(relax topic) what's your preferred method to make coffee?

[PlainName]

do it repeatedly with the same results

Not possible. You can have two cups exactly  the same, but the first will affect the taste of the second so you wouldn't be able to definitively say one is better than the other.

[beanflying]

IMO there needs to be a solid foundation of technicalities - dialing in the espresso, and be able to do it repeatedly with the same results with the same batch of beans.

The art comes with picking the beans, and bending it even further to taste, up or down in extraction time, pressure and temperature.

The numbers you offered up above just don't apply to my gear for example the baskets are 55mm doubles on my day to day machine and for my $ earner I am running 20g VST's. Gear varies.

While numbers are a good start point if I am punching out 50-60 coffees an hour I am not timing or measuring anything by the numbers after an initial dial in at the start of the session. As the temperature and humidity changes (generally I am doing outdoor gigs but even indoor varies) the grinder gets tweaked (in some cases a LOT) along the way to keep the shots in the 'ballpark'. This rig is setup as a purge pour (corrects the temp if the group has been idle), short double (around 45ml) and a full double (60ml) on the dosers. The machine runs fixed pre infusion which is 'ok' but I would like some more control over it. Any tweaking is done by 'feel' and 'look' at the pour for on the fly throughout the session and never by time.

My daily driver is a totally overkill  generally just for me a 3grp Izzo Lever but it pours 60ml shots regardless. I run it at around 35-38 seconds for that total volume but I am pulling the glass about 3/4 of that in volume for me but for a few of my bucket drinking mates I will make them a full double for their 12oz drinks. Unlike a pumped machine the pressure drops off a lot as the pour ends so it is far less prone to the over extraction issues of a constant 9bar pour.

So you cannot offer up an 'absolute' number(s) as something to be agreed on as a matter of fact but you can offer up 'guidelines' with caveats. The ART is being able to see and taste when it isn't right.

[metrologist]

My employer installed a fancy automatic coffee machine with about 50 selections and various adjustments, so now I just press on the touchscreen. I stopped making coffee at home.

[Siwastaja]

I have this coffee story which underlines the low quality (but high quantity) standards here. One winter Monday morning, I entered our office, with no one else present, and with my hands still very cold as I had forgotten my gloves somewhere, I tried the coffee pot. "Feels definitely warm, oh nice, I guess someone was here already and made some fresh coffee; it just needs a bit of reheating". Microwave, that is! Hm, tastes a little bit weird but no worries, quantity over quality and so on; another cup that is!

Then the other guy enters, and I say "oh you already made coffee, nice, I warmed it up". ... "nope, I didn't. That's leftover from Friday which I forgot to pour out". My hands were just calibrated to the cold, so the room temperature coffee pot felt warm!

But no problem whatsoever. Good enough coffee that was, sitting for 3 days. During winter it doesn't grow mold, which easily happens in summer.

[mengfei]

My employer installed a fancy automatic coffee machine with about 50 selections and various adjustments, so now I just press on the touchscreen. I stopped making coffee at home.

we have one of those in the Pantry, Delonghi, it's been there for months but no one has touched it yet 

what Roast type is good for pour over, all my beans are med-dark to dark roast for espresso but i used it too for pour over, haven't tried any other beans since the last one I got was a 1KG Lavazza Gold 

[beanflying]

My employer installed a fancy automatic coffee machine with about 50 selections and various adjustments, so now I just press on the touchscreen. I stopped making coffee at home.

we have one of those in the Pantry, Delonghi, it's been there for months but no one has touched it yet 

what Roast type is good for pour over, all my beans are med-dark to dark roast for espresso but i used it too for pour over, haven't tried any other beans since the last one I got was a 1KG Lavazza Gold

Find your nearest hipster quickly 

Even within countries beans very a lot but avoid in your case anything Vietnamese/Laos (generally robusta) if they are on offer. African or beans from Central America (so not 'generally' Colombia and Brazil).

Buy some Green and roast your own is alway an option, the quick and dirty Beanflying guide below For brewed a good starting point is between first and second crack but playing is fun.

