Coffee Appreciation

Anyone else cold brew way more forgiving with bad beans?

I needed some beans yesterday and Tesco own brand beans was all that was available. It’s not a bad cold brew imo

Drinking coffee cold is less bitter, and cold brewing pulls less of the bitter compounds I think?

Sounds very believable.

I think I prefer cold brew over most other coffees

I've got a bag of shit beans on the go at the moment. Hadn't thought of cold brew, thanks!

Anyone else cold brew way more forgiving with bad beans?

That's because cold brew makes all beans taste like bad beans!

Yeah cold brew definitely mellows out the flavour you get from the beans.

For less good beans this is great, for good beans, not so much.

When I was regularly making cold brew (full immersion, still yet to try my MacGyver drip tower), I ended up just using some pre-ground Taylors coffee from the supermarket as it was a waste to use anything decent.

How fine/coarse are people grinding for cold brew?

I don't think it matters that much, because the extraction time is so long anyway.

Very course

Anyone know of a steel pour over carafe? The bit that collects the actual beverage. I keep breaking our glass chemex.

Hario do a few steel V60 servers (including some insulated) that look decent enough. I've had one of their glass ones for a good few years and am very happy with it.

here's the coffee I've ground for the Sage Precision Brewer just now

Actually tinkered with the mybrew settings and have managed to get a really nice cup with a long bloom time, smallish bloom volume, 98 degrees and low flow rate.

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That looks a fair bit coarser than I usually go for. Maybe I'll play around with the grind again!

Anyone got any recommendations for standalone milk frothers?

Been happy with drinking exclusively espresso (or filter) at home since picking up my cafelat robot in 2020 but missus is starting to drink flat whites occasionally and daughter is partial to a babychino so wouldn’t mind picking up something that I could use at home.

Been looking at the bellman cx25s or subminimal nanofoamer (or even the pro). I know they have very different approaches but both seem to have loyal followings. Anyone tried both and can offer comparisons? Any others I should consider?

subminimal nanofoamer

I was looking at these (same robot situation), but I can't tell if it heats the milk a bit or not, and nothing says either way... So I didn't get one.

The pro one heats, the handheld one does not

Sage Bambino tbh. They come up frequently on ebay with massive discount codes. Nothing specific there right now, but here's a previous example selling for £94.

Thanks, should have stated that brief calls for something that won’t take up additional counter space and can be easily packed away with minimal drama

So this happened last week and it's an absolute charm to use!
15 g in, 15 g out, no static and - I didn't know I'd value it this much - it sounds amazing.

Brewing and dialling in coffee is exciting again and it tastes much better than my Timemore C2 already (duh), but I don't think that I'm making the most of it yet. I assume it requires a bit of seasoning rather than my lack of skill (don't correct me here pls).
Can't wait for next summer, when the grinder will be fully seasoned and I'll be able to do proper cold brew! That has always been a miss with the Timemore

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That looks spot on to me.

What are you mybrew settings? I loving fucking about with this stuff.

The gold setting is good, but it always tastes like it could be better.

Here you go...

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Damn a philos in a domestic setting! Very cool. What machine do you have?

I have the Subminimal Nanofoamer Pro and like it, they've just released Gen 2 so hopefully an improvement. I had the original one and found heating the milk then whisking too much of a faff alongside the Robot manual process but is very easy with the pro, just hit go on it before you start pulling your shot and it will be ready to pour shortly after you've finished the shot. I'm no latte art wizard but works fine with oat milk giving the consistency you would expect.

Thanks for this! Have you found any issues with scorching at the bottom given it’s pretty much a kettle heating the milk? Or is the temperature low enough that it’s not really an issue?

No scorching, there is a bit of residue to wipe off that doesn't just rinse out but it isn't burnt or have any impact on flavour.