Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coffee. Show all posts
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Sunday Morning...
Birds singing... 60°F temps... coffee and cinnamon rolls (from scratch) out on the deck.
Ahhh...
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Coffee, My Coffee...
I found this coffee-house-esque cup for five bucks.
It looks just like the ones you get from coffee shops, except it's totally insulated and microwavable.
Somebody at work has several of them, so I wrote my name on mine...and now it's even MORE "coffee-house-ish". Heh.
It fits the drink holder thingy in the van perfectly.
I haven't yet, but soon I'm going to ask the coffee lady a few doors down from work if I can just pay for their large coffee and have her dispense it right into my cup.
It's really yummy coffee! :)
It looks just like the ones you get from coffee shops, except it's totally insulated and microwavable.
Somebody at work has several of them, so I wrote my name on mine...and now it's even MORE "coffee-house-ish". Heh.
It fits the drink holder thingy in the van perfectly.
I haven't yet, but soon I'm going to ask the coffee lady a few doors down from work if I can just pay for their large coffee and have her dispense it right into my cup.
It's really yummy coffee! :)
Friday, August 27, 2010
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The world needs more gun nut coffee snobs
My net friend GunHugger is a coffee pot collector and was one of the people who initially pointed me to trying a French Press and also clued me about what kind of grinder is best for consistency. Somewhere along all the forum posts and coffee talk, he asked if I had ever tried a vacuum pot to make coffee. No, I had not. I looked through YouTube and watched a few videos to see how they worked. Fascinating.
GunHugger, being a collector, had several of these types of pots and some were duplicates packed away in storage. He was kind enough to just give me one.
At first I was too chicken to try it because I have a very clumsy knack for breaking cool stuff.
But today, I decided that it has been sitting on my counter taunting me long enough.
I filled the carafe with about 6 cups of filtered water. (Because I’m a water snob, too…and good water makes good coffee.)
Then I put the top on. The top part has a tube that extends almost to the bottom of the carafe, and there’s a gasket between the two pieces.
This glass rod acts as a filter and doesn’t allow grounds to pass into the carafe. Not one single ground! Impressive…
It just sits in the tube like so.
Being the first attempt, I know I’ll have to fiddle with the amount of coffee I use before I hit that magic perfection. This time I used a teaspoonful for every cup of water.
All ready to go…
The fire is set medium high underneath and the steamy glass is a telltale sign that something is about to happen.
The vacuum is created and starts to pull the water up the tube to mix with the grounds in the top.
**IMPORTANT EDIT FROM THE COMMENTS**
GunHugger says: "When the water is heated in the bottom section it is pressure built up there that forces the water to the top section."
Most of the water is in the top and what’s left in the bottom that couldn’t reach the tube is boiling. It makes odd “blurping” sounds like a very jacked up percolator.
I let it do that for about 4 minutes and then turned off the fire under it. All the coffee then gets “sucked” back into the carafe sans grounds.
The top came off easier than I expected, since I thought the gasket had probably created a harder seal from the heat and steam. This coffee was really good!
It wasn’t as strong as I like it, so I’ll fiddle with the amount I use next time, but it has the potential for excellence.
THANK YOU, GUNHUGGER!! :-)
GunHugger, being a collector, had several of these types of pots and some were duplicates packed away in storage. He was kind enough to just give me one.
At first I was too chicken to try it because I have a very clumsy knack for breaking cool stuff.
But today, I decided that it has been sitting on my counter taunting me long enough.
I filled the carafe with about 6 cups of filtered water. (Because I’m a water snob, too…and good water makes good coffee.)
Then I put the top on. The top part has a tube that extends almost to the bottom of the carafe, and there’s a gasket between the two pieces.
This glass rod acts as a filter and doesn’t allow grounds to pass into the carafe. Not one single ground! Impressive…
It just sits in the tube like so.
Being the first attempt, I know I’ll have to fiddle with the amount of coffee I use before I hit that magic perfection. This time I used a teaspoonful for every cup of water.
All ready to go…
The fire is set medium high underneath and the steamy glass is a telltale sign that something is about to happen.
The vacuum is created and starts to pull the water up the tube to mix with the grounds in the top.
**IMPORTANT EDIT FROM THE COMMENTS**
GunHugger says: "When the water is heated in the bottom section it is pressure built up there that forces the water to the top section."
