My significant other doesn’t care nearly as much about coffee as I do, so we always have pre-ground supermarket coffee at home. Tastewise, it’s usually rather dull and bitter because apparently, that‘s what people expect coffee to taste like around here.
I wonder if there is a method/recipe that can compensate for those flaws. The Aeropress is pretty versatile, so going for lower temperatures and/or shorter extraction times comes to me as a natural first step in this investigation. Doing a pour over with this stuff feels like I‘m wasting precious V60 filter papers though tbh 😄
Any further suggestions? I own a V60, an Aeropress, a cheap drip coffee machine and the (in-) famous IKEA french press. My kettle only allows for adjustments in 10°C steps, but features a temperature display, so I can go reasonably precise on that end.
Cheers! ✌️
You don’t seem to be looking for the answer coldbrew, but it’s coldbrew.
Nice, I hadn’t thought of that! I’m eager to give it a try. Got a favourite recipe utilising one of the brewers in my collection?
I have a 1L french press jug that I fill with 80g of coffee, coarse grind (34 on 1zpreszo JX) and top with cold water making sure all the grounds are wet and stirring lightly to make sure they’re all wet. I leave it in the fridge for 12-18 hours and filter through the mesh. I dillute with hot water or just microwave it after dillution if I’m too lazy to boil (blasphemy I know). I sometimes mix it with tonic water or ice and drink chilled.
Make sure to pop it in the fridge. Room temperature extracts the acids somewhat which isn’t to my preference.
That sounds really good. I‘ve got a french press already and at the moment, the nights are so cold here that I just might just let it steep outside over night.
Microwaving isn’t anything I‘d frown upon, apart from my bias at least that I almost exclusively associate that with old, stale and overall horrible taste when it comes to coffee. But I might just try that as well. Thanks for the suggestions!
That’s the neat part, all you need is a big jar, 24 hours in the fridge and filter patiently… the filtering isn’t really slow but you usually make a bunch.
Ratio of coffee to water is really the only tweak you can make. I used to use a whole 14OZ bag at a time and I’m not sure how much water anymore… I just used the same large glass jar every time, so there was more eyeball than measure.
It’s a very forgiving method, you can leave it in for 48+ hours, but 24 is the minimum. Once you filter it it’s good in the fridge for a week.
Toddy has a cold brew container that makes the process really easy. It has a filter disc at the bottom. I ended up buying some reusable cotton filter bags since their paper filters were a bit expensive.
I use the 12 oz whole bag of coffee per batch and fill the toddy up with water to the top. It makes about two liters/quarts of coffee. I usually top up the pitcher I store the coffee in with a few ounces of water in an attempt to keep the concentration consistent between batches.
Honestly, your ingredients are going to far surpass any brewing method. I’ve brewed cheap coffee in my Chemex that didn’t taste very good and quality coffee in a hotel in-room Coffee machine that tasted amazing.
Good Beans + Good Water gets you like 70% of the way to good coffee.
Yeah, I‘m aware. That‘s the reason why I’m reluctant to use my good consumables in aimless experiments.
What I‘m looking for really is some way to deal with overly bitter grounds, and I know the basics of extraction. Maybe someone just happens to have gone down that path already and can say something like „Put them in a french press, 50 grams per Liter, water not hotter than 85°C, steep for two minutes max“ or so. 🙂
Another commenter suggested cold brew. That’s probably the best to maximize sweetness. Good luck!
If I were to provide a suggestion, I would start with fresh grinding your coffee from beans. You can get a pretty cheap manual grinder for like $20-30. I don’t remember the name of mine (it’s generic) but it was like $30 on Amazon and is great when I travel.
Next time you’re in a coffee shop, grab their cheapest blend. Coffee shops, in my experience, have fresher beans than the grocery store, especially if they roast their own coffee.
It doesn’t have to be the $26 organic single origin, just something that’s been roasted more recently than 6 months ago. Maybe you’ll be able to convince your S/O to get some better coffee in the future.
I do grind fresh usually. It’s only that we got this stuff at home already and I hate wasting coffee when it’s going stale just because no one uses up an open bag, even if it’s bad coffee.
As a bonus, knowing how to get anything remotely decent from these raw materials, it would enable me to do so when I don’t have my nice things with me, be it at work, at my friends & family’s homes or on vacation.
Immersion brews are generally more forgiving than percolation, so lean into that French press or Aeropress. The V60 will probably just highlight the flaws.
french press
Of the listed options, the french press is the most forgiving imo. I imagine its the total immersion style and very coarse grind.
I went french press because it is so forgiving. Put ground beans in container, pour over water and let it sit. You can of course go fancier, measure things here and there. But you’ll get very far with very simple techniques, or no technique.
Speaking of grind fineness it’s also very forgiving there as well. The finer the grind the shorter steep time is needed. I saw a video some time ago about this (there were a well spoken snob whose name I’ve forgotten, will find later) and the conclusion was that pretty much any grind will make good coffee.
Edit: I use one of these old timey grinders and I love it. Fair bit of grind variance being a perk. https://dygtyjqp7pi0m.cloudfront.net/i/25278/22826331_1.jpg
Fair bit of grind variance being a perk
I don‘t mean to put you off a wonderful vintage grinder, but isn‘t grind variance considered bad? If with that you mean, using the a more technical terminology, heterogeneous particle size distribution. Because that would result in both over- and underextraction happening in your brew at the same time.
Again, if everything works fine for you, don’t let me try fix a problem you don’t have.
You are probably 100% right that a more heterogeneous grind would make a better brew. And tighten steep times. While I try for something around 5-7 minutes it isn’t uncommon for it to be 2-20 minutes. It has still been good coffee, way better than any drip. Frech press is ridiculously robust.
At some point I should borrow a great grinder and test out a bunch of grind/steep time combinations to see what I prefer. And compare it to my normal brew. Perhaps there is a light for me to see.
In my scenario, I don‘t have control over the grind size as I’m trying to work with pre-ground beans. But even though I might give that a try.
Check my other comment. I grind using an old timey grinder. Not sure what condition the grinding parts are in as I don’t know how they should look new. So your pre-ground should be fine. Probably with a but shorter steep (2-4 minutes?). You biggest issue may be oxidation of your coffee.
You do know you can fake a french press by just putting water and beans in a container, let it steep and once done pour through a fine sieve.
I read your other comment and even replied to it IIRC, thanks for tuning in on the other discussion as well!
Doing some sort of immersion sounds reasonable when I can’t do cold brew. I also like the idea of implementing some advanced self filtering with a kitchen sieve, where I could easily just sieve the coffee again through the same grounds and probably catch most of the sediment that way.
