Coffee Appreciation

I think keeping it low to get to boil means that the coffee grounds are getting wet and heating up a lot before water passes through them, so you end up with a long brew time and boiling grounds, which makes for a very over extracted brew.

Yeah, makes sense. If you stick boiling water in first then you only need to keep it lowish to get the coffee coming through.

I like the coffee I get with it, good change from the clever dripper. Also good for an espresso type drink after dinner that all the frenchies seem want without the faff of having a machine.

Doesn’t paper filtering remove all the oil? You want that from a stovetop brew don’t you?

We rented an apartment in Naples in October which had a little Bialetti and a vac pack brick of Kimbo - I was loving it with a teaspoon of sugar every morning. Took a bit of adjusting to get back to acidic light roasted coffee.

I’d never seen anything like it tbh. It came through as a slow dark foam, grim.

Do you know how it compares to the yellow Bourbon decaf?

Django Coffee seem to be quite consistent on the Decaf they sell.

Happy to report I'm back on regular beans with an 18g / 320 ml v60 brew to slowly see me through each day...

Really impressed with quality to price ratio of the Normcore puck prep tools I have. I got the spring loaded tamper, dosing funnel, WDT and the distributor. Zero regrets. All very well machined and the tolerances for use with a 58mm pf are millimeter perfect.

Did you watch that vid from Lance about wdt?

I did. Very interesting. All I know is that with my grinder, until I had the additional puck prep stuff, getting a consistent shot with the Flair 58 was tough. Channeling and just wildly inconsistent. Unsure what part of puck prep is assisting in that consistency, but the WDT/distributor/spring loaded tamp has allowed me to have very consistent shots.

The deep basket on the Robot is a real boon to my prep, allows me to shake it more vigorously than a standard size.

I haven't tried any coffee from YB I'm afraid

No worries!

I've recently switched to exclusiveky decaf, and while the YB stuff is good, I would like to experiment with a wider range.

And, following the chat about caffeinated decaf, I'm handwringing a bit.

I’ve been to a cupping with Swiss Water, the organic decaf processors and there was a huge variety of flavour on the table. I stick with the Colombia because we need consistency for our wholesale customers which is the biggest market for our roasted decaf but if you see Swiss Water anything else at other roasters then the raw coffee will definitely be good.

The roasting of decaf is all over the map between different roasters though. I go really dark in colour because it is incredibly vinegary - the raw coffee smells like pickled onion monster munch. Roasting dark subdues the acidity and in the decaf we don’t get the carbon burnt flavours developing at the same roast colours as regular coffee - I won’t pretend to know why. A lot of roasters just simply can’t bring themselves to roast to that colour because it’s anathema in these circles so you get decaffeinated Sarsons.

I like YB decaf a lot. I've not had any decaf noticeably better (different flavours and similar enjoyment but not higher quality).

What's the state of the art in terms of a manual filter grinder for someone who is more worried about workflow and price rather than grind quality? Thinking something relatively effortless and quick to turn without too much extra cost?

From my understanding, the grinders with the bigger and better burrs grind faster - which tend to be associated with better quality grinders (and better grind quality).

It’s all relative. What’s your current grinder and what’s your budget? Hard to suggest an improvement without knowing those two things really.

Do you wan't to use it in one place or take it with you?
I recently bought a ROC Grinder, which cost quite a bit of money and is not portable, but it grinds really nice, and there hasn't been a single noise complaint in the household since.

Rhinowares hand grinder + drill

I've managed to make my thermal server stink of mulled wine (by filling it with mulled wine) - anyone had success getting rid of strong smells from a server? Washing up liquid isn't making a dent

Puly Caff

Milton or other, off brand baby bottle disinfectant tablets work well and are cheap as chips.

Good/not £££ bean storage?? Opened a fresh bag today and just hits different everytime.

Currently yeeting 500g into the hopper everytime into my sage grinder. Would like to give a small chance of recreating that first hit on the regular. Figured some proper storage and adding beans as and when required would be a good place to start.

Just keep em in the sealed bag?

Bags don't reseal back up properly. Did consider just throwing in sandwich bag / tupperware and sure it'll be perfectly fine. Remembered however I love buying overly specific bits of coffee paraphernalia that my partner doesn't appreciate.

Vinegar and mustard mixed together do a great job of getting rid of smells.