I have worked as a barista before, and also a pretty much life-long coffee drinker and lover, just a little bit of a snob and a seeker of quality.
I know more than 20 different ways of making coffee.
Here is the best coffee brewing method I've come up with.
First, I get some CLEAN water, and I boil it in an unfinished metal or ceramic-finished metal pot. I use a regular pot so that I can see inside. I also like to let a little bit of the water evaporate...
While it's getting ready, I get the best and freshest coffee grounds I can muster, it's better if I can grind them on the spot, but that's not always available.
I put the coffee grounds, as much as I think is necessary, into a glass or ceramic bowl, and pour the boiling water over them. I optionally cover and/or stir and let steep.
After about 5-15 minutes, I pour the coffee into another glass or ceramic bowl, letting the grounds stay at the bottom of the first bowl.
The coffee is now ready for drinking. To keep it warm, I cover it and leave it in the oven for insulation, or use an electric plate. It usually doesn't last long. It's good cold too.
The second best method I know is cold-brewing in a similar fashion, takes a number of hours I haven't tracked yet.
If anyone is interested in learning why this method is better than all the others, please reply with the method you think is better and I will explain why you're wrong. :^)
Edit: The method in the video is quite good, and my only complaint is that it uses disposable filters, which leads to unnecessary materials harvesting, human labor, biome squeeze, diesel use, waste output, and other artifacts of production.
Yeah, for those of you who like the simplicity, get a french press and a grinder. Grind the beans while you boil the water. Put both in the french press and wait for 5 minutes and you are done. In summer, use filtered water and let it sit in a fridge overnight, and you get yourself the perfect cold brew.
I've settled into using a 2 or 4 cup kitchen measuring cup, and pouring it through a fine tea filter into cups (one of these, because its mesh is finer than any french press I've seen: https://www.finum.com/portfolio/brewing-basket-m/ they last for decades). Cheaper, more durable, and easier to clean than french press carafes / their filter-structure with its many crevices. Plus I can scale up by just using a larger container.
I don't disagree but the best cup of coffee I've ever had in my 49 years on this planet was from a French Press.
My wife and I walked into a random coffee shop in Salem, MA and ordered coffee. A Swiss teenager prepared it while reading a paperback (used to live in Zurich so I recognized the accent when he was conversing with his mother). It took forever and he didn't bring it over until it was ready to be pressed.
Never had a better cup in my life, I forget what beans and roast, have no idea what the place was called, etc (I was a tourist on my honeymoon from Canada and I didn't have a roaming plan so I had turned off my phone, forgot to bring a notepad, and I have a terrible me memory for nouns).
I grind up some beans and put them into a portafilter on a small scale, to a rough ~16-17g weight, then tamp it down and run a no-fuss ~$100USD breville espresso machine on it until it's about 34-40g pulled, then pour in ~140g of water I boiled in an electric kettle.
Your method sounds to me like it'd have some grounds and fines floating around in it, which is okay but I'm not a huge fan personally, and it'll also be multiple things to wash (though, they sound like easy washes). I also don't have nice coverable drinking bowls, or even very nice cookware for boiling water up in.
My method's pretty easy twice a day, but it's not perfect either: I couldn't make this somewhere else, but... I do live here. :) That said, it did take a while for me to find a good grind size with my machine, and to find scales and cups that fit under my espresso machine's group head and had the right range etc required, and I've got to wash my little espresso cup I pour into, and I had to buy my own non-pressurized portafilter basket, so it took some real time to come together right.
I received it as a christmas present and must have lowered the cost in my memory: it's a breville café roma, which isn't listed on their site in the US these days, but is still in Canada? Which is where we ordered it!
At the time I think it was actually ~$200 CAD, but it appears to be about $200 USD now when I view US Amazon. Sorry for the misinformation :)
I have the same machine and have learned I can get really good results but need to be precise. I even trained myself to do a consistent tamp (I mean I do my best).
What I wanted to say is a year or so ago I started doing a pre infusion. Run the pump for about 5 seconds until the first drip comes out. Then turn it off and let it sit until the heating indicator turns off again. Now pull your full shot. I get a much better result doing this.
Do you have a grinder that works well with it? I have just been buying Illy espresso as I find it gets the best result compared to any grinder I willing to buy (I love the cans, too). I'd like to get back into roasting and grinding but just haven't found the right grinder in my admittedly cheap price range.
We admittedly splurged on the grinder and got another breville product, the Dose Control Pro I think, which was as much as the darn espresso machine. It has a timer and a good grind setting dial, and you can put the portafilter right into it, but I still just grind into a little tupperware container and then measure out by weight with a spoon though, as right into the basket always makes a mess imo.
I've never got the preinfusion step to work the way I want. I tried it a bunch after buying the non-pressurized basket, and found I'd get pours coming out way too fast (like <5s) no matter how hard I tamped, even at >18g in the basket, doing almost exactly what you mentioned! I think they worked okay in the pressurized one though.
I've since settled on ~16.5-17.5g at ~12.5 on the grinder (from 1-50), and tamped briefly about as hard as I can comfortably press. Comes out good enough every time that I stopped timing anything and just pull to the 34g weight (+5-6g of drip after) these days.
Thank you for this great info. I forgot too mention I'm using an older portafilter from a machine I had years ago. I put it in storage when my son was born (counter space) and the pump siezed while in storage. I was unable up repair it and my wife took pity on me getting me the current one for me as a gift. :) I kept the old portafilter as it much heavier than the one that came with the machine and seems to pull a better shot.
My Aeropress makes a very nice cup! Also uses an immersion technique, but produces a clean cup without coffee grounds and is slightly quicker.
