Brewing Coffee At Home
 

I've been drinking coffee for, well, years. I just recently bought my first coffee maker and am curious about the types of coffee you brew at home. At the moment I just have a bag of Starbucks "morning brew" which I've enjoyed.

I do not have a coffee grinder at the moment - but they seem to be a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment. Are they worth it? Or is the ground coffee going to do the trick?

Get a good burr grinder. As you said, they aren't expensive, but they are worth it.

Have to grind your own beans!!! We buy mocha java and colombian supremo in equal amounts and mix, then grind and brew. We have a built in coffee maker that does the grinding and brewing and I love it! We're going to be in Aruba for 7 months next year and I guess we'll have to buy something - at least a grinder- down there. We spent five weeks recently and the already ground coffee was :td:

these people really are major league geeks:
http://coffeegeek.com/

this is their grinder review section

http://coffeegeek.com/reviews/grinde...Page=1&Order=0

cost of a good grinder is about the same as a transcontinental ticket. a lot of these grinders are very big. much too tall to sit under a cabinet. most of the inexpensive grinders are not too very good.


i bought a cunill, which i think is also an astra. it fits under my cabinet with about 1/2" to spare. you may be able to find one on ebay, or at a local restaurant auction, but commercial machines get big(24-30" tall).

the coffees available at sams club and costco are quite decent. far superior to starbucks "coffee"

My daily home brew is Starbucks "Verona". I buy it ground. I do have a grinder, but prefer the convenience of pre-ground. I think pre-ground is okay, but it does go stale fairly quickly. I go thru a bag in a week or two, so it stays pretty fresh. Decaf I drink only on occasion, so I keep whole beans for that and grind as needed.

Fresh grind and improvement on flavor
 

I always fresh grind a good quality Columbian bean but I enhance it by blending a more interesting coffee bean with it, for example:
1 part Jamaica Blue Mountain with 2 parts Columbian.
1 part Sumatra with 2 parts Columbian.
Pick the specialty coffe that you prefer and blend together. I don't use a coffee maker rather, I like the EVA SOLO reverse filtration system. It is really simple and portable. A carafe into which you put coffee grounds, pour boiling water then place the seive filter and stopper on top, wait 4 minutes and pour.
bb

There are Flyertalkers who pay that much for a transcontinental ticket?! :eek:

;)

To the OP, a burr grinder can make a difference in your coffee vs. one of those $15 whirly-blade ones. However, if you've just started brewing at home, you may be very happy with a whirly-blade for a while. They're cheap and disposable enough that you might as well try one for starters (it should make an improvement over pre-ground).

If you do want to try a burr grinder, if you're just grinding for drip or French press, a lower-end one like the Capresso Infinity will be fine (you only need something fancier than that if you're doing espresso).

For anyone visiting London I recommend the Algerian Coffee Store in Old Compton Street in Soho.
They've been open since 1887 but they do mail order now.
www.algcoffee.co.uk/
I've been grinding their Mocha Parfait beans since before I can remember.

My vote for a good grinder. You have to start with fresh beans-do NOT put them in your freezer!

We just started bringing in Peet's Major Dickenson beans- makes a fantastic cup of coffee.

that should read: Major Dickason....

Especially if you're lucky enough, like me, to live near a Costco that does in-store roasting! I buy beans that are still warm.

The whirly-blade grinders are fine for most people--just make sure you get the timing right so your grind is the correct consistency.

Honestly, I think the quality of the beans and the roast trumps whether they are pre-ground or whole bean. I've had pre-ground coffees that are bursting with flavor and have a wonderful, buttery smoothness and whole-bean, freshly-ground coffees that have been disgustingly bitter and tangy. But all other things being equal, if you can get your favorite roast in whole-bean form, it has a slight edge in flavor and lasts longer before going stale.

My favorite is Greenwell Farms. We visited them in 2006 when we were in Hawaii, and I've been ordering from them ever since. My favorite is their Peaberry Kona. I always get whole bean.

http://www.greenwellfarms.com/

Gevalia coffees are a little pricey but always excellent and a nice way to try different varieties

Peet's, Peet's, Peet's!
 

Wow, I can't believe no one has recommended Peet's coffee, www.peets.com

Maybe because you are on the east coast, you are not familiar with Peet's. I'll spare you the long history, but Peet's was started in the 1960s in Berkeley, CA. The person who started Starbucks was originally a Peet's employee. Peet's didn't choose the "spread across the world" philosophy, so they are mostly located in California, with some locations in Oregon, Washington, Colorado (just three locations), and two Illinois locations.

They also sell Peet's in some grocery stores. I just checked the Peet's website and see that they sell Peet's in DC grocery stores, check under special offers for $2 off your purchase.


Of course, you can purchase Peet's coffee from the website. Actually, the mail order may be fresher coffee. Peet's stores get shipments of coffee twice a week, so the coffee could be three days old before reaching the store. I think the mail order coffee is shipped the day it is roasted.

