How are your coffee beans lately? Mine are AWFUL!

[ian]

479768


I WILL get satisfaction dammit!

Just have to rub the salt off a small quantity of nuts and crush them. ...
Even after adding premium peanuts it will still be cheaper than the blend I made, and a better flavour.
"rub the salt off" -- you philistine ...

what's wrong with the UNSALTED peanuts from Kingaroy the "peanut capital of Australia" ?
AUD $5.45 from here: Australian Unsalted Peanuts | J.C.'s Quality Foods (https://www.jcsqualityfoods.com.au/product/australian-unsalted-peanuts/) to name just one source




"nibbling Nobby's [salted] nuts" can only take you so far ...

[FenceFurniture]

"rub the salt off" -- you philistine ...:D

Aldi had no peanuts whatsoever, so across the road to Woolies and I wasn't going to buy their probably stale, probably average generic brand, so it had to be Nobby's Salted. :shrug: The I came across the third section of Nuts in whole foods, but couldn't see peanuts there either. Also I only really wanted to buy a snack sized packet (not available) because I know what will happen to the balance of them after I crush perhaps 70-80 grams....

[FenceFurniture]

FYI - just bought 3 lots of the four-bag samplers (250g x 4) from Sicilia Coffee | Freshly Roasted | Buy Online | Delivery Aus Wide (https://www.siciliacoffee.com.au/)Ev, how long did delivery take, and which option did you select? Can't see their address anywhere and an 08 phone number could be Adelaide or Perth.

[woodPixel]

Ev, how long did delivery take, and which option did you select? Can't see their address anywhere and an 08 phone number could be Adelaide or Perth.

Overnight. I ordered Tuesday (late), shipped Wednesday, here (Canberra) at 10am Thursday morning. It was their cheapest option.

It was only $5 for delivery as well.

Its an Adelaide biz.



I'm enjoying the new ones. The current, just finished, sampler is "Di Lusso". Enjoyable. I've now 11 baggies to go :)

Though, this is bad, I've had so many coffees each day that I was a bit worried! My hand was shaking, my heart was thudding.... time to trim it back a bit :)


(Edit - Days delivered, plus Fastway tracked courier. Still was only $5)

[FenceFurniture]

Rightio, I've ordered 2 x 4 Sample packs from Sicilia.

Currently the Moka pot is disassembled and boiling away in some dilute vinegar, for maybe 15 minutes or so. I'll flush it off then and repeat the boiling with some Bicarb Soda.

[FenceFurniture]

So boiling in very weak vinegar and then Bicarb is done (about 2 tsp Bicarb to 10 litres). The vinegar didn't dislodge anything but the pot was nice and shiny after it. OTOH, the bicarb follow-up did dislodge some stuff - not a huge amount but certainly visible.

Just bought a fresh packet of Campos to get us through until the Silicia arrives, and I'm finally having the standard of coffee I have come to expect from this set up! It would seem that when crap beans are put through this Moka pot they leave a residual crap flavour which then takes a number of subsequent brews to get rid of.

Perhaps I need to boil the pot in Bicarb maybe once per month to freshen it up.

[FenceFurniture]

With the pot, perhaps boil it in a big pot with some sort of cleaning solution, like BiCarb or a coffee-machine cleaning sauce/powder? Dissolve all the crap off it and get it nice and fresh again?WP, this was the best idea you've had in your life! :2tsup: I have previously reported how it freshened up the pot and got the foul flavour out of it.

It seems I may have to do this more than monthly, as this morning I though the flavour wasn't quite "there" so I boiled the pot up again in Bicarb. Sho'nuff it fixed it. So I got to thinking about the old pot.....

Jaysus, you should have seen the crud that came out of it! The 10 litres of water it was boiled in was the colour of weak tea, and with significant carbon sediment. Much of it was in the pipe the goes up through the top part, where the coffee liquor is pushed up. And this was after thoroughly washing, compressed air, high pressure water up the cloaca, more washing, left in a cupboard for months so it dried out and dropped its enormous carbon load (about 1½ teaspoons!), then more water pressure and washing.

[woodPixel]

Here is another thing.... :) I was given 15 boxes of ten Nascafe coffee pods, all different types, for Xmas last year.

That day I pulled the little machine out of the cupboard and upon firing it up for the first time in years, it emitted ALL of its magic blue smoke :(

So.... the pods were put into the cupboard and forgotten....


Today wifey-poo was clearing out some accumulated accoutrement and came upon them. Asked why I couldn't slice the foil cap off and use these in the Breville espresso machine..... GENIUS!!!

Opened 10 pods, dumped them into a container and proceeded to make 4 outstanding espressos over the day.... amazing!

[woodPixel]

WP, this was the best idea you've had in your life! :2tsup: I have previously reported how it freshened up the pot and got the foul flavour out of it.

Boiling a pot in another pot and removing foul flavours from things is my forte.