No inverted method but just doing as it said on the box, except I let it steep for a minute or so before plunging. Freshly ground beans, just using (Dutch) tap water from an all metal kettle.
The Aeropress is one of the best methods I know, and I concede that it makes a slightly better tasting cup than what I describe, because the coffee is boiled for a short while. (Same goes for Turkish method.)
The downside for me is that it requires hardware I don't have already and is difficult to travel with. Metal pots and glass/ceramic bowls are available in most kitchens.
I've traveled all over the world with the Aeropress - Boston, NY, Iceland, Shanghai, Japan, Melbourne. My Porlex mini fits perfectly inside the plunger and all told it takes up less space then a rolled up shirt. I'm not entirely sure how it could be any easier to travel with.
I like your method better because the Aeropress is plastic. Plastic+boiling water is an absolute no-go for me. "BPA free" is marketing bullshit from the plastic industry, it absolutely will leech into the water.
I agree. Over the years I have tried most methods and acquired equipment, currently settling on V60 when I have time and instant coffee when in hurry, but have always hesitated to get Aeropress due to the plastic.
As you said, boiling water in plastic just doesn't work for me.
On a more snobby note, the thing that surprised me was how easy it is to roast coffee using a popcorn maker. I got the coffee sampler and popcorn maker and it was off the charts good. Absolutely fresh coffee, with the added advantage of sometimes just eating a few coffee beans after roasting :)
They don't have BPA, that's the marketing and it is true. But that doesn't mean that other estrogenic chemicals are not leaching, or that the non-estrogenic chemicals that leach are safe to ingest everyday for a lifetime.
Right, the rubber gasket worries me with the boiling water. I also had to stop using sous vide machine because silicone bags leech chemicals above a certain temp. I was mortified when my friends mentioned they use ziploc bags in the Sous vide baths.
Correction: I misunderstood what was meant by "Aeropress", I thought it was another term for a "Moka pot".
I don't like the Aeropress because it's plastic, requires cleaning of separate parts, and requires purchasing a new product, which as much negative karmic weight.
Correction: I misunderstood what was meant by "Aeropress", I thought it was another term for a "Moka pot".
I don't like the Aeropress because it's plastic, requires cleaning of separate parts, and requires purchasing a new product, which as much negative karmic weight.
I believe the water should be just below boiling. I tested it with a thermometer and it seems to settle at the right temperature in a few seconds after boiling, if I open the electric kettle and let it vent.
Avoiding disposable filters is a small lever for reducing negative impact compared to most consumptive behaviors by the average person. Any kind of subscription printed material will likely have significantly more impact, as well as napkins, grocery bags, paper towels, boxes, etc.
Disposable filters are my biggest conundrum. For years I would either use Aeropress with a metal filter, or French Press (metal carafe + press), or pour-over with something like the Bodum (metal filter). But I wasn't satisfied with my coffee. I went back to paper and it was like a breath of fresh air. I enjoy it so much more. I tried to tell myself I preferred the oils, etc. but in the end I greatly prefer the smoothness of filtered coffee.
So that's where I'm at now, buying big packs of paper filters for my Aeropress and V60. I'm not sure how to move past it. I guess I just tell myself it's infinitely better than Keurig for less waste and massively better flavor.
Agreed. Paper filter is way better. Getting good quality filters makes a difference too, there are a lot out there for Aeropress, Chemex, etc.
Anecdotally I had some cholesterol issues and found that going to paper of metal made a difference, surprisingly. Probably not significant but seemed to help in my case (I was drinking a lot of coffee then). Now I can't stand the oily texture of a French press.
Paper-filtered coffee seems to taste of wood or paper (slightly). I have used the same metal filter since the 80's. It is the oldest piece of brewing equipment I have.
Consider that paper filters may be more environmentally friendly than metal ones. Just look at a comparison of CO2 emissions between reusable bags and paper ones as an example. You’ll probably have to use a metal filter thousands of times more past its expected life span to break even with how much CO2 making it released into the atmosphere.
Even in case that is true - 1000 uses is about a year at 3 brews a day and my french press is still going strong after 15 years and I fail to see a reason why it wouldn't hold up another 15 years.
Do you have any sources on paper vs metal? It seems highly unlikely to me, that paper filters could be more environmentally friendly.
I find that pouring boiling water into coffee grounds makes a bitter brew. Instead I pour boiling water into a metal container, which is enough to drop it a couple degrees, and then mix grounds into it.
Wondering if there’s a low-bullshit reusable coffee filter medium to remove some of the oils.
What I want to get sorted most right now is water. I use tap water, but I need to filter it because it’s really, really calcareous. Most filters are made of plastic, or at least plastic cartridges with the filter medium. I was thinking about using glass or metal instead and somehow machine a container for the filter medium and buy that stuff in bulk. I really don‘t want to buy bottled water to make coffee.
Yes there is. Cloth filters are a thing. Coffee sock is one brand I know of that make filters for V60s and others. Obviously you need to clean it and occasionally boil it remove oil buildup.
Most pro/under-sink water filters can be recycled. I use a body glove system, and you send back the cartridge for recycling after you've replaced it. I didn't install mine (came with my place), but I think it's around $1000 to get a full system with filter, instant hot water, tap, etc. Drop the instant hot water, and and you're probably down to $500 or less.
If you're concerned about waste, a filter is far preferable to bottles of water or consumer-grade water pitchers, even if there's plastic involved.
I’ll probably settle for filtering local tap water as well as I can. There are a couple of restaurants and cafés in town who obsess about water quality so I should probably talk to them.
