[subego]

First order of business.

What’s your cream/coffee ratio, and how much sugar?

[turtle777]

First and foremost, f$&@ cream or half and half.
I only use whole milk, or 2% in a pinch.

Second, for regular coffee (i.e. not espresso), I use about 10% milk / 90% coffee.

For espresso, typically no milk, unless I want a latte or cappuccino.

Re: sugar - depends.

For coffee, latte, cappuccino YES, for espresso NO

-t

[subego]

What’s the beef with half & half?

[Laminar]

Espresso is straight - no cream or sugar.

Cold brew is taken with a splash of something preferably unsweetened. Plus for non-dairy, for no real good reason. Uh...I mean...F$%K DAIRY.



I'm sweaty enough without drinking large quantities of a hot beverage.

[Thorzdad]

No milk in my coffee. Rarely sugar. I take my coffee like I live my life, dark and bitter.

I make a latte every morning, so there’s where I use milk. I use 2% with a splash of cream. Steams nicely and the cream adds a bit of body to the mix. I make vanilla syrup for the lattes.

[Brien]

Black coffee, pourover or gtfo.

[OAW]

1 hazelnut or french vanilla creamer if available. Standard creamer or milk otherwise. 2 sugars. Preferably cane and not processed.

OAW

[andi*pandi]

Coffee, as much as I used to love it, no longer agrees with me. That said, I occasionally will give in for a Dunkin French Vanilla (sugar, extra cream) either iced in summer or hot in winter. Starbucks bottled frappucino is also a good caffeine hit, occasionally.

That said: Tea, Lady Grey, Hot.

[Laminar]

NEW SIG sick

[subego]

Big spread!

Thank you for you answers.

Next, do you get the good stuff, or does Bonnie buy shit?

[...deleted...]

[subego]

I’m too impatient to even deal with drip.

Obligatory gnashing of teeth for using a cheap grinder.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

Next, do you get the good stuff, or does Bonnie buy shit?

Good stuff, and recently roasted.

Plus a good burr grinder.
(rule of thumb: spend more on the grinder than the espresso machine.)

That’s the only way to go for a good espresso.

-t

[subego]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

First and foremost, f$&@ cream or half and half.

Experimenting a bit, I feel like the cream provides texture with little taste, and milk is the opposite.

I need to go heavy on the cream, because it’s too similar to hot water otherwise.

[turtle777]

I don’t really care about texture in the context of coffee.
I think don’t like the taste of the higher fat content of cream.

Whole milk is just right for me, 2% feels a little thin.

-t

[subego]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I don’t really care about texture in the context of coffee.
I think don’t like the taste of the higher fat content of cream.

Whole milk is just right for me, 2% feels a little thin.

-t

Yeah, I can’t explain it. Hot water bugs me for some reason. Don’t like tea or bullion. Honestly, I’m not sure I even like coffee. I didn’t start really drinking it until recently, and it’s mainly because I’ve suddenly needed to make it for people. I figure I should be drinking it to make sure it doesn’t suck.

It did suck, but I think I’ve improved it by getting a better coffee maker. The cheapie one was consistently overflowing the filter.

[mindwaves]

I don't drink coffee, and for that reason, I'm posting here. ������

[subego]

No coffee derivatives?

[Brien]

I use a conical burr grinder and a V60, roast my own green coffee (from Sweet Maria’s) when possible.

[ghporter]

I don’t use sugar, and I do use half and half. How much? “Enough.” I really don’t measure it.

Most of the time I go for a medium brown color once the stuff is mixed in, but with stronger blends, I go for a little more toward tan. It’s about the blending of the coffee flavors and the smoothing qualities of the half and half.

Want truly decadent? Heavy whipping cream in a really stout, nutty tasting coffee. Yum.

At work I drink it black because I do NOT do “non dairy coffee whitener” or whatever else they label that powder crap or the thinned out latex paint stuff. Work coffee is Douwe Egberts brand, reconstituted from a concentrate, and is not the worst coffee I’ve ever had. But lord.... So work coffee is for the caffeine and a signal that people should leave me the heck alone until I finish it.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

I’m too impatient to even deal with drip.

Obligatory gnashing of teeth for using a cheap grinder.

Freshly ground beans is the single most impactful change someone can make to better their coffee.

Obviously, there are multiple steps one can take.
Every step improves the quality of the coffee.

• Buy beans and grind them in the store
• Cheap grinder
• Burr grinder
• Recently roasted beans
• Roast beans yourself

-t

[subego]

All the roaster people I’ve talked to claim as long as you can polish off the bag within about 5 days, it’s better to have them grind it instead of using a cheap grinder.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

All the roaster people I’ve talked to claim as long as you can polish off the bag within about 5 days, it’s better to have them grind it instead of using a cheap grinder.

This also depends on your brewing method.

If you use a French press (most forgiving on grind quality), freshly ground will be more important than good quality grind.
For drip, it might be a a toss-up.
For espresso, definitely true.

