Life is too short for bad coffee - The Off Topic thread

Any recommendations for a cheap electric grinder circa 70 quid or less? Will be mostly used for clever dripper and aeropress and also some espresso but only in pressurised baskets. I've been reading that the cheaper grinders can handle pressurised fine but obviously not non pressurised. Been looking at Delonghi Kg79 (only 40 quid on Amazon currently) along with the espresso mod trick or would I be better with a second hand wilfa?Bit wary of second hand coffee equ. Other options out there like the Bodum Bistro or Melitta or even some on Amazon from lesser brands.

I have a Timemore C2 hand grinder which does the trick nicely but want to try an electric for convenience as well as the fact that trying to hand grind for espresso, even with pressurised basket, would be a serious workout!

Appreciate any thoughts.

Invested in an Aeropress this week after a few years of using Nespresso and the €20 Aldi coffee machine.

I did fully expect it, but I'm so impressed with how different the exact same coffee (pre-ground Velo) taste from the two different devices and brewing methods. It was pretty harsh and bitter from the Aldi machine, and far more mellow from the Aeropress. I also invested in a coffee grinder, which I'll be testing out once I've used up the pre-ground stuff I have.

Still a fan of Nespresso, can see myself using both depending on how much time/effort I'm willing to put in at the given time.

...

There's a big thread about An Post, customs and them sending huge numbers of packages back to make a point about rules that don't need to be complied with until the end of this year. The politicians need a rap over the knuckles on this one.

Yesterday I received a card posted in the UK on 20/12, so the delay on packages is going to be an order of magnitude worse.

Did they give a refund?

I have a badger & dodo voucher to use - can anyone recommend a nice filter bean from their current selection? Thanks!

I recently got a Prismo doohickey for the Aeropress, and I grind very fine when I'm making coffee with it, and I keep forgetting to set the grinder back to the usual Clever Dripper setting

Now it's meant I've discovered a few new flavour profiles from beans I'd only been using in the Clever, but frustrating that I grind 20g, discover they are too fine for the clever, but my Prismo recipe is only for 13g

Ah, sorry for giving you a bum steer!

I've enjoyed Latin American naturals more than east african ones the last while

3FE have this

They also have a Gesha, which I'd probably get if I had a voucher

https://shop.3fe.com/product/laos-phetlamka-natural-gesha

Just wondering if anyone has ever connected up a power meter to the socket connected to their espresso machine and found out how it consumes power? Like I think many machines are 1,500w-2,000w but wondering if it is consuming that amount of power all the time it is switched on or just when it is actually brewing?

Reason I ask is Im wondering should I turn off the machine altogether if the next coffee is a couple of hours away. If it is just standby electricity I dont mind that so much but if it is consuming 2,000w every hour just to keep the water hot and ready to go then thats a different matter.

60-80 watts per hour isnt too bad. I will find out what my machine uses soon as Im due to pick up an energy saving kit from the local library tomorrow and that should have a power meter for checking appliances in it.

My QuickMill (thermoblock) takes just a minute to reach temperature so I turn it on and off as needed and don't leave it on.

In my last order of coffee I added a couple Kg of green beans for fun. Yesterday I messed with a small quantity and ran about 4 experiments to work out if I could roast it effectively with the tools to hand.

I am very happy with the result as I was half expecting it to be far more troublesome and time consuming to work out a methodology with a strong chance of a poor and bad tasting result, but quickly hit upon a workable method with only one small accident ending in a batch of carbonised waste.

Here's the first at scale batch based on the experiments:

I was surprised at the non-existant coffee odour during the process and the low odour of the result. It's not until I ground it that the expected coffee smell came out.

The taste is better than I was expecting for a first attempt. Very smooth and very low acidity. Really nice. The average price of the beans plus shipping works out at €14.70 per Kg.

Yes, Quickmill recommend waiting 2-3 minutes I believe, which is what has expired by the time I have boiled a small quantity of water in the microwave for 1:40 with which I pre-heat the filter holder, filter and vacuum walled SS cup I use and ground the coffee.

The thermobloc is an approximately 1.8kg lump of aluminium cast around copper piping and a heating element, so there is a fair amount of thermal inertia reserve there, the benefit of which I am sure an astute student of the laws of thermodynamics will appreciate.

Great to see someone else having a crack(pun intended). A few scorch marks, but looks pretty consistent and clean. When I used to roast indoors (popcorn maker), I found the roasting odours lingered around the house, so I do it outside these days. Takes about 18 minutes of sitting around to roast up 400g to perfection. I've bought one 250g bag of roasted coffee this year (decaf). The rest has been home-roasted.

Where did you source the green beans?

Just bought a couple of 1kg bags of green beans from discountcoffee.ie, at €10/kg (+€5 courier delivery). They also sell roasted coffee for just a little more than that, but I haven't been a big fan, as they seem to be a large batch roaster, so you can never be sure how freshly roasted it is, but for green beans (where roast date is irrelevant) that's a really good price. I normally order from Switzerland in 10kg deliveries (€11-€20/kg) to take advantage of free postage, so it's nice to have a cheaper option which is delivered next day. Won't be roasting for another week or so (just roasted 800g a few days ago), but look forward to giving these a go. Can't tell what year's harvest it is, and quality/cupping scores may be a bit dubious, but still worth a try.

Nicks espresso beans 1kg @ €22 euro. Collection only I’m afraid but you get free coffee as well with purchase which is a bonus

Fantastic, no frills but produces great coffee each time. Not sure i would ever have anything else for home use tbh.

If you like buying things that last the MM is the way to go, my dad has had his for 25 years now and only needed to replace 1 part.

I grind the night before, then set the timer to come on before waking up.

Agree with megaten though, theres nothing special going on apart from perfect tempature regulation and top notch reliability.

Lucky you, natural SA beans are my new obsession

I was over in Bristol for a while and found my way to Wogan Coffee

Pretty highly rated roastery, picked up 3 bags. A Columbian, An Ethiopian and a natural Nicaraguan. I've only arrived back late last night so opened the Ethiopian this morning and it's really good.

The thing that struck me the most was the price

here's the Ethiopian

£5.65 (five pounds and sixty five pence) for 250g - all of their coffees were similarly priced. That is less than 7 euro for freshly roasted, top quality Ethiopian beans, the same style of bean is routinely double that price here.

Luckily my relations are visiting Ireland in September, by which time I'll need a re-up so I'll be ordering a few more bags of different stuff for them to bring back for me.

New WCC monthly sub arrived - looks an interesting Ethiopian natural though always find Ethiopians a pain to dial in the grind for - any tips for grinding for filter (clever dripper)?

https://www.westcorkcoffee.ie/shop/hades

Anyone else got the Prismo attachment for the Aero?

I got one a few months ago, and do 13g/50 boiling water, stir for 40 seconds, rest for 40 seconds and then press, for a yield of c35g coffee, topped up to 150g

I'm getting excellent results from it