How does this compare in oil content? I used to be a big, BIG coffee drinker, and I've been using a french press for 15ish years, but I get heartburn now and it hurts more than it used to.
What can be done to enjoy coffee, without so much oil?
If you want to reduce oils, use any method that takes a paper filter. You might even want to try doubling them up. I've done that with my aeropress before.
I'd be interested to know if reducing that oil actually helps with heartburn though because I'm surprised there'd be enough there to cause problems. Or at least to cause noticably more problems than the caffeine and acidity of the coffee.
It's still acidic, but for instance Aeropress says coffee brewed with an Aeropress and paper filter has about 20% the acidity of a regular drip brew (and about 10% of a french press). (As far as I know this is largely down to paper filters and lower brewing temperature, both of which you can emulate other ways.)
Obviously only a personal anecdote, and for most people it'll never make a difference, but as your stomach becomes irritated it doesn't take much to make it worse. On a bad week, just drinking some black tea (ph~5) rather than green (ph~8) or putting a bit of black pepper on something can be enough to have me in pain for hours. Think like, normally it might not hurt to poke your arm, but if you've got a big bruise it doesn't take much to make it hurt.
On a good week, drip coffee through a metal filter is largely fine. On a bad week, it's painful but coffee from the aeropress still sits mostly okay.
To me, medium roasts sit in the best spot. I agree that light roasts can be too sour. The problem I have with dark roasts is that in many cases it means the bean has been nearly charred. That ends up making it taste bitter and overly strong (despite actually having a teeny bit less caffeine).
I know what you mean... I think I would make a more watery coffee, using less grounds.
In order to make it still tasty, I would prioritize getting whole beans and smashing them up yourself not long before brewing.
I would do this while avoiding plastic contact, e.g. a metal-bowl coffee grinder or one of those hand grinders (which I have not tried but assume work pretty well.)
I only clean my FP every third usage or so (that is, scrub down with soap to remove oils and residue).
My FP doesn't have any plastic components in the filter area, only in the top.
Yes, I have broken some FPs, one by juggling it out of a high cabinet and one by scrubbing it too aggressively while soapy. Like someone said, there are steel presses available as well.
> The glass is very fragile, potentially leading to breaking and even injury. Usually top-heavy designs, too.
After cracking my umpteenth glass cafetiere (what you call a french press in the US), I bought a metal one - that was around 10 years ago, and it's still going strong!
It's easy to clean too, but then every one I've had has been.
Mine is a Stanley 48oz french press made of 18/8 stainless. It was not cheap, but it is quite durable for camping and travel. I use a manual grinder with it and I try to use filtered water for boiling.
Yes, coffee equipment is best rinsed. Mokka pots even explicitly instruct you not to use soap and let the residues build to mask any potential flavor from the metal.
Doesn't really, I feel like s/he's just paying extra attention to some details s/he feels are important for them. Anyone doing this could also consider Turkish coffee. I personally don't like the soot of either so I'll do a Chemex-style instead (yes, filters..).
Like the detail. I used to put a lot more effort into coffee. Then I had two kids and we were in the pandemic.
My no-effort method is to get a technivorm (not cheap, but not super expensive) and run that first thing in the morning with fresh grinds -> Super fast for 3+ people and good quality coffee. If I have the time - I'll do a pour over.
For 'normal' coffee this is indeed super nice, but I'm into the taste of espresso so I like what my Cafelat Robot produces more. Fairly simple manual espresso routine. Kinda hard to explain me I'm wrong because a) it's a bit of an apple/oranges comparison and b) taste is subjective anyway :)
Aeropress rivals anything I can get at Starbucks or anywhere else. I use the expresso base to make any coffee drink I want (without any milk frothing).
It cleans up quick, pop out the compressed spent coffee grind puck into the trash and rinse under water then you are done!
Was using Aeropress, the coffee was great. However, I noticed that it irritates my stomach a lot more than the V60, so I switched back. I wonder if it is because of the added pressure getting small particles through the filter or something else.
The same dark roast [edit, added same] from V60 is much easier on my stomach. I wonder what might be the cause.
No one here seems to have mentioned stove top espresso makers, like Bialetti. After ceramic V60 it's my second best way of making coffee. Not so conv much richer.
Oh yes, the moka pot (poured on ice) has become my preferred method for daily preparation too.
The funny thing is I've never really considered it before, since the whole process of starting up a stove and cleaning up carefully seemed like such a hassle, but I got a stainless steel model (Bialetti Venus) which is both induction-capable and soap-friendly. :)
A V60 dripper was one of my best purchases last year. They're about 8 quid. And even without a 'method' the coffee is still so much better than my Nespresso was. Furthermore - I thought I'd hate the faff, but it's actually pretty meditative. Especially first thing in the morning.
The V60 dripper fits almost exactly over the Luminarc quadro pitcher. When I do cold brew, I do it in a large french press, which catches most of the big chunks, then use an unbleached coffee filter to catch the fines.
I stopped making cold brew however because it's too easy to drink and my family would like it very much if my heart did not explode.
It still isn't clear if it is the change in water volume that is key to the technique or change in temperature / brew time, as in waiting longer results in a lower temp second pour but longer brew time. This conflates the temperature and brew time factors. I have always heard the key to a good cup is water temperature (between 195 and 205 F) and then adjust brew time based on preference (too short is green/sour, too long is burnt/bitter). I haven't found stuff like wetting the paper filter or stirring the bloom to make much if a difference.
I feel you; I was more confused after the video than before knowing there was any "method" at all.
