It's how I've been making my coffee for years.
Posted on 09/02/2007 10:19:45 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
Since the dawn of coffee, humanity has taken few breaks in its quest for a better cup.
Our inaugural coffee buzz, according to legend, came after a shepherd in Africa noticed his goats grew frisky after eating the fruit of a certain bush. Early fanatics took theirs straight, chewing whole, raw beans. Then came roasting, grinding, steeping in water, and the skinny white-chocolate half-caf Venti.
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I heard that for home use, the French Press is the best method for preparing coffee. Anybody out there with input on this?
It's how I've been making my coffee for years.
So you would recommend it? I am definitely thinking of getting a French Press since I am a bigtime coffee lover. BTW, what ever happened to chicory in coffee? Down in the South it used to be almost universal in the coffee. Nowadays it is rare to get coffee with chicory.
Drip coffee properly brewed is the best for everyday drinking.
A french Press is generally to intense for most people. However, a good south American coffee with some chocolate (cake, cookie, even candy) compliments the flavor wonderfully.
When people brew dripped coffee they tend to use to few grounds so it will not be to strong. It is better to follow the instructions - usually one scoop of medium grind to six ounces of water, and then if it is a little strong add a bit of hot water.
You get a much better cup that way.
At our Publix in GA they have a few brands with chicory.
If you know how to use them, even the glass-topped percolators make awesome coffee....the stove top percolators make incredible coffee too.
Likewise, if you don't know how to use it, the Fresh Press makes the worst coffee you could imagine.
It's all about the grind: what you need for a great cup of coffee is a good bean and knowing what grind is best for the method you use.
A french press makes the best. The only problem is keeping the second cup warm. I worked at Williams-Sonoma for years, and we sold everything from $30.00 French Press to $2500.00 Espresso Machines. NOTHING beat the french press for fresh, honest coffee taste.
Really, home roast is the best. Then I use a French Press for the amazing flavor.
Oh, and Illy Coffee beans. Freshly ground, of course. Medium grind on Burr coffee grinder. With good water. Ummmm
BEST coffee I ever had was in Uruguay/Argentina. I still remember the INCREDIBLE coffee I had on an overnight boat ride from Montevideo to Buenos Aires. They served it with about one third warm milk. Incredible coffee!!!
You can buy ground chicory and add to your usual brand.
Krispy Kreme just needs to stick to fundraising, lol.
We have a Jittery Joes down the street that has good iced coffees (and regular when it’s not so darned hot). Crackaccino is one of my favs (4 shots of espresso)
I’d love to do a world coffee tour.
Sounds all well and good, but I don’t want a machine that’s locked into one manufacturer’s “pods”, and their prices are highway robbery - I also am skeptical about coffee sitting in “pods” for weeks or months in warehouses and on store shelves. I see the coffee makers have figured out the market like the one for ink jet printers - sell the machine cheap, and sell the ink and paper at a massive profit, and lock others from selling replacements.
I have a 15 year old cappuchino maker that does just fine - I keep it squeaky clean, and use fresh beans in a burr grinder, and it’s a great cup. (Don’t use a blade grinder - the grind is inconsistant and you’ll waste coffee, and the blades can burn the coffee) With the burr grinder, I can set it for normal, or extra fine for espresso.
For daily brew, the burr grinder and a decent coffee maker (Zojirushi) is just fine, I need to pick up a French Press for when I want a single cup, like after dinner, I broke my old one.
Store your fresh beans in a air-tight container in the fridge, and you can’t go wrong. Safeway and Costco blends are just fine, tend to be VERY fresh, and don’t cost as much as Starbucks or Peets or any of the others - save those for special occasions. ( I don’t like Starbucks, but favor Kaladi Coffees out of Alaska - they have very good strong blends that don’t taste burnt like Starbucks. The smaller roasters have superior products, and sometimes it can be gotten cheaper)
Yes, I am a coffee snob. :) (I havent drank “instant” coffee in probably 20 years.)
Yes. You must also grind your beans right before you brew. You need a coarser grind that for a drip. Some folks insists on a burr grinder. But, I use a $20 blade grinder and it works for me.
The Depression ended.
There is no substitute for the French Press for good coffee--you can control every aspect of the process.
Don't use water over 185deg, it evaporates off the aromatic oils!
Get a Nissan stainless thermos press.
I would like to see how a burr vs blade grinder test turned out.
Uh in our house those devices are referred to as “liberty” presses, or press-down pots. Actually they are one of the best ways to brew at home. Do not throw out your autodrip though. With a gold mesh filter (I like some of the oils they let through), and a water temp of 200, your are likely getting the best strength and flavor your roast and grind can provide.
.02
Which can be accomplished by running a little cold water into the boiled water before pouring. You don't need a thermometer.
