Lets talk about COFFEE

[A Y]

I'm not surprised that your tap water doesn't taste good especially if you're used to RO. Water is a huge factor in coffee, and even a Brita will make a big difference. Hoffman also found the Brita to be very good to his surprise. When I visit my family, I use Brita'd tap water, and it tastes good though with more minerality which causes more outgassing. Flavors are a little different than home, but delicious coffee is still delicious coffee.

I do want to try 3rd wave water at some point, but I should really use more of the ingredients I bought for my water mix before doing that.

re. yixing, my $30 Aeropress is made from plastic with no provenance. Also lots of mold flashing (seam lines) all around, but the plastic doesn't shrink and I can wash it with soap. Probably not even half handmade by a n00b apprentice tho. I have made tea with it too, which is probably heresy.

 

[nootje]

Guess I should have posted this here.
Sold my pavoni stradivari and grinder last year to go full auto. Had good experience with Jura and they are one of the highest quality vendors out there, so the set was replaced by the A1.

The old:

The new:

Which is currently packed up due to us building a new house..

 

[A Y]

This is a mostly fun, fluffy essay on coffee (except when it touches on the real issue of slave labor in coffee farming), and it kind of goes nowhere, but some of the stories in it are great.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/27/the-war-on-coffee

 

[stro]

great thread, not sure why i never looked for it.

i know nothing other than switching to espresso 18 months ago helped me cut out an awful lot of mountain dew products and sweet tea (so there's an alternate universe where i chose to jump in on a different thread last week asking how best to gong fu brew a raising canes recipe, which i'm sure would have gone over great), and i've been running down rabbit holes on home-barista for the last 6 months. so i pulled the trigger on this stuff 3 weeks ago after my coffee shop shuttered for the pandemic and i have been absolutely smitten with the process and the results. i still know basically nothing.

Spoiler: profitec 300 & eureka specialita

I was a serious coffee geek probably ~12 years ago where I would get gadgets and brew at 3am and stand on your head and all of that, but it is a novelty that wears off when you soon realize the recipe for great coffee is very simple. All else is splitting hairs.

i read back through this thread a bit and this post jumped out at me as a sentiment i probably needed to see and get around to adopting really soon.

having said that.....i sure am interested in dipping a toe into this nascent water recipe discussion!!

Amazon TDS meter? Mixing the recipes is giant PITA too even for concentrates because you have weigh out with 0.1g precision.

i have a pretty cheap 0.1g scale we got for baking and i was able to get a concentrate together for a robert pavlis recipe i found without too much effort. granted, that was a simpler recipe than the matt perger one in that you only add potassium bicarbonate. i—an admitted idiot!—am happy with my results. but i know some people are adamant that you need to add more than bicarbonate. curious if anyone here holds that opinion, and if so how they've tested or otherwise reached that conclusion?

Vac pot, aka siphon. It's awesome.

Spoiler: siphon pic

View attachment 1313820

Clean brew, paper/metal filters, cool to watch, and consistently high-quality result. Plus it's one of the oldest brew methods around. You'll love it.

this is so cool. thank you for sharing. i've seen one in my coffee shop on a shelf but never thought to ask them what it was for. i will be surreptitiously admiring these for the rest of this morning. surreptitiously because if my wife, who has been content with her daily french press setup for the past 10+ years, sees me ogling more coffee equipment right now then i may not be not long for this world.

 

[Belligero]

this is so cool. thank you for sharing. i've seen one in my coffee shop on a shelf but never thought to ask them what it was for. i will be surreptitiously admiring these for the rest of this morning. surreptitiously because if my wife, who has been content with her daily french press setup for the past 10+ years, sees me ogling more coffee equipment right now then i may not be not long for this world.

My pleasure. If it helps your case, you could try arguing that as long as you're buying good beans, you can't afford not to own a vac pot!

Seriously — the bang/buck ratio is way better than an espresso setup, plus they're maintenance-free and look nice. Beats FP every time for brew quality in my opinion, too.

 

[dieworkwear]

For people who buy beans from remote roasters through the mail, I can say that there's no greater satisfaction than having your beans arrive exactly on the day that you run out. It's like hitting a three-pointer with nothing but net on the last second buzzer.

 

[A Y]

A similar feeling is when you pour out the last beans in a bag, and it's exactly the right amount you need.

 

[dieworkwear]

A similar feeling is when you pour out the last beans in a bag, and it's exactly the right amount you need.

Haven't had that happen yet, tbh. I can only imagine the feeling.

 

[mhip]

Haven't had that happen yet, tbh. I can only imagine the feeling.

I live near epic roasters, but I used to order from one in Seattle, and loved seeing the handwritten roasting date, that was like, 4 days earlier...

 

[Despos]

A similar feeling is when you pour out the last beans in a bag, and it's exactly the right amount you need.

This happened to me last week for the first and only time. Last bean hit the 20 gram mark on the nose.

Don’t order online as much as I used to. Excellent roaster , Reprise Coffee Roasters, 15 minutes from my house.
Plus, he consistently pulls a great shot of espresso.

If you want to try a new roaster, give them a try. Would help them out. They had to close for the pandemic and have been open a few hours each day since reopening. Getting just enough traffic now to bring staff back to work.
If you like Natural process;
Nicolas & Angela’s is my favorite for brewing or pour over.
Tabi is really unique. Most body of any coffee I ever had. Very balanced. Only gripe about it is the floral notes which I don’t care for but makes a great cup.
Odd thing with both of these is they get better as they aged. Usually not the case with beans. Maybe because of the processing method? Not sure.
The coffees are named after the owners of the farms.
Spaceflower is a good blend for espresso. Sweet chocolate

Reprise Coffee Roasters

Reprise Roasters is a specialty coffee roaster with cafes in Evanston and Chicago. Fair trade, organic, sustainably sourced, and locally roasted coffee beans for your highest enjoyment.

www.repriseroasters.com

 

[lefty]

I broke a French press carafe this morning - the only method of coffee making at my cabin - so whipped up some cowboy coffee. Boiled water, added grounds, stirred, waited, added cold water, poured.

After years of the press, chemex, Nespresso, that stupid aeropress thing, single pour over, numerous espressos all over the world, this may have been the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

lefty

 

[stro]

asked my wife this morning if affogato is the best food i make (lol, "make"). she said no but i think she was lying.

 

[mhip]

As those kids in the JMM thread are fond of saying...
The Aeropress *****.

 

[imatlas]

After years of the press, chemex, Nespresso, that stupid aeropress thing, single pour over, numerous espressos all over the world, this may have been the best cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

A long, long time ago I had this amazing cup of coffee at my hotel in Chiapas. I told the owner it was one of the best cups I‘d ever had, and he said “Thank you! My brother grew it, he will be happy to hear that!”

 

[lefty]

I've been making it for the past few days. So much better than coffee filtered with paper or metal.

lefty