lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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Just brought my french press and grinder back to my parents. Now I can enjoy good coffee in the morning instead of the White Castle swill.
It's been a while since I've brewed with a press and the pot didn't turn out too bad. Maybe a tad strong. Anyone have good tips on making the perfect pot? Any good beans locally roasted you like? (I'll probably make a trip to YMT once my current stash runs out)
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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Awesome, thanks.
When I first got it a few years ago, I remember it took a few goes to get it right.
Bear
The woods
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lifeontwowheels wrote >>
Awesome, thanks.
When I first got it a few years ago, I remember it took a few goes to get it right.
Well, "a tad strong" might actually be getting it right -- coffee from a French press is going to be a fair bit stronger and richer than drip. Takes a little getting used to, but IMO it's worth it.
Andrew Hall
Dennison Place (The Circles)
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Here is what Andy Luck told and, despite 20 decades of French pressing, I learned from it.
I've been using a 34 ounce press pot (or french press) and doing the following:
1. boil water with an electric kettle
2. measure 5 blue scoops (i have them here) of coffee
3. grind it coarse and put in press pot
4. the water should have had time to cool to a safe brewing temperature by now so pour it into the pot with some force - to cause turbulence
5. now set your timer for 4 minutes, after a minute give your mixture a quick stir with a knife
6. place the lid in top with the plunger down just low enough so that all the grounds are submerged.
7. when the timer sounds, gently press the plunger down. if grounds escape out the side of the plunger or it is difficult to force down, lift the lid and try again. if the plunger is still difficult to push down, your grind is too fine.
I go 3.5 minutes as I like higher tones in my coffee. My favorite part is the auto-pilot way to not starting the grind/etc until the electric kettle goes off - great for AM when you don't want to think about water temp or other details.
He and I go back and forth about whether Chemex (pour-over) or FP is better. I have gone back to FP after a brief dalliance w/ pour-over.
Luck Bros is another very good source for beans. He regularly brings in beans from renowned roasters across the country, usually single-estate.
A.
A.
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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if you have a good thermometer you can experiment with temperatures and steeping times (your two main variables within any given bean) until you get the flavor profile you like.
My observation is that temperatures down around 80-83 deg C yield bring out more caramel and spice notes. Temperatures 84-87 will bring out more chocolate flavors, and temps over 90 will bring out more bitterness. These are steeping temperatures. Of course, remember when you pour the water into the press it will cool a bit depending on your pot and it's temperature and thermal capacity.
Steeping times at a given temperature will make a huge difference. Oversteeping will tend to mask any of the subtle flavors of your coffee and if you steep for a very long time all of your coffee will taste pretty much the same. I've found this is actually really helpful if you buy cheap skunky coffee on the road and brew it. Just steep the hell out of it at a reasonable temperature and it comes out pretty ok. On the road I usually bring a baggy of pre-ground beans and use the hot-tap at a gas station in my steel press-thermos. When I run out of pre-ground I buy some grounds somewhere. The coffee usually ends up brewed too hot, but the hot water is usually free and it keeps me from having to drink flavorless hotel coffee.
Anyway, trial and error experimentation is a fun way to pass an afternoon and you can work out what you like and don't like.
My favorite coffee is yemeni vienna roast beans from Brioso vaccuum pressed at 83 deg with 2 minutes steeping time (vaccuum press steeping times are shorter). But usually I drink espresso made from cheaper but good staufs blend beans.
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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Actually, it ended up just about right today. I poured one mug and then poured off the rest into an insulated travel mug for work. The travel mug sat for about 15 minutes or so before I touched it and was more the temp I like to drink. Much, much better.
ETA
I'm using Joe's House Blend from Cup O' Joe and Cusinart Burr Grinder from Odd Lots.
iwantyrskull
grndvw
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all of the above suggestions are important, but i would like to stress what i have found to be very important details:
water temp: i don't have an electric kettle, so i don't know exactly how hot they get your water. what i do is stick a beverage thermometer into my stove top kettle and take it to about 170f. what i had noticed was that allowing it to boil made for over extracted coffee. brewing temp is very important. also, use good water! filtered/bottled whatever... i personally can't wait to brew coffee with that new caffeinated stuff but i like caffeine and dumb experiments.
even saturation: the comment about pouring into the pot with force to cause turbulence, i believe, is touching on this. through my own meticulous trials and errors i have come to an even pour followed by a few stirs until you observe even saturation of the grounds and ideally a nice blooming or slight rising of the grounds. aaaw yeah, we're close now. what everyone has said about letting it sit around 4-5 minutes is important. adjust to taste.
the grind: like that dude in "black hawk down" said: it's all in the grind. not being able to press down on the plunger as stated above is also a great tip for recognizing a grind that is too fine. i would also like to add that this can be a symptom of using too much of an amount of grounds and can even be related too, i have noticed, not allowing the grounds to evenly saturate and/or not steeping long enough. i know! its complicated! worth it though!
french press is arguably the most direct method for making a cup of coffee that is most representative of your coffee's flavor "profile." that said, it's also important to realize that the coffee you are making in your kitchen has only to be right for you! there is no incorrect way. have fun and experiment!
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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You know, now I am going to have to give home roasting a try...I wonder what the break even point would be?
I also wonder, given that we are getting into summer temps, if it would be possible to cold brew the coffee in a press overnight and filtering in the morning for some iced coffee?
