Re: [Leica] Re: Coffee Makers

[Patrick Jelliffe <pbjbike@yahoo.com>]

To add to Jeff's wonderful distillation of non-filter
brewing...

I'm rather partial to stove-top espresso "mocha pots".
 The stainless models made by Bialetti, Alessi, et al,
make wonderful, strong "coffee" if you don't overfill
the grounds basket, as you would when making espresso.
 I've had a small Bialetti that I bought at the Marin
City flea market ($1) for 20 years.  The only
maintenance required is rinsing after use, and about
every 12-18 months, a new gasket.  Mine has been on
countless roadtrips, and provides one with the elixir
of life in the middle of the desert, powered by a
campstove.  Lately, with increased consumption, a
large Faema unit has supplanted the smaller Bialetti. 
About as close to Leica as one can get in terms of
reliability, electrical independence, and joy of use.


Cheers,

Patrick
   
- --- Jeff Moore <jbm@jbm.org> wrote:
> 2003-11-11-14:29:34 Tina Manley:
> > My Krupps coffee maker is dying and I'm in the
> market for a new one.  I 
> > want one that grinds the beans and will make
> really strong coffee.  What is 
> > the Leica of coffee-makers?
> 
> Ah, on to another of my obsessions.
> 
> First -- am I to infer from your description that
> what you've been
> using is a filter-drip brewer with a built-in
> grinder?
> 
> And, if that's so, are you willing to entertain the
> notion of changing
> one or both of those things?
> 
> I can see the great convenience of having a
> contraption which grinds
> and brews, presumably at the behest of a timer --
> but if you're
> willing to give up that ultimate bit of convenience,
> I think you can
> get better brew quality and reliability by choosing
> the grinder and
> brewer individually (not to mention that if one
> subsystem busts, you
> don't have to replace the whole shebang).
> 
> Then there's the question of brewing method. 
> Paper-filter drip has
> its advantages -- primarily that it filters out the
> fine coffee-ground
> particles which would otherwise make it to your pot
> and cup (of which
> more later).  Disadvantages of paper-filter-drip
> include a propensity
> to impart some of the paper filter's own flavors to
> the brew and just
> a lessened... immediacy to the coffee's flavor.
> 
> To get a notion of what flavors your paper filter
> adds, put one in a
> filter holder without coffee, pour a bit of boiling
> water over it, and
> sniff the steam which first comes up.  It can be a
> mite unpleasant.
> 
> If you want to continue using paper filters, you'll
> want to choose
> your brand via this sniff test (there's a great
> range of smells
> differing in character and pungency), and, if you
> have the patience,
> to use boiling water as above, before adding the
> coffee, to leach out
> as many of the off notes as possible.
> 
> Some of the major-brand "natural brown" filters can
> smell
> overpoweringly much like a papermill.  I've found
> that the
> "oxygen-bleached" (no idea what that actually means)
> filters from
> Peet's:
> 
>   http://www.peets.com/
> 
> are relatively inoffensive; and of course Peet's is
> my longtime
> favorite source of beans for any brewing method but
> espresso.
> 
> As I suggested before, non-paper-filter brewing
> methods (whether
> espresso, french-press, mesh-filter drip, or
> presumably (per another
> LUGger's mention) a non-paper-filtered airpot, give
> a pleasing
> fullness and immediacy of flavor; but the presence
> of small solid
> coffee particles in the resultant brew means that
> the coffee only has
> lovely flavor for a short while after it's been
> brewed -- since
> there's an optimal brewing time for each method, and
> you've presumably
> spent that time during the brew, the resultant cup
> should be lovely,
> but extraction continues on the little particles in
> your pot or cup.
> When you extract past the ideal window, what gets
> extracted is the
> bitter flavors.  So... the coffee gets steadily more
> bitter as it
> sits, and you rarely have time to drink a cup then
> pour a second good
> one from the same pot.
> 
> Paper-filter methods don't seem to produce anything
> quite as good, but
> the coffee doesn't go bad as fast.  So you need to
> choose based on
> your coffee-drinking habits.
> 
> My recommendation?  I'm convinced that espresso is
> the ultimate form
> of coffee, but it requires so much dedication,
> expense and
> trial-and-error to learn how to pull that lovely,
> not-bitter,
> not-sour, fluffy-in-the-mouth shot of the sort I
> fear few have ever
> even experienced that I'm not about to recommend it
> to someone who's
> not looking for a new obsession.
> 
> I'd suggest considering french-press coffee. 
> There's some cleaning-up
> involved after, but it's not completely excessive;
> and the brew itself
> is simple and quick (as little as two minutes).  The
> coffee can be
> yummy, and can definitely stand up in strength to
> whatever your
> current standard may be.
> 
> I know there's a voice for airpots;  I don't have
> enough personal
> experience with them to claim real expertise.  My
> initial impression
> was of particularly fiddly, fragile apparatus, but I
> should let the
> real experts speak on this.
> 
> The thing is: for any of the non-paper-filter
> methods, a good
> mill-type (not the spice-flayer type) grinder is
> exceedingly helpful.
> Each method will have an optimal fineness for the
> grounds: too large
> and the coffee will be underextracted and watery,
> but too fine and far
> too much silt will make it through into your cup (if
> it doesn't clog
> the apparatus up entirely).  A high-quality mill
> excels in consistency
> of grind: the ability to render grounds of the size
> you choose, with
> fairly little variation.
> 
> I'm pretty fond of the Rancilio Rocky (there's a
> doserless version
> available now, which would be best in this context)
> for reliability
> and consistency, even at the large grounds sizes
> called for by
> french-press brewing.  The only problems I had with
> one I owned for
> years was that the doser went flaky (no problem if
> you get the
> doserless) and you occasionally had to rock it on
> the counter if the
> beans got hung up in the hopper.  It kept going for
> years and years
> with boring consistency.
> 
> I'm now using a fantabulous grinder from Mazzer for
> espresso, but
> that's even-farther-off-topic madness into which I
> won't venture
> further in this unsuspecting forum unless asked.
> 
> There are of course many many vendors;  but to get
> you started, there
> are some grinders here:
> 
>   http://chriscoffee.com/products/home/grinders
> 
> ...and some presspots here:
> 
>  
>
http://sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.frenchpress.shtml
> 
> (In the interest of fairness, they've also got some
> airpots:)
> 
>   http://sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.vacuum.shtml
> 
> Don't forget to second-day-air your coffee from
> Peet's:
> 
>   http://www.peets.com/shop/coffee.asp
> 
> That's (more than) plenty from me in the first
> response -- I'd be glad
> to expand on any of this.
> 
>  -Jeff
> --
> 
=== message truncated ===

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