I buy fresh roasted whole bean coffee only and tend to grind 3-5 days worth at a time, storing the balance in a mason jar. If the beans have not rested/outgassed, the first couple of times I re-open that mason jar, the top blows off with pretty impressive pressure due to the CO2 accumulation. The local coffee guy I get it from has always advised of the date it was roasted and, if roasted that day, recommends letting the beans rest a day or two prior to use. I am no expert and am only relating my personal experiences plus, what the person I do consider an expert recommends.
As far as actually brewing coffee…I use a Delonghi Espresso Machine with a double shots worth of ground coffee per cup and an extra long pull for what might be considered a weak espresso but IMHO, is a damn fine cup of joe.
I like the espresso machine as it really seems to extract all the flavor from the grind plus, all of the surfaces that require cleaning are removable and stainless steel so even at 7 years old, the thing has no residue or anything like that that might alter the taste of the coffee.
Prior to the espresso machine I was all about the French Press and it would still be my second favorite method.
Speaking of coffee-snob; isn’t calling drip coffeemakers “pretty much universally junk” a little snobby? Or is that what you were going for?
I have to disagree that a french press is the ONLY way to go. OP is trying to up his coffee game. That doesn’t mean he’s trying to go straight to snob level. I have a drip coffee maker, with an insulated carafe that keeps the coffee hot for hours. It makes coffee way better than the Keurig that I use at work. Regarding the 1-3 cups. A drip coffee maker generally makes 10-12 cups as their maximum capacity. However in my experience that’s measured in 6 oz cups. So 60-72 oz. of coffee. Most coffee cups these days hold at least 12 ounces of coffee, and my travel mug holds 22 ozs. I use a (generous) 1/2 cup of grounds for a full pot of coffee, but it’s pretty easy math to adjust to 1/2 a pot… I use 1/4 cup of grounds for 1/2 a pot of coffee. Either way it’s very Tasty and whole lot less mess and pain than using my french press.
As someone who has and uses all of the methods you mention… I don’t think it’s really fair to dismiss the Aeropress and pourover as “fancy coffee-snob options”. Neither have a very large learning curve, are pretty simple to use, easier to clean than the French Press, and make very good cups of coffee.
I’ve yet to meet a drip coffee maker that made what I felt to be decent coffee, with the exception of some of the serious commercial hardware than you wouldn’t want in your kitchen. The fact is that most drip coffee makers don’t heat the water enough, and the entire method is designed for ease of use rather than quality of coffee.
Is it better than Keurig? Sure. Is that the lowest possible bar I can imagine for coffee? Yes, yes it is.
Wow. I’m surprised we didn’t get some sort of matter/anti-matter explosion with these two posts right in a row.
I have an Aeropress, I find it to be a nuisance. It has too many parts, and is not any easier to clean than a french press used with properly ground coffee. (If you need to clean the filter of your french press everytime you use it, your coffee is ground too fine). Aeropress also doesn’t do a very good job of making more than one cup at once.
Pourover, to me, seems to be a very fiddly means of producing coffee.
I stand by my assessment. Only people who are REALLY INVESTED in their coffee (“coffee snobs”) need trouble with these approaches, and they’re not a good fit for the OP.
Another vote for a French press. I have a stainless, double-walled press. It keeps coffee hotter for much longer than the glass ones. It can be a little pricey, but I’ve had it for years. The key is to not use too finely ground beans as it can make it incredibly hard to push the filter down.
I don’t find cleanup to be too bad, I merely rinse of the filter after every use and empty the grounds into the trash. Every now and then I put it in the dishwasher.
I agree. I have the same setup with a Zojirushi coffee maker and love the brew. I used a French press when we’re on an RV trip because it’s a very small vehicle with limited storage space. Personally, I prefer the drip pot coffee.
Hey, it’s not like we’re debating anything as serious as cooking a steak well-done.
We can just agree to disagree on it being a nuisance to use; I think it’s very simple, but fair enough. And yes, it doesn’t make more than one cup at a time, and isn’t advertised as doing so. If you’re looking for something that is capable of making more than one cup at a time, then yes, the Aeropress is most definitely not the way to go.
But… the ease of cleaning as a factor? That frankly stuns me. You eject the coffee ground puck into the trashcan, then run the unit under water in the sink. Done. I don’t know how it can get much easier than that. French Press isn’t significantly more difficult to clean, but unless you’re pouring coffee grounds into your garbage disposal (not really a good idea), you do need to get in there with a paper towel and clean them out into the trashcan. Again, not a huge deal, and I wouldn’t put cleaning as a strike against the French Press, but it does take a bit more work than the Aeropress.
Again, a matter of opinion. And to be fair, to properly use a pourover, you do also need a gooseneck kettle, which not everyone has or wants to invest in. Coffee in filter in pourover over coffee cup. Boil water. Pour slowly over the grounds in a circular motion. Yeah, not as straight forward as a drip or Keurig, but I can’t see thinking it’s so involved that only coffee snobs would want to tackle it.
There’s a place online called Sweet Maria’s coffee. What you can do there is buy fresh unroasted beans from a variety of different sources. You can blend them yourself or try one of their blends.