I think the grey levels are just there to distinguish between different pours. So you take the amount of water you want to use and divide it into chunks which you pour separately (with a 45 second delay between), and depending on how large you make each chunk you get different results. I.e., first chunk large = sweeter; fewer chunks in the last 60% = less strong.
Without bad coffee you can't appreciate the good coffee.
That being said, for almost a year now if not more, I've switched to making coffee the following way: Take a pot fill it with water, add coffee, boil until the foam disappears, wait a few minutes for the coffee to rest. Pour into a cup, if desired add milk and/or sugar, enjoy!
What I like about it, is that due to the size of my pot I can just leave the coffee on the stove and get ready and by the time I'm done, the coffee will also be done.
What's important to remember is that everyone lives their life through their eyes, ears and perspective. Or in the other words, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
You may hate the coffee that I love. And that's okay ^^
Get beans green from SweetMarias.com or the like. Not expensive ($6-9/pound).
Get a cheap hot air popcorn popper. Mine was $3 used from Goodwill.
Pour in 1 cup of beans, turn on. After about 8 minutes you’ll hear beans start to crack - that’s a light roast. Cracking ends for a while - there’s medium. A second round of cracking happens around 9-10 minutes - dark. Past that you get oils extracting and near burned - French roast.
Freshly popcorn popper-roasted beans are better than non-freshly roasted beans but not nearly as good as those of an experienced roaster using better equipment. Try local roasters or order fresh-roasted beans online. Fresh-roasted beans tend to improve in taste over several days and then rapidly decline after around ten days.
> Fresh-roasted beans tend to improve in taste over several days and then rapidly decline after around ten days.
I hear that one hack is to grind your freshly-roasted beans and leave them for a bit to degas. The far greater surface area means that they'll degas much faster than as a whole bean.
Moka pots are temperamental. It took me a while to figure out quite how to use mine. Makes great coffee once you're used to it, though.
You probably want to pre-boil the water so that the coffee doesn't sit on the heat for too long, but you should also only turn the stove up to medium so that it extracts more slowly. Pull the pot off the heat as soon as it starts making the loud rushing noise — I even rinse the base with cold water so that it stops boiling right away.
It was the sieve and the seals that always got me. And my tendency when presented with a hot cup of coffee to actually drink the coffee instead of cleaning the equipment.
I don't think I ever saw anyone in Italy with a fancy coffee machine. They all use moka pots at home, and go to the local cafe if they want an espresso made with a machine.
That was one of the best parts of traveling in Florence. You could pick a different café every morning and by the end of a week long trip you'd still haven't tried all the café's in a two block radius.
Yeah - it's legal to open one pretty much anywhere - compared to the US where they're illegal in most areas of most cities. It's nice to be able to walk to stuff!
I recently learned the hard way what happens when you put the Moka pot on the stove and go away without starting a timer. First of all, it made the coffee of course. Then the heat made its way to the upper portion, boiled the coffee, and sent it spraying out the spout and into the room. All while melting the gasket.
After cleaning up, I made a new gasket from an old bike innertube, and it worked just fine.
I used to use a moka pot but eventually I decided it was far too strong and my tolerance got too seriously high. My teeth definitely looked worse than when I was binging french press instead.
Not exactly sure how Kasuya claims to have invented this method. Graduated pours are pretty standard. I’ve been doing it with French Press for years and the results are pretty great.
Side Note: If you dislike the texture of French Press, puncture the bloom after 4 minutes of brew time then wait 2-3 minutes before plunging.
If you are not down with the coffee terminology, this [1] is a good explanation of what "the bloom" means.
Basically it's a thing that forms when fresh coffee grounds get moist, since that accelerates the release of trapped gasses. The gas leaves the grounds, but gets trapped by the surrounding water and substances extracted from the coffee, forming a foam.
My interpretation is that "puncture the bloom" basically means "stir to break the formation of a foam ball on top of the coffee grounds".
Yes, the bloom is the foam that forms in the coffee grounds. It’s CO2 and releasing it allows for better extraction.
Puncture means to take a knife and cut a few pie slices into the mass of grounds and release the gas beneath. The grounds will sink at that point. I try not to stir aggressively since that is counterproductive to producing a “clear” cup.
Once a few minutes have passed, you can plunge accordingly.
I never knew what the bloom was, but I blindly followed directions from smart people on using the french press. Pour the 90C water into the pot, wait a minute, then stir the beans down into the water. Wait a few minutes more. I usually do 1min+4min.
Here’s a thing to try. Pour in the water about half way. Give it a quick stir. Let it sit for 45 seconds and then slowly pour in the rest of the water. Let it sit for 4 minutes. Then puncture the grounds in a couple places. Wait another 2 minutes and then plunge.
When I bought my french press it told me to stir immediately. The results are striking, both in looking at the thing and in taste. Stirring immediately, and the grounds fall into solution and are able to swirl, then you wait 5 minutes before plunging to allow all the grounds to evenly brew. If you let it sit, the grounds clump at the top and don't evenly brew like they would if they were all in solution.
I own a coffee roasting company and I 100% agree with you. This is pretty trivial to test (even a blind test would determine whether it was subjectively better or worse for an individual) but there is no interest in doing it, everyone comes up with their own dumb "method" and then in a year or two everyone switches to something else.
A really good sign of this is to look at the various barista competitions from a couple of years ago and see how many of their amazing techniques are still being used.
Before seeing the OP video, I've been going on this V60 technique by James Hoffmann.
It's similar. For 30g of grounds, 500g of water. 60g (often closer to 90g if you try to get all the grounds wet) initially before waiting 45 seconds. The another 240g over the next 30 seconds. And then the remaining 300g over another 30 seconds. Simple enough to do every morning.
