Coffee

your bog standard hardware store food scale is now so good, i can't imagine measuring beans any other way. i get roasts all over the map so not going to try to get to eyeballing.

shd add that theres kind of a phase zero too think a lot of people know about this "the bloom" where the grounds are gassing off and brewing isnt happening at all its just air coming out, thats why people sometimes throw away the first bit of a pour over then continue

^^^^^ a scale is like 25 bucks

I've heard that as a thing to do with recently roasted beans. Doubt I could ever tell the difference between bloomed and not.

i think just dilutes the cup a little, yr basically pouring water through grounds and theyre releasing gasses instead of liquid so what comes out the other end is more water than coffee, personally dont think its a big deal, its is kind of fun to watch it bloom in a french press or whatever the grounds all puff up

That's my favorite thing in the whole process, that really rich looking foam when the coffee is blooming and before adding the rest of the water is very satisfying for some reason.

Yeah, it looks cool, although generally smells a bit sour and funky at that stage.

I make coffee with an Aeropress and I find it hard to make a bitter cup regardless of brew time, but that might also have to do with the fact that I'm using a pretty large dose of the cof part of coffee.

I bought half and half this week fo rreasons I will keep secret. However I will say the deeper load of milkcream certainly inlfuences the overall pasring of the coffee onto the taste buds?

would imagine the areopress loses temp pretty fast prob has something to do with it, its a weird method cause u let it brew sitting there in the water like say a french press but then it also relies on pressure like espresso xp

the nicest thing abt an aeropress is its little sigh of joy

correct

this is also when, if i’m reading lagoon right, the bitterness is released, which also checks out

the bitterness is released out of me, to be replaced by content*

*all possible meanings

"So don't be tempted by the shiny apple
Don't you eat of a bitter fruit
Hunger only for a taste of justice
Hunger only for a world of truth
'Cause all that you have is your soul"

Tracy Chapman

xp yeah I've experimented with tossing out the "bloom" water but haven't noticed a big difference.

On the flipside, the worst fucking thing ever is when you realize you forgot to toss the water you used to wash the filter. I need a cup of coffee so I can make my coffee amirite folks

lol i did that once with the last beans i had, sad day

my move with the bloom is to use as little water as possible and then give the grounds a good stirring so that the bitter steam is released

i think the bloom is a good idea. i use 2 g water / g of grounds (i have the chemex on a scale)

as someone mentioned way upthread you don't want to do the bloom for too long because then the ground settle and compact and also dry a bit, then when you do your pour the water just runs unevenly through the channels the released gases made and it's not as good as it could be

so i just watch it until the obvious bubbling starts and then continue the pour. my usual formula is 15 g water / g of grounds including the bloom. i know people that do the 15 mL / g on top of the 2 mL / g for the bloom. based on some comments upthread i might up the total to 20 g, maybe it'll help me use less half and half, which is freaking expensive nowadays

sorry, visible bubbling stops*

speaking of overly design-y stuff i need to confess that i bought a fellow ode grinder during the lockdown, it's been about two years of roughly daily use and it's already giving up the ghost. should have known better after my experience with their kettles!

depends on how much cof you're making, but I've been real happy with my hand grinder

would imagine the areopress loses temp pretty fast prob has something to do with it, its a weird method cause u let it brew sitting there in the water like say a french press but then it also relies on pressure like espresso

maybe but is an Aeropress going to lose temp faster than a v60? maybe the lack of bitterness is because Aeropress gives even extraction? maybe Aeropress is just better hm?

I'm joking though, v60 seems to be able to get flavors out of light roast and/or natural process that I haven't been able to get with Aeropress.

the v60 youre constantly pouring hot water into it where the areopress is just chillin in a plastic tube, plus if you scald the v60 first its pretty think ceramic idk

xxp i used to pound through 50-100 g of beans a day when i was "locked down" (and before that when i was younger and could drink more coffee) but i've cut back to 15-25 g, just a couple mugs before the sun comes up. i assume that's manageable with a hand grinder? what kind do you have?

personally i've never gotten great coffee out of an aeropress, even when i was doing inverted pours and had bought a metal filter to use instead of the paper ones. i don't think it's a great product but it has a coo0l backstory (invented by a guy who sells frisbees?) and story (drink coffee that's supposedly comparable with $1000 espresso machines)

I've heard that as a thing to do with recently roasted beans. Doubt I could ever tell the difference between bloomed and not.

