Coffee Bean Direct Blog

Which Brewer, Which Grinder????

“The equipment you use makes no difference. It’s the quality of the coffee beans that matters. Get yourself an inexpensive drip coffee maker at Wal-mart, use the metal filter (paper filters absorb some of the good compounds from the dripping coffee) and get brewing! As long as you are using fresh, quality coffee beans, your brewed coffee will taste fabulous.” – Anonymous

OK, perhaps a bit tongue-in-cheek, but generally good advice to share with our many customers who frequently ask us to recommend coffee equipment. For our readers who demand more detailed info, I offer this blog-review of the various types of equipment out there for creating that perfect cup of coffee.

Before you read any further, a warning: what follows are my personal opinions. Many of you will disagree with me, and that is just fine. I welcome your feedback, but be nice in the comments section, ok?

French Press

To me, this is the ultimate coffee-drinking experience! To quote directly from Wikipedia (including the British spelling of “flavor”):

Because the coffee grounds remain in direct contact with the brewing water and the grounds are filtered from the water via a mesh instead of a paper filter, coffee brewed with the French press captures more of the coffee’s flavour and essential oils, which would become trapped in a traditional drip brew machine’s paper filters. French pressed coffee is usually stronger and thicker and has more sediment than drip-brewed coffee. Because the used grounds remain in the drink after brewing, French pressed coffee left to stand can become bitter.

The taste of coffee from a press cannot compare to coffee brewed by any other method. If you have never experienced French press coffee, go get yourself a press. You can spend a lot, or not, but you will love it just the same.

One issue with the French press is that it takes a little time to prepare. First, you have to bring your water to a near boil (200 degrees is optimal for brewing). Then you have to wait another 4-5 minutes for the coffee to brew. I don’t know about you, but I would rather use that time for extra sleep. Just between us, sometimes on the weekend I wait for the coffee to be made before I get out of bed just so I can sleep a little longer and have my coffee before I know what’s going on around me.

Another issue is that the coffee doesn’t stay hot for too long. You could get a thermal French press, but you run the risk of over extracting. The water shouldn’t stay in contact with the grounds for any longer then it needs to. The coffee will turn extremely bitter, and the extra work you did for the “perfect cup” will have gone to waste. You could get a carafe, but then you’re out $20 on top of the cost of the press, you’ve added another step to the process, and you have more counter clutter.

I would recommend getting a small French press, perhaps a two-cup, just to see if it’s worth it. One person may see it as extra work for a small reward, and another may see it being well worth the extra effort to enjoy a fantastic cup of coffee. I’ll let you decide.

Automatic Drip Coffee Maker

Good old Mr Coffee came up with the first electric autodrip coffee maker, and to him we owe a debt of gratitude! Autodrip is the standard machine for the home brewer. I actually prep my coffee pot the night before, set my timer, and wake up to a fresh pot of coffee every day.

If this is your brewer of choice, could you do me a favor? Stop buying paper filters! Use the metal filter that now pretty much comes standard with any new drip coffee maker. Of course, the metal filter is better for the environment-since you won’t be throwing out that paper filter every day-but it also brews a much better cup of coffee! That paper filter captures some of the essential oils dripping from the coffee, and what stays in the paper doesn’t end up in your cup! You are cheating yourself of flavor if you’re using the paper filter.

The Old-Fashioned Percolator

Coffee just like grandma (or great-grandma?) used to make. Percolators have been around since the time of the Civil War. I guess I’m just not old enough to have much experience with percolated coffee. Are you? Please, enlighten me.

I must admit that I can count on one finger how many times I’ve had coffee this way. I feel like it’s the worst way to “enjoy” a cup of coffee. It was terribly bitter, and I had to use sugar. Just for the record, I never use sugar. I’m sure there’s a right way and a wrong way to use a percolator, and I’ll bet mine was made the wrong way. Having said that, I’m willing to try it again if I have the opportunity to do so, just not for my morning cup. I don’t think the risk of burning my first cup in the morning is worth the reward, but some people swear by it. Where do you stand?

Single-Cup Machines (K Cups/Coffee Pods/T Discs/Capsules)

They go by many names and are provided by many manufacturers, but they share some basic similarities. I’m talking about those single-cup containers of coffee (I’ll just call them “pods” for the remainder of this section) which fit in special machines to brew one cup of coffee. They’re quite the rage recently because of their perceived convenience. However, that convenience comes with 2 huge disadvantages:

• Freshness. Roasted coffee needs to breathe, to let off natural gasses (which is why we package our coffee in bags with 1-way valves). “Pods” have no way to let that gas escape. So, in order for a manufacturer to put coffee into a “pod” the coffee has to de-gas, which means the ground coffee has to sit open for a day, and that actually speeds up the aging process. By the time the customer actually uses a “pod” to brew some coffee, I would say the coffee is at least 3 months old.

• Cost. Most people do not realize it, but the coffee in “pods” actually ends up costing around $27 dollars per pound. I do not think people who use these machines realize how much money they are actually spending for old coffee.

Grind & Brew machines

If you enjoy doing the dishes, you should definitely get one of these! Every morning, after enjoying your delicious coffee, you must take the machine completely apart and wash every piece so the next day’s brew won’t clog up the grinder.

That is the biggest drawback of these combination machines – the grinder clogs. It clogs if you don’t thoroughly clean it out after each use. It clogs if you like dark roasts because the beans are oily and the oil + grounds clump. People buy these machines because they think they’ll save time not having to transfer beans to grinder then grounds to machine, but they end up spending more time cleaning the machine out at the end of the brew!

The manufacturer’s solution to the dark roast (oily) beans issue? Pour the beans on a paper towel and blot off the oil before putting them in the grinder. And this is supposed to be a time saver? Sounds like a mess to me.

Grinders: To Burr or To Blade?

Conventional wisdom tells us the burr grinder is superior to the blade grinder. And the slightly higher price of burr grinders supports that wisdom.

Basically, the burr grinder produces coffee grounds of more uniform size than blade grinders. With a blade grinder, some of the coffee will become pulverized to powder which is a special problem if you are using an espresso machine; coffee from a blade grinder will probably clog your espresso machine.

It isn’t that much more money to get yourself a burr grinder, but in this economy, it probably isn’t worth it to trash your current blade grinder. But when your current grinder dies and you have to buy a new one anyway, make it a burr grinder. OK?

Words of Wisdom From Our President

We were going to take a survey of everyone in the office to see how each person prepares his/her morning cup, but that would make this blog go on for far too long. Instead, I’ll just close with words of wisdom from the man who started it all:

For years, I used a French press and was quite fanatical about brewing only 1 “perfect” cup at a time. I would grind the beans only minutes before brewing.

Then, one holiday season, I was hosting a large family party at my home and my parents brought over a Cuisinart autodrip machine. Incredibly convenient – I’ve been using that ever since.

I’m not even sure my parents realize they left it behind. But I figure, with all the great coffee I give them over the years, they owe me something! And I no longer grind coffee mere moments before brewing. Once a week, I grind what I need at the CBD warehouse in a single batch.

Andrew
President
Coffee Bean Direct

PS: For more information on coffee grinding and brewing, Wikipedia actually has some pretty good articles.