Any coffee dorks?

I make coffee in one of these.

Here is how it works.

Those are cheap too, $10 at Ikea? Heh. I’d imagine it’s still better than drip coffee, but not being able to do pods, having lousy crema, and taking forever to heat up the water is what you’re have to deal with in exchange.

Definitely. And, just to be clear, don’t keep whole beans in the freezer, either. Don’t keep any coffee in the freezer. Cold locks up the oils in the beans. Even worse, ground coffee (and even whole beans, though to a lesser extent) absorb freezer smells like nobody’s business.

For drip, you really don’t need anything fancy. You can get just as good a cup of coffee from one of those plastic cones with a melita filter as you can from a $300 coffeemaker. Those things are just giving you conveniences like timers and larger quantities.

Also true. You can get a perfectly good cup of drip coffee out of a relatively inexpensive machine. If you want to spend a little more, though, get a machine with a thermal carafe. It will keep the coffee hot without burning it.

A better place to spend your money is on a decent grinder. Burr grinders do a much better job than the entry-level weed whacker deals. A word of caution, though: avoid the burr grinders that feed the ground beans into a plastic bin through a notch on the side. These are the messiest things you will ever encounter! Static electricity makes the coffee grounds stick to everything, and coffee grounds will go everywhere whenever you pull out the bin. Look for grinders where the hopper feeds into the bin from the top. Harder to find, but worth looking for.

And for the love of all that is caffeinated, avoid this Krupps’ burr grinder. It’s a worthless piece of crap. I know from experience.

Cheap burr grinders are fine for drip, but can’t get fine enough for a double shot of espresso to pull in the proper 22 seconds. When it pulls too quickly, the espresso ends up watery and sour. You really need to spend around a hundred dollars on the grinder.

I’m alternately pretending stusser’s responses are about MMO playing and prostitution. The grinding and pulling are pretty exciting.

I have had this as a .doc file for a while. I don’t recall where I got it.

Buy fresh weekly: If possible, buy only as much coffee as you will use within a week, and store the beans in the bag they come in or in an airtight container in a cool place in your kitchen.
Don’t refrigerate or freeze your coffee: the 'fridge isn’t cold enough to extend shelf life appreciably, while freezing causes precipitation of ice crystals in the beans and ruins the coffee’s aroma.
Grind just before brewing: Unless you buy coffee daily (ground coffee is stale in 24 hours) you’ll need to have a home grinder. For most purposes (drip and plunger pot coffee) a simple $20 blade grinder is perfectly adequate, though burr grinders are better still. 15 seconds in a blade grinder for drip, 10 seconds for plunger pot will yield the correct grind.
Use filtered or bottled water: Boulder tap water is excellent, but should still be filtered for best results - a simple pitcher or faucet-mount unit from PUR or Brita is sufficient. Alternatively, use bottled spring water (our local Eldorado water is excellent), but don’t use distilled or reverse osmosis water to brew coffee or tea.
Use the right amount of coffee: Start with 1 heaping standard coffee measure (2 Tablespoons) of coffee for each 6 ounces of water and adjust to taste. That’s roughly a full blade grinder’s worth of beans for a quart of coffee. At the other end of the exactness spectrum, try brewing by weight like we do in the store: 60-70 grams per liter of water (about 2 dry weight ounces, .12 on a digital scale, per quart).
Use a low-tech, high-taste brewer: The two best ways to brew coffee at home are the plunger pot and handmade pour over drip using the Nissan thermos. Home electric drip brewers are convenient but can’t brew anywhere near as good a cup of coffee as you can achieve by boiling water and pouring. Home drip coffeemakers don’t get the water hot enough (especially at high Colorado altitudes) and take far too long to brew (bitterness is inevitable after 6 minutes of brewing, and most home drip makers take twice that long to brew).
Make only as much as you’ll drink, and savor it fresh: No matter the method, drink within 30 minutes of brewing.

I love some good coffee, but every time I read these kinds of threads, I realize I’m way too cheap and lazy to make it myself. (Although I do have dreams of those auto-grinding, auto-cleaning $2k espresso behemoths.)

I am looking forward to a documentary on coffee farming at this year’s film festival, so I can compare you to people who eat babies afterwards.

I’d agree but with a twist. It depends what flavors you like/are used to in water.

When I decided I was sick of making bad coffee at home I started buying beans and grinding them myself fresh before every pot of coffee and playing around with various waters (bottled, filtered, etc) to see what I liked best. I ended up liking raw unsoftened tap water the best, and that stuff is pretty mineral laden in Nebraska. But heck, it’s what I grew up on :)

I think he spent his money on the coffee dorkery, so both would be solo efforts. ;)

A percolator is much better than a drip coffee maker.

Ill take one of each.

My Future wife is a manager for Hunters Landing Coffee Co.(like starbucks only better) So I’m being turned into a coffee snob.

Makes me think of negra modelo.

RACIST

I have actually heard the percolating brewers are the worst possible, as they basically just burn the coffee, dumping hot coffee through the grounds over and over.

tasty, tasty racism

Just like a drip maker cook it to long and it will burn.

Are you being facetious? Does Manhattan have a seperate supply from the rest of NYC?

On topic: I would like to make espresso at home, but probably wouldn’t use a machine such as the Silvia or similar, cause, you know, I’m lazy. How much worse is the espresso from a superautomatic than that which can be produced by someone reasonably skilled with a machine like the Silvia?

It really depends on your threshold for bad espresso. I have a very low tolerance, and I can’t stand the stuff from automated machines.

Besides, for me at least, part of the appeal of espresso is fussing with it. It’s like smoking a pipe. If you just want to suck down some tobacco smoke, you might as well stick with cigarettes or cigars. But if it’s a true delight for you, you’ll come to enjoy the whole process.

I feel that way about espresso. I actually enjoy the two or three minutes of fussing around to get a good shot.

-Tom

Fire, Fire, Fire.

Sweet, sweet, Fire.

That’s not a percolator, that’s a Bialetti Moka Express, otherwise known as a stovetop espresso maker. The water does not percolate, as in the drawing, but is forced under pressure through the grounds. I wouldn’t make Silverlight drink percolated coffee.