I'd like to try going with less water in that initial pour, though, to see if I can get a sweeter taste.
the best part of making coffee is the experimentation. I'd recommend trying out what works for you and keep at it. My go to for big family gatherings/mornings are just a regular drip coffee pot while throughout the day it might be the aeropress , v60 or even an espresso. It's very easy to get bogged down in the "perfect" cup but no two cups I've made have been identical and I just live with that fact. If you live beside a roaster/local coffee shop that roasts the best thing to do is go talk to them about the coffee. Water is also a very big component of good coffee as most of what you are drinking is water and there are many companies like Third Wave Coffee (https://thirdwavewater.com) that help with better tasting coffee. I get my coffee from a local roaster that sources direct from East Africa (https://kahawa-company.com) and they've been very helpful in answering tons of my questions.
So what you need is:
1. Good Coffee
2. Good Water
3. Reasonable Grinder
4. A preferred method/ tool (french press, drip, moka pot, aeropress etc)
5. Patience to experiment
How do the various pour-over methods compare to espresso machine type coffee?
I've got a strong preference for coffee brewed using an espresso machine (ie high pressure extraction pushed through a tiny hole), but I'm not really sure what the cause is - is it different levels of extracted compounds? Is there any pour-over methods (ie not pressurised) that are similar?
Espresso machines are good at extracting the oils along with the coffee. The crema is basically the froth as a result of this.
There are some beans (e.g., Yemeni ones) that have very high oil content and you can get a similar taste with simple brewing.
You could try an aero press with an additional attachment, such as [1], but it probably wont be able to replicate the full range of flavours of an espresso machine.
If you havent tried the classic pour overs with freshly ground specialty coffee, I would really recommend it. I used to be an espresso guy, but now I only drink filters.
They're completely different brewing methods. Pour over is "slow," gravity based, and uses a medium to course grind (depending on brewing method), while espresso is "fast," uses a pump to pressurize the flow of water through the puck, and uses finer grinds. The closest manual brew method to espresso that I'm aware of is a Mocha Pot. There is also the AeroPress, which is kind of a hybrid brew style.
But how do they differ along the only metric which matters? Taste? I don't really care about my brewing method, I don't particularly care about the time to brew (as long as its within a few minutes), I couldn't give a hoot about the grind size.
What I care about is what the coffee tastes like. How do the different brewing methods differ in taste, and what causes them to differ?
That's a complicated question to answer! The short answer is that literally every variable involved in brewing affects taste - brew time, water mineralization, water temp, grind, brewer, bean origin, processing method, roast temp.
Espresso and slow brew coffee are probably the furthest apart, and many people like one and not the other, it's a personal preference. But even if you like slow brew, there's not a single one that tastes better than all the others. That's a little like asking which wine tastes the best. Some wines taste objectively terrible, but after a certain point it comes down personal taste. Some people like darker vs lighter roasts, high vs mellow acidity, and on and on.
If you just need somewhere to get started, I would start with slow brew because it's much cheaper. A good grinder can be expensive, but there are inexpensive manual grinders that do a decent job. Watch some videos, buy some coffee, and see what you like.
Taste is subjective, and there are many variables in coffee prep that affect different aspects of it. Grind size, roast level, brew temp, brew time, brew method, etc will all cause variations in the taste, some quite large.
You also have different variables in the taste itself. The sweetness, acidity, bitterness, earthy flavors etc. There is also the feel of the liquid, based on the amount of suspended soluble material and oils.
What causes the differences is primarily that different chemicals are present in the coffee, and more are created in the roasting process. Those chemicals all have slightly different rates in which they will become soluble based on temperature and pressure. A finer grind, higher temperature, or longer brew will all result in extracting more of basically everything, some of which might taste unpleasant to you.
I've made my coffee using this same method for over 2 years with a plastic V60. It is super simple and requires very little thinking for a consistent cup. The only variables I have to adjust when I get a new bag is the grind size.
I agree, I own both (plastic V60, Kasuya ceramic). I switch it up depending on the weather, as well as the amount of coffee I want to make (300ml vs 400ml+), since they use different filter sizes.
I have been doing manual pour-overs for about a decade and never figured out how to balance acidity and sweetness. It always seemed somewhat random and arbitrary to me.
The technique in the video blew my mind. I just tried it, balancing it on the "acidic" side as mine are typically fairly sweet, and it works as advertised.
Thanks 112233 for teaching this old dog how to gain better control over my brew! Now I can impress my coffee-loving guests even further by brewing to their preference.
I am thankful for having a dulled sense of taste because I like cheap coffee and have found my satisfactory level of flavor from a very basic level of effort. This amount of concern over all the factors of brewing a cup of a hot flavored beverage feels to be on the level of sound quality goals for audiophiles, purchasing ever-increasingly expensive accessories.
Well, there are two sides to being into something. One of course is the "hedonistic treadmill" of not being able to put up with "bad" coffee/audio any longer but the other side of it is that you can come to really enjoy something that is small and specific and wholly within your own power and ingenuity.
I think the nature of internet forums (and this particularly applies to audiophile ones) is that they can bring out the most neurotic personally traits - people complaining and making nonsense, unverifiable claims. But there is also the silent majority of people who are thrilled to be able listen to some recording of classical music without having to go to a concert hall (assuming their local orchestra are playing whatever it is).
Also - I don't use a v60 coffee maker so perhaps I don't know but I was under the impression that it's actually a very approachable way to make coffee at home and not that expensive an accessory. (I am on Team Moka Pot, and those really are cheap and easy to operate :))
Yes. A V60 dripper is £6 and the filter papers are about 6p each.
