Coffee Appreciation

Noticed I'd nearly run out of beans and then I get an email through with a code for Pact. Good timing - will have some of their el mirador beans plus some free drip filter thing tomorrow apparently. Any opinions on those beans through an aeropress?

Signed up for 28 interval with the idea of interspersing with other sources.

That looks like good stuff, roasted on Feb 24th and best before 18 months has elapsed. It's basically super-fresh.

I had thought date format was Julian day 242 of 2016, so mid Aug roast. I don't think they'll be life changingly good but they could be better than what we have, which is start at least.

As said it'd be great if we could visit Ancoats, Man CoCo, Passion Fruit, & Heart & Graft for some chats about brews and beans.

Thank you, not ready to pay over a ton for a grinder yet though.

Keep an eye out for the Gaggia MDF on eBay or elsewhere.

Not the greatest but pretty reasonable as a first step. Got mine for £40 S/H.

That'd be great ta.

arrived and installed this morning, noticeably better dispersion through the shower screen and was happy with the 2 drinks I made with it today.

am currently using a bag of coffee from sainsbury's from these guys which is not bad for supermarket beans but I have a bag of red brick in the post so reserving full judgement until I get a chance to really mess around with that.

Ah maybe you're right, I might be being unfair. People have been known to reverse the date format to make a batch number.

Cool, yeah Redbrick will tell you what you need to know.

I'm giving this every chance. Except it'll be brewed v60 tomorrow which isn't fair on the espresso it's labelled as. I said I'd like a play via the cafe grinder and machine but that'd need to be out of hours so pre 7am or after 10pm not going to happen.

Looking at getting a kettle and wondering if it is worth getting one that can go to set temperatures, and maybe has a water filter built in too. Good idea? Any recommendations atm?

Shameless plug but...I just set up a dedicated Instagram account and Facebook page for my coffee events company in Japan.

It will be more so a speciality coffee photography and information thing than anything else until I have the guts to quit my day job and open a physical coffee shop, as opposed to doing a bunch of instore events.

There will be coverage of anywhere I go on my travels so it will more than likely be possible to pick up some shop tips at some point!

Anyway, no pressure but give them a follow or like if you feel so inclined!

INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK

I have a Brita kettle. Not thermostatic, but the filtering works well and gives you a better cup, especially with tea.

Would also be interested in similar recommendations. I've been using a 'litre of water boiled then left for 1 minute' rule of thumb but it's a bit vague and our water's pretty hard in bristol i think.

Doesn't have a filter or temp control but I've got to say for solid reliability and a fast boil my new Dualit classic is very pleasing.

Also it seems to have some kind of pouring funnel thing built inside. Maybe that's a normal thing for kettles but coming from a 5 quid Asda job before it's a fucking revelation that you can pour water without getting more on the work surface than in the cup. This makes it surprisingly adept at wetting grounds in a V60 when I was expecting to have to buy one of these:

http://www.hario.co.uk/v60-pouring-kettle-buono-0-8l-electric.html?gclid=CMLkt7Ke2s8CFasp0wod8N4N7Q

Cool, yeah Redbrick will tell you what you need to know.

pretty much nailed the shot on my first go with the redbrick, am maybe one micro-notch out on my vario grinder to slow the shot by another second or two. but flow out of the bottomless portafilter looks much better and the amount of crema seems to be increased with the fresher beans. if anything they should improve over next few days as it was only roasted on thursday.

i'd say there's a noticeable improvement but as it wasn't terrible before it's not a night and day difference but it is a bit better overall so I am happy with the upgrade.

I'm sure there's some placebo effect going on somewhere in there but for £36 inc p&p it's a cheap way of improving some of the weaker components.

now i seem to be obsessing about steam power. have the silvia wand upgrade but seems to lose steam power far too quickly to get a really decent microfoam before the milk gets too hot.

Please help me to coffee properly.

New metal filter, grinder, and proper beans arrived in the week and I had my first ever cup of great coffee at home this morning.

Trouble is, with the grinding etc it probably took about 10 minutes to make all in all, grinding by hand seems to be s l o w. Should I be grinding a little batch and keeping it for weekday mornings? Or just grinding faster? I know I should know this stuff already.

When I had a hand grinder it'd take me the time it took for the kettle to boil to grind 16-18g of coffee.
The whole thing does feel like a faff at first but you soon get used to it!

You clearly need a source of filtered water Tommmmmmmmmm, you should come and get one from my garage.

Sounds good. Reminds me I still need bottomless pf though too. #alladdsuptopricey

now i seem to be obsessing about steam power. have the silvia wand upgrade but seems to lose steam power far too quickly to get a really decent microfoam before the milk gets too hot.

Same upgrade, with the Classic I think there's a knack to it. Flick steam button, open valve to flush bit of water out of wand, then go for it at first sign of steam. I found waiting for it to heat more steam before opening the valve resulted in too short a burst and exactly what you describe above. HTH. P.s. might vary machine to machine tho?

My Krupps burr grinder is grinding to a halt. Not too bad after 10 years, could get another one for £40 or could get a Mazzer mini for £400.

Is there an in between option?

A few. Iberital MC2 might work for you (see happydonkey).

Else I still have a unused Krups you could have for nominal price plus forum donation to cover my time & postage costs, I need to test it still works from storage tho.

Thanks for the offer and advice. The Iberital looks interesting; I think I may have reached the end of my Krupps phase...

Second hand. I think I paid £150 odd for my mini.

ah, thanks - will have a look. I kind of assumed that because Mazzer is the standard, used prices would be silly.

Like when I was looking for a 2nd hand range cooker and they were generally 70% of new price and had be be collected from Devon or somewhere...

Use typozay website and use this to set up saved searches. A lot of people don't know how to spell Mazzer or coffee.

There's a mini for sale in London just now - maybe ask for a cash price.