How to make a good cup of coffee

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mingus2112
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Post by mingus2112 » Sun Jun 15, 2008 10:21 am

Zoltar wrote:Sumatra is like dirt.
I've had Starbuck's Sumatra and it's like dirt. MY Sumatra is far from dirt. I get unroasted coffee from sweetmarias.com and roast it myself. Unroasted (green) coffee lasts from 1 to 2 years (stored properly) while roasted coffee lasts about a month for regular coffee and 7-10 days for espresso. Before I get flamed about this, i'll say that most people are used to and actually like stale coffee. That's OK. "Stale" coffee is an American staple! When I drink coffee out, I can tolerate stale coffee. Some of it I even like (7-11's Fusion coffee is kick ass). At home, though, it has to be fresh.

Back to Sumatra. . .
I have two kinds of Sumatra. . .One of them is "Aged." It's not unlike aged beef where it's "aged" in a controlled environment. blah blah blah. . .It tastes great though. The Aged Sumatra is one of my favorite coffees.

I keep my Cuisinart drip machine in the box and only use one of my Bodum french presses for my own coffee. . .but when I have sessions at the house I break out the drip machine. Since I try to keep at least a 1/2 pound of fresh (1 to 2 day old tops) coffee on hand, that'll make about 4 pots in the cuisinart.

My espresso machine is another story altogether as is the life cycle of coffee, etc.

If anyone's interested in seeing pics of my coffee setup, maybe i'll post it here.

-James
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Post by willhouk » Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:05 pm

Speaking of espresso I have a Seiko espresso machine and it is amazing. It's pretty small, brews a great shot with a good amount of cremma and will steam milk quickly. Starbucks sells it as the "Barrista" machine but you can get the Seiko version cheaper.

By the by Alton Brown says for brewed coffee the ratio is 2 tablespoons of coffee for every 6-8 oz of water. And the water must be boiling to brew the coffee right. This is why most machines don't do a good job. It's best to boil the water with a tea kettle and use a mellita filter, this set up ironically is cheaper than most machines. Fresh ground is important too.
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Post by DrummerMan » Tue Jun 17, 2008 12:46 am

The taste of French Pressed coffee is great, but I like my coffee HOT when I drink it, and it takes me longer than 5 minutes to get through a cup of coffee. I dump even remotely luke warm coffee and refill. The Press is usually made out of thin glass and doesn't retain heat very well... good for a casual brunch with friends, but inefficient for me in the studio.

Now if someone made a thermal French Press that was bigger than the personal sized ones they (at least used to) sell at Starbucks, that could keep the coffee REALLY hot for a long time, I might change my tune.

For a drip machine, my vote is, hands down, for the Bunn home machines. The simple two switch kind, like this:
http://www.cookware.com/Bunn-38300%2E0018-BUN1005.html
This is what I got after a lot of research. I was going to write all the reasons out here, but it was coming out kind of preachy, so I'll just say it kicks all kinds of drip coffee ass. I promise, it's the exact same machine, only smaller, that they use in 98% of fine coffee houses in the US. Your favorite little cafe down the street uses it, including Larry's own favorite, Stumptown.


Other useless (or maybe useful) trivia, myth-busting and off-topic opinions i picked up in my 10 years serving coffee on and off to a small corner of Brooklyn:

-Darker coffee is NOT stronger coffee (in terms of caffeine). Darker beans have been roasted longer, and during this process, more of the oils and caffeine are "cooked-out", leaving us with a maybe stronger tasting coffee, but one with actually less caffeine. You make not like hearing this, tough guys, but it's true: If you really need an extra jolt, you probably should be asking for the "light" roast. On the same note, adding a shot of espresso to your coffee is not doing as much for your caffeine intake as you may think. Though, the act of ordering a "red-eye" seems to put a certain confident swagger in some people's steps.8)

-Also, "Tall", "Venti", and "Grande" are not actually sizes. They are brand product names used by Starbucks, and they really don't have any use outside of that particular establishment, especially when used wrong. I don't know how many times someone came up to the counter and asked for a "Tall" coffee, when I asked them if they meant a "small" coffee (which is what it means in Starbuckspeak), they would look confused and annoyed, and respond, shortly, "No. Large.". Hmmmm....