Google for AeroPress coffeemakers. It’s sort of a high tech french press. The brewing time is 20-40 seconds instead of 3-4 minutes in a french press. It also tastes better than french press brew. It also tastes far better than the drip coffee from a coffee house. It tastes more like an americano from an espresso machine.
I love mine.
Absolutely NOT! Drip brewing destroys the taste of coffee -essentially BOILS it away. Also leaches more caffeine out of the grind than steam. Check out www.coffeegeek.com or howstuffworks.com for more information.
I spent $1200 on a Saeco semi-commercial machine eight years ago and it still pumps out great coffee, espresso or european style coffee’s everyday. I would replace that machine in a heartbeat - good thing is that same quality machines can be had for $600 or so today.
We are in the process of building a house and I am half considering a Dacor coffee system that will be plumbed into a filtered water system. It does everything from one cup of coffee at a time, bean grinder inside, to espresso, cappuccino, blah, blah, an integrated milk dispenser, etc. $3100.00. I love coffee. Everyone in my family loves coffee. But $3100.00 worth??? I don't know...but I really am considering it...
It does not “boil” the coffee. But the time the water drips threw the coffee the temp is about 190 degrees. It has to boil to force its way threw the pluming but does not drip at 212.
Grid has more to do with caffeine than water temp.
French presses are fantastic but I still say for everyday drinking a drip with a good grind is the way to go.
French press coffee is okay. Personally, I think it’s overkill for the average coffee drinker.
Just spend around $10-15. on a Melitta drip-o-later, and heat your water in a kettle. What kills coffee in most automatic drip coffee makers are heating elements that don’t deliver water at the proper brewing temperature. A Melitta filter cone will also let you grind your coffee a skotsh finer than for conventional auto-drip.
I was taught when using a Melitta to let the water *just* come to a boil, wait a couple seconds, splash the grounds with water, wait 10-15 more seconds, and then fill the Melitta cone with hot water.
I’ve never received complaints about my coffee, except that people conditioned to weak coffee tend to find it a bit strong for their tastes. If I’m making eight cups, I usually put six of the Melitta coffee measures into the filter cone.
The only other pitfalls to a Melitta filter cone are the Melitta carafes, and finding Melitta #6 cone filter paper. The carafes tend to break. I’ve lost a number of Melitta carafes over the years, but fortunately Mr. Coffee makes some replacement carafes that one can balance the Melitta cone upon. I’m still using the same filter cone I bought 15 years ago or so...
Hadn’t looked at coffeegeek.com before my last post. Even so, this bit from one of the “Howto” guides on that site is germane to this discussion:
“...for paper, I highly recommend the Melitta FlavorPore paper filters - they let more coffee oils flow through.”
The single cup Melitta filter cones are about $4 or so at a local market, or surf to the Melitta website. Click on “Manual coffeemakers” to see their selection.
F or the press type method it depends on the grind. If you can’t get that right, don’t bother. I suspect that is why the controversy of the press method.
Other tips: Drip coffee is very wasteful because the water isn’t generally near hot enough even when the coffee maker is new. Once they get calcified up (hard water) the problem is even worse. Its not the drip concept that is bad but the implementation. Even cowboy coffee rightly has its’ adherents. The trick here is to bring the pot to a boil for an instant but thereafter relegated only to a very slow simmer, well away from any flames or excessive heat. About six to eight hours isnt too long at all. In this case the long settling times make for a very smooth cup, but we live much more hectic lives these days, I guess.
there isnt anything snobbish about wanting good coffee, it has only been in recent years that depression-era/wartime expedients like canned or instant varieties went the way of powdered eggs and cornflake bars.
There is a subjective aspect to operating a blade grinder. If you want an even grind but don't want a bitter flavor, you have to tap the switch on and off repeatedly. The longer you let those high speed blades whirl, the more bitter the flavor will be
I have been using a French press for the last several months, and I like it. You can find any number of coffee blogs that’ll go on at terrific length about how to use one. You get a little sediment in the bottom of the cup, but the coffee is perfectly hot, very good, never sour.
Think about it for a little bit. The finer the coffee grind, the more oils will be released.
Smaller coffee grounds have more surface area than larger ones, like one might use for percolated coffee.
Likewise, finer-grained gunpowder burns faster than coarser. Same principle — more surface area.
The Bialetti Moka Express is the best and cheapest way to make a great cup of espresso-like coffee.
I use this to make “Cuban Coffe” as they call it in Miami. 4 scoops of sugar and a few drops of the fresh coffe, stir until the sugar is dark brown and mushy, then pour the cofee in. By doingthe sugar stir thing in the begining, it gives the coffee some “head”. My whole office comes running when they hear that cafetera perculating. Drip coffee is like drinking water. How could you guys drink that stuff? Worse yet. How can people pay 3-4-5 bucks for coffee flavored water at starbucks?
