, 2013 00:35
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BLOOD YHELL WALL OF TEXT AHOY: TLDR: When they done? If you're doing light roasts, just try to keep things as even as you can through agitation and heat presence, get through first crack, kill the heat, agitate to even things out a bit, dump, cool, enjoy. If you're going dark, get a laser thermometer, get a fan, get a mesh colander. My little 10 inch fan from Target and a cheap rear end mesh colander from Amazon gets beans from 440 to below room temperature in about 60 seconds. Just time enough for me to walk into the house and find my tin. Rest 'em? Try it. If it works, yay. If not, no. Espresso commonly likes rested beans. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Catching up on the thread I saw a couple roasty questions I might be of help on. 1. Time, sound, or color? When my beans done, yo? To me, the only way to be sure is measurement, and that means a thermometer. We'll come back to that. When I roast, the first thing I'm paying attention to is color and the clock. That, plus just getting used to roasting using a given method gives you a good idea of if you're on "schedule" so to speak to hit first crack when you want to (and "when you want to" comes from experience as well). Once I hit first crack, I'm paying attention to sound. At this point I'm listening to see if it's an explosion of cracks (most of the beans hit first crack at the same time, my roast is tight) or if it's a slow simmer of cracking (the roast is kind of loose, the beans are uneven). If the roast is tight, I keep the gun and the agitation where it is and keep going. If it's loose, I maybe back the gun away half an inch and start agitating more. This can be tricky, as on some beans if you back the heat off right around first crack too much, the beans can come out tasting "baked" and not "roasted". But you want to back the heat off a smidge and agitate more to let what heat is in the bowl more evenly distribute. You may have to do this for the remainder of the roast (refer back to color for cues of how you're doing, because the beans aren't going to talk to you again until there be dragons). Ok, so we're past first crack and either we're tight, or we're in process of tightening. Our goal is for all the beans to hit our target at roughly the same time. The deeper of roast you go, the more critical this is. If you're going City or City+... your work is pretty much done. Maybe shut the gun of, stir for a bit longer to let the heat in the bowl just kind of even out into the beans (if necessary), and dump and cool. If Full City or beyond is your goal... then we keep going. More gun, more stirring. Ok, so now we're bound for second crack, and the evenness of roast becomes rather critical. The deeper of roast you're going for, the more damaging temperature differentials between beans can be. If say 25% of your beans are +10F of average, 50% are on average, and 25% are 10F below average. During first crack, this isn't such a big deal (not ideal, but nothing to freak out about). Up in second crack and beyond, you're talking individual degrees of temperature making a world of difference. A 10F high swing on 25% of batch up in this range can mean 25% of batch is... well... charcoal. ANd 50% of it is fine and 25% of it is still just making it out of first crack. Confused tasting roast with a touch of charcoal. So what to do? This is where a laser thermometer comes in really handy. It's a short, short walk for me when second crack starts on my darker roasts. Sometimes, it's 1-3 seconds after I start hearing those brittle snaps. As a rule, on a bean I haven't roast much, I set my target for 420-425F. If that works, and is tasty, I leave it alone. If I taste too much roast, next time I'll go to 410F. If I feel it needs more of the roasted flavors, I'll go 430F. I've had maybe two beans in the past year that took 440F to show their best, and I've yet to find a bean that requires me to go past that. It's also important to note that temperature carryover in the beans becomes very dangerous up at these temps. The beans could leave the roasting vessel just fine, and if they aren't cooled down fast enough, still burn too much to taste good at all. 2. Should beans rest? Some beans benefit from it, some beans don't, and sometimes it depends on how deep you roast them. Like porktree said, if you're not doing espresso, it's not such a big deal. But, regardless of brewing method, the bean's flavor will change as it oxidizes. The more volatile flavors will fade the quickest, that's the only thing factual that can be said. Other than that, it's all judgement by your taste buds. Maybe the stuff that faded was stuff you didn't like... so that's good. Maybe it was the aromatic heart of the bean... so that's bad. You just get used to it, and after many batches you get a feel for it. My wife's drip machine, I brew her stuff next morning on ~12 hours rest, full access to the air, then tin it after that. My espresso beans usually need at least 2 days minimum or they are sharp as hell. Most of the beans I've had lately have hit their sweet, chocolately stride at the 3-5 day mark. Killed off the absolute last of my Kochoha this past weekend. That bean, as just one example, becomes insanely good at the 5 day mark. Black tea, graham crackers, chocolate... heaven in a cup. Before that, it's good... don't get me wrong. It just really, really likes rest.