-I bash Starbucks alot. I don't really like their burnt drip coffee, and I find some of their managerial practices distasteful, but I will agree with a previous poster and say that when you're on the road in the middle of Indiana, and you're tired, and you don't know what's good in the local town, and you don't really have the time to wander off the interstate and find out, and you see that F**KING Starbucks sign coming at you at 80mph, it's like a GODSEND! I hate to admit it, but it's true.

-I will also agree will all those who say that a conical BURR GRINDER is the way to go if you have the option of grinding your own beans. It grinds all the beans more consistently, meaning you won't have little grinds and bigger chunks in the same batch (which can and does happen in small electric hand grinders, and can add to both under- and over-brewed coffee in the same pot, which, unfortunately, doesn't cancel each other out ). It also means that once you have the grind level set to where you want it, each time you make coffee it will be just the same.

-When measuring "scoops". If you've lost your "scooper", measure with Tablespoons. You probably don't even need an actual Tablespoon measure. Most likely, the big spoon in your silverware drawer is a Tablespoon (as well as the small one being a teaspoon). The coffee standard is 1 Tablespoon for each cup of water, though most people use a "heaping" Tablespoon (which probably ends up being about 2 Tablespoons), so even if your silverware isn't perfectly accurate, as long as you "heap", you should be in the ballpark.

That's it, for now. Happy brewing, everyone!
Geoff Mann
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mingus2112
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Post by mingus2112 » Tue Jun 17, 2008 6:55 am

+700 on everything Drummerman said. . .

Only thing I have to add is that a CONICAL burr grinder is great for any sub-$300 grinders (I used to have a Baratza Virtuoso that had 40mm conical burrs), but for better grinders (I have a Rancilio Rocky with 50mm FLAT burrs) conical burrs offer no advantage. The flat burrs actually work better with larger burr-sets.

OK. . .so here I am touting my $350 coffee grinder (not to mention the $450 machine) and thinking to myself. . ."James. . .shut up. . .this isn't the coffee forum!!" But hey. . .this just goes to show that some of us are as crazily into everything else they do just as much as recording. That's why I hate picking up other hobbies. It's a financial death trap!

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Post by RefD » Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:09 am

*drops a Folger's flow-thru bag into a mug full of water and nukes it*

what?

WHAT?!?
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Post by roscoenyc » Tue Jun 17, 2008 7:53 am

I got a refurbed Solis Maestro Plus conical burr grinder for $119.
coffeegeek.com gave it excellent reviews and it has
been bringing me super satisfaction (not to mention uniform grind size) for over a year.

http://www.baratza.com//products.php?itemid=17

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Post by mingus2112 » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:02 am

roscoenyc wrote:I got a refurbed Solis Maestro Plus conical burr grinder for $119.
coffeegeek.com gave it excellent reviews and it has
been bringing me super satisfaction (not to mention uniform grind size) for over a year.

http://www.baratza.com//products.php?itemid=17
I can't pass along enough acclaim for the Baratza (formerly re branded as Solis) grinders. Mine was pretty much perfect for drip and french press. The only reason I "upgraded" to the Rocky was to get better espresso grinds. If you don't have any intention of making (real) espresso, there's NO better value than a Baratza. . .well. . .except maybe a refurbished one off their site!
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Post by mingus2112 » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:05 am

RefD wrote:*drops a Folger's flow-thru bag into a mug full of water and nukes it*

what?

WHAT?!?
I'm not that guy who thinks you're a sinner. 1) Maybe that's how you enjoy it (my mother-in-law only likes Dunkin Donuts or instant coffee!) or 2) Maybe coffee is just a utility (pick-me-up) for you. That's totally cool too.

Reporters don't use protools to record an interview to transcribe later. They use a $20 digital pocket recorder. It's all about the right tool for the job. If a Folger's flow-thru bag gets the job done for you. . .that's great! :)

-J
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Post by newfuturevintage » Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:42 am

DrummerMan wrote: Now if someone made a thermal French Press that was bigger than the personal sized ones they (at least used to) sell at Starbucks, that could keep the coffee REALLY hot for a long time, I might change my tune.
Hey DrummerMan: I posted about it a few pages ago, but the one I like that fits the bill is the Bodum Columbia: Thermal, stainless, and sizes up to a liter, keeps the brew quite hot, especially if you warm it prior to doing anything else.