-t

[Doc HM]

I use one of those metal stove top doodads. Seems a good trade off. Still a nice cup of coffee but simple and fast to make. Also, if it's good enough for the Italians then who am I to complain.
I generally stick with either Illy or Lavazza in the stronger blends.
Some milk but not cream, ever.

[turtle777]

Yeah, those stove top coffee makers are pretty good.
Will give you a strong coffee more close to an espresso, and more forgiving in terms of grind quality than a espresso machine.
Extraction is similar espresso (steam rather than hot water), but doesn’t have the tightly controlled pressure and temperature that you would get in an espresso machine.

Result is not quite as smooth as an espresso, and lacks crema.

-t

[subego]

I’m only doing drip for the speed and quantity. Even if I wasn’t charged with making it for everybody, I quickly reached the point where I‘m draining an entire pot myself.

[Thorzdad]

Anyone use one of those conical metal filter things (like this one) to do pour-overs at home?

[turtle777]

Yeah, if you go through a lot, buying it pre-ground is fine, as long as it was recently done.
Good beans and roast is a bonus, if good coffee is valued.

Try local Chicago roasters Intelligentsia.

-t

[subego]

Already on it.



I live a block away from one.

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Thorzdad 

Anyone use one of those conical metal filter things (like this one) to do pour-overs at home?

We went to pour over brewing to reduce the clean up we had to do with every other coffee maker we had ever used.

Keurig style cups are handy, but costly and not very eco-friendly, so we got reusable cups...which took a substantial amount of effort to keep clean. Basket-style coffee makers like Mr. Coffee (hey, sometimes it ain't the tools that make the difference) require cleaning of both the filter holder and the carafe.

So for simplicity, we just use two of Melita's plastic pour-over filter holders.

We have a metal cone filter gadget, but it requires filters - special (and pricey) ones that are actually pointy cones instead of flat at the bottom - and it doesn't make the coffee any better than the plastic Melita filter holders.

Our commercial ground coffee of choice is Gevalia, which is ground quite finely. Not espresso-fine, but pretty fine. This turns out to produce a better pour-over experience than "medium grind" coffees; the water flows through the coffee very smoothly, and quicker than with coarser grinds. It isn't all the grind, of course, but when we have coffee ground, we get it ground finely and it works better for us.

[subego]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Mr. Coffee

This is actually what was ruining my coffee. They overflow the filter.

[turtle777]

The grind size is important.
It dictates the time of exposure of water to the grind.

That’s why a coarse grind is fine for French Press, but you need finer for drip coffee.
Too fine, and the coffee won’t drip.
That’s why espresso requires fine grind - it helps building the pressure.

-t

[Thorzdad]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

We have a metal cone filter gadget, but it requires filters - special (and pricey) ones that are actually pointy cones instead of flat at the bottom - and it doesn't make the coffee any better than the plastic Melita filter holders.

Huh. All of the metal cone filters I see on Amazon say they don't require paper filters, which is sort of the whole point of them.

[...deleted...]

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by And.reg 

Yes.

Paper filters to me make coffee taste like a brown paper bag.

Don’t buy the cheap stuff.
Melitta invented coffee filters, they are very good.

-t

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[subego]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

The grind size is important.
It dictates the time of exposure of water to the grind.

That’s why a coarse grind is fine for French Press, but you need finer for drip coffee.
Too fine, and the coffee won’t drip.
That’s why espresso requires fine grind - it helps building the pressure.

-t

Wouldn’t a coarser grind weaken the coffee?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

Wouldn’t a coarser grind weaken the coffee?

Not really, because the “exposure” time is longer.
In the French Press, you let it steep, and you stir.

-t

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by And.reg 

And I disagree, cheap coffee grinder works fine.

And there *are* people that even like Folgers.

-t

[subego]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Not really, because the “exposure” time is longer.
In the French Press, you let it steep, and you stir.

-t

I was speaking in terms of fixing the overflowing drip by making the grind coarser.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by subego 

I was speaking in terms of fixing the overflowing drip by making the grind coarser.

Ah.

Well, yes, perhaps your grind was too fine for a drip, and hence, the flow rate was too slow.
A little coarser might be something you could try.

-t

[subego]

I thought that’s what you were suggesting in the face of the Mr. Coffee overflowing.

As a counter to the claim the fact it overflows makes it a crappy maker.

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[Laminar]

How old does my kid need to be before I can show him this movie? It's rated PG, but that's '80s PG that allows an F-bomb. Not quite Airplane-level PG that has boobs, but still.

[Thorzdad]

Spaceballs?
Why do you hate your kid so much?

[andi*pandi]

We decided 10 was ok for spaceballs and young frankenstein. We just didn't explain all the schtup jokes.
I was surprised when showing them Goonies and OG Ghostbusters how much swearing there was (sh!t damn etc, not any fbombs I don't think).

[subego]

Golly! I was 9 when I saw Airplane.

[andi*pandi]

it was the seventies. mistakes were made.

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