OK, I'm a fanatic. Most of us Peet's drinkers are. I won't even go into how I had to have Peet's even when I worked on an Indian reservation!

Try their seasonal offerings. Right now, it's their Holiday blend, "bold and smooth with warm spice notes." But don't ignore their other blends, especially the Blend 101.

Use two tablespoons of ground coffee for each six ounces of water when making coffee at home. If this is too strong for you, dilute with hot water, then adjust amount of coffee in the future.

No, I don't work for Peet's or have stock in the company, I just have been drinking Peet's coffee for 30 years...

I always recommend these two micro roasters:

http://www.barefootcoffeeroasters.com/
www.bluebottlecoffee.net

luckily, both places will ship the beans to your door.

We have a local store that roasts their own flavored coffes, the beans we buy are usually just a few days, if that, old. Very good price too, believe it's $7 a lb or something.

A burr grinder is the way to go. It requires cleaning every no and then, but you can usually find them refruib for $20 or $25.

Though we just switched to a coffee pot with a blade grinder in it (it grinds then brews right after) and the wife, who is the coffee drinker, says there isn't much of a difference. They use a screen so that the coffee gets bounced out at the right size, it's not ground to a powder or too big.

The entire pot cost about as much as the burr grinder we were replacing cost.

We usually buy a local roast or Peet's and grind a serving in the morning.

We don't have a coffee pot, just a French Press.

Sweet Maria's

Then you need a roaster in the garage, a burr grinder in the kitchen, and an Italian espresso machine on the counter.

Mr. lili paid his dues with Mr. Coffee, Chemex, Krups, Starbucks Barista, and now Rancilio Silvia. I think the cost per cup is twice that of Starbucks, but it keeps him home and I'm getting used to the attitude he's acquiring.

In the area of Brooklyn I live we have three Starbucks within a ten minute walk :rolleyes:
I recently find Starbucks brew is seemingly weaker coffee than I remember. Maybe I am requiring stronger than ever.
I have bought their beans but find them expensive. If you are ever in the Brooklyn area you will not regret walking into Sahadi's on Atlantic street. The prices are great for some good beans. You can buy on-line too

http://www.sahadis.com/product115_lastcat79.ihtml

I am, just as of yesterday the proud owner of a Delonghi Magnifica. Wakes me up in the morning, grinds the beans, brews my espresso, and steams my milk. Purchased the floor model at one of the local Starbucks at a greatly reduced price (much less than a cheap TransAtlantic flight). I am a happy camper.

Uh, look at post #9......

My Bad
 

Guess I didn't read past the first line.

Starbucks recently changed from their "coffee of the day" (a rotating blend) to a standardized "Pike's Place roast." Search for that on Google and you'll see lots of reactions to it: some like it and some think it's disgusting.

One thing about Starbucks' brewed coffees: I think they artificially enhance it with extra caffeine (maybe so people get addicted to it...sounds familiar...;)) or otherwise have the beans genetically enhanced for extra caffeine. Grab one of their nutrition brochures and look at the caffeine content of just the regular brewed coffees--it's absolutely flabberghastingly impressive. If you want to be jolted awake, get a Venti brewed coffee--it's got 400mg of caffeine.

I love the Sumatra beans. Grind them at home and use a French Press for brewing. I miss it horribly when I travel. You can't get good, bold coffee at most hotels.

Sumatra with which brand? My Costco in-store roaster does Sumatra beans, which is the roast I usually get. I, too, like a strong, bold roast.

I'm a Starbucks man myself. Mostly because I have a good friend who works for Starbucks, so he brings me several months worth of whole bean whenever he comes to visit. :p My standbys are the Breakfast Blend and Mexican Organic.

I've also recently been turned on to Ka Bel Maribou, which is a Haitian roaster. They sell it by the pound at PAP, and I'll usually get someone to bring be some whenever they fly though there. I think they have a distributor in Phoenix too.

Whole bean for me, and I have a burr grinder where I grind just enough for my french press every morning. The drip coffee maker only gets pulled out when I have lots of company.

First off: Best thread ever!

For the longest time, there has been nothing even remotely close to Starbucks in ORK, and the only thing there is now is at the airport itself. This wouldn't be a problem, save for most of the coffee shops in town are rubbish. Bewley's is the coffee equivalent of a kick in the kidneys, and despite the heritage factor, I can't bring myself to drink Tim Horton's unless it's the only thing available.

Luckily, there's a guy just around the corner from work who does restaurant supply and will talk your ear off about coffee for hours if you let him, half an hour if you don't! And I figured by the amount of coffee I'd otherwise drink, I may as well just get a good home machine and let the economics work themselves out.