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Post by DrummerMan » Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:53 pm

newfuturevintage wrote:
DrummerMan wrote: Now if someone made a thermal French Press that was bigger than the personal sized ones they (at least used to) sell at Starbucks, that could keep the coffee REALLY hot for a long time, I might change my tune.
Hey DrummerMan: I posted about it a few pages ago, but the one I like that fits the bill is the Bodum Columbia: Thermal, stainless, and sizes up to a liter, keeps the brew quite hot, especially if you warm it prior to doing anything else.
Hey, thanks for the tip! I must have missed it going through the posts the first time around.

I'm pretty happy with my current coffee setup at home, but I checked it out and that would be pretty PERFECT for the road.

My only issue with this (and this is just me being a picky asshole, now) is I would rather have it be glass or ceramic on the inside layer. Again, I'm just talking pipe dreams now.

I know it would make it too fragile for Bodum to actually want to do it in a seemingly travel-friendly unit, BUT... I find that stainless steel does something to the flavor of coffee. There are those that disagree, but even if I'm imagining it, I'm imagining it fairly realistically.

I know that some commercial pump-style thermal carafes at least used to be glass lined. They would shatter if you even barely mishandled them, though, and had to be replaced pretty often, but I swear I could tell a difference in taste between them and the stainless steel lined ones of the same design.

It's why I shy away from travel mugs and waste more paper cups than I should whlie I'm on the road... :cry:
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Post by DrummerMan » Wed Jun 18, 2008 6:01 pm

OK, so I just figured out.... there's this thing called Google, apparently :roll: ...


anyway,
not only are there a crapload of thermal french presses out there,

but this one is glass lined and looks totally kick-ass!!!
http://www.all4coffee.com/index.php?mai ... cts_id=155

I'm getting one.
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mingus2112
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Post by mingus2112 » Wed Jun 18, 2008 9:45 pm

That IS pretty cool! You said you want to keep your coffee hot for those 4 minutes or so that it's steeping. This will totally do that. Just make sure you don't just leave it sitting in there since it's "keeping it hot." Yucky if it sits in the grinds too long! Talk about BITTER!
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Post by newfuturevintage » Thu Jun 19, 2008 1:11 pm

DrummerMan wrote: but this one is glass lined and looks totally kick-ass!!!
http://www.all4coffee.com/index.php?mai ... cts_id=155

I'm getting one.
That google guy knows a lot of shit, for sure...
really good looking press...I can't have anything remotely fragile around my house before the wife and I get a couple cups into us, so that thing's out, but I hear you about the superiority of glass for flavor.

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Post by trodden » Thu Jun 19, 2008 2:27 pm

DrummerMan wrote: -I bash Starbucks alot. I don't really like their burnt drip coffee, and I find some of their managerial practices distasteful, but I will agree with a previous poster and say that when you're on the road in the middle of Indiana, and you're tired, and you don't know what's good in the local town, and you don't really have the time to wander off the interstate and find out, and you see that F**KING Starbucks sign coming at you at 80mph, it's like a GODSEND! I hate to admit it, but it's true.
So true. I am very anti when it comes to that place, and its not just cause i live in Seattle.. You know, the typical evil shit we know about them.. and that the coffee isn't good, it over roasted for more "consistency".

But yeah, when it comes to touring the midwest and starbucks started showing up.. it was nice.. compared to the hot dirty water at the truck stops we've dealt with for so many years... knowing i can get a triple americano with some cold soy milk dumped on top.. so nice.. I guess that makes my a hypocrite? or just human?

As someone mentioned pages before.. I toured and road tripped with a Coleman stove and camping espresso rig and that was a lot of fun. Nothing like making a fresh espresso at some cool roadside sight.. You may end up meeting other travelers and making a few drinks for them as well.. and that's great fun.

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