ALL I WANT IS A PROPER CUP OF COFFEE

[red]

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/coffee-grind ... -be-using/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[guitargeek]

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/coffee-grind ... -be-using/

[media]https://youtu.be/Pco6GFCVcHU[/media]

[Bigshankhank]

So I learned something about culture while I was in Amsterdam. Like a naive' American I assumed that as a general rule all European nations took their coffee seriously. Thus while strolling around the old city every morning I was excited to avoid the all-too-common Starbucks and try the local blend. Turns out "Coffee Shop" in Dutch means "Place to buy weed with a Bunn and some paper cups in the back somewhere". And of course without a Dutch passport I couldn't buy anything there more interesting than stale Folgers so I left a little disappointed.

[DerGolgo]

Turns out "Coffee Shop" in Dutch means "Place to buy weed with a Bunn and some paper cups in the back somewhere".

[guitargeek]

What? You have to be Dutch to buy weed?

I just ran out of reasons to visit Amsterdam!

[jae]

What? You have to be Dutch to buy weed?

I just ran out of reasons to not befriend a Dutchman in Amsterdam!

fixed

[Bigshankhank]

What? You have to be Dutch to buy weed?

I just ran out of reasons to visit Amsterdam!

Yup, they check your passport everywhere that weed is available. Now, as Jae suggested what's to stop you from making friends in a local coffee shop and getting some passed your way?

[guitargeek]

Now that I've had a little coffee, this seems very obvious.

[Bigshankhank]

Now that I've had a little coffee, this seems very obvious.

Unrelated, but how's the weather treating you out there? My folks in North TX have been catching hell the last few days.

[guitargeek]

Now that I've had a little coffee, this seems very obvious.

Unrelated, but how's the weather treating you out there? My folks in North TX have been catching hell the last few days.

Typically nasty.

We had sideways rain that turned to ice, and now it's just cold, I'm glad to still have power.

Earthquake last night knocked out power to 4500 homes, not a good time to be without...

[DerGolgo]

Take a two liter empty soda bottle, rinse, put in four cups room temperature water, and one and three quarter cups of coarsly ground coffee. I used French roast. Put on the cap, shake and let sit for twelve hours. Then I put it in my french press to filter it, and stored it in a glass bottle. They suggest you use a paper filter too but I didn't. Mix 1/3 syrup to 2/3 boiling water and try it out!

I have obeyed your instructions (hey, I'm German, it's what we do!) and tried this out.
Tasty!
Took all the beans I had left and affixing my power drill to my coffee-mill, as my gimp arm just couldn't grind quite that amount.
Let it steep for 18 instead of 12 hours, simply because I couldn't be bothered to get at 6AM.
I have some syrup left, I think I'll use less water when I prepare me some tomorrow. I want to see how this goes when it's a bit stronger than normal.

Important note: these coarse coffee grounds and room temp water somehow clogged up my coffee filters something fierce. Gonna pour it through a sieve before filtration next time I make some.

[guitargeek]

I'd want to add the coffee syrup to coffee.

[MATPOC]

Been doing french press at home (Pattios Rancilio at work) but few month ago I got a Toddy cold brew, this thing is the ballz!

https://toddycafe.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

never heard of this before but I now have a coffee roaster in the building (to complement 14 woodworkers and one brewery) and he carries those things to complement his beans, one of the very few things he has other than beans.

Make about 2 quarts of concentrate at a time, keeps for 2+ weeks in the fridge, now all I have to do is boil some water, pour concentrate 1/4 to 1/3 of the cup, fill with boiling water, comes out perfect temp ready to drink and takes no time, no clean up (OK, there is come clean up every 2 weeks when I make new batch)

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DerGolgo]

I've become very much convinced by cold-brew.
I make it with the aid of some funnels and a soda bottle, mix syrup and water 1/1, yummy.
I've been grinding my beans coarse, thus far, wanna try a finger grain for the next batch. Finer grain = more surface area = more transference of "coffee-substance" from bean to water.

[Pintgudge]

I'm glad you tried it. I think it tasts better than coffee made with heat.

It is good to share!

[DerGolgo]

Finer grain tastes okay, but isn't worth the hassle of grinding so fine.
Gonna try coarse again, but I'll add some bitter coacoa, just to see how that turns out.
The coacoa will jam up any paper filter, but those don't work well with cold water anyway, I've found.
So I also ordered a tea-sieve and a permanent steel coffee filter to optimize my cold-brew production line.