[mengfei]

i tried it once, roasting beans, coz I bought it by mistake 

then I found out that you could use a a Heatgun to roast the beans & lots of flying debris around me & not sure if I did it right, taste was a bit weak & sour - oh well there goes the first try     

Dang!
just found out I still have a bag of green bean that was from India, maybe I could experiment with it but not sure if it's ok to roast  beans that's almost a year old.

[beanflying]

Sure Green beans providing you keep them dry are ok for several years. The Hipsters might tell you different but even beans at 5 years or more old just mellow out and can still be roasted. Depending on the Indian beans some are great as a brewed coffee too but there is also some fairly heavy Robustas grown as well

With the bowl and heatgun method in the PDF notice I am using a deep nearly vertical sided bowl to avoid escapee's

[Nominal Animal]

Good enough coffee that was, sitting for 3 days. During winter it doesn't grow mold, which easily happens in summer.

Can confirm.  As long as it doesn't have that burnt tannin tang, and the oils haven't gone rancid, I'll happily drink it. 
I'm perfectly happy even with freeze-dried instant coffee.

Do people still put copper pennies on the hot plate of their Moccamaster, or do they nowadays have temperature-controlled heating elements in the hot plate?
I know the water temperature is much better controlled nowadays.

[paulca]

I lived on instant (Nescafe) for most of my life.

2 years ago I decided to buy a coffee machine that cleaned itself out, the main reason why I hate percs or filters.

Got a Delonghi Magnificant bean to cup machine.  Awesome bit of kit.  The only annoying aspect is.. you can't set the water temp, so "Americano" long style coffees like I want are too cold to add unsteamed milk.  I can either do the "lengthing" myself with proper boiling water from the boiling water tap or... as I prefer now, I dump a spoonful of "coffee whitener" into it.

The waste is neatly placed in a little bin, and emptying that every 6th coffee along with the "dregs tray" and filling the water tank is about all it takes to maintain.  A bit of a wipe maybe and every few months I pull everything out of it, put it in the dishwasher and leave the unit open to dry, then it gets hovered to get all the loose coffee grinds out before they start moulding.

[mengfei]

what other good use for those discarded grounds?

I fling those cakes out the window to the garden, they say it makes good fertilizer

cake out of the 1zpresso Y3.3


my other setup, this coffee thing is getting addictive 

[DavidAlfa]

Anything fast, simple and clean that doesn't take 10 minutes at 5:30 AM, and by no way ties me to use capsules, coffee at gold price, no thanks!

That's why I went with an expresso machine.
Load the cup with any coffee brand, place in,  push the button, 20 seconds later wash the remains in sink and enjoy your last willing to live while taking the coffee before entering Mordor.
Not joking, I have "Mordor" in my alarm title.

[beanflying]

[mengfei]

do you take you eXpresso directly 

or make it into an americano or flat white?

[DavidAlfa]

At 5am I make a "zzzssspresso" and consider myself lucky to be alive one day more 

[ambitsme]

Any!? I mean if you really need coffee won't any method work? My least favorite is stream side with bugs in the water(think trout stream with serious mayfly or salmon fly hatch in progress). Although it is not often you can get natural protein as in ingredient rather than added. Preferred favorite is French Pot with coffee from gimme! coffee

Alan

[Nominal Animal]

Of course, the very best cup of coffee is when someone else makes it for you, right before you realize you want one. 

[Juup]

Very nice this forum has also room for other topics. I love cooking. Not good at it at all but it gives me a good feeling when something new worked out. After cooking Indonesian Rendang over and over again it's getting better.
I bought this coffee maker some 10 years ago on a flea market for €10. As you can see it is very used and the plastic parts are almost gone. But the coffee it makes is perfect. I love the light in the power switch. It dims a bit every second while drawing current. That only makes it a nice thing to look at. Maybe there are much better systems like this, but this is a no nonsense machine. It is fast to make only one cup or for 15 people. Before this i had a Senseo machine what should be a fast machine but this thing is much faster. The coffee it makes is also much better.

The best thing on this is the idea this thing is in service for many many years and people even before i was born were enjoying their coffee from this very machine. I am sure this will be my last coffee maker because this thing is solid. I can't see me switch to another system in the next 50 years.

I can see on the picture it is time for a good kichen cleaning again. I am a man alone. Please don't be to hard on me about that.