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Does anyone have any home roaster recommendations? I've done a couple batches via the hot air popcorn popper method, but my popper got knocked off of the counter and broke and I was thinking about going to an actual roaster. From a quick skim of the few affordable options (sub $200) it seems like the FreshRoast SR500 is the best viewed option. Does anyone have any experience with it or anything else in that price range?
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Nov 9, 2011 15:42
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Astronaut Jones posted:You can also do it in Poppery hot air popcorn poppers. There's a lot of home roasters who use them on coffeegeek and home-barista. That's what I was using before it was knocked off my counter and broke. I've done the homebrew ways of roasting and I'm looking to take a step up to be able to have a little more consistency to my end results.
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Nov 9, 2011 21:22
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Keyser S0ze posted:Yeah, if your going to spend $40 you might as well spend $90 on one you won't toss out after a month. I'll second the Capresso. I've had mine for 3+ years now and use it almost daily and it's fantastic for the money. It's pretty loud, but most grinders are. Well worth the $90.
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Nov 12, 2011 15:05
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IronSaber posted:My dad is really into espresso after my cousin left her espresso machine behind after she lived with us for a few months. The thing is it's an older machine and is showing its age. I want to get my dad a new one for Christmas. You're going to need to give a price range. Also keep in mind that "good" in terms of espresso machine, you're talking $1000. You can get capable ones however starting around $300. Anything below that and they're really mediocre at best.
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Nov 21, 2011 15:11
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IronSaber posted:I am willing to spend $300 - $600 if that helps. I'd look at Gaggia. They're typically the most recommended in that price range. I have an older version of this one and it works very well for the price. The site below also has a promo going on for 20% off Gaggia units, so it brings it down to a pretty reasonable price. http://www.wholelattelove.com/Gaggia/new_baby.cfm Does your dad have a good grinder to go with it?
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Nov 21, 2011 16:25
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IronSaber posted:So it looks like this machine does a lot of other stuff besides making espresso; is there any machine that does just espresso? What does you mean a lot of other stuff? It steams makes espresso and steams milk. That's two things and pretty much every espresso maker has a steam wand. Theirs doubles as a hot water dispenser too so technically three things, but I'm not sure what exactly you're looking for, this is a pretty standard unit. Even the cheaper Gaggia units have the same functions for the most part. The nice thing about the one I linked is that it has two heating elements so it heats up faster and holds heat longer which is handy.
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Nov 21, 2011 18:51
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Cyril Sneer posted:I'm also in the process of moving away from diner coffee. I've made it a point to try the various different styles - espressso, lattes, mochas, etc. but I can never really tell the difference. Or, more precisely, I don't have a good sense of what the qualities of each are supposed to be. Of the styles you listed, they're all made with espresso. Espresso is essentially a quickly brewed under pressure, concentrated coffee. It's a lot more intense and has a somewhat thicker mouthfeel to it. Because of the short brew time, contrary to popular belief, it has less caffeine than drip brewed coffee. The rest of the drinks you listed are all beverages made with espresso. Lattes and cappuccinos are similar, they're both drinks typically made with 2 shots of espresso and steamed milk. Lattes use just steamed milk, whereas a a cappuccino is roughly half steamed milk and half milk foam. A mocha, at least in the sense of the form you're thinking of it is basically a chocolate flavored latte, think coffee flavored hot chocolate. The term mocha however was used to describe a type of coffee bean in the middle east centuries ago, long before it was used to talk about chocolate of coffee shops. I believe the name came from the port they exported all their coffee from. I remember reading about it in a coffee book I read about a year ago. Edit: Forgot about Americano which is a shot of espresso with hot water added to it to fill the cup. rockcity fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Nov 24, 2011 |
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Nov 24, 2011 05:47
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Copernic posted:Has anyone used tonx.org or could recommend a coffee-by-mail service? I'm thinking about asking for a Tonx membership for Xmas. All I want is something that's an improvement on supermarket whole bean bags. Tons of roasters all over the US deliver. In fact, my favorite one from my old hometown will ship anything over 1 lb for free. http://www.chazzanocoffee.com/ I found them about a year ago and went in on a slow day and the owner actually took me back to their roasting room and did a batch for me so I could watch the whole process start to finish. After that he let me try a bunch of different coffees prepared in a bunch of different ways for free. He is an awesome dude and his coffee is outstanding.
