This is why I have a hard time with hobbyist forums/communities. I get the idea of wanting to hone your end result or what have you, but it always seems to veer off into obsession while getting results which are debatably any better than keeping it simple.
I weigh my coffee/water to keep the brew ratio the same, and that is fine-tuned enough for me.
I feel like that type of place is really prone to worship a particular brand/substituting any knowledge or skill for consumerism.
Lol musician forum are always great for that. There ends up being a lot of work to convince people to just buy this one more new thing and you will have the sound you have always dreamed of. This either leads to people selling their last gear purchase to either buy the same thing in a new package or to rebuy what they sold off to buy their current gear, but now at an inflated vintage gear price. Or you get everyone buying the same thing and now you sound like every other tone chaser in your quest to find originality.
You will enjoy this 30s documentary.
I read that as (19)30s documentary at first and was slightly confused until I clicked it! 😁
Spot on though! Especially about the made up lingo and the rituals to maximize his “throat velocity!”
Again, I won’t shame you if you do all that stuff and really enjoy it, but you should be self aware enough to know your level of fanaticism isn’t the norm.
Cold brew is easy. You just leave the thing to steep overnight.
I was gonna make this same comment.
Cold drip though? That’s some finicky shit. Not worth the effort in my opinion (but is fun!)
Tastes really good even when you have bad/stale coffee. Much better than iced coffee.
Freshly roasted (7-30 days after roast) becomes alive when brewed hot. It’s like tasting higher resolution coffee (when compared to cold brew)
I think I’ll have another cup… tomorrow I guess.
I can smell my neighbours coffee through the walls in the morning and I hate it. It smells like someone is smoking cigarette.
Sounds like they’re using those dark, oily, over roasted Starbucks beans…
“through the walls” is insane. Are you sure it is that and not through ventilation or windows?
I think they might be smoking cigarettes then.
Quite possible but if you look on the web, I’m not the only one that can smell cigarettes in coffee. Apparently they share some similar compounds.
I didn’t really check if those links are AI but just look for yourself if they are not satisfactory.
https://brewmelikethat.com/why-does-coffee-smell-like-cigarettes/
https://coffeeplusthree.com/why-does-coffee-taste-like-cigarettes/
Reads like an insulation issue
I picked up an all metal French press from aldi about 2 years back. I’ve had 4 or 5 french presses in my life and they always end up broken, this badboy would dent the sink if I drop it. It’s got that two layer, hollow form thing that good travel mugs use so the coffee is hot for hours and the outside never gets too warm to handle. My only complaint is it’s bougey minimalist design. I haven’t figured out how to decorate it in a way that won’t wear off during washing.
It would be needlessly expensive, but…
I did consider this, but I’d rather put that kind of money into getting my own co2 laser lol.
Yes, the best coffee is Caffeine free via supercritical CO2 extraction, then espresso at exactly 92℃, 900KPa into 66℃ heated, but flat milk.
(I mostly drink Nescafe with UHT milk and unfiltered tap water from the work urn)
I started using a Chemex recently and it’s probably less involved than my previous method (a single cup pour-over device called a Clever Dripper™) but it turns out even better coffee. Bonus points, the Chemex makes multiple cups at once!
I’d say I have a fairly medium-grade routine.
I hand grind whole beans. Not even super-special premium beans, most likely just the huge bag of Kirkland whole beans. Maybe not even ground same-day, quite possibly ground and then put into a ball jar ahead of time. They are hand-ground, though, with a grinder that is adjusted to a high level of coarseness.
The grounds are measured into a French press. I use a digital kitchen scale so that it’s always the same amount. I use a kettle to get the water to 200F. Pour over the grounds until they’re soaked. Slosh them around a bit for thirty seconds. Pour in the rest of the water up to the fill line on the French press. Set a timer for four minutes. Press down the plunger and pour into a mug, plus a glass bottle for the excess. That’s it. Yes, it’s particular, but I am pretty sure it’s not an ultra-premium process. I’ve had better coffee in a decent hotel. The main thing is exactly measuring what I’m doing, so I get consistent results.
I had my mom and sister over and they complimented my coffee. I didn’t make a big deal about it and thanked them.
The next morning, my sister is up before me. I come out to the dining room and she’s pouring coffee from the press. Suddenly she goes “Oooh! This coffee is strong! Too strong! I’ll have to water it down!”
I ask, “Well how much grounds did you use?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I just eyeballed it.”
“How long did you let it brew?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s been a while. It’s still in the press.”
Well, yes, that would possibly result in an unpredictable result. This is why I have a hard time vacationing with my family.
I’mma just gonna sit over here with my cuppa tea and watch…
Damn right 🫖
40 minute steep in an insulated French press for me.
c/espressocirclejerk
This is why I like taste tests.
They routinely prove that even experts can’t distinguish between $20 wine and $200 wine.
The difference between cheap wine and expensive wine is that cheap wine is like a loot box, and expensive wine is like a higher tier loot box: you never know if either will be “good”, but the expensive one should have slightly better odds( sometimes, depending on why it’s expensive… ). But whether it’s “good” really depends on your own personal preferences and also what you’re eating with it too…
I love the taste of coffee, and people think it’s crazy but if the coffee tastes good hot, I also typically like the taste of it after it’s cooled to room temp. My coffee snobbery begins and ends at “use good beans which were freshly ground”. If you’ve done that you can make a brewing mistake and mess it up (I’ll still drink it) otherwise it will taste good. Some beans are better than others obviously, but I’m not too picky.
I feel like you might like James Hoffman, a coffee YouTube creator. His baseline attitude is much the same as yours - if you start with good tasting water and good, freshly roasted beans, you’ll likely end up with good tasting coffee. He also delves into the nitty gritty, doing a lot of cool experimentation with different techniques and data-driven stuff, but he usually does a good job of stressing that all those minute details end up making very small differences in the resulting cup.
Omg.
We just got one of those fancy espresso machines. It cost me an arm and a leg, and I’ve been fiddling with it for a while now. This morning my wife complained that it takes me forever to make a cup of coffee.
That said, when she finally tried it, she admitted it was quite good. So… yeah. I guess she’s right.
Cold brew is good for people who need lower acidity.
It also takes on the least flavour from the beans, so you can use cheap beans or if your beans go stale and it tastes just as good.
Yeah, I’ve seen some devices on YouTube that, I swear to God, were invented only to make coffee more complicated and I don’t believe it makes any difference.
