coffee-tea Coffee

aeropress double latte ...

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aeropress plus clausen jars ftw! ;)
 
grantmichaels said:
aeropress plus clausen jars ftw! ;)
 
I'm feeling it. :cool:
 
Had a look around and $49.95 seems to be the going price for the Aeropress here. Haven't looked online but I'll probably shell out the 50 clams anyway just to have the thing by the weekend.
 
Great little resource too, that brewmethods.com. Cheers for sharing!
 
espressozone.com just sent a free shipping + $10 off for an order of $69 or more ... the coupon code is "EZVAL" ...
 
I bought my moka pot and stainless moka pot there, as well as a couple of tampers ...
 
Not sure how things go in terms of shipping, but I've been receiving a lot of things from other countries lately (Raspberry Pi stuff from the UK and various Kickstarter rewards shipping from the East, particularly) and it's been easy ...
 
YMMV ...
 
Noir.
 
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Yep, It's just a black day today.... (just ignore that I'm using a light-medium roast, though. ;))

So anyway, I'm holding off on the Aeropress for now and got a French press instead. For some reason it was calling out to me more and you gotta go with these things, right? Relatively cheap model but it will more than do the trick for now. I did have one yonks ago but don't even know if I still have the bloody thing. And I gotta admit, I quite like the French press. It kinda reminds me of instant coffee... only a thousand times better. And finally... I GOTZ BEANZ! These ones are an organic blend roasted locally by Di Bella. This particular blend was one of my favourites for French press back in the day and it would seem that nothing is about to change. Just right for this type of coffee by my tastes. Well, most of the time anyway, seasonal variability and all that...

(Chocolate is Alter Eco Dark Blackout 85%. Most favourite of all time. Everything that needs to be in chocolate and nothing else. Cocoa mass, cocoa butter, raw cane sugar and vanilla, that's it. No emulsifiers, no soy. Very low in sugar--only 15g per 100g. And an unreal flavour to boot! Ridiculously smooth texture for dark chocolate too.....)
 
Cool!

I was really late getting to french press as a method, and so happy the first - well, second actually - time I made it. It's the 3rd most common way that we brew over here (our house, not States) ...

We actually use the Kalita Wave pour-over carafe for 90% of our coffee making, and then I rotate in the other ways in the remaining 10% ...

Maybe I'll bring down the ROK this weekend and pull some shots - been ages since I've made espresso =)
 
Love the french press, especially the insulated ones. Though they get a bit pricey, a la the Bodum stainless steel, for something that gives you a small shot of coffee sand with every cup. Taste makes up for the bit of sediment.
 
Awesome cup :D
 
Don't ever try to rent a professional Cookie Monster outfit for Halloween. Ends up costing you hoards of money when they won't take their milk soaked crap back.
 
I am a bit of a coffee snob, so I figured I would share...
 
For those of you on the fence with home roasting, it is the best investment you will ever make!
 
Most things like this always end up costing 3x more than if you were to just store buy.  I brew beer for example, expensive as hell IMO.  Not home roasting though...  I can buy bags of some of the best coffees around the world for $6lb when bought green.  And I really mean top of the line shit!.  If you want a really good hookup join a green bean coop.  They send beans to a professional cupper to be rated, and only if the coffee is up to coop standards they then order hundreds to thousands of pounds directly from the farm.  They then turn around and distribute it with almost no overhead to the members in 3-5lb batches.
 
So the basics of home roasting on a budget.  Buy an air popcorn popper.  Some wont work because they don't get hot enough.  The West Bend Poppery is the popper of choice.  The Poppery 2 is second, and there are a ton of clones as well.  I personally use a Poppery 2, but have bought a cheap no name popper when I was deployed and needed a 220v popper and had no issues.
 
Next get a long extension cord.  This is a trick to make life easier, and to get a more consistent roast.  Air poppers roast really fast.  It is often hard, especially when first starting to get your timing down right because of this.  The extension cord adds some resistance to the electric load, and therefore make the popper operate slower.
 
Pour about 3.5 ounces of beans into the popper and turn it on.  The beans should be swirling around in a circle very slowly right now.  If they aren't moving at all then you have to many beans.  Once they start roasting they will move much faster.
 
The key to roasting is to listen to the beans.  They will go through what is called the first crack and the second crack.  This is the sugars in the beans breaking down and caramelizing.  It is absolutely imperative that you learn to be able to tell the difference between these two sounds.  The first sounds like popcorn popping.  The second sounds more like the sound you here when you shock someone with static electricity.
 
If using a popcorn popper, these two cracks can come very close together in time.  Slowing down the roast will cause more of a gap between them, hence more accuracy.
 
For a light roast, or a "City" roast you remove the beans from the roaster after the first crack ends. 
 
A medium/dark roast is "Full City" to "Full City+".  Hear you wait until you hear the first snap of the second crack and then remove.  FC+ you wait util you have heard a few snaps of the second crack.  This is where I roast almost all of my coffees.  Smoke will begin coming off the beans here as well.
 
A really dark roast is "Vienna, French, Spanish".  These are well into the second crack.  Frankly, the beans are burning at this point, and most good notes are lost.
 
The beans will continue to roast after you remove them unless you cool them quickly.  I have made coolers out of a coffee can and a computer fan.  Really a large colander is all that's needed though.  Pour the beans out of the roaster into the colander.  Shake it back and forth to keep air moving around the beans, and they will be cool enough to hand touch in a couple minutes.
 
Seal them in a mason jar or a ziplock bag for at least 12 hours.  The beans need time to degas.  When you open this for the first time, make sure you keep your nose close by.  The smell will be pure heaven!
 
Grind appropriately for your brewing apperatus, and serve!  Coffee stays fresh for years in green format.  2 weeks is about the max once roasted though.  Folgers has probably been siting for 2 years!  Once ground, drink within an hour.  Any longer than any of these times, and your drinking stale coffee!
 
BTW, as mentioned the Aeropress is amazing.  A French press is a far second place, and a just forget about drip makers.  Yuck!
 
 
grantmichaels said:
The time's come.

Going to take a shot at roasting this bag myself ...

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Good Luck!
 
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