Coffee Appreciation

As others have suggested get the hario cold brewer - dug mine out a couple weeks ago and make a batch every few days. I like it with ice, milk and ice or with tonic, ice and a slice of lime

OK thanks, looking like a good option. Do you find it bitter and if so presumably sweetening with sugar syrup?

I don't add sugar but I think as others have said it can be a little flat - some of the flavours don't sing as much as when brewed hot (others can explain that far better than me).

I use the hario for cold brewing. Have never found it bitter or flat but I tend to prefer lighter roasts, often natural process, that have floral/fruity/bright flavour profiles which I think suit cold brewing. Don't add milk or sugar but often have it over ice if it's really hot.

Left my Mizudashi in the office so will give the iced V60 method a go tomorrow with the Chemex. Looking forward to it!

If anyone is doing a cold brew Mizudashi style and finding it too bitter or flat, try experiementing with the receipe, you can get wildly different flavours if you up the change the amount of coffee and brew time. I've made some amazingly sweet brews in around 4 hours. Just keep in mind it's more sensitive to the age and roast style of the beans.

Nice one, thanks all, just ordered the Hario. What grind are people using for these? I think I read somewhere slightly coarser but that be entirely wrong....

Cheers

For full immersian brewing like cold brew, french press etc, go a bit coarser than filter brewing.

To an extent, but with a glass of milk essentially dumped on top I guess I'm ok with the result.
Sometimes I'll add sugar but that tends to be unrelated to flavour and more just because I've just done a ridey ride

600ml or 1L? Purely capacity or does the 1L do something better?

No don’t really know why I specified 1l tbh. Probably because if I was going to the effort of planning delayed gratification (not my natural inclination at all) I would want to make enough for a few glasses.

I can't take too much fridge space away from beer though, you see? :)

I emailed Sage UK to ask if they had any discounts for NHS staff and they sent me a 50% off code so I've got a Smart Grinder Pro ordered for £99.97 delivered. Sweet!

Quick question re. Yellow Bourbon coffee ( @StevePeel ?) Do 1kg packs (of the espresso) get posted in a package that can be posted through a letterbox? I can't be doing with waiting in the queue at my local post office right now.

EDIT: any reviews of Yellow Bourbon's espresso blend would be very welcome.

Came in a big 1kg for me, which seems unlikely to fit in a letter box. I have limited espresso experience, but I've definitely been enjoying it!

No not really, unless you've got a big letterbox.

Thanks, how about multiple 250g packs? I assume that one 250g is postable, but how about 2 or 3?

In all honesty if its a big deal I would go for one of the companies who specialise in that sort of thing and have letterbox packaging. In peacetime we sell about 1 mail order to every 30 or 40 walk-in purchases so we've never invested the time and energy to optimising the postage and packing like the mail-order only big boys do. Obviously it seems pertinent to do it now but we've been caught on the hop with this and its all we can do to keep on top of the orders which are coming in.

Ah fair enough, I'm really keen to try it and I've seen some nice pictures on here of people getting Yellow Bourbon deliveries that look like they had been delivered. Any feedback on postability from any of them would be great.

EDIT: any reviews of Yellow Bourbon's espresso blend would be very welcome.

I quite enjoyed mine. I had mine ground and Steve’s grind size was pretty much bang on the money for my Gaggia. It’s quite a light roast for espresso, definitely at the more modern end of espresso than traditional. Pulled at 9 bar and made a thicker crema than I was expecting from the lighter roast. Taste is very much at the fruity end of the scale. It’s bright tasting, not bitter. Lots of licorice and molasses. It didn’t need a longer pull to get decent extraction like some lighter roasts need.

It worked well in a small milk drink like flat white or smaller, but it’s delicate tasting espresso and was a bit lost in something the size of cappuccino. I wouldn’t waste it in a big drink like latte. It responded well to sugar, though I’d probably choose a soft dark brown sugar or Demerara over white sugar if I had it, as i think it would complement the coffee.

Any particular reason why you are concerned about it not fitting in a post box? Postie just leaves ours on the door mat...

Yeah true, I guess I'm just used to my Pact delivery ending up on the mat and it's never clear to me what heuristic the post office use for trying to deliver something vs. it ending up back at the sorting office. I guess I'll give it a punt and, worst case, I have to queue for a bit.

Fair dos. We have a tiny 1920s letterbox so very little fits through our front door. Pact included.

As far as I know, all Royal Mail delivery methods apart from Special Delivery are signature free at the moment.

I order 2 x 250g each time. It'd not fit letterbox as packaged but as I'm furloughed and partner is wfh it is no problem. Pre lockdown there's a few obvious stash points the common sense posties made use of.

Does anyone in this thread have an MC2 automatic and fancy doing me a favour?

A resistor has blown on the PCB attached to the timer switch, but the resistor is too knackered to tell what its value is. If someone could be bothered to take the base off their MC2 auto and snap a pic of the PCB I'd be much obliged.

Resistor pictured for the curious.

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