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Chiming in that a cheap, good coffee fix really is all about grinding fresh roasted beans at home, and avoiding lovely drip machines. Get a grinder, really any grinder, and nab a small batch of whole roasted beans. Avoid drip machines like the plague; every single one of them, besides the one in the OP and the one posted above, will give you crappy coffee brewed at a bad temperature, and will probably scorch the poo poo out if it as well. A French press or a manual drip device is cheap and makes for drat good coffee. Grind just before you brew, check your water temp, and prepare to embark on your journey to coffee bliss. Also, don't wuss out on the amount of grounds. I like 2 tablespoons of grounds for a cup of water. Many people misunderstand coffee, and think strong coffee = bitter coffee. It does not. Bad brewing makes for bitter coffee; good, strong coffee is rich and flavorful, not bitter. Bitter usually comes from brewing way too long, or scorching the coffee, two things most drip machines do all the time.
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Sep 19, 2011 16:45
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Nevvy Z posted:I was using a $20 Mr. Coffee until I shattered the carafe about a week ago. So I've taken to using the plastic cone inside as an improvised clever brewer and it's pretty amazing. A few spoons of coffee, a little more than a mug of boiling water, some hot water on the filter and in the mug to prep it for delicious, and 4 minutes later I've got some of the best coffee I ever made. This is pretty much how I got my first taste of properly brewed coffee. Welcome to the world of coffee that tastes good.
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Oct 3, 2011 17:28
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seravid posted:Help me, goons, for I have tasted this quality coffee you so praise and... it was pretty drat bad. Check your water temp and try a much finer grind. Drip likes a nice fine grind, not espresso fine, obviously, but much finer than what I use for my french press. If it's not one of those two, maybe you got a bad batch of beans?
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Dec 20, 2011 17:00
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seravid posted:I thought about that, maybe it's just me and I'm wasting everyone's time, but consider this: I highly doubt you don't have a taste for coffee, since you do like espresso. It definitely should not be watery either, or really really bitter and astringent. And as an aside, drip and french press coffee really shouldn't be that spergy. Yes, you could weigh out every cup and get the temp of your water before the pour and time the extraction, and yes, it will get you an epic cup of coffee if everything's right. But I wing it the vast majority of the time, and I definitely do not drink coffee that could be described as you describe it, so I'm guessing something is definitely wrong, and not your taste buds. Like I said before, try a fine grind, and also check the amount of grounds you use. I try and stick to a 2 tablespoon of grounds per cup, but I frequently go over that because I end up grinding more than I want to since I never weigh out my beans before brewing. But I'm guessing it's just a weak extraction from your coarse grind, or a bad batch of beans. Try seeking out a local roaster; mail order is nice, but no matter how good they are shipped, nothing really beats coffee roasted the day you buy it. Plus, it lets you try out smaller quantities more frequently. My money's on the coarse grind being the culprit. It really sounds like you're getting an under-extracted cup.
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Dec 21, 2011 06:00
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that Vai sound posted:Made a really nice tasting cup of press pot coffee. Ended up with what seemed a fair amount of sediment, though, but I'm not sure how much is normal. Anyone tried pouring through another additional filter to catch the rest? I usually toss the last sip due to sediment, but when I don't want any sediment at all I just put a coffee filter under the press.
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Dec 28, 2011 04:31
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seravid posted:Got my CCD This is why grinders can get really expensive, as it is difficult to get all of your coffee ground properly. You will always have sludge without a ridiculously expensive grinder, so just ignore it like gravity said. I go only by time for extraction because you start pulling bitterness past 4 minutes or so. Whatever sludge is left in the filter I just toss.