Bear
The woods
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I go through something like 2/3lb. of coffee a week. I'm glancing back at a few orders of green coffee, and one average one was for five pounds of Sumatra for $22.19 + $9.95 shipping = $32.14 total, or $6.43/lb. Call that average, and say you're paying, ballpark, about $12 a pound for a comparable specialty roast in town. You're saving $3.68 a week on coffee.
Break-even point depends on what you're using to roast the coffee. :-) Converted Jiffy-Pop popcorn popper, your break-even point's probably going to be sometime next month. iRoast 2, a bit less than a year. Behmor, 82 weeks. The programmable digital HotTop... well, start drinking more coffee.
And, funny you should mention cold brewing -- this was the scene at Chez Bear earlier this very night:
(Fact which, I just realized, is not conveyed by photographs: These are cold.)
1/3c grounds to 1.5c cold H2O, for 12-24 hours, then filter, mix 50-50 with water, and drink. We'll see how it goes.
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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if you don't mind filling your house with smoke you can just use your oven...
http://www.ineedcoffee.com/00/gas/
Hope you have good ventilation.
hey...waitaminute... I wonder if I can use an outdoor charcoal smoker. :-O
(heading for google... bbl)
Rockmastermike
CORNspiracy HQ
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well that didn't take long to find...
http://lacocinadedavid.wordpress.com/2008/06/06/coffee-roasting-les-deux/#more-62
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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Now I just need to find a popcorn popper....
iwantyrskull
grndvw
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yo i cant get enough of this coffee talk!
cold brewing? these are amazing. 1# for 12 hours yields approximately 18 cups (i suck at conversions) of "toddy" concentrate. ice coffee? half that concentrate and half water, over ice. the amazing part is that, i swear, if you do that (minus ice) and microwave it then you will have a legitimately good cup of hot coffee. why use this? i do because i am lazy. i wake up and pour two liquids and instantly have some serious gourmet sh*t. hot or cold.
as for home roasting: please be very careful. coffee beans when roasting are similar to popcorn kernels in that there will be tiny explosions. couple that with a surprising amount of smoke and i think you'd be wise not to do that in your oven. i have experience with the iroast2 and can say, from a professional coffee roaster's point of view, that it does a great job for what it is. it does heat up dramatically and they tell you not to use it more than twice a day but you can get close to a half pound out. honestly though, i would be scared to use it twice daily in my kitchen. smokey too... anyways... ethiopians do it right.
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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No, I would do everything outdoors. I have enough space at my parents.
I like the iRoast and the others in that price range. It would pay for itself in about a year. Just debating between that and a popcorn popper to get started with.
(Maybe I should change the thread title to "Coffee"? We have a thread on infusions, on one cooking, one on bacon.)
Bear
The woods
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In that price range, the iRoast is the hands-down winner because you can control the roast profile. In fact, you can control it a lot more than you can with lots of more expensive machines. I've used mine for over a year without complaints. (It has an attachment for a dryer hose, by the way -- so I just vent it out the range hood. Without that, the coffee smoke would permeate the house, and trust me, that's a lot worse than it sounds. A LOT worse.)
Outdoors in the winter is a bit of a problem, don't forget. Sucking cold air into a hot roasting chamber really messes with your roast times. There's plenty of good reading on coffeegeek.com about many of these issues.
The popcorn popper is apparently surprisingly good. I've never tried it myself so I can't say. The main issue, I think, is collecting the chaff.
The iRoasts have an expected life of a couple of years with regular use, not a lot more, and sometimes less (keep the warranty!!). They generate a ton of heat for such a small unit. When mine dies I might trade up for a Behmor, for a few reasons.
1. Quieter. The iRoast is a leather-lunged little devil. That's actually not a purely aesthetic problem; combined with the thick glass and small (150g) volume of beans, it means that first crack can be hard to hear with some beans. That's not insurmountable, but it's a pain.
2. Roasts more -- larger capacity.
3. People who have used both say that drum roasters make better coffee, by a hair. I haven't, but I'm curious.
4. Double-filtered ventilation system = no need to vent to outside.
5. I'm pretty much dead certain I'll be roasting my own coffee myself for a long time. Nothing at all against the local roasters (we're actually luckier than most people realize in that department!), but, the specialty coffees I want, delivered to my house, roasted to the exact degree I want, and never more than 48 hours old when I grind 'em? Yup, I'm all over that.
The big downsides would be the need to "coast" to the desired degree of roast (rather than just hit stop, as the iRoast lets you do) and the decreased control over the roast profile.
All told, though: if you're curious about it, I'd try the popper method first, especially if you can do it outdoors and have a whole summer ahead of you. It's the smallest investment with the biggest potential payoff. Then when fall comes you can think about whether it's something you want to keep doing.
Oh -- and +1 on cold brewing. The concentrate from this morning was good enough that I'm going to grind up the rest of my Mexican Feminina and set it to soaking overnight.
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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I might swing by Walmart and see about a popper this week or next. The two big concerns I have with the popper are winter and the control. But you're right, for experimenting it won't be bad.
So can cold brew be done in a french press overnight?
lifeontwowheels
Highland West
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YES! Scored a popcorn popper at a thrift today! I have a 5 buck coffee roaster now. My dad thinks I am nuts...
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