Coffee

Anybody else in Denver tune their water for brewing? Denver city water is insanely hard. I'm using a simple two-phase under-sink filter since I live in an apartment, but it doesn't touch the hardness problem. I've also read the city has drastically changed the pH to reduce lead leaching from old pipes.

I'm about to pay for water testing to see what I'm getting out of the tap and measure how much I'll need to adjust, but was curious if anybody else had numbers.

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In our house, we generally go for variety in our coffee beans. That means when we are finishing one bag, we're going to open a different bag with totally different beans inside.

What do you do if there aren't enough old beans to make a full serving of coffee?

It may be heresey, but I mix the final old beans with a few beans from the new bag and call it my "bonus blend".

Finally, AeroPress made of glass and metal, came out. Its double-walled design should reduce heat loss.

Price: $149,95.

Official site

Was introduced on Williams Sonoma first

Picture driving home after picking up a 12oz bag from a local roaster I haven't tried before. The entire car smells gloriously of Carmel and peach. The aroma is powerful and invigorating.

Pan to Me only thinking, "damn that is some piss poor packaging"

I usually prefer to just store beans in oem bag with a good bag clip. I've tried other containers and feel like it's typically no better or worse. Going to throw a ziplock around this one.

Any other favorite storage methods?

I've been using James Hoffman's recipe since I bought AeroPress, and I was pretty satisfied. While being simple, it produced rich, balanced cups of coffee for both light and medium roasts. I was happy with it. But then I started noticing that some light-roasted coffee was too bitter. It rarely happened, but when it did, it wasn't possible to get rid of that excessive bitterness. When I tried to increase the grind size, I got watery, but still too bitter coffee. At first, I thought there was something wrong with the coffee beans, but then I thought, maybe immersion brewing was just not suitable for them. So, I decided to find another recipe.

I wanted to try a hybrid recipe containing a percolation phase, as I believed it could produce more balanced cups. So I searched on the Aeromatic app and found a recipe from The Real Sprometheus. It has a long percolation phase and quite a short immersion phase. And this recipe fixed my coffee. I got a balanced cup without excessive bitterness and with more detailed acidity. Now, this is my recipe to go, as I think it's superior to James Hoffman's recipe.

The civet processed beans? I'm wondering if it's all hype? Or worth buying a bag to try?

Edit: Thanks for the responses everyone! I'm gonna pass on it 👍

My wife and I go through about 4lbs a month using mainly Chemex and Areopress. Used to get (decent) crummy coffee at Aldi and Grocery Outlet, occasionally splurging for local roasts at the coffee shops. Still, I calculate that's about $35 or so a month on beans, Chemex filters should probably be calculated with how pricey they can be - napkin maths say $11 roughly for a months supply.

$46USD ain't bad compared to my other vices 😪

Curious to hear if I'm around the average spender or how it tracks! Maybe you have some tips on cheap but amazing coffee? I wouldn't know unless I asked y'all

I've just reached the point where'd id say I have full control of the process (just bought a grinder, kettle has temp, I've got an accurate scale)

I've got a basic understanding of how for example water temp affects the taste, but not how to combine the right grind size with the right temp with the right beans at the right ratio

I do pourover

thank you all

To my coffee drinking friends in the American East (and elsewhere): I'm curious, has third wave coffee arrived? Did it get lost in translation?

Here's why I ask: I picked up some coffee in Boston recently, and I am shocked, shocked! I say, by the definition of light roast that seems to be in play. First, a pricey bag of venerable Gesha Village Estate by esteemed roaster George Howell. It's sold and labelled as a light roast, right in the middle of the light range. It is clearly a solid medium in colour, flavour, and bean hardness. Who am I now, to argue with George, but, here's the kicker, it tastes like a medium roast, that is to say, chocolatey-burnt. Not ruined exactly… well, a little bit ruined. I can see these beans being to somebody's taste, but any delicate flavours they might have had, those are lost to the burning, and to call them "lightly roasted," that's just wrong.

I was ready to write this off as a miscommunication or something, but next I opened a bag of Fogbuster "Blonde Bombshell" so light, you won't believe how light this is, but brace yourself for an explosion of flavor. I'm just reading the label, here. I have never before personally handled a bean as dark as this one. They are dark. Caliginous. Stygian. Oily dark. Toss 'em in the waste heap dark, because I don't want to have to clean my grinder from the oleaginous coating these poor, distressed beans have had forced upon them.

More than that, these beans are even darker on the inside. Fogbuster somehow injected more dark in the innards, after making the outards dark and shiny like I don't even want to touch. What these things must taste like; I'm not even curious.

A serious question then: what constitutes a light roast in Boston? Did I just get twice unlucky?

Am currently sick with a bad throat. While enjoying my cup of coffee, I had the thought; "Should I avoid coffee if I have a bad throat?". So, are there any studies or general consensus on this?

https://archive.is/GH0VK

I'd like to experiment with a drip assist tool. Currently looking at Melodrip vs Hario v60 drip assist. The Hario is much cheaper, and I like the idea of not having to tie up both hands. Of note, I have been using less of my Chemex and more of the Orea big boy for multicup brews. It looks close, but I think the Hario drip assist might fit on big boy without falling in. Do you all think that these drip assists will have a bigger or smaller impact on these bigger multicup brews? Is channeling a real concern with the Hario and a bigger brew bed? What if I just rotate it between pours? How much are you adjusting grind size for these?