The fun thing is then yo roast your own beans. They have several cheap starter roasters you can buy, or you can just go to Target or Wallyworld and buy a super cheap air popcorn popper, for $20 or less. Nothing smells as nice as fresh toasted coffee. If you like your coffee strong like Starbucks you can roast it dark, or lighter if that’s your thing, or experiment. We have a Technivorm coffee maker which is really high end and pricey, but a French press or charmed is also very good.
Roasting your own coffee is like the difference between a fresh steak and a Salisbury steak, imho.
My preferred home method is espresso via my Rancilio Silvia. If for some reason I’m not having espresso, I use my aero press at home. Yeah, a bit of a hassle, but it’s quick and cleans up easy.
After that it hardly matters, because I’m generally drinking coffee for effect if I can’t get either of those. I use a Keurig machine at work, but just fill a generic reuseable brewpod with generic ground coffee.
I tried the cold brewing, and it made a good product. But I just can’t plan that far ahead . . .
I use an Aeropress and find it makes great coffee, although I’m curious about Airk’s comment because it makes 4 espresso shots at one plunge. Add water for an Americano and you have 4 cups of “standard” coffee.
Quality of beans, water temperature and grind are he most important factors in any method, though.
I will second everybody saying Chemex. They’re elegant, easy, and work great. Also SUPER easy to clean. Toss the filter, swirl water in the base, pour it in the sink, done.
Aeropress is great, but it’s a little “fiddlier” and (going by the manufacturer recs) it uses more beans per volume of coffee than most.
I like French Press, too, but it has two big downsides: there’s always a little grit left in the brew, and I HATE getting a mouthful of coffee dust at the bottom of the cup. It’s also much harder to fully clean. Every press I’ve ever had winds up trapping a few grounds in the mesh occasionally, requiring disassembly and scrubbing. Not a huge issue, but enough that it steers me towards other methods.
I am seriously trying to understand the difference between chemex and a drip coffee maker. They both seem to our hot water onto grounds and filter out the grounds through paper.
The French Press makes good coffee. You can get a thick, viscous coffee out of one that I really enjoy. But they don’t keep it warm, and they break.
Now I use a mid size ceramic pour over model with paper filters. 15$ device. I drink 1 (maybe 2) cups in the morning, and maybe another in the afternoon. Each cup is absolutely fresh and absolutely hot. Heating enough water for one cup takes no time at all.
I know I won’t roast my own beans. Grinding seems fast enough. I’m balancing speed/convenience/taste. To get the best taste, I’m gonna have to slow down.
So… grinding I can manage. Cleaning doesn’t slow me down. I’m not roasting. I want better than typical drip.
I have to go re-read to fully break down pros/cons between French Press, Aeropress and Chemex… I think.
Goal: Invest a little more time to get better coffee than Keurig and drip. Invest a little more money. I’m not going to put in max time for max coffee @ max cost.
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If money isn’t a concern, I would suggest a semi-automatic coffee/espresso maker. I have a Jura and I love it. It is a bit pricey, but you get the convenience of Keurig without the crap coffee and plastic waste. Semi-automatics take whole beans and make espresso for you (water down to make coffee). It really is the easiest way to get a good cup of coffee. The beans are ground right before brewing (automatically) and clean-up is just dumping the coffee pucks that collect in a bin and a bit of rinsing.
A great cup of coffee requires more attention and effort; I feel semi-automatics offer the best quality to effort ratio. But you know, money.
Oh the main warning I give is if you like very dark roast beans. Semi-automatics don’t like oily beans so medium roast is about as dark as I would advise with those.
I’m sorry to hear you won’t be roasting. It really is easy and you can do a weeks worth at a time and really control what you are doing so that you get the coffee you like.
Oh well.
If you are dripping I would go with the chemex because it’s both cheap and easy, plus it has the added benefit of producing a truly excellent result consistently. I always find that the presses give me inconsistent results because even after you do the press the coffee at the bottom is still steeping in the compressed grounds to some degree.
If you spend a little money and get the technivorm, it will likely be the last coffee maker you ever buy. It has absolutely consistent temperature control, gives you a high degree of control over your steep time, and has basically bombproof construction. I have the one with the insulated carafe and have had it for ten years. Easy to clean and every bit as good as the day I bought it.
It has everything you need for great coffee and nothing you don’t.
They work under the same basic principle, yes. Chemex is a pourover, like the popular Hario V60 or others.
The advantage pourovers give over drip makers is more direct control over the factors that make a good cup of coffee. The big one is water temperature. Most drip makers don’t get the water hot enough, so the coffee ends up on the bitter side (some of the pricey drip makers do get the water to the correct temperature). Manually making coffee with a pourover allows you to evenly saturate the grounds, something the majority of drip makers don’t do very well. And, you can control pour time to your taste, something you can’t do with an automatic drip.
With a manual pour, you can also “bloom” the coffee, by starting with a small pour that just wets the top of the grounds, and then waiting 30 seconds or so to resume your pour. If you’re using fresh beans, it will “bloom” up nicely like a mushroom head. This is to allow gasses in the beans to escape, and will also help with dispersion of the water on the rest of your pour.
The advantage of the Chemex over the other pourovers is, frankly, mostly about it’s filters. It uses a special filter for its shape that is extra thick, allowing less oils through.
Also, the Chemex is just a beautiful piece of design! How many coffee makers have ended up in the Museum of Modern Art? You’d be surprised how much the smugness of that knowledge improves the taste.
