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Lets talk about COFFEE

patrickBOOTH

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Use a Bonavita immersion dripper which I think is the same or similar to a Clever dripper. Difference is the mechanism that opens or closes the pour. Got it over the Clever because it is porcelain and not plastic. Have not tried an aeropress or a V60. Opinions say immersion brewing is inefficient regarding extraction compared to other pour over methods. I dismissed those opinions because I like the consistency and taste of the coffee it makes. Opinions say porcelain doesn't retain heat as well as plastic and I don't care because the coffee tastes good and the porcelain looks nicer. I do not drink the coffee when it is very hot coffee because as the coffee cools down the clarity of the flavor increases.
It is important to control and adjust the water temperature you use for light or dark roast beans. Water temp and the age of the beans are the variables I try to manage. I change the grind to speed up or slow down the pour time.
When I didn't have a grinder at work I would grind a couple doses of beans at home and take them to work in an airtight container. It worked fine.
Toss the filter and clean or rinse the device. That's all there is to do.
Whatever the shortcomings of this method are , I prefer the ease and consistency of the results over the frustration I hear of using a V60 and mastering the technique.
I agree that immersion makes the best coffee. I am with you on the clever style drippers. I have heard that some people change the water temp for darker/lighter roasts, but I have heard contrary recipes. Some say darker roasts need a hotter water to break the "shell", but this seems odd to me because lighter roasts are actually harder. I would think more roasting of the bean breaks the integrity of the bean and doesn't require as hot of water. That said, I try to hold as much constant as possible and tend to just use 200 degrees on everything.
 

Despos

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Felix was only in its 2nd month of business when I tried it. Went there once or twice a day over a 3 day visit to NYC. Curious if it is still good a couple years later.
200 is a good middle temp. Buying beans from a roaster close to my house. Their medium roast was bitter using temps over 195-198 but tasted balanced/good at those temps. Used 205 for their light roast and no issues.
 
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DavidLane

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The thing about the Ember that’s different than an insulated mug is that you can set a temperature it will maintain. Insulated mugs will often maintain a temperature that’s too hot to drink and you have to wait forever before drinking or drink much slower than you’d like. I still don’t like the Ember, mostly for other reasons, but it does solve a problem.

I agree, which is why I almost always pour my coffee into a ceramic mug from the insulated mug, which allows me to control the temperature.

-DL
 

A Y

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Some say darker roasts need a hotter water to break the "shell", but this seems odd to me because lighter roasts are actually harder.

James Hoffman says the opposite in the context of espresso: lighter roasts need hotter water.

If you're having underextraction issues with your pourover, increasing the water temperature has been pretty effective for me. Even a 2-degree change can cross the line from under to over.

A Clever is a great office coffee setup. It has only two problems: the nipple on the bottom breaks off after 1-2 years, so you have to buy a whole new Clever, and it takes longer than an Aeropress to make coffee because you have to wait for the whole thing to drain. Cleanup is very easy.

These days, my coffee setup is steeping in an insulated flask (an Espro in my case), and then pouring it through a paper filter in a generic no. 4 filter holder thing.
 

imatlas

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I like the sound of that Espro, but that price tag is a little hard to swallow. It’s a thermos flask with a filter, it would be expensive at $50 but over $100?
 

A Y

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It's obviously better made than its peers, but there are plenty of cheaper brewing devices out there if you don't want to spend that much.
 

cocostella

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No expert, but been using RO (so-cal hard water w/ healthy amount of minerals remaining), rested for a minute after boiling in glass kettle, Hario Skerton adjusted for a nice coarse grind, various fresh coffee beans from Birdrock Coffee Roasters (luckily just down street from my work), and a simple French press. Took a bit to find appropriate grind coarseness and amount of grounds, but once I did, results have been consistently delicious for years. I particularly enjoy grinding the coffee manually, while looking out of the kitchen window at the just risen sun. Gets things “moving” nicely. ?
 

patrickBOOTH

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James Hoffman says the opposite in the context of espresso: lighter roasts need hotter water.

If you're having underextraction issues with your pourover, increasing the water temperature has been pretty effective for me. Even a 2-degree change can cross the line from under to over.

A Clever is a great office coffee setup. It has only two problems: the nipple on the bottom breaks off after 1-2 years, so you have to buy a whole new Clever, and it takes longer than an Aeropress to make coffee because you have to wait for the whole thing to drain. Cleanup is very easy.

These days, my coffee setup is steeping in an insulated flask (an Espro in my case), and then pouring it through a paper filter in a generic no. 4 filter holder thing.

I just have little patience for pourover. Anything immersion tastes better and isn't as fickle IME. That's interesting what you say about the Clever breaking. I have had mine for 12 years with no problem. In fact I bought one for a coworker who has had his the same amount of time and uses it more than me with no problems.

I do have the clever like device, I forget the name, by Sweet Maria. It is essentially a filterless clever which you clean. I could never get it to work well, the filter would always just clog.

Your process using the thermos is great, I believe you've been doing it a while now. It pretty much acts like a Clover.
 

A Y

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Yeah, two consecutive Clevers broke within 1-2 years, and I stopped buying them after that, so maybe there's something about the water or coffee or something else that breaks them? To clean them I just rinse them out and don't remove the plunger (sorry if that's gross) so there's no mechanical stress on them. But hopefully I'm just the fluke here.

The cowboy coffee through a paper filter method was born of necessity after my 2nd Clever broke, and I kind of cobbled it together with what I had on hand. I still use it though it's sort of ridiculous to use part of a $100 brewer that way, mostly because the Espro is annoying to clean.

I agree with you on pourover. My Aeropress makes better coffee (acidic notes more highlighted and almost braindead simple) than the pourover, which I still occasionally mess up. It's just kind of fun to screw around with, and the coffee out of it is not too bad, and it's not hard to clean up afterwards. The only comparably good brew to the Aeropress I've had from a percolation brew was from a batch brewer in a coffee shop that was fresh, and then not even all of them or all the time: there's one coffee shop in town whose batch brew coffee is markedly superior to another shop's. And Peet's batch brew is actually not that bad either if you like dark roast.

I also have a stovetop vacuum pot from Hario, and to me, that's just a more complicated, messier way to make the same kind of coffee as the Aeropress.
 

patrickBOOTH

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My local go to is Variety Coffee. I have been going there since they opened when they served Stumptown, but within the past few years they have roasted their own beans. They used to literally make line up of French press coffee and pour it into a big urn. I loved it, however their output has increased significantly where that isn't practical anymore. They started using these large (forget the brand) commercial drip machines. They look new and fancy, but I noticed a significant decline in their coffee for a long time until they dialed it in correctly. Now it seems a lot better.

I have said this a lot in here, but if you have good water, good grinder, and fresh beans it is hard to make bad coffee. Could it be improved? Sure, but sometimes it isn't worth losing sleep over especially when a lot of the modern coffee contraptions are little more than novelties.
 

patrickBOOTH

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I will also mention that the above was my 36,000th post on here. What have I been doing with my life?
 

Benesyed

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Has anyone here done the driftway coffee subscription? So far it's been good
 

cocostella

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Jesus Patrick. I’ve only been here about a year less than you and have a bit over 2,700 posts. I thought I’d been fairly active too. Anyway, I agree with your last coffee take!
 

Piobaire

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Suggestions (under 2k) for a goose neck electric pour over kettle.
 

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