[Pattio]

I'm on board with this room-temperature coffee thing, after having a cup at MATPOC's on a December morning. I bought a Filtron rig on Amazon. My first couple efforts were weird and disappointing, but we all have to start somewhere. I won't say I'm 'never going back', but I do like the smoothness of a concentrate-based cup. I make the morning coffee in my household, and I like the simplicity of adding some heated water to the concentrate compared to the previous ritual. It seemed weak and strange at first, but I am coming around to understanding how much of the 'coffee experience' was the gurgle and wheeze of the machine and the heat and acidity of the product. The only downside so far is that I find it so easy to produce a cup in the late afternoon with some concentrate and the microwave that IMAYBEHAVINGALITTLETOOMUCHBUTIREALLYLIKEIT...

[DerGolgo]

I tried cold-brewing a bottle of coffee with some bitter cocoa added in the mix.
After multiple steps of filtration, I was left with a dark-brownish liquid, rather than the black I'd get with just coffee.
Unfortunately, when I went to the fridge to get the bottle the next day, it was black, too. With a layer of brown cocoa mud at the bottom of the bottle.
I filtrated it again, and found that the flavor wasn't noticeably different from previous batches, those without the cocoa.
A big mess, with nothing to show for it, the romm-temp water had failed to dissolve the cocoa powder.

[Pintgudge]

All of life is an experiment.

People can tell you stuff, but until you try it for yourself it's just hearsay.

[Zim]

I have been relying on a Keurig. Yes, shame on me. But as a way to kick the K-Cup habit, I intentionally bought a low supply of the pods PLUS a bag of whole beans so that I could revisit my other brewing methods. Today was when the cups ran out.

So I dug out a long forgotten French Press and pressed it into service. Good lord, I feel like an RC166, all angry-loud, buzzy and fast!

For the sake of self preservation, I'll skip the moka pot test for a while.

[guitargeek]

Prairie Wolf Vodka is made not too far from me, and I'm in love with their coffee liqueur, Dark.

[jae]

Prairie Wolf Vodka is made not too far from me, and I'm in love with their coffee liqueur, Dark.

That looks both delicious and dangerous. I'll have to see if I can find any locally. edit: internet search doesn't look optimistic, maybe I'll have to go visit my grandparents in Lawton again soon...

[MATPOC]

So first issue with Toddy is the glass decanter, way too thin, cracked while being moved inside the fridge, $20-something to replace it

second problem I ran in to was the grind, my local roaster has been doing the cold brew for a while (sells it from the keg with nitrogen at the summer market) so he has it all figured out, he used to grind my beans, now it seems he has been on vacation and I went to the local coffee shop that roasts beans, before my neighbor came along they were my sole supplier of beans, so I figured they know how to grind for cold brew... apparently they don't, got a finer grind than I'm used to and it clogged the whole fucking thing, what a mess...

that batch is almost gone and I don't feel like going back to the coffee shop and telling them how to grind beans, can't wait for my neighbor to get back, I NEED MY DRUG!!

[DerGolgo]

Shouldn't have waited for my birthday to get me a coffee grinder.
Even if I brew up the "old fashioned" way, fresh ground is bestest. Even with middling beans.
Great fun: taking off the handle and attaching the cordless drill to the grinder shaft so as to grind vast quantities.
Electric grinder may suffer electric gremlins some day, and spare parts may not be easy to come by. Cheap cordless drills can be had any time.

[DerGolgo]

Mass and/or mess production.

[DerGolgo]

I set up another batch of cold brew yesterday.
Broke one of my six precious 1 liter glass bottles in the process.
Another, while they were lying on their sides, showed an imperfection in the seal of the cap, leaking a bit there.
If all that wasn't enough I ... forgot.
Instead of 18 hours, they steeped for 26.
Tomorrow's first cuppa will surely be interesting ...

I also went grocery shopping today. And just what was on sale?

20160415_233717.jpg

2.5 liters, or 0.66 gallons in CoE. That shall help me streamline my coffee production, oh hells yeah!

[guitargeek]

I never thought I'd be jealous of Florida Man...

[DerGolgo]

Is it real coffee, though, or some "instant" abomination?

[DerGolgo]

So, about ten days after I escaped the neuro-rehab clinic, I found the energy to put on a new batch of cold-brew.
The plan was to let it steep for about 18 hours, as always.
Except I forgot. And it steeped for about 44 hours instead ...
Obviously, I expected anything that had steeped that long would first knock my teeth out and only THEN start punching me.
Except it didn't. Came out quite nice. Not notably better than when steeped for about 18 hours, but it's okay.

However, I despair at the amount of fluid I cannot get out of the coffee grounds. There is lost coffee there.
So, I must find some form of extraction device. I wonder whether they make french-presses in gallon-size ...

[Pintgudge]

Maybe you could put filter paper in a salad spinner?


I'm really happy that others are enjoying the cold brew without paying the commercial purveyors a fortune!