Coffee

kinda crazy that robusta beans are being used now in blends

Pretty sure they've always been used in Italian espresso?

huh, that's true. i guess i must have blocked that from my mind!

recall once telling a french person that there was robusta in their coffee and they got mad at me

I can't imagine embracing cinnamon roast - I like charcoal roast

https://img.vendingmarketwatch.com/files/base/cygnus/vmw/image/2015/02/coffee_bean_roast.54d9180d8d9b2.png?auto=format,compress&w=1050&h=590&fit=clip

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!

― the late great, Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Just curious how it is giving up the ghost? Is the motor dying? I've had mine for the same amount of time. A few months ago it started to rattle in a weird way, like there was a bean stuck in it (which may have been the case). I finally took it apart after a vacation and did a proper cleaning. I fucked up putting it back together my first few tries. The first time I got some nasty burr grinding sounds and had to take it back apart before even using it. The second time it was good for a week then the burrs seemed to kind of drift together again, causing a scary-sounding whine/scrape sound. I have since gotten a lot better at calibrating the burrs - the videos on their site are well-made. As a side benefit of all this tinkering, I've been cleaning it way more often and it really does seem to massively affect the taste of the coffee. The ability to take it apart and buy certain replacement parts was a huge part of the reason I bought it in the first place, so I'm glad I finally got over my hesitance to do that.

That reminds me I should clean my grinder more often. The coffee I buy is invariably somewhere between pics #2 and 3 above.

^^^
On both accounts.

Around the same time I had those grinder issues, I lost my stainless steel Aeropress filter and decided to deep-dive into James Hoffman's Aeropress videos on YT before replacing it, and I have to say they have not only improved the taste of my coffee, but saved me a little bit of money as I realized I was using too many beans for the amount of water that could fit in the Aeropress. Doing so resulted in under-extraction. I wondered why I always felt my 1/2 cup (11g) that I'd have after lunch always tasted so much stronger and better than the morning cup (21g). Turns out I had accidentally nailed the ratio of the smaller cup. I still like more volume a bigger cup, so I'm doing around 18g of beans and as much water as I can fit into the Aeropress chamber and still get the plunger in to prevent the water from dripping through. I also went back to paper filters and re-use them until they are basically brown or too damaged, which just feels less wasteful to me and doesn't really affect the taste at all.

I'm doing around 18g of beans and as much water as I can fit into the Aeropress chamber and still get the plunger in to prevent the water from dripping through

yeah this is exactly what I'm doing. more like 16g if it's a really light roast.

xp to beard papa

so the issue i am having is that after successfully cleaning the burrs a few times, the rotational auger / first burr no longer pops out when i remove the auger key and press. i am not sure if this is because the spring is wack, the burrs are so oily that they're stuck together, or there's a bit of bean stuck in the burrs or to the side of the burr assembly that's keeping it locked in place. i can push the burr assembly inward and it has a little give, and it returns to the original position, but it just doesn't pop out the way it's supposed to

the whole thing is machined with so little tolerance that i can't get anything like a hook in there to pull the burrs out, and the rotational auger (and iirc the inner burrs) is made of such soft metal that i'm afraid to take needlenose pliers to it. i've looked at a bunch of their "how to" videos on cleaning and/or replacing burrs, and based on the comments boxes this seems to be a not-uncommon problem with the burr assembly

two years is pretty shitty i think for a burr grinder, especially one with upscale pretensions, but tbf i got mine used off ebay for half-price. it was not too long after the original release (maybe a few months) and it still looks clean, but who knows how bad the previous owner abused it.

the good news is that it is grinding fine, both in terms of the consistency and how the motor sounds, though if i can't clean it who knows what the longevity is going to be

the way i calibrate the burrs is to start it really loose, put it on the finest grind setting, and gradually tighten until i just start to hear the high pitched chirping of burrs grinding together (at the very finest setting). if i dial it back a notch and still hear the chirping i loosen it until it goes away. i think this works because the tension is going to relax a tiny amount over time, so you end up with the finest setting being the tightest the burrs can run (and you're not supposed to grind on the very finest setting anyway, so having it chirp a tiny bit at that setting is still okay)

That's exactly how Fellow says to do it in this video by their "VP of Hardware", which you may have already seen. It's about how to swap in their new burrs, but I just found it really informative about how the thing works in general (though it sounds like you have a better grasp than I do tbh). Toward the end of the video he mentions using more force to pull the auger out (and picks up a pair of needle-nose pliers) and also mentions gentle sanding a few times in this video.

I definitely have a first generation model, which I'm a little salty about tbh, I must have bought it right before they released the Gen 2.