He fixed me up with a Fracino Heavenly, after a lengthy history lesson about the quality of Gaggia machines in the 80s, and a guarantee that it's just as good as the Italian machines, despite being made in Birmingham. Two years on I'm basically convinced that he was right, not to mention that the machine itself is incredibly simple and on the odd time I've had issues with it he's explained how to fix it with barely more than a screwdriver and a set of pliers. Another plus being how easy it is to clean and maintain. I end up going over it every few months to give it a thorough clean, and only gone through one seal ring so far, although they last a year or so IMO. The pump may have to be changed out in a few years, but at that point I might look into a similar rotary pump rather than the vane one that's supplied. But all in all, it's a fantastic machine that I wouldn't trade for anything and WILL be moving with us, after a few upgrades to plumb it into the water line and whatever plug needs changing/adapting to wherever we move.

That said, the quality of the machine is only part of the story. The machine package came with an innova burr grinder (The Ascaso, I believe? I never remember the model) which is fantastically sensitive as far as grind goes, if a bit loud. Luckily, as I've found with the Heavenly, the grind is a pretty integral part of the process and even successive bags of the same roast from the same company may be slightly different. Usually a turn or two is enough to change the output from the machine. It's pre-divided into single-shot segments so that two pulls on the handle gives you just enough for a double, if it's set right. And it's surprisingly resilient to rocks trying to masquerade as coffee beans.

Coffee-wise, I get the Cofesa Inda wholesale from my coffee guy for about half the cost of any of the local roasters (and given their skills with coffee, their roast isn't anything special). It's not quite as dark roast as I'd like, but after pricing out a few home roasters, it's probably not worth it to change. Plus, the coffee's actually quite good, if only a bit light, especially at the beginning of a new bag. And my coffee guy goes through at least a pallet of the stuff every week, so it's always fresh when I pick it up.

Storage-wise, we picked up a couple vacuum containers recently that do a great job of keeping out the air and keeping in the taste. They really extend the lifetime of a kilo of beans (I've tried to get them in smaller bags, but to limited success). Before, you could easily tell the difference between the end of one bag and the new one, but keeping them just in a vacuum and only taking out a few days' worth at a time certainly helps. There's still a change, but it's much less than before. And the vacuum containers worked so well for coffee, we've bought a second set and store all kinds of stuff in them.

Grinding the beans yourself does make for better coffee, I think. Having said that, it also depends on how much coffee you drink and whether or not the ground beans that you buy are freshly ground. So if you go to, say, a specialist tea and coffee shop that grinds the beans to order, and if you drink sufficient coffee at home to get through what you buy quickly (within a week, for example), then the difference is probably not so great as it would be if you buy pre-ground beans from a supermarket and don't use the coffee for a month or more...

Wow - my last Peaberry Kona supplier (sounds like a drug dealer, no?!) stopped selling it because the cost was pretty up there. I tried other Konas, but NOTHING touched the Peaberry!

Thanks for posting that link.

Fresh and locally-roasted beans, ground fresh and brewed in adequate quantity with freshly filtered water in a French press, is the way to go. Recently I traded in my blade grinder for a Braun burr grinder (which I bought at a Starbucks before Xmas, with discounts, for under $50) and the difference, when the grinder is set on coarse, is noticeable.

When traveling, you can pack a stainless steel French press travel mug (available through *$) and previously ground beans, and use your hotel coffeemaker to heat the water for your special brew. Take along some packets of mascaraibo sugar, and you can skip the hotel coffee packs forever.

This weekend Marriott Courtyard had a Keurig pod brewer and I must say it was quick and easy. Just what I want in hotel coffee.

My friend usually makes her own coffee pods out new make-your-own tea bags using some super-special roast, grind, origin.

So she insisted on bringing her own coffee and one-cup drip thingie and heating water in the Keurig was tricky. The Keurig requires a pod in place or it won't heat. Note: take the used pod, remove the paper lid, wash the grounds out, place in coffee maker, add water, add cup, use hot water to make whatever you want. It kind of splashed around a bit because there is no lid on the pod. Friend complained the water wasn't hot enough for her drip cup. Oh well. (She also complained riding in the back seat of my Bimmer created air-pressure that hurt her ears because it was too airtight.)

Do you get the dark roast or the medium? I like their beans too.

I was there last month. Drank myself silly with coffee samples. Brought home a bag of peaberry kona as well as the chocolate macadamia nut. I'm not a huge fan of flavored coffee but the chocolate macadamia nut was incredibly good. Only problem is that a pound of coffee might last a week in my house and the price of 100% Kona coffee would make this a very expensive habit.

Otherwise I am a big fan of French Roast coffee, either from Starbuck's or Seattle's Best.

I'd also agree with most others here in that you should grind your own beans. If you like good coffee and make it at home several times a week, a good grinder is a worthwhile investment. However, a good grinder is not cheap and you will really get what you pay for. I started off with what I thought was a good Cuisinart burr grinder, but it sounded like a chainsaw and made a very inconsistent grind. I made a big step up to a Rancilio Rocky and I'm pretty sure I'll never need another grinder again. It is built like a tank but is incredibly quiet, and can grind anything from french press to espresso.