I grind my own coffee these days and use it in a Keurig My K-cup. I live alone, so this setup is actually pretty convenient. I grind up enough beans to last a few days and store the grinds in a little mason jar.
I recently bought a pound of beans that just tasted off - a bit too bitter and just… off. I paid a lot for them, so I really didn’t want to just chuck them in the trash.
So what to do? I’ve heard of people adding salt to coffee to enhance the taste and reduce bitterness. No idea if that works. I also noted a container of ground cinnamon I bought for pork chops many months ago and still in my cupboard, unused.
So I added a bit of salt of salt before grinding up my beans. I then sprinkled some cinnamon into the K-cup before adding the coffee grounds.
I gotta say I think I improved those beans. The cinnamon has added a really nice fragrance that hits my nose as I sip and the coffee doesn’t seem nearly as bitter as it did before. Maybe I’m biased, but I think I just made a damn good cup of coffee. In fact, I’m brewing another as I write this.
Anyone else do anything different when grinding/brewing coffee?
We roast our own beans and grind them right before we brew them in the French press. I think the trick is to not grind them until you’re ready to use them.
I don’t (and can’t) drink coffee so I don’t have a whole lot to add, but if this is making your ‘not good’ coffee taste good, imagine how much better it’ll make your good coffee taste. Also, if your coffee is that undrinkable, you might be better off just tossing it and getting some new stuff. If it helps, you could mix a little of the old stuff with the new stuff so at least you’re not throwing it out.
At work, somehow, I got designated as the cold-brew guy. Cold brewed coffee will last about two weeks in your fridge. I don’t know how you’re making it, but feel free to make a week or two’s worth at a time. If space is an issue, use half as much water and and then when you use it pour half coffee and add half water.
I’ve even heard of some people heating cold brewed coffee so they can have the taste of the cold brewed, but still get coffee.
I really wished I liked it, but it’s not only that I don’t like it, it makes my throat itch, I think I’m actually mildly allergic to it. Even drinking things made with the coffee cherries (like Bai5) do it to me.
I always make a week’s worth or so. It heats perfectly well and never gets bitter. I just make it in a bowl on the kitchen counter and strain it through an extremely fine sieve.
An easier way is to wrap the coffee grounds up in a coffee filter, rubber banded at the top (no, you won’t taste the rubber band) and let that sit in the water overnight. 10-12 hours.
That’s what we do at our store. Same idea, no straining. In the morning you just pull the wet filter out and toss it. Pro-tip, don’t ‘wring’ it out or squeeze it, just let the last few drips, drip out. If you attempt to squeeze it you run the risk of it breaking and then you end up having to strain it or ditch the entire batch.
This is also how the Toddy system works, which is (more or less) where I got the idea from, I just didn’t see the need to buy a hundred dollar system.
The one problem is if you’re just using regular household coffee filters, you can only make very small batches. I use the SUPER big ones. They’re probably a foot across on the top and they hold about a half about of ground coffee (and I use two to make a batch).
Seriously, my method for beans I’m not fond of is to use the Aeropress, which I normally avoid because it feels like a nuisance, but while I don’t really agree with their claims that it makes the “world’s best cup of coffee” or whatever (for beans that I like, I like the results from my French Press better), but it does an astonishing job of making coffee I don’t like, drinkable.
If the OP is succeeding in removing bitterness by adding salt, adding salt to coffee that doesn’t taste bitter will just make it taste salty, not better.
I toss three or four cardamom pods in with the beans when I grind them. Adds a nice, subtly spicy flavor. If you use black cardamom, it also adds a pleasant smokiness.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that I’m the only coffee drinker in my house, so I only grind about 4 or 5 tablespoons of beans at a time.
It’s a small business so most of us have odd ball jobs. Plus, I can sell the shit out of anything if I learn enough about it. So, I’m the book keeper…plus I handle the coffee. I mean, it would make more sense for a coffee drinker to handle the coffee and, don’t get me wrong if someone is asking coffee specific questions I call one of the employees over that’s tried them all, but (being the analytical guy that I am (see: book keeper), I’m really good at ordering and maintaining stock and since selling coffee (beans) was my idea it was kind of a “we should sell coffee”/“fine, go ahead, it’s all yours” conversation. When I suggested we do cold brew the conversation was the same, but tweaking it meant getting other people to do the taste testing for me.
Hey, it’s better than doing all the book keeping…and making the chicken salad. Yeah, that made sense. They’d say ‘but you’re really good at it’ and I’d say ‘that’s like you doing all the deli and catering work…plus emptying the garbage in the office a few times a week’. But part of working in a place that has 10-20 employees is that everyone does everything. It’s sort of nice since it breaks up the monotony. Never know what I’m going to be doing when I walk in the door. I absolutely love walking in to hear the _____ is broken. Awesome! let me go grab my tools and meters BRB.
I’m also really good at selling seafood, but I don’t eat that either. I’ve found that all people really care about is all the weird numbers on the side of the shrimp boxes and which ones are ‘jumbo’*, once they get a grasp on that, they’ll buy them. I’m just good at asking the right questions (size?, cooked/raw? how many? Shell on/off?, will you use them all at once? etc and saying you want…this one, have a nice day. Most people just need a push to spend $60 or $70 on seafood).
*People, Jumbo, large, medium, extra large, whatever are all arbitrary terms and carry no meaning from one store to the next or even from one sales guy to the next. If you like a certain size just learn the number (26/30, 41/50, 10/15) and just look for that.