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Nov 30, 2011 20:48
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As the few people above me have noted, moka pot coffee is closer in strength to espresso, but lacks the pressure of a real espresso machine that produces the crema that gives espresso it's noted mouthfeel. An aeropress just makes strong coffee that is somewhere between french press and espresso in terms of strength. Aeropress coffee to me is better for everyday use than what a moka pot produces. Moka pots are good for mixed coffee drinks or foods that doesn't necessarily need crema or the body of real espresso though. My mom has one and only uses it for cooking.
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Dec 1, 2011 05:33
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Doc Faustus posted:According to Starbucks' website, which is probably good enough, a 16oz "Flavored Latte" is 37g of carbs. A 20oz bottle of soda, which has less caffeine, is ~70g of carbs. And I'm not gonna worry about the 6g of fat. Yes, it's definitely half the sugar, but it's still not the best substitute if you whole idea was getting rid of soda. Have you tried using something like stevia? It's the only thing I'll put in coffee aside from steamed milk. Edit: You'd also be surprised that the better the coffee is, the less additives are really needed. Freshly roasted coffee I drink straight, otherwise I just do a splash of steamed skim milk. rockcity fucked around with this message at 07:08 on Dec 1, 2011 |
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Dec 1, 2011 06:50
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surrender posted:Thanks for the advice, guys. The coffee that they buy is an espresso grind, but y'all are right - an expensive espresso machine would be wasted on it. I'll see if I can convince them to try a Chemex or Technivorm. And thanks for the heads up on Catalina Coffee! A grinder is what you really want more than the method of brewing. Get them a decent burr grinder like something from Bartaza and and maybe a pour over like a chemex and a french press. Just getting fresh ground coffee is going to be a gigantic improvement. You can get all of that for around $200.
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Dec 1, 2011 22:39
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lags posted:Yeah I agree but I got the impression that they weren't willing to change the actual coffee source. Otherwise I agree. I was assuming they'd be open to it, at least since the espresso maker he linked has one built in.
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Dec 2, 2011 03:42
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Abu-Saleh posted:Brewed coffee it is then, all right guys. Are you eating before you have your coffee or just making it and going? I have no problems if I eat before or while having my coffee, but if I get up and have a cup of coffee before eating, it causes problems. I didn't find that out until college when I was running late for an exam and bought a coffee to drink rather than having breakfast. My stomach was doing backflips the whole exam.
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Dec 4, 2011 17:24
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My mom said my aunt is looking for a Christmas gift idea for me and I was thinking about a vac pot. I've wanted one for a while, but never really pursued buying one for some reason. Does anyone out there have one and have any input on what to look for? I'm thinking I might want one that has a stand as I can see using it as a neat theatrical type thing.
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Dec 7, 2011 04:28
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Bob_McBob posted:What grinder do you have? I have a Capresso Infinity. If I go tabletop, I definitely do plan to get a butane burner, but I'd probably buy that part on my own. The roaster I like back in MI made me coffee with one of the Yama ones and he used a butane burner too. It was fun to watch which I think made me want one even more.
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Dec 7, 2011 04:52
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Rids! posted:I prefer french press or drip brew but my girlfriend is obsessed with the pod machines so I'm thinking about getting her one for christmas. She's not super fussy about her coffee, it just needs to be quick and easy to operate/clean. Probably the Keurig, even more so because you can buy a filter basket and put your own coffee in it, though I have a feeling she'd probably stick with the pre-packed k-cups. It would give you another option for simple drip brew with fresh coffee though.
