Coffee Appreciation

Sometimes, they seem to be the most obviously scientific in their approach to coffee out of the local roasters. they're on the wrong side of town for me so convenience does tend to drive me elsewhere most of the time. there's a bunch worth visiting here though.

Yeah the Taylor's stuff is not bad, they've released a load of new coffees out quite recently, some good strong ones. Lava java and Indonesian are nice. Also I think they are investing into their coffee to try and better the quality and sourcing moving forwards.

Will have a go with the kitchen scales next time I'm filtering @sumo they're accurate to the gram which should be ok.

I insist on having the ignore button back and I'll promise to use it wisely.

This thread used to be informative, now some obnoxious upity cunt has ruined it.

.

@TM

That's a Moka pot or stovetop, I'm thinking of the electrical device that heats water like a teas made and drips it through ground coffee. I use a stovetop regularly, but have been surprised by the tasty results from my old percolator

Fuck, I am using the wrong words, I have a drip coffee maker

@TM I'd say you're looking for an Aeropress - I now have 3 and bought one for the Doris @ £25 they're excellent value and can be transported around easily.

So easily that I routinely leave them in hotel rooms/ other people's houses and am now on my fourth :(

Yeah - I've ended up with:

Office
Home
Family home

one porlex to rule them all

^^ 4th!
Put a chip in it's ear or something.

@Lukemdfree

Genuine request for advice. I use an aeropress and Monmouth coffee (this I cannot change as I get a massive discount there and though I'm willing to concede it's inferior I cannot turn it down).
My question to is, should I be grinding my own beans or should I let them do it? Would I need to throw good money on a grinder or will a cheap one do?

Fresh grind wins, as long as you're getting the size right. Grind some beans and then sniff the grounds - awesome aroma and a direct caffeine hit to the brain ;) But that's because grinding the beans exposes a much larger surface area than before and so those volatile, tasty chemicals are now evaporating from the grounds at a significant rate. The longer the time gap between grind and making the coffee, the more flavour is gone. Putting the ground coffee in a sealed container slows that a bit, but each time you open it and use some, more fresh air comes in. Keeping the beans intact and grinding when you want to make a cup preserves much more flavour, even though there is obviously still some evaporation.

Another win for doing your own grinding is that you can vary the size to suit the way you're making the coffee, if you have more than one option (or like to try different methods even with just the one apparatus).

As for how much you want to spend on a grinder, I don't think that affects the quality of the result so much as the ease of use. The more expensive grinders are typically easier to clean and faster.

Tibbs - grind fresh, brother.

Not all Monmouth coffee is crap - some of the more expensive beans they sell are pretty good. It's just their bread and butter espresso blends which have gone a bit downhill in the last few years.

Which grindr then?

This one?

If I wanted to read what whoppers think I'd just type Pisti into the search.

Indeed.

Recommendations for decent coffee shops (and roasters) in the East Dulwich / Peckham area?

If you're not grinding that much, a Porlex or Hario hand grinder will give you plenty of variation in grind coarsness, for cheap.. and you can sculpt your guns while you grindin'...

I was making about 30 moka pots during a little event the other day;
grinding about 500g beans with a little zassenhaus like this one (can do about 20g in one go) -

Not on the very finest setting though, but I dreaded it as the thing is not easy to hold firmly.
Turns out I was doing it wrong - found it much easier to do once I sat down to do it.

Grinding by hand for 30 pots, you animal!
Yep, they even call that model the "Knee Mill".

It's not the exact same model (mine has the tray opening to a long side and is "waisted" a bit more),
and I did not really put it between my knees, just pressing on my right thigh and hold firm with the left hand.

Anyway it wasn't exactly fun, but way less of an issue than I had expected; no tennis elbow afterwards..
: ]

As for how much you want to spend on a grinder, I don't think that affects the quality of the result so much as the ease of use. The more expensive grinders are typically easier to clean and faster.