How does one clean a Capresso grinder properly? I'm not sure I've ever really thoroughly cleaned it lol

xp i’m more of a learn-by-reading type vs videos but iirc the reddit posts i looked at were cribbed from those videos. that’s actually one of my biggest pet peeves about the new era. i try to look up documentation for the fancy graphic design software i just bought and they literally tell me it doesn’t exist but they have a million youtubes i can watch … smdh but something for another thread i guess

i still have my old capresso infinity burr grinder. cleaning never seemed to be as much of an issue, maybe because the burr’s rotational axis is vertical (vs horizontal in the ode) so stuff didn’t stay up there. or maybe it’s because it’s designed so you only take the top burr out.

either way urnex grindz seemed to work well enough for that, vs the ode which also needs monthly grindz but also some occasional dissasembly

im generally more disposed towards reading than video too but youtube tutorials are great for things that have a lot of physical steps imho like say disassembling a coffee grinder you can actually see how to do it

yeah i guess i can SEE that but i get impatient w videos

on the infinity you rotate the plastic hopper all the way past coarsest setting and it lifts out. there’s a rubber apron to remove, then you’re just looking down at the top burr. you can rotate that (ccw i think) to unlock it and it lifts out so you brush it and the bottom burr, and maybe use a cloth to wipe if it’s oily

lagoon most french people know next to nothing about coffee ime

Sumatra Mandheling in a medium roast is delicious and low in acidity. It’s my second favorite bean in the world, behind only Papua New Guinea from a small plantation.

i see both sides of the video thing, my way of dealing with the impatience is to furiously skip around to find the part i care about, probably wasting as much time as if i had just watched from the beginning.

i need to clean my espresso grinder soon, it's been a year. some cleaning tasks are rewarding bc they produce tangible results.....grinder cleaning is not one of those.

the baratza i got is easy to clean, one of the wirecutter recommended things that i'm actually happy about

and yeah, i'm not a fan of sumatra but one thing it's got going is very low acid. some of those south and central american beans will make you pucker up. xp

my non-espresso grinder is the baratza, it is definitely pretty easy to clean.

One of my friends who lived in France a while back told me that a french guy she was talking to dismissed the then rising American third wave coffee as "globalist coffee," which is pretty funny since, you know, coffee doesn't grow in France.

I was surprised to find better coffee in Taiwan than France. Like, just superior coffee in every setting! WTF france.

Not that it's Taiwanese, but you know who has surprisingly good coffee near me? H-Mart.

One of my friends who lived in France a while back told me that a french guy she was talking to dismissed the then rising American third wave coffee as "globalist coffee,"

excited to hear about this new development in antisemitism

seriously

zees flat whites, who drinks zem - citizens of nowhere zat's who

France turned back on coffee

the baratza i got is easy to clean, one of the wirecutter recommended things that i'm actually happy about

― 龜, Monday, January 30, 2023 9:17 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

my non-espresso grinder is the baratza, it is definitely pretty easy to clean.

― call all destroyer, Monday, January 30, 2023 9:28 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

do y'all do anything more than sticking the wire brush into the grinders?

When I occasionally clean it I generally disassemble it, pull out the top burr, and brush with a soft brush. I also have some of them cornstarch grinder cleaner pellets and I run a batch of them through once a year or so

I’ve tried to turn it upside down before but that was a silly idea

there's a step by step youtube xp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq_4Zg0Jqvo

i have taken it apart and brushed it, also done the pellets and sometimes i just stick a handheld vacuum in there.

thank you both!

does baratza own capresso? because that just looks like a nicer version of the infinity!

How does one clean a Capresso grinder properly? I'm not sure I've ever really thoroughly cleaned it lol

I think Peet's is basically STarbux

also - Apples - a typicaly pairing with coffee? would APPLES AND COFFEE be a place people would shop dine

peet's is not that great but i think still much better than starbucks

i got into it in college, when i lived a couple blocks (spruce and cedar) from the original peet's in berkeley

peets has declined in the past few years trying to be more sbuxy with their offerings but they are still a far better goto for decent cup of coffee

i have been going to my local for 15 years, its always calm & quiet & pleasant

peets has declined in the past few years trying to be more sbuxy with their offerings but they are still a far better goto for decent cup of coffee

i have been going to my local for 15 years, its always calm & quiet & pleasant

yeah of the big chains they have by far the classiest interiors!

I take mine outside with a can of compressed air a few times a year.
― john shopkins (naus), Thursday, February 2, 2023 10:58 PM (yesterday)

huh, does it introduce any off flavors? compressed air is basically hydrocarbons like butane/propane and/or refrigerants like r-134

i've used compressed air, that stuff is obviously volatile (since it's compressed gas) so any condensation will generally evaporate real quickly, but since i don't want to expose myself to any more carcinogens than strictly necessary i always wipe surfaces down with a dry rag after i do that

(we used to rinse our hands with ether, acetone, methanol etc during organic chem lab ... ah, the old days)

The compressed air is just to get all the fine grounds out. I wash the hopper and burrs and everything else either in the sink or wipe down with a damp cloth (for the main body). Then I’ll towel dry everything then let it air dry overnight. I haven’t noticed any off-tastes in my coffee despite the can having a bittering agent to prevent inhalant abuse.

There's a coffeeshop around the corner that has funky natural processed coffee. Have not been able to reproduce those flavors with an Aeropress. At best it's mildly syncopated.

civet poop coffee?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/robusta-coffee-bean-bitter-revival-arabica-11675867793

article doesn't mention that arabica is likely to die out due to climate change, retconning robusta -> futureproofing profit streams, i imagine that's gotta be part of the draw too