It's the coffee that's expensive. That soon leads into getting a good grinder so you don't end up with expensive stale grinds (whole beans stay fresh longer).
The most expensive coffee making gadget in my house (and I’m not going to count them) is the standard drip machine which most people have (around here). The other stuff (e.g moka, french press, aeropress) which coffee enthusiasts prefer, are way cheaper.
You can also buy "crappy" coffee and make it taste better just by dialing in how you make it. Watch a couple youtube videos, spend about an hour and a half practicing making cup after cup of coffee, and you can make pre-ground Folgers taste pleasant.
Most people aren't aware that they can practice cooking many times in a row and get noticeably better in a day. You can't make 25 roast dinners in a row, but you can make 25 omelettes, or 25 cups of coffee, and dramatically increase your proficiency. If you only practiced once a day, you would actually not get much better, and it would still take you 25 times as long.
The audiophile analogy is valid, but only because you can be an audiophile chasing brand names or status (and you will probably get it if you spend enough), or you can be an audiophile that seeks out high quality gear without the snake oil.
Same with coffee makers. I would consider myself a coffee snob but I've ditched all the fancy gear and use a $12 pour over device from OXO. That and a basic water kettle will get you world-class coffee for less than the cost of a basic Mr. Coffee unit.
It's not the hardware that make it expensive, its the beans. Really good coffee is expensive. There are gems at cheaper price points, but its hard to find, and they're usually temporary.
It's the hardware. You can pick up 1kg single source raw beans for anywhere between $8-$20 USD depending on your interests. Roasted, these will taste better than anything you'll buy in a store and will almost as good -> better than mail order specialty roasts.
However, a good roaster costs $400-$1K+, a good grinder costs $200+, and a good (used) espresso maker costs another $200-$400. All of these amounts can escalate very quickly.
An acceptable roaster costs $20 (air popper), acceptable grinder $30 (hario or equiv), and a good espresso maker costs $30 (aeropress). And a good set of headphones costs $50 (ATH m20x)
I spend far more on beans annually than I have on hardware in the past 5 years. I have zero interest in chasing more expensive hardware for a fix. But I did actually upgrade my headphones to Sennheiser hd599 when the aux cable in my old pair broke.
> But I did actually upgrade my headphones to Sennheiser hd599 when the aux cable in my old pair broke.
Having had a few pairs go like that and the hatred I have for the tinny weeny sub-hair micron strands of wire they have and fixing them. I always go for headphones with a socket connection or if hard-wired, have a second output jack that you can use to share with a friend who can plug in - as the way those are wired, you can just plug a male to male cable in and use that as the headphone input.
As for Bluetooth headphones, I go for ones which can also accept a hard-wired connection, so at least it prolongs their life if replacing the battery proves an effort beyond the scope of my elephant-hands.
Thinking of adding an aux jack to my old sennheiser 201s, as they work fine otherwise. the reason I got the hd599 is because they had a removable cable, haha
I bought headphones two steps up ATH m40x and although the sound was good it was the most uncomfortable pair of headphones I have ever worn couldn't wear them for 10 seconds and owned them for 5 minutes.
I'll be honest, the ATH m40x was just a google result for best headphones under $50. Comfort is very important (and completely orthogal to price)
I used sennheiser HD201s ($15 canadian on sale) for years until the cable broke, then upgraded to sennheiser HD599 ($149 canadian, on sale) because it has replaceable cable. Might add an aux jack to the old ones, sometime...
It came so strongly to memory because I read a million reviews and bought it in part because it was described as comfortable for long wear but it felt a device designed to torture your head.
I ended up with bose QC25 which can be found used for $50-90 because it sounds good, is comfortable to wear, has a replaceable cable, replacable ear cups, and although it uses a battery for noise cancelation its a plane jane nimh rechargable aaa battery sold all over creation. Also the battery running down just means noise cancellation stops working not sound.
I find it amusing that the headphones people are upgrading to in the same product line are exclusively bluetooth meaning more hassle connecting, lower quality sound depending on phone and codec supported, aren't able to produce sound at all if the battery runs down and to add insult to injury the battery is built in and hard to replace. It's one more thing you need to constantly remember to keep charged up so it doesn't die when you need it with a hard to replace part that is going to go bad far sooner than the device gives out. Ifixit rates it hard and says it takes at least 45 minutes and a $30 part even if you have all the tools.
A hot-air popcorn machine is suitable for small batch roasting if you can do it outdoor (there's too much chaff and smoke if you do it indoor). My popcorn machine doesn't get hot enough when the outdoor temperature is under 15°C, so roasting beans is a summer thing that I look forward to.
I cook fish which is much worse for my co-tenants than coffee smoke. Kitchens make all sorts of smells, but it's fine as it's temporary. The chaff is quickly wiped away if the counter is reasonably clear. If the counter is a cluttered mess, you can always roast on the dinner table instead (hopefully you guys keep that one clear).
Are consumers roasting their own coffee? Also, a good handgrinder is less than £50 and a V60 with filter papers will only be £10. Pourover coffee can be just as good as espresso, it's just different.
A decent one maybe, a good one, just like the original comment mentioned starts at around 200$/Eu. Would recommend in the cheap category a Polrex, I stared with one of those and use now for travelling, it's quite a solid grider for the prices and it has decent results.
A $200 coffee grinder is just a throughput optimization. If you take away the $170 motor and use your hand instead, you can get a great grind.
It's a pain in the ass to hand-grind coffee every morning, and I wouldn't have the ability to do it before coffee, but... if you don't have hundreds of dollars, don't let that stop you from having a great cup of coffee.
