Coffee/Caufee Thread
Been thinking about venturing into making much more richer/better coffee. Don't know where to start though
I know French Presses are cheap as well Espresso machines (though I don't think I should be getting those that cheap). Any tips?
Don't forget a coffee grinder. Manual grinders are quaint but for the best flavor and ground consistency, buy electric.
Yeah and the French press, you're set mang.
i drink this great coffee called tea, its lovely
I like tea too.
Let's be real here though, a good coffee actually takes some time and work to make as opposed to tea.
SHOTS FIRED SHOTS FIRED
But yeah, 100% agreed. Making good coffee is an art and tea just can't compete. Unless it's a Japanese tea ceremony but that's less about flavor and more about huffing the fart you dropped in your layered kimono.
Buy some unroasted beans, roast in any random saucepan.
Buy an ibrik for seven bucks, get your freshly roasted beans grinded (at home, maybe with Hario Skerton, or a nice pricey electric grinder, maybe at your local market or roaster) to a very fine grind, and look up how to make Turkish coffee.
There is no way to get more flavor out of beans than being truly freshly roasted (you can grind and brew directly after roasting, no need to wait like some false sources state), and brewing in either a Turkish style or with an expensive pump-driven espresso machine. Once you figure out exactly how you like to brew your Turkish, you can experiment fully with roast levels, bean varieties, and blends.
Anything roasted in a saucepan will extract like shit. You need a proper drum roaster for any sort of even roast. They start at a couple grand, so not really worth it if your objective is saving money over typical specialty roasters.
Any other espresso autists around?
I use a french press, but pour over or drip machines can produce a very comparable brew.
Grinding beans yourself is ideal, but having relatively fresh beans or grounds is at least a good starting point.
From then, it's technique and recipe. Water temperature, amount of grounds, any additives if you're into that.
I like to add a very small pinch of salt to my french press.
>arguing with MGTOW DIY cultists
people will do any kind of funny self-rationalization for why specialization of labor is a jewish hoax, he's now going to post a ridiculous explanation as to how much money he's "saved" by pretending all the coffee he wasted dialing in his roast isn't real (or maybe he just ruins coffee and pretends it's better because there's no one around to call him out)
>B-but mu-muh po-popcorn roaster!!!!!11!!One! It's totally better than $3,000 drum roaster!!!
>Resting coffee after roasting is a Jewish hoax! Mu-muh freshness requires you to brew the beans 37 seconds after roasting for maximum CO2 extraction!!!!!!
Try aeropress/drip/chemex
The resting is really largely unnecessary for everything but espresso, IF you take it into account in the brew. e.g. longer bloom, maybe let the grounds sit a few minutes after grinding, etc. For something like Turkish (or any full immersion method, really) it matters even less, since the offgassing mostly fucks things up for water flowing through the coffee. Still, the flavor profile changes after a couple days of rest, and almost never for the worse unless it was a shit roast to begin with.
Roasting coffee is a fun hobby, and somewhere around $2-3k of roasting equipment really aint that expensive as far as hobbies go. Not everything has to exist to save money.
But yeah, I've done the math, and taking into account the coffee used to dial in, it'd take years to break even. (assuming $5-7/lb green and $20/lb roasted) And that's if I never bought coffee from a shop again. With time valued at $0/hr. But I do still buy coffee from other roasters too. Nice to have something to compare to, ya know?
I will concede too that even a shit saucepan or popcorn popper roast will be better than whatever coffee you can find at your grocery store for the $3-$4/lb he's probably paying for greens.
Burr grinder, small kitchen scale, aeropress
Buy whole beans, either online or locally. Aeropress is pretty forgiving but also super versatile when it comes to different recipes
Except it's not just $2-3k of equipment, it's the EK43 on your countertop, and the 4 other incrementally better grinders you went through before you realized which one you REALLY needed, and the $1000 worth of modifications to your home water system, and everything you own smelling like coffee, and the espresso machines...
It would surprise me if you told me you've spent anything less than $20k on your coffee hobby so far
I brew Chemex and I find that it takes about 3 days of rest after roasting for the CO2 levels to drop enough to get the most out of the beans. Any fresher and even using 3 times the coffee weight I water isn't enough to bloom out all the CO2.
French Press
Burr Grinder
Scale
Oh, believe me, I know that. But that's espresso, not roasting.
It's still a lot less than $20k, around $10k total. Now, if I got an MVP Hydra I've been wanting... well that'd put me over the $20k mark. I can itemize for you if you want.
Try waiting around 15 minutes between grind and brew. Stir the fuck out of it in the bloom too (actually, always do that one). And use more than 3x the water, that should be your normal bloom. Coffee can absorb up to twice it's weight in water, but since some will fall through instead of absorbing 2:1 isn't enough.
