I drink decaf, but I still drink coffee because I like the taste and for the potential health benefits.
I bought a coffee grinder for $5 or so on black friday once, and never used it. Can I buy decaf coffee beans and grind them? If so, does freshly ground coffee make a difference?
I’m reading up on it, I’m kind of wondering if it is like high end audio where people say there are all these amazing benefits, but all you do is spend tons of time and money for a product that is slightly better than something cheaper and easier.
I’ve read you are supposed to roast your own beans, then grind them, then make them. That seems like a lot of work and this would just be for a regular drip coffeemaker (not a french press or some other method).
Anyway, since I’m drinking decaf and making it from a drip coffeemaker, would decaf beans make a difference instead of decaf pre-ground? I know I can go out and buy some (assuming they make them, I don’t know).
I have noticed a meaningful flavor difference between instant & fresh made coffee. So I know there is a quality difference there. But I haven’t tried freshly ground vs. pre-ground before.
I grind my own beans & make a cup at a time with a Melitta cone. (Coffee pots have kept dying & coffee for one is usually sufficient at home.)
It makes a difference to me–tastes much better. Here’s my favorite–from a local company. Which also sells decaf beans. Find your own local source to do the roasting…
Roasting your own lets you have the freshest possible beans. There is kind of a time lag, they don’t peak in flavor till about the 2nd day or thereabouts after roasting. If you have a roaster nearby that does a good job, use those. But a week or two, they are stale pretty much no matter what.
That said I would not bother with decaffeinated coffee. I need coffee in order to function, and so that others around me are not in danger, etc.
I grind my own beans a pot at a time, and keep them in the freezer. The coffee tastes a lot stronger with fewer beans, by like, 1/3, and since I inherited the grinder, I’m saving money. But grinders with one setting for an auto-drip cost like $13, so if this one conks out, I’ll probably buy a new one.
Yes. My pot grinds the beans just before brewing. It’s the best coffee I’ve ever made at home and my pot has lasted me for a very long time. It’s a cusinart.
The general numbers I’ve seen tossed about by the coffee fans is that green beans last a year or two; roasted beans last a week or two; ground coffee lasts an hour or two. After they point they say you will notice differences in the coffee, and they’re usually not good differences.
That said, there are a bunch of different flavors in any given cup of coffee, and if a particular age of bean or roast or grind doesn’t add anything you dislike, you probably wouldn’t notice that; if it also doesn’t add anything you would like, you wouldn’t notice that either.
The only way to know for sure is to try it, and the easiest way to do that is look around for a local coffee shop that grinds their coffee fresh every day, and try it. If their coffee is WAY better than what you make for yourself, they may be on to something. If it tastes the same as your own brew, then you’re good.
If you like the aroma of fresh ground beans, you’ll love roasting coffee. If you have neighbors who drink coffee they will be climbing through windows or whatever it takes to find out where the source is. Lock your doors and cackle at them!
Well, there’s stale and then there’s stale. Truly fresh coffee is the best, but properly-packed coffee can stay adequately drinkable on the shelf for a while. Admittedly, it will all go stale within a couple weeks once opened.
To the OP: yes, freshly ground coffee makes a huge difference, unless you’re starting with terrible coffee. MOST decaf is, unfortunately, pretty lousy. IIRC, the decaffination process wastes a lot of coffee, so they have to use lower quality, lower cost beans in order to make it affordable.
Are the benefits of both roasting and grinding your own beans meaningfully higher than just grinding them? Adding in an additional step of roasting them will add both cost and time. However if it is worth it, and I can find a cheap roaster, I may consider it. However I doubt it, roasters seem to run $200 or so.
But for now I may just try grinding them and seeing if there is a difference.
Again, find a place that sell beans with the roast date listed on them. See if you can find some that was roasted this week. Buy two pounds. Put one on the shelf, make coffee with the other. In a month, try the second pound. If you don’t notice any difference, you don’t need fresh-roasted coffee.
If coffee is important enough to you that you’re willing to spend hundreds of dollars on equipment, you can get into home roasting. But for now, just see what the coffee you can buy in the store tastes like and if you can’t taste any difference between something that was roasted a month ago and something fresher, you don’t need to pay extra for fresher stuff.
Grinding my own beans certainly results in a superior espresso, and makes a much finer cup of coffee in my aeropress than pre-ground.
I’ve been tempted to try roasting my own, but we can buy freshly roasted stuff not far from home, and go thru it fast enough that I don’t think I want to invest in the time and effort and obsession involved in that.
Grinding my own coffee never made a difference to me. I tried it for a while and went back to ground coffee in a can. I also tried different brewing methods like drip vs French press vs cold extraction. While I can usually taste which coffee comes from which method, I honestly can’t say that one is better than the others.
Also, I don’t detect the difference in age that the experts report. As far as my taste buds are concerned, ground coffee is fine for about six months. I can taste a difference at about that point.
(For the record: the one thing I do care about in coffee: lighter roasts. I’d rather use French roast coffee for potpourri than for anything I’ll drink.)
I almost envy this. The difference between “really good” and “decent” coffee is pretty vast for me. I’ll drink mediocre coffee to get a kick, but I really don’t enjoy anything that isn’t freshly-roasted, freshly-ground, and well-brewed.
“Oh, hey, I think I’ll get a French Press, see how that works.”
“Cool, I can use a burr grinder instead of a wheel grinder, so I get a more even grind and don’t heat the beans up as much.”
“Ooh, bottled water rather than tap, that’s a good idea.”
“Hey, fresh-roasted coffee!”
“Hey, I can roast my own!”
There are good breakfast places I don’t go to any more because their coffee is mediocre.
I went to a work party where they roasted their own beans, and gave a demo. Getting the beans and the process seemed like an incredible hassle, and the coffee wasn’t all that much better than what I drink anyway.
I have a Cuisinart that grinds just before brewing, and that is way worth it, though finding unground beans is getting harder and harder.
I can’t tell the difference between a 25 dollar bottle of wine and a five dollar bottle. I also can’t tell the difference between fresh Kona beans and Folgers. I don’t think 90% of people can.