― maf you one two (maffew12), Monday, January 23, 2023 12:25 PM (yesterday)

you can definitely tell, back when i'd buy beans roasted to order they always tasted too vegetally/grassy until you gave them a few days to rest, coincidentally the amount of bloom correlates with how freshly roasted they are too iirc, more bloom = more freshly roasted

flying novelty discs, making cof, it’s all fluid mechanics if u really think abt it

i assume that's manageable with a hand grinder? what kind do you have?

Yeah normally it takes as long for the water to get to temp as it does for me to grind the beans. I do 28-38g a day usually no problem.

I have a Comandante C40 grinder which has been great, but I've heard 1Zpresso grinders are just as good, and they're cheaper. Maybe this one.

dang homey that's as much as i paid for my ODE grinder!!

it's more than a baratza encore!

yeah but if you'd bought this instead of an Ode, you wouldn't now be looking for a replacement, cuz it's not gonna break. CHECKMATE

(also, better grind quality than an Encore, and more versatility than an Ode - can do espresso grind no problem)

buncha coffee alchemists up in here, holy frijoles

i actually just started drinking coffee last week. seems to disagree w/me so i reckon it's back to tea, oh well. i have enjoyed my brief sojourn in the fast-paced cosmopolitan cafe realm but must bid it farewell 🫡

Coffee is a finicky mistress, but that's part of what I like about it. So many variables, such that, as much as you try to control things, you don't get the exact same cup twice. And I like changing up my beans a lot too. I was really feeling the Stumptown Homestead Blend, but even that started to bore my tastebuds after a while, so I keep switching. I have a Tandem sampler pack coming in the mail soon. Before my current beans, I had an Intelligentsia light roast blend I really liked.

Coffee chooses you, yo udon't chose coffee. SO said my sources.

my doctor has suggested i give up coffee for a month to see if it will help w my migraines

i almost hurled my chair through the window but composed myself and said why, do you think i have a problem?

so i cut down to just one cup a day for a few days. i'm now on day 2 of just a cup of tea in the morning. tomorrow i have nothing

i feel very... faded. kind of xanax-ed out. it's not unpleasant actually. but not conducive to work. i struggle to find the words to say when asked a question

Has it helped though

well my migraines only happen maybe every three weeks? So it's hard to say. i'm not sure what the end-game is here. if I don't get a migraine for another month do I assume that staying off coffee has helped? and then I keep staying off it? idk

I am going to have a follow-up w this dude in 6 weeks, I will ask him then

Exercising first thing in the morning effectively replaced coffee for me when I stopped drinking it for a few years pre-pandemic (back on the stuff now), though I wasn't a super heavy coffee drinker anyway (1-1.5 cups/day).

never touched the stuff until about a decade ago traveling 7000km for a conference and having to sit through the most boring workshops... it saved my life and I've stuck with it ever since. Thank you, Coffee.

On the occasional days where I don't get to have coffee in the morning — because we forgot to buy more or I'm in a hurry or whatever — I'm always a little surprised that its absence doesn't seem to particularly affect me. I look forward to it and enjoy it so much that I sort of assume that I must need it, but I think it's mostly that I like it. I could give it up I think, but why on earth would I?

I on the other hand am so paranoid about becoming one of those people who needs a coffee in the morning to function that I limit myself to two or three cups a week.

If I don't have a morning coffee for whatever reason the worst I've felt is a dull headache in the afternoon

same, and a bit logy. 25 g's a day. More if my sleep was really shit. I'm not real clear on how much bean is in your average to go cup.

XP have you ever gone days without it though? When I quit for a while, my memory is that the worst I felt was a few days in.

if I don't have coffee, I end up getting an extremely sharp headache, I can't do it

then there is the possibility that coffee treats mild adhd

coffee is nice makes me think pure thoughts

now you’re just trying to hurt me