:)

[fiveeyes]

A rare chime-in..when i carried a vacuum bottle while in the field, hunting, I cleaned them with TSP.
An hours soak, and good as new. Both stainless, and an old glass one. YMMV

[FenceFurniture]

FYI - just bought 3 lots of the four-bag samplers (250g x 4) from Sicilia Coffee | Freshly Roasted | Buy Online | Delivery Aus Wide (https://www.siciliacoffee.com.au/)My two lots of 4 samples arrived yesterday arvo. Have tried two so far (Organic and Crema Ultimo) and they are both very good and quite different to each other. I suspect that the two blended together would be a very satisfactory mix as the Crema would add a little punch to the Organic.

I started with the Organic as I expected it to be ordinary at best, but was very pleasantly surprised. All of the organic coffee I've had to date has been particularly ordinary and flavourless (especially Macro brand). There doesn't seem to be the necessity to have flavour, just an "organic" label (for suckers?).

[ian]

There doesn't seem to be the necessity [for organic coffee] to have flavour, just an "organic" label (for suckers?).I believe the technical term is the "halo effect"

chuck an "organic" label on the sweepings from the floor and the resulting crud must be "better for you"

[FenceFurniture]

How are you coffee beans now? Mine are still GREAT!

I boil up the Mocha pots in a weak bicarb solution every 2-3 weeks to clean them up, but the biggest improvement was the coffee itself from siciliacoffee.com.au. Formata de Famiglia for me and at $58 for 3kg inc post, it's very reasonable, and 5kg even better at $89.


It seems that I prefer my coffee to be brewed for at least 4-6 hours and settled, rather than freshly boiled. I guess it's a bit like a curry - the flavour improves with a little age. So the routine now is to brew the night before, put it in a bottle for the fridge after a little room cooling. The results I'm getting are very very consistent....and yummy. The acidic front recedes and the warm flavours are developed.

I have to say that I can't detect much difference in freshly ground as opposed to grinding a whole batch and packing it down into two containers to squeeze out the air. If I do a whole kilo it lasts for about 10 days and is very consistent for the period.

[FenceFurniture]

My Aldi coffee grinder has become a slow PITA. It's only 10 months old, but for the last 2 months it only grinds half the qty in the same time time. Blew it out with CA in case of a blockage, checked the internals - all seems ok. Nearest I can tell is that it is having a bean feed issue. Anyway, they are going to refund my $100, so now I have to find another grinder. I was actually very happy with the Stirling (Aldi brand) with the small exception of the static electricity it imparted onto the grind (made things very messy).

So, bearing in mind that I want to grind batches of ½-1kg at a time, does anyone have a grinder to recommend? Maybe the Aldi one might come back on this March, and I'd be willing to risk it again - there's a 3 year warranty on them. However, a grinder with more steel parts (rather than plastic) might be less inclined to impart the static electricity (it's all good until I take the lid off to scoop out the coffee and then it flies around like crazy - humid weather seems to help though).

[woodPixel]

Im no expert, but I worked for a time with an old codger who was. Man was he picky about grinding.

He swore that something called a "conical burr" was the only way to get a good grind.

This may be meaningless, but it is the sum total of my knowledge!!! :B

LMK, I wouldn't mind one too. The side one on the Breville BES860 is OK.... but perhaps could be better? :rolleyes:

[FenceFurniture]

A conical burr is the way to go. They yield more oil (and thus crema) than blade grinders do. The Aldi jobbie is a conical burr. The mechanism is simply one grooved (burred) male inside a burred female, and to adjust the grind they are simply moving further apart (coarse) or closer together (fine) by winding the mechanism.

The Beratza Encore (https://alternativebrewing.com.au/product/baratza-encore/) is looking good for my use. The Breville has (I think) too many bells and whistles for the price to be properly reliable. I just don't need all that stuff, and it's more stuff to go wrong. I use one grind setting (finest) so a 200 micron grind sounds pretty good. Nor do I care about a dosage setting - ½kg at a time thanks. There's a vid at the bottom of that link, and when it finishes there's a better vid will show up by James Bailey.

[q9]

I've got a Melitta conical, but iron, not ceramic. Bought it...8 or 9 years ago. Still grinding away, one or two times a day.

[BobL]

I've had my conical burr Mazza Mini since 2004 and I replaced the hardened sintered steel burrs in 2018.
I was having problems with flow consistency (same beans same tamp pressure etc) so I asked a coffee nerd friend (who spent a few years as machine field tech) about this and he suggested it could be worn burrs and asked me how much coffee had been ground by my grinder. When I told him it would be close to 500kg of coffee ihe recommended my grinder burrs should be replaced
The replacement burrs cost $100.

Because my machine turned out to also have water flow problems around the same time (which I had to fix) it was hard to say how much improvement the new burrs made made. I don't really care - it works great now.

The grinder nerds are currently into burr alignment which apparent causes a wider distribution of grind sizes. The SOP is to correct this with thin paper shims but my coffee nerd friend is looking at getting me to turn up some Al spacers/shims deal with this - a bit beyond me I have to say.

