Brewing coffee - How do you do it?

Thread Starter

atferrari

Joined Jan 6, 2004
4,764
Last night, while reading somewhere in this site, an ongoing thread about repairing a coffee machine (so much electronics in there...:eek:) I realized that some months ago I reached the most satisfactory end of a long process of testing and discarding alternatives.

From drippers to percolators of any kind (cloth, fine wire mesh or paper), I finally decided to go the simplest way: coffee finely grounded, dropped directly into the cup followed by boiling water, and, in my case, adding less than a coffee spoon of sugar. That's all to it. Stirring? not much needed; coffee settles quite easily.

Machines with blisters? I've have not tried them.

If I want a real espresso there is the coffee shop (yes, only one) some eight blocks away. I use to go twice a day, weather permitting.

Eventually, when waiting for my grandsons at the city, a Starbucks serves one with an additional small tasty cheese bread of sorts.
 
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nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Keurig. Donut Shop regular, medium roast.

Yeah I'm lazy. So what?
Lazy smart people are responsible for the worlds technical progress. Laziness (obtaining the lowest energy state, The ground state of zero entropy at absolute zero) IMO is the driving force for all action in the universe.
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
1) Mr. Coffee stripped of all but the essentials (instant boil, drip). Freshly ground coffee in fluted filter paper "cup."
2) Freshly ground coffee using the most inexpensive Krups single blade grinder.
3) Finding coffee that is whole bean is difficult at my local markets. Starbuck's French Roast is usually available (alternatively Expresso Roast). I mix that 1:1 with a medium roast for morning coffee. Medium roast beans are what is hard to find. Something like Starbuck's Breakfast is what I get.
4) Pre-heat half and half ("cream") in microwave 18 seconds.
5) Add freshly brewed coffee.
6) No sugar.

Evenings, I will sometimes make expresso and use either the French Roast or Express beans used above. I have small and larger versions of this stove top maker:
1583504148041.png

I heat the milk/cream a little more before adding the coffee.
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
Step 1: Fly coffee in from Ecuador

Step 2 through n: Irrelevant.

The coffee makes the coffee. I have found none better than the fine ground dark roast Ecuadorian coffee that my wife's family purchases in local mom and pop shops.

It's what I have drunk at home and in the office for the last 25 years -- brewed in a standard Mr. Coffee percolator (or, one can make a fine espresso).

Nothing else compares.
 

OBW0549

Joined Mar 2, 2015
3,566
Lazy smart people are responsible for the worlds technical progress. Laziness (obtaining the lowest energy state, The ground state of zero entropy at absolute zero) IMO is the driving force for all action in the universe.
I call it efficiency: my little Keurig Mini makes me a cup of coffee in 2 minutes 18.36 seconds, well within my maximum attention span. :cool:
 

402DF855

Joined Feb 9, 2013
271
Cheapest Mr. Coffee with a metal filter left over from a previous machine. Grind whole beans with one hand, fill tank with the other. Never flavored coffee, no sugar, no cream or milk, brewed quite strong. No decaf.
 

GetDeviceInfo

Joined Jun 7, 2009
2,192
I buy a dark roast bean from a local roaster, grind a cup full every other day. French press my daily drink. Small amount of sugar, no cream. On the road I go to McDs, for the consistency.
 

SamR

Joined Mar 19, 2019
5,031
For Espresso, my Nespresso Machine quick and easy similar to a Keurig machine except for Espresso.

For my morning kickstart, whatever the wife puts into the Mr. Coffee drip pot. If I don't like it I complain until she buys better Coffee. I like it dark and bold.

Was spoiled on Jamaican Blue Mountain years ago. We had a poor coffee grower we met down there with 9 kids while hiking up the Blue Mountain. We'd send him care boxes with kids' clothes, baseballs and gloves, boxes of salt (hard for him to get at the time), hard candies and whatever else we had laying around that he and the family might like. He sent back coffee beans he harvested on his farm on the Blue Mountain that he roasted at home. It was a hell of a deal for several years while in college. Then the Japanese discovered the coffee and the price went atmospheric. Still very expensive and hard to find due to its small production area. It is the coffee that Tia Maria Liqueur is made from. Almost like drinking Cocoa due to its lack of any hint of bitterness. Beware counterfeits.
 

djsfantasi

Joined Apr 11, 2010
9,156
Step 1. Buy a helicopter and jet
Step 2. Fly in fresh beans from Columbia.
Step 3. Helicopter them to your home
Step 4. Get maid to brew coffee.

Don’t laugh. This is how my coffee was made for me during my senior year of college. There was a gang of us and the father of one of us was VP of South America Production for Exxon.