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Dec 7, 2011 22:10
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Oz_Bonus posted:Is this the write thread to talk about latte art? I typically like freepour latte art better, but some of those are awesome. I love the abominal snowman looking guy.
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Dec 14, 2011 15:02
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hotsauce posted:Why? Is the Breville grinder really junk? I think people are more sad that you're spending $1200 on a consumer espresso maker. You're just justifying it in your head because you have amazon money to spend. It's still a $1200 overpriced machine, just because you're only spending $300 on it doesn't mean that that is all it's costing you. I'd personally use the amazon money on something else and if you're willing to invest in espresso, spend less money on a better unit. Sadly most of what you want to look for isn't on amazon. Edit: If you want to go the amazon route, I'd look at this Rancillo Silva. http://www.amazon.com/Rancilio-Silvia-Espresso-Machine/dp/B00076SCVG/ref=sr_1_19?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1323923554&sr=1-19 rockcity fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Dec 15, 2011 |
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Dec 15, 2011 05:31
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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. I thought bitterness is often a relation to extraction time, usually meaning it was too slow and you'd want a coarser grind. It might just seem bitter because it didn't extract enough so you're not getting the enough of the coffee flavor with it in which case, yeah, go finer. Edit: That's also a fairly acidic coffee if I remember which might also be why it's coming off bitter. If you're not used to acidic coffees you might want to try something smoother like an Indonesian or Brazilian. rockcity fucked around with this message at 17:34 on Dec 20, 2011 |
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Dec 20, 2011 17:29
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Since no one has asked this here are a few questions. A. How much coffee have you had before this? B. Was there cream and sugar in it? C. Are you putting anything in it now? If all you knew before this was coffee with cream and sugar, then it's going to seem watery and bitter. There is no shame in starting off drinking coffee with cream and sugar. Not everyone's taste buds, especially the bitter receptive ones act the same. The more coffee you drink and the more you learn what you like in a region, roast and brew method, the less additives you'll need.
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Dec 21, 2011 04:55
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Lots of useful bits of information usually come out that are pretty informative when someone has basic problems or questions anyway. I'm going to agree with pnumoman and say that you should try a finer grind. If you're still getting "watery" coffee, it might just be weak and because the actual flavors aren't being extracted, you're just getting a bad tasting, hot water.
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Dec 21, 2011 07:10
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seravid posted:
You want to grind it medium coarse and let it steep for about 4 minutes then filter. The trouble with filtering with tour dripped is that it adds more time. You need a fine mesh of some kind. Honestly I'd just buy a french press, they are dirt cheap.
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Dec 21, 2011 19:09
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that Vai sound posted:Finally received the new Virtuoso grinder that comes with Preciso burrs. I was having trouble with it at first. The bean hopper would turn on its own to finer settings when I started grinding, and sometimes nothing came out. It took a little while to figure out that the red tab on the top burr (used for alignment) was painted on the wrong side. Now it seems to be working fine when I set it up backwards to the instructions. What is going on with them lately? The guy getting the filthy one and yours being incorrectly labeled. Their quality control is a bit suspect at the moment.
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Dec 22, 2011 02:44
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seravid posted:Wait, what? After reading the OP I was set on the CCD, but couldn't find it here in Europe. I just re-checked and Hasbean doesn't sell it...? Brazilian coffee is pretty mellow and smooth, might be more your speed as far as drip coffee goes. I'm on a business trip right now and I'm really anxious to get home because Christmas gift of a Freshroast SR500 and four lbs of Sweet Maria's green coffee is waiting for me. I'm going to roast a lb of it when I get back so I can bring it with me on the flight back home as a thank you. Really excited to get to roasting.
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Dec 22, 2011 18:51
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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? You can, but it's also probably going to get rid of some of the body that french press coffee is known for. I personally just don't drink the last sip. I did however just get a vac pot for Christmas which produces somewhat similar coffee, but without the sediment. Really excited to fire this thing up, but I need to pick up some denatured alcohol for the burner.