Grinding coffee is, I find, non-trivial and most of the coffee grinders sold on the High Street don't do a good job-- just as most of the High Street "gourmet" coffee stores tend to not just over-roast but also poorly grind what they sell. Espresso/Presto preparation, for example, demands quite a different handling than Aeropress, French Press (e.g. Chambord), Melitta, Chemix, Turkish etc.. and it's not just the grade of the grind. Espresso results are horribly dependent on the grinding technique. One really needs a good slow conical burr grinder. Blade grinders work great with Chemix but produce sub-standard espresso. That is why even in Italy most people purchase Lavazza tins pre-ground. The success of capsule machines too seems to reflect this. Turkish coffee is another "problem" case. Not only does the grind need to be extremely fine-- finer than most coffeee grinders are capable of making-- but the grinding needs to run cool. Most of the household Turkish grinding mills I've seen are not only time consuming but don't get the grind anywhere near the standard a good Turkish roaster can deliver in little bags using their special roller grinders. I'm not familiar with any grinder that is ideal for all the different types of coffee just as there is no single coffee machine for all the different coffee creation (brew, influsion, press etc.) methods. The least critical method I've found is a "mud method" that used to be popular in Soviet Russia: beans are smashed, crushed and ground with a motar and pestle and then cooked in a pot with water and strained (similar to Turkish but Turkish does not get strained and the ground is much much finer)... Another variation of that method is Mexican coffee--- as an aside.. in the early 1980s I went crazy trying to get a cup of real coffee in Mexico city as it seemed that Nescafe had already won over the hearts and minds of the Mexicans.. "Cafe?" I asked.. "No. Nescafe!"-- here the "grind" is much coarser but .....

@TM other things to try if you are into it: Aeropress as per above except with the metal kind of reusable filter, in particular this one They also make a cone one for v60 I think.

The metal filters don't absorb the oils like paper filters do so you get that cafetière like taste. They are a little better about the sediment. If you have a grinder that is good at grinding super-coarse try the slow 8 minute don't agitate method described here: http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/how-to-make-better-french-press-coffee-tips-technique-grind-timing.html

note re ^ I can only vouch for the super fine version. There is a not-as-fine one that is less likely to be damaged but allows more sediment but I haven't tried it (and @TM that probably isn't what you are going for anyway.

I love percolator! I really do.

*I had something to ask but forgotten now... Humour up thread just killed me...

When I first invented the whole concept of coffee as a drink to be prepared from the dried bean, I developed a lexical set to describe a number of preparation methods. If you’ve got a pen handy--I find that the piston-filled variety of fountain pen is the ultimate tool, mainly because I invented it--or you know how to ‘copy & paste’ text from your browser--it was me who realised that the ‘p’ key would be better assigned to printing duties and therefore convinced the prototypical wordprocessing community to take the logical step of using the ‘v’ key due to its proximity to the ‘c’ key for copying--I’ll list the terms here so that you learn more about the correct ways to prepare the drink:

• espresso--this is a concentrated form named after the tiny cups that Italians used in the inter-war years

• cafetière--this is a longer drink for normal cups named by me when I lived in a café that doubled as my pied-à-terre, originally called a ‘caféterre’ but incorrectly interpreted by the French

• …

Heat is a crucial variable--modern kettles have a limited ‘boil setting’--as of course is time, which in the context of coffee is a linear measurement that I find is best monitored with a conventional watch (similar to a ‘clock’). I have no experience of using so-called ‘GPS time’ but there is little advantage to be gained in technology for technology’s sake here.

Coffee is brown, typically a colour associated with poo and corduroy from the 1970s (when I invented it)--I could draw a parallel between corduroy and coffee here but feel it would be somewhat tautologous, an over-egging of the pudding, although puddings aren’t solely reliant on eggs--I invented eggs at the same time as I invented chickens.

…

When I first invented the whole concept of coffee as a drink

How is life going from Olympus?