Most of the water is in the top and what’s left in the bottom that couldn’t reach the tube is boiling. It makes odd “blurping” sounds like a very jacked up percolator.
I let it do that for about 4 minutes and then turned off the fire under it. All the coffee then gets “sucked” back into the carafe sans grounds.
The top came off easier than I expected, since I thought the gasket had probably created a harder seal from the heat and steam. This coffee was really good!
It wasn’t as strong as I like it, so I’ll fiddle with the amount I use next time, but it has the potential for excellence.
THANK YOU, GUNHUGGER!! :-)
Friday, January 09, 2009
French Press
It’s here! It’s here!
The mailman dropped this off at my door.
My Kenya model Bodum French coffee press was inside! I took everything out and read the directions, even though I had a good idea how it all goes down.
Good thing they put very important information in there…like “remove before using”. The 14-language written instructions were inside the bottom of the press.
Oddly, it didn’t say to wash it first. Since I’m a little bit of a germ freak, I did so anyway.
I got my coffee bean grinder and measured out the appropriate amount of yumminess.
Then I ground them up.
You know that smell of a freshly opened vacuum pack of coffee? Holy mother of all that is aromatic…this is way so much better. I use it every morning for coffee and it’s so much better than grounds from a bag.
Into the press pot they went.
Then I added the almost-boiling-point water.
I gave it a stir with a wooden stir stick (because metal spoons can crack or chip the glass container) making sure all the grounds were thoroughly mixed and wet. A thick foamy top layer appeared, much like you'd see in a fresh beer being poured in a glass. Gas emanating from the beans?
On goes the lid, centered just right.
Four minutes on the timer (next time I’ll go a little longer because I think I'd like it a little stronger).
When time was up, the plunger goes straight down, very slowly…trapping every single ground so none of them end up in your cup.
Into the cup goes the coffee. I can not describe to you the full extent of how awesome this smells. Truly, my nostrils have been kissed by the coffee bean aroma gods.
End product; the most perfectest cup of coffee I think I’ve ever made at home. True excellence.
I must admit I was apprehensive about how the mesh screen would appear when I extracted it. I’ve heard horror stories about how my Mr.Coffee grinder was probably making inconsistent sized grounds (including dust!)that would clog up the screen. I fretted about it.
I was worried. Anxious. Terrified, I tell you. Did you hear that Gunhugger? I may have lost sleep... :p
But thankfully, there wasn’t really anything clinging to it when I brought it to the top and looked. One quick rinse left it like it had just come out of the packing box. Whew.
The mailman dropped this off at my door.
My Kenya model Bodum French coffee press was inside! I took everything out and read the directions, even though I had a good idea how it all goes down.
Good thing they put very important information in there…like “remove before using”. The 14-language written instructions were inside the bottom of the press.
Oddly, it didn’t say to wash it first. Since I’m a little bit of a germ freak, I did so anyway.
I got my coffee bean grinder and measured out the appropriate amount of yumminess.
Then I ground them up.
You know that smell of a freshly opened vacuum pack of coffee? Holy mother of all that is aromatic…this is way so much better. I use it every morning for coffee and it’s so much better than grounds from a bag.
Into the press pot they went.
Then I added the almost-boiling-point water.
I gave it a stir with a wooden stir stick (because metal spoons can crack or chip the glass container) making sure all the grounds were thoroughly mixed and wet. A thick foamy top layer appeared, much like you'd see in a fresh beer being poured in a glass. Gas emanating from the beans?
On goes the lid, centered just right.
Four minutes on the timer (next time I’ll go a little longer because I think I'd like it a little stronger).
When time was up, the plunger goes straight down, very slowly…trapping every single ground so none of them end up in your cup.
Into the cup goes the coffee. I can not describe to you the full extent of how awesome this smells. Truly, my nostrils have been kissed by the coffee bean aroma gods.
End product; the most perfectest cup of coffee I think I’ve ever made at home. True excellence.
I must admit I was apprehensive about how the mesh screen would appear when I extracted it. I’ve heard horror stories about how my Mr.Coffee grinder was probably making inconsistent sized grounds (including dust!)that would clog up the screen. I fretted about it.
I was worried. Anxious. Terrified, I tell you. Did you hear that Gunhugger? I may have lost sleep... :p
But thankfully, there wasn’t really anything clinging to it when I brought it to the top and looked. One quick rinse left it like it had just come out of the packing box. Whew.
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