Wow this is a great resource.

When my burr grinder comes im gonna have to watch a few YouTube to refresh myself with the process and dig into these. I'd imagine most of these people are on YouTube?

Is he also using the same tools and what drink are you talking about exactly?

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people wanting to improve their homemade cappuccino or latte macchiato should look into getting a higher quality milk foamer and work on their foaming skills instead of buying a high end espresso machine. At least if they have a decent one already.

One of my local coffee shops makes an insanely good Bourbon Vanilla Latte. I spent a lot of time trying to replicate their store made syrup but never quite got there even though I went through 5 batches and half a bottle of bourbon on that project.

Yea in this case it was a pour over.

I would love to do espresso at home but I know the machine makes the espresso and I'm not ready to stump up thousands of dollars for a home espresso machine worthy of making stuff that can replicate a coffee shop

Coffee guys, I've got some noob questions

What is the knock on the normal drip type coffee makers?

How do you normally order your coffee at your preferred coffeeshop?

You guys always drinking it black??

Anyway I'm in mexico (yucatan) now and I think I'm gonna go out and find a french press and bag of ground beans from a nicer coffee shop and experiment a little bit. Maybe eventually I'll buy a cheap grinder. Good thread, thanks for the tips!

They’re not making very good coffee. But if you are happy with the results you get from them, there’s no reason to change.

Regular coffee? Yes.

Coffee drinks? No. I don’t like anything that contains a lot of milk without being at least a little sweet. Never would drink straight milk, but don’t mind drinking milk from the cereal bowl.

Espresso: Depends. Some people advice to never put sugar but sometimes I just feel like it. And occasionally I even go for an espresso macchiato. Not a fan of Americanos though.

I guess I'd like to see what I'm missing out on! But why do they make inferior coffee, the filter? The water temperature?

There's nothing wrong with drip coffee makers per se, it's just that your regular (cheap) drip coffee machine doesn't do a good job at making coffee. From water temperature to the fact that the water flows through the ground coffee in a highly unbalanced and inefficient manner to the problem of putting a hot plate underneath the finished product to keep the coffee warm.

There are really good drip coffee machines on the market for example the Technivorm Moccamaster. A friend of mine got a Café machine (https://www.bestbuy.com/site/cafe-dr...?skuId=6421032) for Christmas and has been raving about it, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

The problem is that those machines cost 10x what most people want to invest. The #1 drip coffee maker on Amazon costs half of what you pay for a (totally manual) Chemex of the same size.

Basically the same with coffee grinders. A cheap electric conical grinder costs less than a good manual burr grinder.

Drip coffee making is basically an electric, automatic pour over. It's a perfectly good way to make coffee. The problem is that warmer; it stays on by default and keeps heating the already brewed coffee making it taste like ass.

I always drink my coffee black. Really good coffee from a proper coffee shop is just so freakin delicious I can't imagine adding anything to that.

I don't drink milk so my go to drinks are: americano, pour over and an iced almond milk latte as a treat on a hot summer day. If I'm on vacation in a country with great coffee I'll often enjoy an espresso as well, but don't tend to do that as much here.

My wife's family lives in Brazil so one of my favorite coffee experiences is going to the gelateria, which has surprisingly good espresso and getting an espresso which they serve with a complimentary spoonful of vanilla gelato in a tiny waffle bowl and a shot glass of seltzer water. Really is a fantastic coffee drinking experience and seems to be the norm across the board at these kinds of places

+1. I use a drip coffee maker, but I did a lot of research to find one that heats the water to a good and consistent temp, and I use a thermal carafe. Problem solved. I also use a french press when I'm camping, and I don't find it superior to a good drip machine, though admittedly I'm camping so I just estimate the water temp.

I used to use an automatic grind and brew, but that's a cleaning hell, so I went back to using a separate grinder. TBH, I do not taste a difference between grinder types. The freshness and coarse/fineness of the grind definitely makes a big difference, but I find that you can get the grind you want out of basically any grinder if you're used to it.