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Dec 27, 2011 19:55
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Fired up my new vac pot for the first time this morning. It started off well, but I definitely left too much of the wick on the alcohol burner up so the flame was running a bit hot and during the steeping portion the water was kicking too much and some of the coffee was starting to fire back into the bottom vessel and the turbulence ended up breaking the pressure early. The coffee still came out alright, maybe a touch bitter because the water was too hot, but still good overall. Going to try it again tomorrow with a shorter wick. Definitely gives me a reason to invest in the butane burner at some point just to be able to lower the temp during the steeping.
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Dec 30, 2011 15:46
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Bob_McBob posted:Butane is definitely the way to go with a vac pot. Can't really help you with an alcohol burner since I've never used one. Are you letting the water go to the top chamber before adding the coffee? That is my normal method since it lets you get the water to the right temp first. Some vac pots come with different instructions. I didn't, but I've seen people do it that way. I've seen arguments for and against both ways of doing it. The general consensus with putting them in ahead of time is that you need to make sure your water is hot when you put it in the bottom chamber, otherwise it can start to go up early and that's when you have temp problems. I'm pretty sure my problem was just too much wick. I searched through the instructions some more (which wasn't easy as 90% of it is japanese) and it looks like they say you only want about 3mm of wick and I had way more than that, so I'm sure that was the problem. Also, I'm not 100% sure how to set up the filter. I have the one small one that has the chain on it, but I also have the bigger flat filter as well. Do you just set the bigger filter on top of the chained one? I did that but it just floats up with the water and I can't imagine it's doing much. It almost seems like you'd want to poke a hole in it and feed the chain through it, but if that were the case, I'd think they'd put the hole in it for you.
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Dec 30, 2011 16:22
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Another Dirty Dish posted:Sure looks that way! http://www.housingnyc.com/html/resources/faq/quality.html#smoke Have you run it through the dishwasher? Cyril Sneer posted:Yikes. I just received a french press and grinder for christmas...am I really supposed to be thinking about it this much? Maybe at the start, just because you want to know what works and what doesn't. Once you get the hang of it, you don't need to be so precise and you'll learn how do it without exactly measuring. I know how much coffee to use by visually looking at how much goes into the grinder and I know how high up the water needs to be in the press. rockcity fucked around with this message at 06:11 on Jan 6, 2012 |
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Jan 6, 2012 06:08
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wildlele posted:A few things, its simply and beautifully designed. There is one button (on/off) so you don't have 88,000 settings cluttering up the machine. It just works. Temperature was mentioned already. Lastly I feel like it brews the coffee more powerfully, like I taste it better, feel the caffene stronger even though I havn't even switched to fresh roasted and ground beans. You're using a Terchnivorm and pre-ground coffee?
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Jan 11, 2012 14:44
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30 Goddamned Dicks posted:Michael Arrington pretends he's a true "coffee geek" The fact that he has an aeropres, chemex, and a zojirushi water heater and still uses Starbucks coffee makes my head hurt.
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Jan 11, 2012 21:05
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Bob_McBob posted:
Yeah, I would agree. Just take a look at the product recommendations thread in PYF. Anytime anyone asks about a recommendation about coffee 20 people jump down their throat about the aeropress and mention nothing else about all the other elements that go into the cup.
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Jan 11, 2012 22:20
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Jmcrofts posted:Hey guys, me again with more newbie stuff. Not to not answer your actual question, but if you're new to brewing your own coffee, I'd probably skip the moka pot or anything that requires a specific grind. If it were me, I'd use the blade grinder and just use a simple pour over brewer. Pour over is pretty forgiving and needs little investment.
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Jan 11, 2012 22:48
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wildlele posted:I'm cheap, why would I throw out my tin of pre-ground if I've already paid for it? That much I get, but it's pretty crazy to spend $300 on a drip brewer without having a decent grinder.
