OT: Coffee related Life Hack

40 comments

• gSteph

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  4 years ago

  Well, it's definitely off topic. But now you have 2 cups to wash.
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  I just rinse out the first one. It’s only coffee.
• Uprightcitizen

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  4 years ago

  Why not keep the first cup in the fridge? Problem solve-ed
• K

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  4 years ago

  you can put your mug in the freezer for a few minutes. put ice cubes and cold water in your cup while the coffee brews.
• Uprightcitizen

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  4 years ago

  Jinx^^^
• K

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  4 years ago

  Demented minds think alike
• RandomMember

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  4 years ago

  "If this post has provoked any thought..." ___________ I actually have something meaningful and thought-provoking to add to the discussion since I grind my own fresh beans and use a french press almost every day. First off, the problem is that french-press coffee is often too cold if you brew in small amounts. Too hot is never an issue. More importantly, if you drink enough unfiltered coffee, there's a risk of raising your LDL cholesterol level. So it's a trade between coffee that tastes great -- but potentially destroys your health. And clogging your arteries isn't so good for performance issues (if you know what I mean).
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  Not just that, but recent research indicates that many of coffee's benefits -- significant decrease in risk of diabetes and a number of other diseases, for example -- are only applicable with filtered coffees. Luckily, if you 1. like putzing around with your coffee every morning, as a ritual, 2. and also want amazing coffee each morning, there are other options. Pour-overs (like the chemex and kalita wave) and the Aeropress are both filtered, and both make coffee every bit as good as a french press. But, different than a French press -- only a French press can make coffee with its distinct character, and obviously without a filter, there are flavor components that only come through with a French press. But those others methods make coffee that is as good (and I feel my best aeropress coffee has surpassed any French press I've ever had), if you're open to coffee with slightly different character. In addition, aeropress has the dual characteristics of: unlike a French press, if you screw up, coffee will still taste really really good, -and- if you are a tinkerer, aeropress lets you adjust many variables separately to make coffee with different character to highlight different beans. Sorry, I got distracted: to OP, just drink it hot and burn your tongue like the rest of us :)
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  Dagnabit, I did not know about the unfiltered coffee problem. I actually do have an aeropress, but prefer the French press mainly because it’s a simpler process when making more than a cup at a time. When I do use my aeropress I use a reusable mesh filter, but now I realize that would also be producing unfiltered coffee. I guess I’d better dust off my paper filters and reevaluate my morning routine
• JAprufrock

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  4 years ago

  Nothing beats a hot cup of French roast following a front room makeout session.
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  FLF: in addition, I'm about 99% sure that there's never been a world aeropress competition winner that's used the metal mesh filter, it's always paper (sometimes multiple of them). Part of the fun of the aeropress, for me, has been going through those aeropress competition recipes, usually 1st through 3rd are published every year, and see how I like each one. The winners the past few years have all used bypasses, a technique I've used for years and years, glad to see it's finally getting its due. Speaking of bypasses, I have bypass recipes that I love, that get me to up to 16oz of coffee at a time from an aeropress, absolutely delicious! I know pretty much everyone says the aeropress is for one cup at a time, but I don't think many people have even experimented with bypass techniques to get to 12-18oz...
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  I like this idea of mingling FRMOS with coffee, but I’ll have to do some searching to find a recipe that works for that. I will definitely experiment with the bypass method, and I think I also need to do some research on the proper grind for various recipes. Thanks for getting me excited about my aeropress again. It’s such an awkward shape, which was making me start to feel like it wasn’t worth the space it takes up
• Longball300

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  4 years ago

  Put K pod in K machine - push button - drink
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  ^ Nespresso is way better than any Keurig
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  We're discussing Michelin-starred restaurants, and Longball & 25 are arguing about whether McD's is better than Burger King :) :)
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  ^ really nespresso is Mickey Ds how bourgeois
• WinningdaChumpsGame

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  4 years ago

  Good thread flf Buying coffee is a chumps game WCG
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  Front room tasting session
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  Front room sipping sessions until it’s time for you to get your own cuppa joe or jose no judging and no homo 😎
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  I grind my beans immediately before brewing. I always believed that anything less would be uncivilized, but decided to do some googling since I’ve already had some of my perceptions shattered in this thread. Apparently I could be grinding 4 days worth at a time with little difference—if I had a commercial grade grinder. [view link] The grinder I have at home was used in the article. Glad to see how much it outperforms all the other at home grinders
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  Making grounds out of beans how uncommon !
• gammanu95

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  4 years ago

  I'll keep my Bunn with a timer that has it fresh and brewed at exactly the minute I wake up.
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  FLF, very interesting find! I would definitely NOT change your process based on a single article that is at-odds with the entire rest of the world. Maybe fun to set up an experiment, your grinder vs grinding at the coffee shop, and blind taste test the results (make one cup after another, put in identical cups, close your eyes, mix them up). I have a virtuoso, which is the next step up from the encore. I think it might have a somewhat upgraded gear set, and might be more accurate still than the encore. However, I think I've also read you can buy the virtuoso's gearset separately and it fits into the encore, and now you have a Virtuoso on the cheap. You'd have to go do searches at some coffee geek forums to find out for sure :)
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  ^ Or you could just get a Cuisinart Grind & Brew and make the coffee in one step,
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  Oh , that does sound convenient. Does the Cuisinart Grind & Brew have a conical burr grinder?
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  FLF: you'll be going very far backwards from your encore. On the other hand, if you're prioritizing convenience, that works I guess. Or, you can take gammanu's approach -- perhaps with that superior coffee shop pre-ground coffee :). The BUNN is at least SCA golden cup certified, and -might- make some really good coffee.
• san_jose_guy