Your home must smell wonderful....
I use a pulse type action with my blade grinder. Maybe a total of 3 or 4 seconds. A bean or two may not even be ground. I fill the lid of the grinder about 3/4 full. Dump the coffee in the press and pour the hot water in. Very important to give it a stir before placing the plunger in place (not touching the coffee.) I give it 4-5 minutes before mashing the plunger. Just experiment until you find what works.
However, I am hopelessly nostalgic about percolators, even though there is an overwhelming consensus among coffee aficionados that their coffee stinks. If your whole childhood recollection of "mornings" is suffused with the smell and gurgle of a percolator, it is hard not to have affection for them.
I think the best "non-conventional" way to "brew" coffee is similar to "sun tea." A recipe advocated by Lynne Rosetto Kaspar on her radio program, The Splendid Table, is an 11 oz. bag of ground coffee poured into 11 cups of water and left for 11 hours. It is a bit of a mess but the result is an espresso-strength coffee with great rich flavor and NO bitterness. You can dilute it for "Americanos."
I am thinking of getting a 48 oz French press and a couple of extra beakers to facilitate this basic process. The "sun coffee" (no sun required...just leave it on the kitchen counter) keeps well beyond a weak in the frigidaire.
I fussed and fussed...and spent a lot of money but never felt that I achieved a result to justify it all. (I stopped just short of fitting a PID controller to my Silvia for precise temperature control...these coffee-obsessed people are true lunatics!)
But I have now decided that my best "espresso," or coffee for any purpose, has been produced from an 11 oz bag of preground JFG prepared by the the 11-hour method which I described a few posts above.
I went to Switzerland a few years ago and could not believe how many homes had built in machines plumbed to the water supply - absolutely wonderful.
If you like coffee at all and can afford it - do it. You will quickly wonder why you had any doubts at all. My next machine will be built in.
Oh man, I can't tell you how good it smells when the beans roast. I do it on the patio, though. Too much smoke. Also, if you do the darker espresso roasts, some roasts such as "Spanish Roast" are just short of a call to 911 before they combust. Lots of smoke, but a great flavor for the right bean.
Ping! Thought you might be interested in a coffee thread. My buddy emailed me a few times today. He got me the Turkish coffee grinder at a “bazaar”. He’s been drinking “Turkish Lemonade” at the pier and his girlfriend is letting him see a few belly dancers. He hasn’t sounded this enthusiastic in a while. He’s a coffee freak like me, so he knew how important it was. Can’t wait to see it but have another week.
What I have found is that while freshly roasted beans are wonderful, it takes about 24 to 48 hours for the aroma to REALLY peak. Call it fresh for another
few days, then it goes downhill fast. This is probably why most grocery store bins are full of stale coffee - not enough turnover. I can roast my own in a cast iron fry pan, or a popcorn popper and beat out just about anybody, with nary a fern in sight.
Good point, I'll take that into consideration.
I mentioned this once before at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1870421/posts and we had a number of posts back and forth about it. One guy mentioned the "Filtron Cold Brew System," which you can find with Google. Personally, I didn't see the need for this setup.
Since you roast and grind, you are already good-to-go. I think the point of the 11-11-11 recipe is that you can dump in a whole bag of coffee, which you have just broken the seal on so it should be fresh.
But if you are roasting and grinding, no reason not to downsize the recipe. You do, of course, have to separate the mountain of grounds from the coffee extract by some method. It seems to me that a French press would be ideal. But with 11-11-11, you have a very large messy batch to deal with.
What, pray tell, is Turkish Lemonade? Never heard of it.
I don't really know. It was a BB email. Not a lot of details. It read: "Having a Turkish lemonade down at the pier. Surrounded by bellydancers." Of course the later was a joke, they had been to some show or bar or something. Later I got the email about the coffee grinder. Can't wait to see how it works, I here some are hit or miss.
The "Sweet Maria's" site I posted above sells on of the best. At least I'll be able to say mine's authentic.
I'll be PO'd if it says "Made in China" - LOL!
LOL. Sorry, odds are it does. At least half the things sold in bazaars are, I kid you not. They're taking over the world!
I get nostalgic for percolated coffee every so often, precisely for the reasons mentioned. My parents always had a percolator or two of coffee going through the day. Like many Americans of my generation, that coffee *was* our introduction to coffee.
True confession: I have a pyrex stovetop percolator in my kitchen cabinet that I picked up for a buck or two at a thrift store. Every so often, I will buy a small can of Folger’s or Maxwell House to percolate, just to feed my youthful nostalgia craving.
You see, my regular coffee is too finely ground to percolate. So it goes.
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