How do you make *your* coffee?

Good move

We’re “throwbacks” to the '50s in this house. We use an eight cup Percolator for our coffee making. Takes about 30 minutes to make a pot, but well worth the wait.

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I make my Green Mountain coffee when I first come to work (between 6am-8am) - about 4 cups which all fit into my huge mug. Then I reheat it again and again in the microwave (I know, yuck right?) and finish drinking it around 10am. Then I repeat and the second round will take me to about 12pm. On weekends, we always go out for breakfast, and have a cappuccino (I like Tatte’s, Cafe Landwer or Cafe Nero in Boston).

Coffee is one of the few food items I’m not obsessively picky about, it just has to be decent. I grind beans with a basic burr grinder then pour over Chemex with paper filter. I like iced coffee so I make it the night before and put it in the fridge and take to work in a thermos with milk and ice. I like Peet’s Columbia Luminosa, it’s a lighter roast (at least for Peet’s) or similar. I don’t buy Sightglass, Blue Bottle, et al. , mainly because I find it offensive to pay $20 for 12 ounces of beans.

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We keep it pretty simple around here. Freshly ground every day and dripped; on weekends it’s often Cafe Du Monde with chicory in the French press. We both take it with cream, and a little raw sugar. Buy the KS whole beans at Costco usually, or Peet’s. 100% Kona when we can find it for a good price in Hawaii Costco’s.

Used to have an espresso maker, but it gave up the ghost a few years ago & we haven’t replaced it.

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I used to hand over to Peet’s something close to the national debt for beans every month. Then I got tired of grinding at home and switched to ground. Then I found Peet’s at my local (every Sunday) flea market at $4-5/pound. These packs are at the end of the roast date, but hermetically sealed and except for the scent of fresh grind in the kitchen, I can’t tell the difference.

French press. Usually Ethiopian, sometimes Major Dickinson blend.

Works for me, guests compliment, mavens need not apply.

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This is how it starts

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Wow, that’s a great price! My Costco carries whole bean Major Dickinson’s Blend for around $7.50 per pound, which is the best price I’ve seen. I stock up on the rare occasion they have a sale. $4-5 is a steal!

LOL, that’s a monster! Very cool.

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George Howell coffee beans have spoiled me…ground then brewed in a chemex on weekends, or made in French press on weekends. Drink it black. Nothing else needed!
Coffee is the best!

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I have a gaggia academia from whole Latte Love. It is considered a super automatic machine. My son has one to two cups of cappuccino when he is in town but I have to rush and make a cup of Taster’s Choice Instant coffee every morning as soon as I wake up or I am not alive! I would have a cup of cappuccino later on if I still feel I need something but I like to spike mine later with Tia Maria or Kahlua. I buy my whole coffee beans from Whole latte Love. Had been using Illy for the past 20 years or so prior to retiring, being it rom Whole Foods but now, I just order it from Whole Latte Love. Lately, they recommended the Lavazza super crema and it seems to be have taken over our Illy coffee need as I buy enough for free shipping but found an airspace SS container that will prevent the coffee beans from getting stale once we open a bag.

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I used an Aeropress for many years with a variety of coffee beans, fresh ground with a burr grinder. I quite liked the Costco brands, but generally prefer any darker roast (French, Sumatra, etc.). I tried Nespresso when I was in Switzerland on business, and was so pleasantly surprised (after having kind of mediocre experiences with a Keurig, Tassimo and other one button machines;they didn’t seem worth the counter space). I moved, got a bigger kitchen, found out Nespresso actually recycles its capsules, and was sold.

Going on 3 yrs now with the Nespresso, and have converted all my family members to go for one too. Now any trip to Europe for work includes bringing a duffle bag and finding a local Nespresso shop.

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As of two days ago, I’ve switched methods. There are several persistent problems with the Clever dripper, one being that it’s not dishwasher safe and tends to build up mildew between the cone and valve release plate unless you occasionally soak it in bleach water. Second, the release valve begins to fail after 6 months to a year and then, annoyingly, coffee leaks all over the countertop/coaster. I’ve bought probably five or six Clever drippers over the past few years, and this has happened to all of them. Third, it’s easy to overextract the coffee if you don’t remember to drain it in time. Fourth, if your cup is smaller than the reservoir cone, it will overflow and send a coffee waterfalls across your kitchen.

So my new method is a twist on the slow pour:

OXO BREW Single Serve Pour Over Coffee Dripper with Auto-Drip Water Tank https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ENK41Q6/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_wjdlEbX00EA88

It seems to be working very well so far. And I use about half the amount of coffee grounds (more doesn’t fit), so I expect our coffee bean consumption will go down significantly.

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Good timing for this thread to resurface.
My old Krups died the other day. Simple drip machine. In red. Don’t think I’ll find that again. I’m trying all my backups that have been on the shelf for years.
Might be time for a new toy :teddy_bear:

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Behmor for roasting a bonavita when I don’t want to do a pour over.

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Melitta 10-cup carafe/filter, for the past 30+ years. Cheap (not quite as cheap as the last one I bought, 10+ years ago, but what is? the 6-cup version now costs what I paid for mine back then.) Surprisingly heat retentive despite the thinness of the glass carafes, also maybe a little surprisingly durable despite same (I’ve only broken a carafe once, and that straight-up dropped on the floor - fortunately empty…) The only annoying thing is that they no longer sell replacement filter holders (only), and because the holders are   plastic, it’s not the easiest thing to get all the grunge that eventually builds up out of the ridges without scratching the plastic. Still, I drop the filter holder way more often than the carafe, so a glass/ceramic holder wouldn’t be ideal for me…

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I’ve always wondered (though not enough to Google it, since the Interwebz was invented), how do you clean   Chemex carafes? A “bottle” brush?

I’m not - by any means :grin: - a clean-freak, but I do like to be able to give cookware a really  good scrub every once in a while when the mood strikes, and not being able to get my hand inside the carafe has always been the Line I Couldn’t Cross to actually buy one (though that’s partly also because I don’t see it being dramatically different than the Melitta pots I’ve been using for about the same length of time you’ve been using the Chemex…)

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Cleaning is easy enough. The wooden collar comes off and hot soapy water with yes, a bottle brush
does the trick as will a couple of paper towels and a wooden spoon.
I like the heft of the chemex, I can heat up the contents on the gas stove and its complete, no filter holder to contend with, just the filter.
I have a small Melitta filter set up at work and do hate the grungy stuff too but it cleans well enough
in the DW top rack.
I’m not sure its really different from your set up either, I bought my first one a long time ago and stuck with it because the coffee is consistent and I can make it as strong as I like and as much or as little as I like.
Why mess with it?
Whole Foods, World Market and Crate & Barrel carry the Chemex line if you wanted to check them out.

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I have an all glass Chemex with a glass handle, so no wooden/leather parts like some. I just rinse it after making coffee and once every week or two if I notice a brown haze starting to form I put it in the dishwasher and it comes out like new.

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Wow! Well, nothing quite that impressive but I have a Wilfa coffeemaker. I grind my Cafe Cultivo in an Oxo burr grinder and it’s heaven. Cafe Cultivo is straight up Colombian. Imported by a gentleman who, as it happens, lives close by. When I run out, I order, he drops it off on my porch and picks up the check I leave taped to my door.

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