Best coffee I ever had.

We also water skied along Key Biscayne while Nixon was staying there.
 

Berzerker

Joined Jul 29, 2018
621
Man! Y'all take some coffee seriously.
Don't get us Mr. Coffee ….. pour water, filter, half way measure coffee, hit on and just wait patiently with cup, sugar, milk and creamer in hand.
Brzrkr
 

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
Shop Rite instant coffee. Fast and you can adjust the strength from day to day.
Add flavored creamer like French Vanilla, that's the key to all good coffee anyway: the creamer.

I have read some posts here about consistency. Dunkin D used to have very good coffee but they went downhill on the quality and uphill on the price so i stopped getting it there long ago.

I hear the French press method is the best but never got around to trying it.

I made my own drip coffee maker long ago for actual ground coffee but only use it now occasionally. The drip basket was made from a Tupperware bowl with a hole drilled in the bottom and a plastic canvas lined bottom to keep the filter paper from touching the very bottom of the bowl.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
Nothing special about my coffee, 7 Scoops for seven cups, drink them down after I get up, take as much time to get to work yet still have time to orient myself before I hit the floor. After that it’s all on, the bells and whistles are hitting my brain as I take each call to resolve issues I can do within my workday. Seems the mornings are as any other day after day. Go home start again the next day. Been that way for years. I get the cheap version from Sams or Coscto, Folders Medium Blend.

Kv
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
I agree that the coffee is more important than the preparation process. No process will turn sow ears to silk. The coffee snobs will tell you that freshly roasted and ground coffee is the only way to go. Most of the great flavor we love is easily lost in storage.

I used to think I only liked dark roasts but over the holidays I had some Starbucks “Holiday Blend” from Costco. It was medium roast but had terrific coffee flavor. So I may be branching out. I like a ton of flavor. Dark roasting is one way to get that but maybe there are others. Kimbo Gold espresso is awesome by the way.

My favorite method is freshly ground beans in a cheap old espresso machine I have. All that means is a high ratio of coffee to water. Yes the water turns to steam and the pressure pushes it through the coffee, but I’m not convinced that all makes much difference. The coffee/water ratio is a bigger factor.

I also like my Keurig machine but I find the little cups to be just too small. I can certainly enjoy the results but I prefer more oomph. We use both the commercial cups and a refillable stainless steel “cup”. The latter is a little better but sort of defeats the whole convenience advantage of the Keurig. If I need to grind the beans and load the cup, I may as well make espresso.

My daughter and her husband settled on a French press to simplify coffee-making while camping. They swear by it. I’ve been meaning to give it a try versus my typical methods
 
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wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
One surprising factoid: I was once researching a project to use an enzyme for processing instant coffee. (The enzyme increased yield, and that means money.) I was shocked to learn that roughly two thirds of all the coffee consumed in the world is instant. Most of that is produced by Nestle. God bless America, and Starbucks.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
I agree that the coffee is more important than the preparation process. No process will turn sow ears to silk. The coffee snobs will tell you that freshly roasted and ground coffee is the only way to go. Most of the great flavor we love is easily lost in storage.

I used to think I only liked dark roasts but over the holidays I had some Starbucks “Holiday Blend” from Costco. It was medium roast but had terrific coffee flavor. So I may be branching out. I like a ton of flavor. Dark roasting is one way to get that but maybe there are others. Kimbo Gold espresso is awesome by the way.

My favorite method is freshly ground beans in a cheap old espresso machine I have. All that means is a high ratio of coffee to water. Yes the water turns to steam and the pressure pushes it through the coffee, but I’m not convinced that all makes much difference. The coffee/water ratio is a bigger factor.

I also like my Keurig machine but I find the little cups to be just too small. I can certainly enjoy the results but I prefer more oomph. We use both the commercial cups and a refillable stainless steel “cup”. The latter is a little better but sort of defeats the whole convenience advantage of the Keurig. If I need to grind the beans and load the cup, I may as well make espresso.

My daughter and her husband settled on a French press to simplify coffee-making while camping. They swear by it. I’ve been meaning to give it a try versus my typical methods
I gave my press away, only because of to many grounds in my coffee. I didn’t want to double filter which might have helped but, not a big fan, I don’t have time to fuss over some raw coffee, mine is virgin, just coffee not sugar or complements the dirtier the better, I want my coffee to slap me in the face, one and twice.

kv
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
My Army daughter and I were wondering why military coffee is so bad. My cynical nature wonders who has the contract to supply the American military with coffee. Somebody’s cousin?

The histories of coffee and the military are deeply intertwined. There’s a legitimate argument that coffee helped the Union win the Civil War, although it was probably inevitable anyway.
 
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