I finally bought a scale, so I'm working to dial in my method.
Tools:
French press
Bunn-O-Matic G1 grinder
Teapot to boil water
Digital kitchen scale
Process:
What's your process?
I have a measuring cup for my beans. Hand crank burr grinder set to extra coarse. Electric kettle and I only heat it up to 180-190 to prevent some bitterness. Then french press time, once I get a new one as mine broke 2 days ago.
Also, my wife is a barista at S'bucks. Make the jokes you want, but they know their E36 M3. And also discounts and free bags of coffee.
Best beans I have had were from Boca Java called Kenyan Kruzing. It was a fair trade coffee my girlfriend found for me. Very bold flavor almost no bitterness unlike the mermaid place.
I have a bottle of the rum that the guy from Dangerous Grounds on the TV made. That's what I got.
I just go across the street a bit and go to http://herkimercoffee.com/
Or go to www.victrolacoffee.com
Or
http://www.caffevita.com/
Or the home of the velvet foam... http://www.velvetfoam.com/
Or
most places in seattle. It's one thing this place does well.
8 o'clock whole bean Columbian. 1 tablespoon scoop per 3 cups measured by marking on coffee pot. Grind finely in $8 electric grinder. Use unbleached generic brown filter. Add 1 additional cup water to pot (so for 3 cups out use 4 cups H2O & 1 Tbsp beans, for 6 cups out use 7 cups H2O & 2 Tbsp beans, for 9 cups out use 10 cups of H2O & 3 Tbsp beans). Drink 4-5 sips, visit throne room and read latest GRM.
You asked for a process so don't complain about TMI...
Mostly I use an Aeropress. Cleaner to use at work, and makes great coffee. It replaced a French Press.
I use 8'oclock whole beans. Usually Columbian Peaks (sounds like a porn star hehe) but I'll use whatever I can find at the store. I have an electric burr mill that I just eyeball the amount of beans. I usually just use the automatic drip coffee makes because I'm lazy/late.
I do have a large french press that I always forget to use. I also do not have a tea kettle so I'd have to nuke the water.
The best coffee I ever had was at my last shop. A woman that I worked with was a fellow coffee nerd. We found a local bean roaster. We split a pound of organic 100% kona whole bean coffee. We ground it in her manual burr grinder pretty coarse. Then we made it in her french press using bottled water. That coffee was so smooth and flavorful that it became the measuring stick to all coffee is measured by.
My next foray in coffee is home-roasting beans. I bought and old popcorn air popper since that seems like the most accepted method. I'll either roast some coffee or burn my house down 
alfadriver wrote: Mostly I use an Aeropress. Cleaner to use at work, and makes great coffee. It replaced a French Press.
I forgot that I have one of these. I could never get a product as good as French press, but perhaps my proportions or timing were off.
I have been debating whether to go off of the deep end and buy an espresso machine. I won't pretend that it's about cost savings; it's all about having instant access to cappuccino.
Espresso fan here. My coffee of choice is coffee bean direct six bean espresso blend. Cheaper than Starbucks, off amazon, and much tastier. The local, to me, chain Old Soul is better, with their espresso but I can't justify the cost. Have a breville espresso machine and their burr grinder.
This:
And this:
It doesn't get any better.
OK, I'll be different. My standard is Turkish coffee, morning and night. Grind beans as fine as your burr grinder will go (I have an antique hand grinder that gets them even finer, but that requires effort), boil water in small steeply-tapered pot, once boiling add coffee grounds and sugar to taste and return to heat. Once it boils up (almost instant) it's done. No filtering - the grounds settle into the bottom of the cup. The traditional preparation uses light to medium roast beans; I prefer it with a blend of dark (for taste) and medium (for body) roasts.
Mitchell wrote:alfadriver wrote: Mostly I use an Aeropress. Cleaner to use at work, and makes great coffee. It replaced a French Press.I forgot that I have one of these. I could never get a product as good as French press, but perhaps my proportions or timing were off. I have been debating whether to go off of the deep end and buy an espresso machine. I won't pretend that it's about cost savings; it's all about having instant access to cappuccino.