I'm certainly no expert on that subject but just based on the different method of grinding, burr vs. conical, I have a hard time believing that the results of a conical grinder can look similar to the results of a burr grinder.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Conical grinders use burrs, as do flat burr grinders. I'm talking the difference between burr and blade.

IME, burr is much easier to get a consistent grind, but if you agitate your blade grinder and have a good eye, you can get the grind you want very quickly.

As far as difference within burr types, I really don't have enough experience to speak to it. I'm guessing if you can tell the difference between these types, you wouldn't even want to consider a blade grinder. It works fine for me, though.

I would amend this to say that it CAN be a perfectly good way to make coffee, if it's well-designed. The reason drip machines have a bed rep is simply because most of the cheaper ones on the market are truly horrible. They just do not do a even remotely decent job of extracting flavor. Usually this is because the drip temperature of the water is too low, and because the distribution of the water over the grounds is poor. I can show you pictures of cheap machines that are so poorly designed, the water literally never touches half the coffee grounds.

Here is a list of models that are supposed to be good, according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America. (I haven't used any, so I can't say)

Exactly right. The Motif Essential I have does make a damn good cup of drip coffee but it fixes a lot of these problems - good temp control, prewetting, better coverage etc. and the thermal carafe stays hot for ages.

https://www.motifcoffee.com/products...s-steel-carafe

What do call someone that steals your coffee?

oh man.. cant tell that one til everyones had their coffee!

This is the drip machine I bought. It makes a good cup of coffee. You're able to adjust the water temp, the bloom time and the brew time. It's still not as good as the aeropress but so far it's been satisfactory for me and it makes it so much easier to get that first cup in the morning. It sucks for traveling but when I'm on the road I just load up the electric kettle, grinder and aeropress and I'm good to go. I pretty much narrowed it down to this one or the moccamaster mentioned above. Went with this one because it had more settings to adjust.
https://www.breville.com/us/en/produ...ee/bdc450.html

My Burr grinder is coming tomorrow and way too excited to be making my own coffee again after like a 3 year hiatus. My electric Kettle is here, aeropress ready to go, bought a bag of whole Brazil cerrado beans from our local coffee/shop roaster who makes unreal coffee. Been watching some of the World Champion's who have videos on youtube and been reading over the world champion recipes linked here. I'm sure I will have a million and one questions but I really want to get this to where I can make a good cup at home.

One thing I noticed a lot of the world champs do is essentially aeropress and concentrate then add water to it after. I feel like a lot of the early Aeropress methods and youtube videos had you making a ready to drink cup that never quite tasted right to me, even after I added water.

How are you making aero such that it becomes a hassle? It takes me about a minute to make a cup and a second to rinse the equipment.

The Aeropress coffee I make with a metal filter is markedly inferior to the paper filter kind.

I don't Aeropress nearly as much as I used to though. I'm a lazy "fill up the drip machine while half-asleep" type these days. I've got a 20 buck Black and Decker 12-cup machine that gets the job done.

Does that account for boiling water and things like that?

I stopped using the AeroPress in the morning because I felt it was too much time and hassle for that time of the day. Now I open the fridge, pour a half cup cold brew extract and add a half cup of water. If I feel fancy I might add a splash of almond vanilla creamer or vanilla syrup. If I’m feeling super fancy, it’s a splash of Oatly Barista Edition and vanilla syrup.

Well - that saves me the time of checking out a metal filter, so thank you for that. A cup of aeropress with one of the recipes takes about 6 minutes including start of water kettle. YMMV. I def enjoy the process of making coffee and I'm sure most agree in this thread. Although there are those mornings when you want to shotgun a can of cold brew and be done with it.

Ha this is very helpful information. I was considering a metal filter for no real reason. Now what is this Aeris paper filter that all the World Champs are using?

Agreed! I used the metal filter for a while and switched to double paper filter and am way happier with the result.