[Leica] Re: Coffee Makers

[Jeff Moore <jbm@jbm.org>]

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
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