How do you brew that perfect cup of coffee?

[Lamb]

What is your secret to brewing that perfect cup of coffee?

 

[Josiah]

Use GOOD COFFEE.

I'm a fan of Starbucks' basic "Pike Place" (although many of theirs are good). I drink a TON of it, lol. At home, I use Kirkland (Costco) House Blend whole bean (it's Starbucks House Blend) which is half the price of Starbucks. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make a drinkable cup of coffee if you start with bad coffee. Forget the $3.00 a pound canned stuff.... you'll need to pay 2-4 times that. You'll need to grind it. But bad coffee just makes .... bad coffee. NOTHING you do with bad coffee will be good. Pay attention too to the roast. Dark roast is lowest in caffine but as a distinctive flavor some like; light roast is highest in caffine but also has a distinctive flavor - most like a medium roast (Starbucks ALWAYS roasts longer than they admit).

Other than that, yeah - good water is important.... using enough coffee is good.... I grind only enough coffee for that pot (ground coffee only stays fresh for 4-7 days), the water needs to be 195 degrees or so (many coffee makers don't get hot enough) coffee can't sit on a warmer (It starts to go bad in 30 minutes), there are advantages to a French Press.... but if you start with good coffee, you'll very likely get pretty good coffee. If you start with bad coffee, there's NOTHING you can do to make it good (or even drinkable).


- Josiah

 

[Lamb]

I didn't realize how the water actually makes a difference. I usually use my Keurig Mini because I don't drink much coffee...until lately. I find if I drink coffee then I don't eat snacks.

So today I bought some Peet's Coffee and used the grinder and made a 3 serving pot in a small coffee maker that my daughter used in college. The water here at this house is well water and it tastes good. This is the first time I made coffee here that wasn't from a Keurig. It was amazing! At my previous home we had public water that was highly chlorinated and I could never get coffee to taste good except using the Keurig. I'm stunned.

 

[Josiah]

I didn't realize how the water actually makes a difference. I usually use my Keurig Mini because I don't drink much coffee...until lately. I find if I drink coffee then I don't eat snacks.

So today I bought some Peet's Coffee and used the grinder and made a 3 serving pot in a small coffee maker that my daughter used in college. The water here at this house is well water and it tastes good. This is the first time I made coffee here that wasn't from a Keurig. It was amazing! At my previous home we had public water that was highly chlorinated and I could never get coffee to taste good except using the Keurig. I'm stunned.

:thumbsup:


Peets is good stuff.....

 

[Lamb]

:thumbsup:


Peets is good stuff.....

I love Peets. Starbucks is good but I prefer Peets! I have the House Blend and it's a medium roast I believe.

 

[JRT]

I will only drink one or at most two cups of coffee a day and a traditional coffee maker was becoming just too much. One of my daughters put me on to a 'French press' coffee maker. Ideal for one or two cups and actually a richer better tasting coffee using the same grind.

 

[Imalive]

Put a pad in the senseo and press the button.

 

[Lamb]

I will only drink one or at most two cups of coffee a day and a traditional coffee maker was becoming just too much. One of my daughters put me on to a 'French press' coffee maker. Ideal for one or two cups and actually a richer better tasting coffee using the same grind.

I've heard the French press is the best! I haven't gone that route yet though. I had stopped drinking coffee for many months after my tongue biopsy & surgery because it aggravated the skin that was healing. Now I'm back to drinking it again.

 

[Lamb]

Put a pad in the senseo and press the button.

I think the Senseo ones are biodegradable? Aren't they?

 

[Imalive]

I think the Senseo ones are biodegradable? Aren't they?

Yes. You have to throw em away in the green bin.
Oh Indonesian coffee toeproek is filthy. My ex's dad would drink that stuff and first let it get cold, then drink it. You just throw coffee in a cup, pour boiled water on it, wait til it's all, well almost all, on the bottom and then drink it. Eeeww. They also called it farmers coffee.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

Some Keurig pods are going biodegradable now, too.
I've been using a cheap coffee pot again for a few months, which hasn't actually been too bad. I can only leave the burner on for about 30 minutes, though, or else it starts to get too hot and the flavor goes 'off'. I'll typically use a heaping teaspoon per two cups, plus an extra. I've found McDonalds home coffee to be pretty good as a daily brew, and usually get the bagged coffee, rather than a can, to keep the air out. I prefer filtered water, but ice cold from the tap is okay.

 

[tango]

Use GOOD COFFEE.

I'm a fan of Starbucks' basic "Pike Place" (although many of theirs are good). I drink a TON of it, lol. At home, I use Kirkland (Costco) House Blend whole bean (it's Starbucks House Blend) which is half the price of Starbucks. It is IMPOSSIBLE to make a drinkable cup of coffee if you start with bad coffee. Forget the $3.00 a pound canned stuff.... you'll need to pay 2-4 times that. You'll need to grind it. But bad coffee just makes .... bad coffee. NOTHING you do with bad coffee will be good. Pay attention too to the roast. Dark roast is lowest in caffine but as a distinctive flavor some like; light roast is highest in caffine but also has a distinctive flavor - most like a medium roast (Starbucks ALWAYS roasts longer than they admit).