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  4 years ago

  That does make sense, as you are thermally insulating your mix during the brewing process. I worked with a guy who cut out of particle board a circular piece to insulate his Cup of Noodles soup so that it could cook in the boiling hot water without excessive cooling through the open top. But brewing coffee at that high a temperature may change the results. Also, sorry to say, in my laymen's opinion and observation, both sugar and caffeine contribute to diabetes and to ED. The number of Americans who currently have diabetes and don't know about it, is vastly greater than those who have it and know about it. Sugar and caffeine take, they do not give you anything. SJG
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  -->"Also, sorry to say, in my laymen's opinion and observation, both sugar and caffeine contribute to diabetes" SJG, luckily, we don't have to depend on laymen's opinions on this :) While not completely ironclad, the research is long and pretty consistent -- coffee (the filtered kind, without cream or sugar) reduces your risk of diabetes, significantly. It appears to be causal, not correlation. Of course, this is based on studying the actual food -- coffee itself. I have no idea what what happen if someone studied caffeine in isolation, but I also don't care, since I don't consume caffeine in isolation. The evidence is much, much weaker with ED, but again, what evidence there is, is that coffee reduces the odds of ED. No idea what would happen if one studied caffeine in isolation, but I don't consume caffeine in isolation, and breaking foods up into their constituent parts and studying just the parts has a long history of getting results that are irrelevant to humans
• san_jose_guy

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  4 years ago

  ^^^^ I hope your data is correct. But most people do consume coffee with sugar. SJG
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  To me a big selling point for the virtuoso is that it has a timer. On the encore it’s a manual on/off, which means that every morning I lose about 15 seconds of my life standing there waiting for the beans to grind. I haven’t switched back to the aeropress yet. Looking at a recipe for the first time made me realize that I need to read up on specifics like how to pick the best grind setting. Apparently some recipes are pretty specific with the temperature. My kettle has 6 temperature settings, so I’m hoping they end up being close enough.
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  15 seconds, whew! The other good thing on the virtuoso is, it's (according to internet comparisons) almost twice as fast as the encore. So if you had a virtuoso, if you didn't use the timer, you'd only waste 7 seconds of your life! The nice thing about the aeropress is that it's not as sensitive as a french press to small mistakes. Get everything roughly right, your coffee will taste really good. Then you can dial it in and really nail it. Here's a simple recipe to start with: - Inverted style w/ a bypass - 185 degree water - 30g coffee ground coarse (start somewhere around your french press grind, maybe slightly finer) 1. slowly add 150g water over 30s 2. Gently stir for 30 s 3. Put on cap and invert 4. 30s press 5. Add water to taste
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  I’m going to do this tomorrow. IDK if I can make it take 30 seconds to add 150 ml of water. I’ll get creative if I have to. From what I’ve read it sounds like I want to end up with a 1:15-18 coffee:water ratio. Oh, and I ordered the M2 cone burr. It was only $35. The upgrade looks very simple
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  -->"From what I’ve read it sounds like I want to end up with a 1:15-18 coffee:water ratio. " I think that's fine as a guideline but feel free to go by taste. The last few years' Aeropress championship winners have all been below 1;10, believe it or not. They had the creativity to look beyond the guidelines, and the result is the best coffee ever. When I make the above recipe, I usually end up like 1:10 to 1:12, but again, I just go by what tastes good to me. Ya, not easy to take 30 seconds to add 150ml!! If I finish early I just wait out the rest of the 30s
• twentyfive

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  4 years ago

  Damn this site has it all, from advice about how to procure a hooker to advice on the best cup of coffee @founder this will be your legacy
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  Yeah I ended up at about 1:10. It fell short of the spiritual experience I was told to expect, but it was still the best coffee I’ve ever made myself
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  FLF: admit it, you LDK'ed
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  lol... FLF, now you get to try to tune it to your liking. Maybe a tiny bit finer to get a little more extraction on the back end? Slightly hotter or cooler water? Shorten the stirring time a bit? As you experiment you'll start to learn how changing each variable affects the taste, which will help you bring out the best in whatever beans you have.
• Fun_Loving_Fella

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  4 years ago

  I did the burr upgrade today. It took about a half an hour, and the performance improvement is substantial. If I would have spent a little longer researching it I would have realized that both burrs should be replaced at the same time, and the upgraded burr is only half of that. For now it’s no big deal, but in a few years I’ll probably be ashamed to admit that I drank coffee that was ground with unevenly worn burrs
• Jascoi

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  4 years ago

  The type of water you use affects the flavor too. Tap water, filtered tapwater, reverse osmosis water, alkaline water, etc...
• Subraman

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  4 years ago

  FLF: I just tried out the recipe from the 2019 Aeropress champion! Yet another very high coffee-to-water ratio, inverted style, with a bypass -- that seems to be the winning combination for the past few years. Anyway, I tried it on some really good Papua New Guinea beans, and it came out pretty good. Then I tried it with some Ethiopian beans, that definitely have a bigger body and more chocolately and fruity character, and it came out --- amazing ---. Will keep experimenting but perhaps that's where this recipe will shine. I still haven't quite cracked the Papua New Guinea beans, they should be life-changing but I haven't been able to make them shine yet