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Jan 12, 2012 14:31
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Bob_McBob posted:The entire specialty coffee industry is getting a lot of good chuckles out of the whole "blonde" thing. Starbucks doesn't follow any of the usual industry nomenclature. "Blonde" to them means not roasting the poo poo out of the coffee past second crack to everyone else. I don't get that either. If they roasted them until they actually looked blonde, they wouldn't even be at first crack.
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Jan 12, 2012 19:29
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Cyril Sneer posted:I just watched that video and they are using what seems to me to be an extremely coarse grind for a french press. You want to use something just a bit coarser than what you would for drip coffee, something in the medium-coarse range. Anything finer and you're going to get even more sediment and it will over-extract, anything coarser and you won't extract enough. Doh004 posted:Here's what I got: It's not that easy to tell a roast by a picture, largely because with the variance in the beans not every bean looks the same at certain roasts. The best way to tell roasts is by listening when you're roasting. I'm not sure how much you read on roasting beforehand, but there are two main stages of roasting, first crack and second crack. These are the two distinct times where you'll hear the beans making small cracking or popping sounds. Once the roast has gotten completely through the first crack and very few beans are making that sound, you're at a city roast. Once you've gone just a bit past that you hit city+ and just a bit further is full city. Just as you're starting to hear the beginning of the second crack is when you hit full city. Once you start to hear the second crack is when you're at a full city+. Lastly when you get to the tail end of second crack is when you hit a vienna roast. How long these take with your method is sort of trial and error. If you want to really get a good idea. Roast a batch all the way through second crack and get an idea of when each stage is in terms of time. This will really help you gauge what roast you're at when you're in the harder to discern stages between the two cracks. rockcity fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Jan 30, 2012 |
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Jan 30, 2012 17:08
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Doh004 posted:I made a pot of this, this morning! I was surprised to find that I think I actually over-roasted these beans. I'm always scared that I'm going to underroast them and end up getting thin dirt water. It still tasted pretty drat good, but it could be better! Try doing it again just a little beyond first crack so you can get an idea of two roasts pretty far apart on the spectrum. I like doing small batches at different roast levels and trying them to find out the sweet spot for the beans. Sweet Maria's usually tells you suggested roasts on the labels which is nice too.
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Jan 31, 2012 17:09
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qutius posted:Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but whenever I make up a batch of cold brew, I just use a big mason jar or two. They seal well, are easy to store and are cheap IMO. Yeah, I'm not sure what you're looking for here. You can cold brew in any container that holds liquid, you just need to strain it. I just make batches in my french press and use that to strain it.
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Feb 4, 2012 01:19
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And 15 seconds into second crack is a pretty dark roast. At that stage you've pretty much lost all of the bean characteristics.
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Feb 6, 2012 20:16
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Doh004 posted:Wait, you want the "bleached" (that's what they're labeled as) filters and you want to moisten them before you put the grinds into them? Is this the same for a regular drip machine as well? Pre-wetting a filter does two things, it warms up the housing that holds the filter so it's not cooling down the water as much and the more important thing is that it's giving the filter the shape of the filter housing. If you put a dry filter in and just start pouring water onto the grounds, the filter can buckle and bend in ways that aren't good. I find this actually happens even more in traditional drip machines. Even if you're not using hot water, just dampening the filter a bit to make sure the sides are fitted to it is a good idea.
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Feb 15, 2012 16:20
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Lord Dekks posted:I'm probably going to get crucified for saying this in the thread, but the Pikes Place actually makes a really really good french press. Yes their roasted to hell and super oily, but done in a french press it really has a nice kick to it, brilliant for an afternoon when you're super tired. You'd get more of a kick from a lighter roasted coffee. The most caffeine you're going to get out of coffee is a city roast done in a french press.
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Feb 21, 2012 15:27
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