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Dec 28, 2011 20:09
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Vengarr posted:Are Keurig machines quite so terrible? I received one for Christmas even though my Standard Caffeine Intake Mechanism is soda. I'm not a coffee fanatic, but the one cup I've tried so far tasted fine to me. If you don't care about coffee, it's no worse than any other "get coffee instantly!" gimmick. It's one of those things where all the talk in the world isn't going to move you at all. I could go on and on about the cups of sublime coffee I've had in my life, but until you've had one yourself, or are really curious about trying one, you'll never believe how good coffee can really taste. If you rarely, if ever, drink coffee and you don't give a flying poo poo, yeah, stick with your K-cup machine. It's about as good as...well, generic gas station coffee, let's say. The cups are pretty expensive for the amount of coffee you get, but hell, if you drink a cup a month or something, it's really not worth worrying about.
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Jan 2, 2012 22:09
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Jmcrofts posted:Hey guys, me again with more newbie stuff. Sperglord answer: 1 minute. Reasonable answer: 1 week.
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Jan 11, 2012 22:41
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Steve Yun posted:Can I brew several cups in a pourover, and then stick it in the fridge for the rest of the week? Does it keep well? Depends on what you want to use it for. I don't like to reheat coffee that's already been brewed, as it seems to lose too much in the reheating. If you want to use it for iced coffee, or other cold coffee beverages, yeah, it keeps very well. But if that's the case, you might want to consider cold brewing, which consists of merely tossing grounds in with cold water, and letting it sit in your fridge overnight. Filter, and you're done.
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Feb 15, 2012 01:03
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So has anyone actually tried a cup from that contraption? I highly doubt it makes good coffee, but who knows, maybe it lives up to the hype....
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Apr 20, 2012 17:07
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Nullity posted:I feel somewhat bad now that I use a liquid milk coffee mix and instant coffee rather than all this fancy grinding. I even have the grinder in a cupboard somewhere, permanently unused. Haha, don't feel bad, it's just coffee. I admit I'll quaff some instant coffee if I feel incredibly lazy, but frankly, once you get used to your coffee routine, good coffee doesn't really take much more time than instant. Like, say you get a cheapo burr grinder, something that's completely unsuitable for espresso, but fine for french press. You can grind your beans and put them in your french press while your kettle (electric for ease and speed) comes to a boil. Pour the water in, and while you wait a few minutes (I like just under 4 minutes), prep your cup (I like to heat up my milk at this time), then push and pour. Cleanup is really easy if you have a kitchen sink mesh strainer; just swish a little bit of water in the press and just dump out the grounds into the strainer. A french press grind is really coarse anyway, so the mesh strainer catches most of it, and you can just knock that out into your trash bin. A decent (not uber-sperglord excellent) french press cup is really easy, surprisingly quick, and tastes miles better than instant. And once you get used to the taste of good coffee, you won't mind spending like 5 more minutes for a cup. Plus, there are other quick methods too; the aeropress takes just as much time, gives you no sediment if you don't like it, and the cleanup is even easier. Pourover takes a bit of skill to do it really well, but that's about as quick as well. So try making some decent coffee; I think you'll be surprised at how much more quality you get for just a tiny bit more time and effort.
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Apr 23, 2012 17:31
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Corla Plankun posted:Has anyone invented a mesh filter for grinds that blocks coarse grinds and lets fine grinds pass all the way through it, leaving appropriate grinds in the middle? It seems like this is a really obvious invention that would not even be difficult to create, so why the heck don't they sell them at walmart? Static cling makes things like that not work so well. If you could deal with the static cling problem in some way so that the really fine grounds would separate from the ideal sized grounds reliably, then I'd love to buy your invention.  Also, you would have to have different products for different coffee methods, or have some way of adjusting the filters, since the ideal grounds size differs depending on what kind of coffee you want to make.
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May 10, 2012 20:17
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PainBreak posted:So... My wife made me aware of this commercial yesterday. What in the gently caress? The thing that makes me blind with internet rage is the implication that people who actually like the taste of good coffee are richy-rich snobs that don't drink 'blue collar' coffee. gently caress that poo poo, that douche in the commercial is a suburban bitch with a drip. Everyone knows real 'blue collar' men only drink convenience store coffee that's been on the burner for at least 4 hours to properly reduce down into acrid sludge, along with a pack of reds for breakfast. Bougie-boo motherfuckers with their pricey Maxwell poo poo. 