I don't measure by weight, but over time figured out the best amount of scoops of coffee. So for one cup, I do 3 level of the scoop I have (Gevalia small cone scoop that they give you with a subscription) of local roasted coffee- which I prefer to be a little on the dark side. Ground fine as if for a drip grinder.
I also do the inverted method of using it- pulling the stopper to the end, add coffee, add water (stirring like they suggest), and then putting the fiter on. The walk from the cafeteria to my desk is a good time for steepage. Press (let drip) and enjoy.
Unlike a French press- the areopress is robust to grind- you can use whatever you like. So I did experiment a little starting with a Press coarse grind before settling on the drip grind.
Then the other important part to me- as they restricted where we can clean dishes here at work, cleaning is shoving the puck of grind and fiter into a garbage can.
I think it makes great coffee.
One other thing I do- I've got one of the really big French Presses at home- and I've found that making 4 large cups at once (not sure how many that is in real measurements- 10?) also makes amazing coffee- better than the smaller ones. But that's for weekends at home.
I've considered getting an espresso machine, too. Never coule pull the trigger- although I came close on a trip to Italy- they have a Kureg like machine that makes really good espresso. Getting the coffee packets would be really hard here in the states, though.
We are also spoiled with a local roaster right down at the end of our block. Expensive, but REALLY good.
I prefer Peruvian Organic (don't give a E36 M3 about it being "organic" I'll spare you my organic rant, it just happens to taste great, and be called organic) and SWMBO likes the Snikee Doodle from Rozark Hills. The Peruvian is an off menu item, they don't list it on their site for some reason.
http://www.rozark.com/
We order 1 pound of each, preground, every other month. We're pretty lazy, spoon the desired quantity into the Keurig MY K-Cup, stick it into the Keurig, and hit the large cup button.
If I'm in the mood I spoon some Pilao a friend from Brazil got me into the MY K-Cup.
I also keep a small container of Folgers Colombian as emergency back up.
Since we got one of these about 3 years ago we haven't actually bought any K-Cups. If you own a Keurig, it's a must have, in my opinion.
Zeke's Tell Tale Dark course ground into French press, steep for 6 minutes and enjoy.
I discovered the Toddy recently and love it. Hard for me to drink anything else now.
http://toddycafe.com/
Keurig is what I have settled on as I can get a fresh cup at any time. I use my own coffee not the k cups. I use to like the french or dark roast but lately I have been going more with the more mellow breakfast blends. Lighter smoother more subtle flavors. And they in general have more caffeine. Lighter roasts in general have more caffeine. The longer roasting of the dark roast coffees drives off the caffeine from the bean.
I have gone back to a drip pot and its a good trade off for me. I used to french press and for a while did pour-overs with the little cone filter that sits on top of the mug. The problem for me is that they don't make much coffee and they require active attention. This way I just grind, fill, and hit a button.
I use Gevalia whole bean. When I'm playing canadian I like to get Muskoka or LaVazza. I grind it super fine with an Oster grinder and use paper filters. I used to grind it a little coarser and use a stainless mesh basket but I much prefer the flavor of a finer grind. When I grind it as fine as I do, it just goes through the stainless mesh and makes mud in the pot.
The coarser grinds tend to wash the oils off but can't get to all the tannins and caramel compounds. Super fine grinds make hundreds of times greater surface area. This not only extracts more of the richer-tasting compounds, but it also means it gets more "coffee" and less of the bitter, high-caffeine surface compounds alone.
Another tip I learned was to keep the proper proportion of coffee to water. If you like it lighter, add hot water after you brew, don't use less coffee. The reason is, the water dissolves good stuff first. If you keep putting more water over less coffee it will start to dissolve the more complex compounds which are bitter. Golden rule is no less than 1TBS for 2 cups, and anything more than 1TBS per 1 cup will not have enough water to get all the good stuff out.
Otherwise, I do about 1 Tbs per cup to brew and a good splash of 10% MF half and half. Large ceramic mug. And a pound of bacon.
