Teach me About Coffee.

[htsamurai]

just woke up.
coffee

[Nychthemeron]

This thread makes me yearn for some more coffee.

Elbandito, are you some kind of coffee guru now? Spread your caffeine-coated wisdom.

[bigchiefbc]

Made myself an other-worldly capuccino this morning.

[adrianlee]

Just brewed a cup. Oreos and coffee for breakfast.

[Eric!]

Just brewed a cup. Oreos and coffee for breakfast.

[elbandito]

Elbandito, are you some kind of coffee guru now? Spread your caffeine-coated wisdom.

Just a dude with a crapload of useless knowledge, my man.

Let's talk about brewing methods. This is the part that ppl tend to have the most questions about.
There are three main ways in which ppl brew coffee, everything is basically a take on one of these three concepts:

Drip,

Drip coffee is probably the most common in North America, where most of us on ILF live. It's super quick, easy clean up and virtually no preparation. It's also the method that produces the weakest tasting coffee. The coffee filter that you put your coffee in holds back all the essential oils that the roasted bean releases when it's introduced to hot water, which gives you a less potent coffee. This method is best if you're in a rush or if you're using lower quality coffees and requires a fine grind.

French Press

French Press is the method to use if you want a full flavoured coffee. Because there's no filter (just a screen to keep grinds out of your cup), all of the oils of the bean make it into your cup and give you an excellent coffee experience. It's usually this method that is used when ppl have coffee tastings. When I mentioned things like a 'fruity undertone' in the last post, this is the method you would use to taste that for yourself. French Press requires a medium grind... if the grind is too fine, you'll end up with coffee bits in the bottom of your cup and that's gross. This is the longest brewing method, requiring sometimes as much 10 mins for a well brewed press.

Moka Pot

This is the Moka Pot - a stovetop espresso maker, sometimes called a "Bodom" and is my personal favourite coffee brewing method. There are three parts - the bottom piece, the top piece, and a screen/basket thing that sits in the bottom piece. You put cold water in the bottom resevoir and your coffee goes in the little basket that hover just above the water line. You then put the Moka pot on your stove, or a hot stone if your camping and when the water starts to boil, it bubbles up thru the coffee and condenses in the top portion. This can be the most dangerous method, in that the hot coffee actually shoots out of a little spout inside the top portion and if you open it to look inside, you can get scalded - it happened to me. If you use this method, remember not to wash your Moka pot out with soap. The accumulation of the coffee oils on the inside aids in flavour and helps to mask the metallic taste that you sometimes get when using less expensive Moka pots. It should only be washed with soap when changing types of coffee, though I once had one that I never washed out and mah shit tasted spectacular!!

[devnulljp]

Also, be careful when drinking decaf coffee... some methods use potentially toxic chemicals to remove the caffeine from the beans. Swiss water is probably the safest method that is used nowadays... Many of the decaf instant coffee uses borax, I think, or something to that effect.

Yup, the early methods used benzene, which is just fucking nuts. Sure, it gets the caffeine out...but it fucks up your bone marrow, kills off blood cells, chops up your DNA, and causes acute myeloid leukemia, acute non-lymphocytic leukaemia, and other types of cancer. Nasty, nasty stuff.

They still use dichloromethane though, which is a possible carcinogen and has been outlawed in the EU. Makes it sound worse than it is, but still...

On the bright side, they found a naturally occurring mutant Arabica coffee bean in Ethiopia a few years ago. So no decaff needed, it doesn't have any to begin with. Why they didn't just nuke the genes involved in caffeine synthesis in the first place is beyond me. I guess all the GM hysteria.

[nbabmf]

I'm snobby about the other two most consumed drugs in our society. Maybe I should get on the coffee thing now, too.

[elbandito]

Also, be careful when drinking decaf coffee... some methods use potentially toxic chemicals to remove the caffeine from the beans. Swiss water is probably the safest method that is used nowadays... Many of the decaf instant coffee uses borax, I think, or something to that effect.

Yup, the early methods used benzene, which is just fucking nuts. Sure, it gets the caffeine out...but it fucks up your bone marrow, kills off blood cells, chops up your DNA, and causes acute myeloid leukemia, acute non-lymphocytic leukaemia, and other types of cancer. Nasty, nasty stuff.

They still use dichloromethane though, which is a possible carcinogen and has been outlawed in the EU. Makes it sound worse than it is, but still...

On the bright side, they found a naturally occurring mutant Arabica coffee bean in Ethiopia a few years ago. So no decaff needed, it doesn't have any to begin with. Why they didn't just nuke the genes involved in caffeine synthesis in the first place is beyond me. I guess all the GM hysteria.

Awesome! Thanks for that, Dev. I knew it was a chemical that started with a 'B'. haha.