Other than that, yeah - good water is important.... using enough coffee is good.... I grind only enough coffee for that pot (ground coffee only stays fresh for 4-7 days), the water needs to be 195 degrees or so (many coffee makers don't get hot enough) coffee can't sit on a warmer (It starts to go bad in 30 minutes), there are advantages to a French Press.... but if you start with good coffee, you'll very likely get pretty good coffee. If you start with bad coffee, there's NOTHING you can do to make it good (or even drinkable).


- Josiah

Use good coffee, followed by mention of Starbucks? Sorry dude, you lost me right there.

If you really want control you need to buy green beans and roast them yourself.The problem with the really dark roasts is that the flavor is characteristic of the roast rather than the bean, which basically means you can put just about any old garbage in the roaster and nuke it, then market it as "rich, dark, sophisticated". A lighter roast brings out more of the flavor of the bean.

For good measure different beans want different treatment to get the best flavor out of them. Kenyan and Nicaraguan coffees typically want to be roasted gently while a Brazilian or a Sumatran wants to be roasted dark. Something weird like Monsoon Malabar (which behaves nothing as you'd expect, if you're roasting it) really needs to be taken well into the dark side.

As a rule if you're buying coffee and the beans are covered in oil, chances are they are more or less trashed. The oil comes out some time after second crack, and you don't get to go very far beyond that before what's left is little more than charcoal.

 

[tango]

I've heard the French press is the best! I haven't gone that route yet though. I had stopped drinking coffee for many months after my tongue biopsy & surgery because it aggravated the skin that was healing. Now I'm back to drinking it again.

A vac pot makes really clean coffee but it's a royal faff to actually make coffee with it at all. If you want a quick drink more or less now, don't bother with a vac pot. If you want something to entertain your dinner guests while dessert is waiting to come out of the oven, maybe set up a vac pot.

 

[tango]

Another good way to make small amount sof quality coffee is an Aeropress. It looks a bit like a giant syringe but without the needle on the end. You put in the grounds, then the water, stir it and press with the plunger. What comes out is very clean coffee. It does use more coffee than other ways of preparing it but one big advantage is that it's really easy to clean. I used to work in an office without nice easy access to washing up facilities and I just wiped it out with a piece of paper towel after each use, and at the end of the week took it home and washed it more thoroughly. I usually took a different pot of ground coffee into the office every week, so I wasn't ending up with flavors mixing in weird ways.

 

[Stravinsk]

I don't set out to make perfect coffee. If I'm not using instant, then I just use whole beans that taste good to me, pulverize them and let them brew in hot water for about 5 minutes. A little nut milk and natural sweetener, and voila - coffee done.

If a coffee snob turns up their nose at it, they can just get out, lol.

 

[Lamb]

Some Keurig pods are going biodegradable now, too.
I've been using a cheap coffee pot again for a few months, which hasn't actually been too bad. I can only leave the burner on for about 30 minutes, though, or else it starts to get too hot and the flavor goes 'off'. I'll typically use a heaping teaspoon per two cups, plus an extra. I've found McDonalds home coffee to be pretty good as a daily brew, and usually get the bagged coffee, rather than a can, to keep the air out. I prefer filtered water, but ice cold from the tap is okay.

The biodegradable Keurig pods taste like dirt. Hate to say that! LOL

 

[tango]

I don't set out to make perfect coffee. If I'm not using instant, then I just use whole beans that taste good to me, pulverize them and let them brew in hot water for about 5 minutes. A little nut milk and natural sweetener, and voila - coffee done.

If a coffee snob turns up their nose at it, they can just get out, lol.

I probably qualify as a coffee snob in many ways but if I'm drinking coffee as a social thing I'm a lot less fussy than you might think, given how I like my coffee. About the only thing I won't drink is decaf. I'm reluctant to buy coffee from Starbucks because I'm really not interested in paying their prices for mediocre coffee that's mostly milk anyway but if it's socially unavoidable without creating trouble then I may even tolerate it.

I'm very pleased a really nice coffee shop has opened not far from me, which means that if people suggest meeting for a coffee at one of the chains I just suggest my preferred place. It's better because it's a small business rather than a faceless corporation (locally owned, owner operated, all that good stuff) and because they serve coffee that you'd actually choose to drink rather than the choice being little more than what size coffee you want and whether you want it loaded with milk and sugary syrups.

 

[Lamb]

Not all Starbucks cafes are the same! When you're in a college town they make it so strong your eyes bug out! My nieces and daughter all laughed at me when I tried their Starbucks! The ones off the toll roads are hit or miss. There is one that is particularly good with a clean taste but the others taste burnt and dirty.

Decaf...has such a funky taste to it.

 

[tango]

Not all Starbucks cafes are the same! When you're in a college town they make it so strong your eyes bug out! My nieces and daughter all laughed at me when I tried their Starbucks! The ones off the toll roads are hit or miss. There is one that is particularly good with a clean taste but the others taste burnt and dirty.

Decaf...has such a funky taste to it.

I've yet to have a coffee from any branch of Starbucks that tasted like it was worth anything like what they expected me to pay for it, so I just don't bother with them any more. From what I can see they mostly sell coffee that's roasted so dark it could be any old garbage that went into the roaster, and then most of their drinks are diluted with so much milk it isn't really coffee anyway.

 

[ImaginaryDay2]

The biodegradable Keurig pods taste like dirt. Hate to say that! LOL

They might be more common in Canada - idk, but a lot of major brands are using them here. They look like regular "pods", but when they cool off the top has a tab that you peel off the filter and the plastic cup goes into recycling.