Oh... and french press folks...
Let the water cool down to no more than 185 degrees before you pour it in. Otherwise the higher temperatures will cook and dissolve the woody pectins and lignins in the bean. Makes it taste burnt.
bigdaddylee82 wrote: I prefer Peruvian Organic (don't give a E36 M3 about it being "organic" I'll spare you my organic rant, it just happens to taste great, and be called organic) and SWMBO likes the Snikee Doodle from Rozark Hills. The Peruvian is an off menu item, they don't list it on their site for some reason. http://www.rozark.com/ We order 1 pound of each, preground, every other month. We're pretty lazy, spoon the desired quantity into the Keurig MY K-Cup, stick it into the Keurig, and hit the large cup button. If I'm in the mood I spoon some Pilao a friend from Brazil got me into the MY K-Cup. I also keep a small container of Folgers Colombian as emergency back up. Since we got one of these about 3 years ago we haven't actually bought any K-Cups. If you own a Keurig, it's a must have, in my opinion.
Agree the My K Cup is good for the Keurig. I have some other ones that fit, but don't work near as well. I buy whole bean Columbian from Sam's and grind it in an old flail grinder. I'll buy a proper burr grinder when this one breaks, but it's closing in on 20 years now, so I may need to take a hammer to it.
I use the bigger Chemex, the drip rate is determined by the thicker paper filters than other pour over techniques. It requires some attention, but I like the ritual. I work pretty random shifts, so any ritual I can add to my life is nice. I buy local roasted whole bean coffee, we keep moving so there isn't a real favorite. I've found I prefer African coffees with acidic, floral, or fruity notes, lightly roasted. A few times I've had better cups than I brew at great places like Stumptown in Portland or Intelligentsia in Chicago, but I'll concede to the masters at such places.
I also have an Aeropress and a French press but only use them rarely. Never got as good of results.
Coffee snobs would be disgusted by my french press method, but I like it. The key seems to be not using too hot of water more than anything.
1988RedT2 wrote:bigdaddylee82 wrote: I prefer Peruvian Organic (don't give a E36 M3 about it being "organic" I'll spare you my organic rant, it just happens to taste great, and be called organic) and SWMBO likes the Snikee Doodle from Rozark Hills. The Peruvian is an off menu item, they don't list it on their site for some reason. http://www.rozark.com/ We order 1 pound of each, preground, every other month. We're pretty lazy, spoon the desired quantity into the Keurig MY K-Cup, stick it into the Keurig, and hit the large cup button. If I'm in the mood I spoon some Pilao a friend from Brazil got me into the MY K-Cup. I also keep a small container of Folgers Colombian as emergency back up. Since we got one of these about 3 years ago we haven't actually bought any K-Cups. If you own a Keurig, it's a must have, in my opinion.Agree the My K Cup is good for the Keurig. I have some other ones that fit, but don't work near as well. I buy whole bean Columbian from Sam's and grind it in an old flail grinder. I'll buy a proper burr grinder when this one breaks, but it's closing in on 20 years now, so I may need to take a hammer to it.
I had been using this but found that the metal screen clogs to easy especially with coffees that have a lot of oils. I got a 3 pack of plastic filter things that work in the K cup adaptor for he Kurig from CVS and it works much better than the one pictured above. Trying to get the metal screen clean in the one photo'd above really is a PITA where as the ones I have now wash clean with ease. AND if they kids want a coco or something that requires the use of the K Cup adaptor it is already in place so messing with the thing to swap back and forth for me to make coffee with it.
I miss having an awesome local roaster 
. It allows for experimentation and variety. And you could buy beans in any quantity since they were sold by weight.
Now I'm stuck with whatever Wallyworld feels like stocking in whole beans. Seriously, why is there only two varieties in whole bean and 17,000 different ground coffees?
Yes! Best coffee I've ever tasted - much smoother than those pricy barrista brews with the silly names.
Trans_Maro wrote: This:
You'll need to log in to post.