[hclapp219]

I'm a big French press fan. Look in your area to see if you can find small coffee shops with organic beans, and try to get beans that have been roasted very recently. After about two weeks after roasting, the beans begin to lose their flavor, so buy in small batches. I'm lucky to have a couple small coffee roasters nearby with a large selection of organic and free trade beans to choose from. I've found a few varieties that I really enjoy, but I always have fun trying new ones. Just go out and taste as much as you can to see what works for you.

[culturejam]

French press rules.

I think most drip machines get the water too hot. The coffee ends up more bitter than I like.

With the press, I can control temperature as well as retention time.

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

i've worked at a few coffee shops over the years... fun!
i personally like a medium light roast - the coffee is a bit more flavorful and you can actually taste the subtleties, whereas heavy dark roasts are just a bit too bitter for my taste. i do enjoy a well pulled/short shot of espresso, though...

for decaf, certainly stick to swiss water processed - anything else is just gross.

+1 for a french press. the only way to drink coffee in my opinion... get the bigger one and make a full pot, drink half one day then just put it in the fridge as is overnight - enjoy some iced coffee in the morning!

[Eric!]

i've worked at a few coffee shops over the years... fun!
i personally like a medium light roast - the coffee is a bit more flavorful and you can actually taste the subtleties, whereas heavy dark roasts are just a bit too bitter for my taste. i do enjoy a well pulled/short shot of espresso, though...

for decaf, certainly stick to swiss water processed - anything else is just gross.

+1 for a french press. the only way to drink coffee in my opinion... get the bigger one and make a full pot, drink half one day then just put it in the fridge as is overnight - enjoy some iced coffee in the morning!

Woo!
Nice new Avatar, Bri!

[warwick.hoy]

A little caveat to my first post,....hot ass water = just south of boiling. Water boils at 212 degrees (F) and the best temps for brewing coffee are somewhere between 200 and 205 degrees (F). So yeah,...don't use boiling water.

As far as French Presses,...I like the Bodum (note the U,...not Bodom) brand 8 cup,...my biggest complaint about cheap presses are there are too many parts,...nuts that can get lost when you take the plunger apart to clean it,...that sort of thing. Bodums are a little more expensive but they've integrate a lot of the parts in such a way that there is nothing small to lose down a drain. Get a glass one,...not a plastic one. Glass is easier to clean and plastic will stain and crack,...why they even sell plastic ones is beyond me,...camping I guess.

While I prefer french press I gave my Bodum to a friend and switched to a programmable drip machine with a brass screen filter as opposed to a paper filter; mainly because I had to be a work at 4 in the morning (I was a baker) and didn't have a great deal of time to boil a kettle of water and wait for the coffee to brew. The problem with that is that the ground coffee would sit in the brew basket over night and go stale. You really want to grind just before you brew so the essential oils that give coffee it's flavor don't have a chance to evaporate off.

I now work in the kitchen of a cafe that serves espresso,...my favorite roaster provides our beans. I always get a (free) vanilla latte in the morning so lately I've only been making coffee on my off days. Perhaps it's time to switch back to a press. I used to drink breves but my co workers told me I should stop or I was going to have a heart attack. A breve is like a latte but made with Half and Half instead of 2 percent.

I highly recommend spending some money on a burr grinder no matter what brew method you decide to go with. These are the type of grinders used in cafes (there are home versions of them that much cheaper) and they are superior because they give you a more consistent grind than the blade style grinders (which just chop the beans into an non-uniform mess),...and they are adjustable between a coarse and fine grind. You want to use a coarser grind for a press (keeps the sludge down) and a finer grind for a machine.

I think it is worth noting that there are cold toddy methods of brewing coffee; which I love for iced coffee in the summertime, but they require long (as in overnight) brew times.

I can't really tell you the differences between different coffees. I know what I like and what I like you might not. I'm partial to an Ethiopian Yergecheffe from a local roaster called DOMA, but will drink anything with a medium to dark roast. I don't mind the stronger flavor (bitterness) because I always drink my coffee with lots of cream and lots of unrefined cane sugar. This area is blessed with lots of local roasters (and cafe's),...I'm not sure how much that has caught on elsewhere (where do you live adriann?). Again,...just try a bunch. Find a co-op or natural food mart that sells coffee buy bulk and try like a half a pound of 3 or 4 different roasts/beans till you find something you like.

[devnulljp]

+1 for a french press. the only way to drink coffee in my opinion... get the bigger one and make a full pot, drink half one day then just put it in the fridge as is overnight - enjoy some iced coffee in the morning!

Holy crap, either your bigger one is huge or I have a problem ... mine holds a litre and I usually go through 3 or 4 full pots of the stuff a day.