What's your opinion about adding chicory to coffee? I know there's a few places, like Café du Monde in New Orleans that offers coffee with chicory. It's also sold as a mix in grocery stores in France.

I started trying it recently by adding a small teaspoon to my coffee in my French press and it gives a really smooth brew.

What do you think? Are you a purist? Have you tried it? What's your opinion?

Hi all,

I've got an uncoated aluminum boiler to replace the flaking one in my Gaggia Classic Pro Evo. Given that aluminum boiler coupled with the brass group head will cause galvanic corrosion, what are my options?

I know I can wait for companies to get chrome plated group heads in stock, but I hear the new (since April) GCP Evos are using the brass group head and the uncoated boiler. How are they pulling that off?

Thanks.

Some time ago I commented that one of my favorite ways to brew coffee is on a moka pot which I then aeropress to clean out the particulates. Many responded that they just put an aeropress filter on the moka pot for the same results. So, I tried it. The resulting brew is VERY different and, to me, not good at all.

It seems that the aeropress filter in the moka pot is removeding the brew by requiring more pressure to boil over. The result is a bitter brew that loses any subtlety in flavor.

If you are someone that uses the "filter in pot" method, please try brewing the cup unfiltered and then pressing it. Let me know what you think.

Facepalm

Personally, I like:

Turkish coffee, I received a cezve as a gift, Lots of crema (they don't call it that, but it's very frothy).

Coffee soda. Double shot espresso in a glass of ice, add soda water to taste. Great when it's hot out.

Coffee milk. Same double shot in a glass of milk, with lots of sugar. Reminds me of my childhood. The official state drink of Rhode Island.

Anybody brew at work? If so, what's your setup/process? I'm fortunate enough to have free access to a shared automatic espresso machine (beans not pods) so the drive to do this is not super strong. I wrote about my experience with the pipamoka device for travel, and I'm thinking it might make for a pretty simple at work option rather than sitting in my cabinet when I'm not on the road. Often the mediocre espresso has me longing for something better even if it means using my own stash.

For many people, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee is the start of a great day. But caffeine can cause headaches and jitters in others. That's why many people reach for a decaffeinated cup instead. I'm a chemistry professor who has taught lectures on why chemicals dissolve in some liquids but not in others. The processes of decaffeination offer great real-life examples of these chemistry concepts. Even the best decaffeination method, however, does not remove all of the caffeine -- about 7 milligrams of caffeine usually remain in an 8-ounce cup. Producers decaffeinating their coffee want to remove the caffeine while retaining all -- or at least most -- of the other chemical aroma and flavor compounds.

Decaffeination has a rich history, and now almost all coffee producers use one of three common methods. All these methods, which are also used to make decaffeinated tea, start with green, or unroasted, coffee beans that have been premoistened. Using roasted coffee beans would result in a coffee with a very different aroma and taste because the decaffeination steps would remove some flavor and odor compounds produced during roasting. Here's a summary of each method discussed by Dr. Crowder:

• The Carbon Dioxide Method: Developed in the early 1970s, the carbon dioxide method uses high-pressure CO2 to extract caffeine from moistened coffee beans, resulting in coffee that retains most of its flavor. The caffeine-laden CO2 is then filtered out using water or activated carbon, removing 96% to 98% of the caffeine with minimal CO2 residue.

• The Swiss Water Process: First used commercially in the early 1980s, the Swiss water method uses hot water and activated charcoal filters to decaffeinate coffee, preserving most of its natural flavor. This chemical-free approach removes 94% to 96% of the caffeine by soaking the beans repeatedly until the desired caffeine level is achieved.

• Solvent-Based Methods: Originating in the early 1900s, solvent-based methods use organic solvents like ethyl acetate and methylene chloride to extract caffeine from green coffee beans. These methods remove 96% to 97% of the caffeine through either direct soaking in solvent or indirect treatment of water containing caffeine, followed by steaming and roasting to ensure safety and flavor retention.

"It's chemically impossible to dissolve out only the caffeine without also dissolving out other chemical compounds in the beans, so decaffeination inevitably removes some other compounds that contribute to the aroma and flavor of your cup of coffee," writes Dr. Crowder in closing. "But some techniques, like the Swiss water process and the indirect solvent method, have steps that may reintroduce some of these extracted compounds. These approaches probably can't return all the extra compounds back to the beans, but they may add some of the flavor compounds back."

Trying out their blend and just opened my first bag. It's their 295 mix. I like it, lite and easy to drink It tastes like coffee. Did an aeropress brew and will try V60 next time. I will say the beans gave off an interesting smell that made me nervous about how it would come out, but all is good.

I never heard of this place, but it was recommended in another post. I'll likely keep the subscription, at least for another few bags to see how it goes.

For the longest time I've wondered why my coffee tends to run either bitter or too watery. I even bought a fancy 64mm flat burr grinder, and noticed the problem became even more pronounced.

Everyone always says how important water is, and I figured my reverse osmosis water with an alkaline stage was probably fine, coming out of the tap at around 50 PPM. It turns out the ideal TDS is actually around 150. My water's TDS was too low. More info here: https://www.raleighcoffeecompany.com/tds-and-coffee/

Using a cheap TDS meter and water alkaline drops, I got my water's TDS up to around 150 PPM by adding a couple drops into my kettle, and brewed a cup of coffee with it. It actually made a difference! Lesson learned, pay attention to your water.