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May 11, 2012 18:38
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nwin posted:I've been using a Keurig for the last 2 years. It was a gift that my wife and I wanted, so we bought it, and it finally began to dawn on me that we were paying $50-60 a month on K cups that produce average coffee. My wife loves the convenience of the K cup and likes the flavored coffees, I don't mind putting a bit of work into my coffee and I like Kona blend. No need to freeze your beans unless you want to store them for multiple months. But storing coffee for many months is a terrible idea; fresh roasted coffee is like good produce, so ideally you should be buying enough to go through in about week. In any case, for both whole and pre-ground, just store them in a cool, dark place. The pre-ground is a bit of a lost cause, since it starts losing deliciousness the moment it's ground, so just chuck it into a jar or something to toss into the cupboard. The whole beans you can just keep in the bag they came in; if they're really, really freshly roasted, you want to keep them in that bag so it can outgas. Even if they don't need to outgas, you don't have to keep them airsealed or anything. Just cool and dark is fine. Oh, and may I suggest a french press for the weekends? Cheapo burr grinders are fine for french press, and a french press makes such delicious coffee for so little effort and cost.
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Jun 2, 2012 18:24
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rockcity posted:That's sort of what I was worried about. Her knowledge of coffee of pretty limited though so I really don't know that she'd ever really notice the small differences that people who have been drinking coffee for a while notice. The good thing is that she's not terribly far from a coffee roaster so I can at least get her to buy fresh roasted coffee. I just know that when I told her that the grinder that I'd recommend was basically 4x what she'd spend on the french press that she seemed pretty put off by spending that much. I'd rather see her spend $30-40 and buy an ok grinder than to have it ground ahead of time and sit around for a week plus before getting used. I just can't recommend a blade grinder, especially for french press where the coffee that ends up finely ground just seeps through the mesh filter. At that price range, there really isn't a recommendation per se. Just troll around and get the cheapest burr grinder on sale at a big store, like Bed Bath and Beyond or some such. It'll be terrible, and have a godawful uneven grind with static problems and such, but at least it won't heat up the coffee during the grind like a blade grinder. And while the uneven grind will result in a very muddy cup of french press, you can tell her to grab some paper filters and wrap the plunger in a paper filter before she presses it, so the coffee comes out very clean. It's a very easy way of getting a clean french press cup if you can't afford a good grinder.
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Jun 22, 2012 02:58
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K-cup machines blow because they add to the weakness of a drip machine (bad water temps/not enough brew time) by adding an additional problem in having too little coffee grounds and not enough space for the grounds to expand. Reusable K-cups are fine if you like the taste of K-cups to begin with (in which case, this thread may not be for you), but if you think K-cups taste like rear end, reusable K-cups are just as bad. An Aeropress or making a great cup at home and popping it into a thermos will probably be your best bet. Heck, cold brew might even be your thing; it'd be easy to make a big batch of cold brew and stick it in the work fridge. EDIT: Brewing coffee in advance is fine. Extracting all the good stuff from coffee is very dependent on water temps and extraction time, but once you brew it well and toss it into a good vacuum thermos immediately, you don't really lose much by keeping it in the thermos. Sure, it won't be as hot as freshly brewed, but that's about it. Grinding in advance increases the surface area of the bean dramatically, releases volatile oils and aromas which disparate fairly quickly, and is therefore to be avoided at all costs. Well brewed coffee in a good vacuum thermos will have those volatile oils and aromas properly extracted in the brew, and the brew won't lose those wonderful smells and oils much so long as it's sealed well in the thermos. pnumoman fucked around with this message at 21:39 on Aug 7, 2012 |
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Aug 7, 2012 21:33
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