I'm not actually planning on an MVP Hydra, by the way. Just a DE1+ Pro if they're as good as it looks they might be.
If not, well then the MVP is back on the radar.
Who Nespresso master race?
Kys
Roasting in a skillet or saucepan works perfectly and can pull off an extremely even roast. A good point to bring up is that you can buy something akin to a whirly-pop, which is infact a stovetop drum roaster. Many people I know have tried and been amazed at the flavors in the beans I roast, stating they retain flavors they've never experienced from coffee before. I don't understand your unprovoked animosity towards somebody who knows how to do something useful, well.
You preemptively insult, and assume multiple things, because you fear your own argument is faulty. I honestly don't understand why you even post in these threads when your only intent is to mock others for your own self-aggrandizement.
No, it can't. Any amateur with a drum roaster can beat Scott fucking Rao with a pan. It's inherently uneven. And uneven is inherently bad.
A whirlypop is also not a drum roaster. In any way. But at least slightly better than a pan. If you want an actual decent roaster that isn't hyper expensive, check out the Kaldi roasters on Amazon. They're tiny as shit, but decent.
The only reason people like your coffee is because they're used to the absolute shit sold in grocery stores. Which, yes, yours will absolutely wipe the floor with. But you are physically incapable of holding a candle to a well executed drum roast of specialty coffee.
Also, if you aren't logging your roasts with a thermocouple in Artisan (or similar software) you might as well just be throwing it in a fire and picking up the ashes. You NEED to be able to see, and control, the bean temperature curve to get a good roast.
I'm afraid your own pretension blinds you. I've seen and drank small batch roasts from simple ovens that have been miles ahead of good roasters here (Pacific Northwest, including Seattle). It's about experience, and knowing the bean you are working with.
It's not disagreeable that on average, good equipment will result in a more even roast, but you cannot disregard the fact that extremes exist, and there are people out there who can skillet roast beans better than others with thousands of dollars of gear.
I'll admit to that.
You can make shit coffee on good equipment. Some big name roasters do just go blind without logging software, and just sort of shoot for a certain color. End up just going for "light" without making sure there's proper development time. They're the cause of most of the misconceptions about light coffee too. But you'll never match something from George Howell or Tim Wendleboe.
But you still can't make an actually decent roast on shit equipment. You're only beating something even more shit.
The best way to get good coffee is to get good coffee beans. The way you press it does not matter that much apart from if you make it an espresso or not.
Get a coffee from ONE farm. Regular store bought coffee mixes from several farms and makes the unique tastes diffuse. You can often buy coffee from single farms if you buy from Scandinavian small scale roasters. (Google coffee roaster Oslo or something, for some reason it is unusual elsewhere)
Warning: it makes regular coffee taste bland as fuck and you likely will have trouble finding a similar taste every time. North African coffee often has a distinct acidic taste, my favourite are Colombian or Brazilian. But finding coffee from the same yield in the same farm makes all the difference.
maybe if you're a teabag drinking pleb
also,
>hard to make makes it good
I could detail you the best and most tedious method of making dollar tree steak with ketchup if you'd like
You mean single origin? it's not that fucking hard dude
The term "single orgin" is also used to mean 'single country' or can be some other kind of mix.
Checking in
Are medium roasts a meme?
Every medium roast I've ever tried has a chalky aftertaste.
Meanwhile, even stale dark roast crap will taste vaguely like coffee no matter how cheap or expensive it is.
You all have clinical autism and I wish to lock you in a room with nothing but a cup, an electric kettle, a faucet, and endless supplies of Nescafe for 48hrs until that clinical autism is cured forever.
you mean a keurig machine and a basket of kcups?
because all that shit is still pretty autistic by today's standards
no he means microlot
Actually, specialty coffee is becoming more and more mainstream.
Hating on hipsters is autistic as fuck now.
>ACKTUALLY, WE'RE MAINSTREAM NOW
>YEAH REVENGE OF THE "NERDS"
The clinical autism is more severe than I was prepared for.
Except nerds have always hated on hipsters
t. bootyblasted flyover drip Folgers drinker.
Holy shit someone else realized it.
Paying $30 for a gallon of coffee is fucking moronic.
God all travel mugs are shit. The only thing they are good for is keeping shit hot. Other than that they suck. Stainless steel makes the coffee taste like pure shit after a while, intricate plastic lids smell like shit and are impossible to clean.
I'm going to be forced to buy one of those meme ceramic travelers.
Ignore the artists telling you to start with roasting your own coffee. Find somewhere to buy fresh roasted whole bean coffee. Grind the coffee right before brewing it. If you want to be cheap get a decent grinder and use a French press or pour over brewer.
this 2bh...grinding your own beans is essential but roasting them is not
as long as they are actually freshly roasted
I mean sure do it if it interests you but you're not really missing on anything in terms of coffee taste