I happily used a blade grinder for years before I upgraded. As others mentioned, you can get into this hobby without spending a lot of money (my current grinder is a commercial unit I bought used for way less than $170).
However, as long as you have an oven (and don't live in the immediate vicinity of a local roaster), you'll find that the DIY roasting route gives you 90-110% of the benefit that you get from buying online boutique roasts for store bought prices.
And let's be honest, this is one of those hobbies (like drones, 3d printers, or photography) where you'll eventually find yourself wanting more than a french press and hand grinder.
I was speaking more of the former, through the restless pursuit of a perfect experience, feeling that contentment is akin to (temporary) settling. My setup is using one of those cheap plastic Melitta pour-overs with the paper liners, which has provided me the most consistent, cost-effective, easy-to-use methods of getting the flavor I like.
Mine was 800€. To pay this, you need to be a coffee nerd, but I think it is absolutely the most important thing to get consistency and satisfaction. I use an inherited antique ceramique (no plastique) pour over filter and do not feel it has any drawbacks.
Hand grinders are quite nice return of investment, for the same quality of grind you can pay a lot less, because there is no engine etc. Also hand grinders have much less of a problem with retention.
I use a Rancilio MD 80 that I picked up for 80CHF. The guy I bought it from didn't know what he had. It's as large as my Gaggia, but grind retention be damned, I'm not giving it up.
To further explain, residual coffee goes stale, the oil in the coffee beans can go rancid and thus spoil your cup and if the retention varies you might miss your ratio or go overboard.
This is in practice at most annoying, so you can indeed make good coffee without a zero retention grinder but for a 'coffee snob' the most important thing is consistency in the cup.
This. I use an AeroPress. The most expensive cup of coffee in the world is made with an AeroPress. You just need the unit and hot water to make an unbelievable cup of coffee. It costs $29 and a travel version even includes a cup, scoop and Stir for your $30. You absolutely do not need to spend a fortune to get amazing coffee.
The audiophile analogy is not a terrible one, particularly given there's "sensible" snake-oil-avoiding audiophiles out there, but there's still a few important differences that make coffee quite different:
1. The expensive accessories thing is actually a bit of a myth.
Espresso is expensive: a good home machine will set you back well over 500 $/€ and can go up into the thousands, and an accompanying grinder is about the same price range again. You can pay over 100 just for a tamper.
But, coffee snobs are typically not into espresso. The two biggest areas of "audiophile-esque" dedication are pourover (v60 funnel ~€4.50) and the infamous International Aeropress Championships (retailing ~€35). Filter-grade grinders are also much cheaper than Espresso, going in the ~€200-€500 range for electric, but most dedicated aficionados prefer manual grinders which retail as low as €25 for a decent quality one.
A part of the above differences is that coffee snobs are into the more direct & involved (slow) process of making
The bigger cost to coffee snobs is beans, retailing usually around triple to quadruple the price of major brands. I guess this could be likened to buying vinyl... ? Though the audiophile community still disagree on whether vinyl is worthwhile.
2. It's not all about taste
Major brand coffee is sold at well below reasonable cost of production. Coffee snobs are buying Direct Trade coffee, which is typically much more sustainable and equitable, even when compared to many of the mass-produced "Fairtrade-labelled" brands. While buying expensive beans will hit your pocket much more severely than the equipment costs, it is at least going toward something.
This could I guess be likened to audiophiles supporting artists by buying albums etc. but I'm not sure if that's generally true of audiophiles specifically (e.g. compared to serial concert-goers)
I would say though that there are a few more considerations to keep in mind relative to the "audiophile" analogy.
- pourovers take a ton of time and effort, but an Aeropress is really fast. I think I spend maybe about a net time investment of 45 seconds (15 seconds to start the kettle/hit the grind button, 15 seconds to set it up, 15 seconds to make the coffee) between which phases I can do other stuff, like work, or, more likely, hacker news. Of course, this is WAY less time than going to a starbucks.
- even the more expensive beans are still on the order of 5x cheaper than the cheapest starbucks.
Like jldl805, I like my coffee too but my only investments are a £10 spice grinder and a Bialetti moka pot for hot coffee, and a muslin bag and a pitcher for cold brew using this[1] technique.
I’ve been using a muslin/“nut milk” bag for years. I’ll grind a pound of coffee and let it steep for a couple of days in roughly a gallon of water, then pour it into a dispenser that I can leave in the refrigerator.
I’m no coffee snob but to me the flavor keeps extremely well.
The only thing I found is that even the finest mesh bag leaves a considerable amount of grit so I pour that through a paper filter. Hard to beat fantastic coffee at the turn of a spigot.
For your filter issue, toddy makes disposable paper filter bags that are great. You just brew in them instead of a nut milk bag. There's virtually no grit.
Is your spice grinder a blade grinder? If so you are likely getting a very inconsistent grind. This may affect the taste of the coffee dramatically.
The first recommendation I give to people that want to get into brewing better tasting coffee is to get a burr grinder, even a handheld one will do just fine. With a burr grinder you just get a more consistent grind which helps reduce the fines thereby reducing the bitterness.
> The first recommendation I give to people that want to get into brewing better tasting coffee is to get a burr grinder, even a handheld one will do just fine. With a burr grinder you just get a more consistent grind which helps reduce the fines thereby reducing the bitterness.
I second this, but do get one with a metal burr like a Timemore, and not the oft-recommended Hario Skerton, which has a ceramic burr.
The manual grinding experience with a metal burr grinder is so much better.