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Mar 19, 2013 04:09
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Clever Coffee Dripper ordered. Now to get a good grinder. Any thoughts on something like this from Amazon? Mr. Coffee BVMC-BMH23 Automatic Grinder Burrs instead of blades, decent price, overall positive reviews. I'd likely get a specific cleaning brush with it to take care of clogs and whatnot.
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Mar 19, 2013 14:34
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:Clever Coffee Dripper ordered. Now to get a good grinder. Any thoughts on something like this from Amazon? You can try it if you want. The cheapest recommended grinders are the Capresso Infinity and the Refurb Baratza Maestro/Encore. I've never used that grinder, but I don't think I've ever heard anything made by "Mr Coffee" spoken of in a good way, and generally < $50 grinders are awful. There have been a lot of people who tried to cut corners on the grinder in this thread, only to get fed up with it and purchase an Infinity or a Baratza. I would recommend buying one of those once, instead of losing 35bux and deciding to buy one of them later.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:39
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GrAviTy84 posted:You can try it if you want. The cheapest recommended grinders are the Capresso Infinity and the Refurb Baratza Maestro/Encore. I've never used that grinder, but I don't think I've ever heard anything made by "Mr Coffee" spoken of in a good way, and generally < $50 grinders are awful. There have been a lot of people who tried to cut corners on the grinder in this thread, only to get fed up with it and purchase an Infinity or a Baratza. I would recommend buying one of those once, instead of losing 35bux and deciding to buy one of them later. Hi, I bought a bodum, regretted it, and ended up buying a Baratza. Now I have two grinders and paid more than I should have out of pocket. Don't be me.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:47
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GrAviTy84 posted:You can try it if you want. The cheapest recommended grinders are the Capresso Infinity and the Refurb Baratza Maestro/Encore. I've never used that grinder, but I don't think I've ever heard anything made by "Mr Coffee" spoken of in a good way, and generally < $50 grinders are awful. There have been a lot of people who tried to cut corners on the grinder in this thread, only to get fed up with it and purchase an Infinity or a Baratza. I would recommend buying one of those once, instead of losing 35bux and deciding to buy one of them later. Mandalay posted:Hi, I bought a bodum, regretted it, and ended up buying a Baratza. Now I have two grinders and paid more than I should have out of pocket. Don't be me. Thank you for giving me the benefit of misfortune. Sorry to everyone who bought a bad burr grider. I've added an Infinity to my Amazon wishlist and will see if I can invest in one post-PAX.
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Mar 19, 2013 19:27
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Would a Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine BES860XL (http://www.amazon.ca/Breville-Barista-Express-Espresso-BES860XL/dp/B002S51RQG) be a good introductory espresso maker, or should I just spend a few hundred more and get a Rancilio and a good grinder? Specifically this one (http://www.amazon.com/Silvia-Version-3-Stainless-Steel/dp/B00076SCVG) The Breville looks nice, and it would save me a few hundred more on getting an espresso quality grinder. I've never made anything but drip coffee at home, but I've been craving cappuccino since I went to Italy over the summer. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated.
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Mar 19, 2013 21:08
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Never buy an espresso machine that has a thermoblock. Go to 1st-line.com and check out the brass boiler machines, I've heard good things about the LeLit as an entry level mahine. If you can afford it get a Silvia. 1st-line will occasionally have good deals on refurbs.
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Mar 20, 2013 04:01
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Anyone tried the Sowden Softbrew? I cracked my french press recently, and I'm thinking of getting one of these as a replacement. Saw one on the shelf at Augie's the other day:  Sort of like a backwards french press; you lift the grounds out when it's done brewing, rather than plunging. Seems like it would be sturdier than a press pot, too.
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Mar 20, 2013 15:33
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a handful of dust posted:Anyone tried the Sowden Softbrew? I have one of their teapots, and I'm not thrilled with it. The ceramic is only ok quality and it never seems like I get great circulation of hot water through the filter basket. The coffee version might do better, hard to say. They are very pretty though.
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Mar 20, 2013 16:36
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