You can absolutely take it to audiophile level but doing something simple like grinding the beans before brewing instead of using pre-ground makes a huge difference. It's like using trash dollar store earbuds vs. a decent pair of headphones. Little bit of effort, huge improvement.
That, plus finding beans that were roasted in the last couple of weeks instead of having a "best used by" date that is twelve months out. I wish every roaster would switch to a "roasted on" date instead, but the ones that do are doing it right.
Beans produced for supermarkets or chains use the “best before” because it is a relatively long time. The beans might not taste their best but they are safe to use.
This is often a requirement of grocery stores where they intend to sell it, who don’t want to have stock that isn’t salable after two weeks (it can take the big groceries longer than that to just distribute it to their stores).
In my experience, grocery stores want a best by, not a roast date, so even good roasters will sometimes use a different label when selling through a store vs direct. In one case, I learned the best by date they use is just roast date + 1y.
My local Target has started carrying high(er) end coffee beans — Stumptown, Peets, Blue Bottle, Counter Culture, etc. Interestingly, these bags DO show a roasted date on them. When I eyeballed it, they were all about 5-6 weeks prior, so not straight from the roaster but not horribly old either.
You and me both. I like to joke that I really just love coffee more than everyone else, because I like it equally in all of its forms instead of chasing meticulous preparations.
In that case you may enjoy this video from James Hoffman (who is considered one of the most coffee of coffee snobs) on drinking "bad" coffee: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tU1y7hBSgiY
Coffee is a bit like high end alcohol. There's a world of really amazing experiences out there if you're willing to put in the money and time, and cut through marketing BS.
... but if you're perfectly happy with dewars white label and bud light, I'd recommend never losing that and finding another perfectly good hobby =).
In fairness coffee is an amazingly cheap hobby compared to others. The difference between high end and low end in coffee (lets say 1 percentile to 98 percentile) is probably only about 5X. i.e. the worst coffee you'll buy is probably $6/ lb and the most expensive is approx $34/lb. So you can go hog wild for $34 per week or 2 weeks...
I’m not super picky myself, but coffee is an incredibly fun hobby. There is a ton of equipment to try and endless varieties of beans. A lot of it is easy entry too, you can even roast your own beans with fairly simple equipment.
I'm in a similar yet different boat. I have a heightened sense of taste, but I have relatively terrible taste. I drink it all, black, no sugar. The thicker the better. My preferred brewing method is the one that gets it into my cup quickest.
Same here but perhaps to an even more pond-scum drinking level: instant coffee.
I found one I like (Mount Hagen), it tastes better to me than most exotic coffees my coworkers rave about, and that's it. Cheap, easy to make, taste like coffee.
Now take your hobby, and have someone say "Glad my senses are too dull to care about this".
"I'm glad I have a 5800X so I don't have to care about well-performing code".
Lots of people drink coffee. Many enjoy the taste of good coffee. Some people enjoy brewing the finest coffee as a hobby, just as someone else likes making wooden furniture, writing elegant algorithms, or painting.
I don’t think I have any hobby that I enjoy that doesn’t also carry with it a healthy measure of embarrassment about liking it so much, so it would not offend me if others told me how much less they care about it. That’s the nature of hobbies. I like coffee, but I do not share the perspective that I have to relentlessly pursue a perfect cup. I believe that those who seem unfulfilled with their current batch are seeking diminishing returns on enjoyment — as if they will be eternally unhappy, worried that there might be a better version of their drink out there, still undiscovered. My comment was not to diminish the relevance of having a hobby but rather referencing the unhealthy mindset of those who become addicted to the pursuit of something I think one might never feel can be reached.
I think being honest about what is/isn't a hobby is necessary too, especially for ones that require a lot of equipment.
E.g. watches. There's a lot of places on the Internet to discuss watches, and people that think being "into watches" is a thing. But all you're actually doing 95% of the time is buying watches and discussing what watches one buys. People can get very neurotic over this and develop weird tribal sentiments around it. I've seen this derisively (but also appropriately) coined as "bugmen" behavior. Same idea with craft beer. It's just consumerism in disguise.
Notice I don't mention watchmaking/homebrewing; those are legitimate hobbies.
That is a really interesting distinction. I have had a couple hobbies that ended up being “buy all the things as if you were going to do this hobby” more than actually enjoying the hobby, and they were spectacularly unfulfilling in the end. More like chasing some consumerist ideal than anything else, for sure.
I know more than 20 different ways of making coffee.
Here is the best coffee brewing method I've come up with.
First, I get some CLEAN water, and I boil it in an unfinished metal or ceramic-finished metal pot. I use a regular pot so that I can see inside. I also like to let a little bit of the water evaporate...
While it's getting ready, I get the best and freshest coffee grounds I can muster, it's better if I can grind them on the spot, but that's not always available.
I put the coffee grounds, as much as I think is necessary, into a glass or ceramic bowl, and pour the boiling water over them. I optionally cover and/or stir and let steep.
After about 5-15 minutes, I pour the coffee into another glass or ceramic bowl, letting the grounds stay at the bottom of the first bowl.
The coffee is now ready for drinking. To keep it warm, I cover it and leave it in the oven for insulation, or use an electric plate. It usually doesn't last long. It's good cold too.
The second best method I know is cold-brewing in a similar fashion, takes a number of hours I haven't tracked yet.
If anyone is interested in learning why this method is better than all the others, please reply with the method you think is better and I will explain why you're wrong. :^)
Edit: The method in the video is quite good, and my only complaint is that it uses disposable filters, which leads to unnecessary materials harvesting, human labor, biome squeeze, diesel use, waste output, and other artifacts of production.