My other (decaf) grinder is an Iberital Challenger - Spanish made also has conical burrs. Quite a good grinder for the price.
That has ground about 200kg of coffee - still seems to be working just fine.

[Optimark]

After 16 years my Lelit combination machine started to play dead. I needed a grinder and coffee machine to replace it.

The grinder I chose is

Eureka Specialita | White | $869 | Free Shipping | Best Price | Italian Coffee Grinders | Melbourne (https://www.kbean.com.au/coffee-grinders/eureka-mignon-specialita-white)

So far it has been brilliant, and I mean brilliant.

I coupled it with a Lelit Mara X coffee machine, I'm now in coffee heaven.

Mick.

[FenceFurniture]

Eureka Specialita | White | $869 | Free Shipping | Best Price | Italian Coffee Grinders | Melbourne (https://www.kbean.com.au/coffee-grinders/eureka-mignon-specialita-white)I (cough), should bloody well hope so! :D

[Glider]

WP, this was the best idea you've had in your life! :2tsup: I have previously reported how it freshened up the pot and got the foul flavour out of it.

It seems I may have to do this more than monthly, as this morning I though the flavour wasn't quite "there" so I boiled the pot up again in Bicarb. Sho'nuff it fixed it. So I got to thinking about the old pot.....

Jaysus, you should have seen the crud that came out of it! The 10 litres of water it was boiled in was the colour of weak tea, and with significant carbon sediment. Much of it was in the pipe the goes up through the top part, where the coffee liquor is pushed up. And this was after thoroughly washing, compressed air, high pressure water up the cloaca, more washing, left in a cupboard for months so it dried out and dropped its enormous carbon load (about 1½ teaspoons!), then more water pressure and washing.

Brett, mate...we've got to talk. Next time I come through... I have to be careful here because I'd have to take my socks off to count the number of cups of coffee I've bummed at your place and good coffees they were.

You shouldn't have any residue in your Mocha machine. I know I'm a Bialetti guy with a flat bottomed aluminium pot and you're a stainless steel round bottomed disciple, but we can put those differences aside and discuss different ways of approaching the best cuppa.

The residue stems from coffee being left to dry out and burn in the bottom of a very hot pot. Here's what I learned in Italy. Leave the lid up during the initial heating period and right through the time it's perking. It won't splash out, believe me. You will both see and hear when the water in the base is getting low. Take it off the burner and pour the brew. Once the pot cools, there should be liquid in the bottom. Rinse it and you should end up with a pretty clean pot.

Here a couple of pics of my little Bialetti to prove my point. It's never been cleaned other than cold water rinse since it was new about four years ago.

490640 490641

mick :)

[delbs]

Sounds like too much fine wood dust or maybe COVID19?

My coffee beans are fine (but am paying around 4X what you're paying) been purchasing from the same roaster since 1994?.

Hey BobL, What sort of coffee machine do you use? is it an espresso style machine?

[delbs]

Brett, mate...we've got to talk. Next time I come through... I have to be careful here because I'd have to take my socks off to count the number of cups of coffee I've bummed at your place and good coffees they were.

You shouldn't have any residue in your Mocha machine. I know I'm a Bialetti guy with a flat bottomed aluminium pot and you're a stainless steel round bottomed disciple, but we can put those differences aside and discuss different ways of approaching the best cuppa.

The residue stems from coffee being left to dry out and burn in the bottom of a very hot pot. Here's what I learned in Italy. Leave the lid up during the initial heating period and right through the time it's perking. It won't splash out, believe me. You will both see and hear when the water in the base is getting low. Take it off the burner and pour the brew. Once the pot cools, there should be liquid in the bottom. Rinse it and you should end up with a pretty clean pot.

Here a couple of pics of my little Bialetti to prove my point. It's never been cleaned other than cold water rinse since it was new about four years ago.

490640 490641

mick :)

Good to see these espresso pots/ mocha pots/ Bialetti setups on here. I have been using one that i picked up from Ikea a while ago with the intention of just trying it out as it was cheap and eventually picking up a Bialetti or even a dedicated coffee machine.

I thought initially that the pressure might not be sufficient enough to brew a strong espresso or long black as i dont have any sugar or milk or cold water but ive been surprised over the past 18months or so. ive tweaked a couple things such as beans from Aldi to Ona (Hitman beans) and my grinder, since moving from a hand grinder which produced larger granules i moved to this electric breville grinder i've been able to extract a much richer flavor than previously and makes me think i might not need to coffee machine after all.

[BobL]

Hey BobL, What sort of coffee machine do you use? is it an espresso style machine?

Yes I am a hard core double or triple espresso drinker although in summer I do have the odd iced coffee (double shot over a mug full of ice topped off with milk)
I have a Ca metabolism problem so can't drink too many. Some times I have a double shot macchiato but use pure cream (much less Ca) instead of Milk.

The machine I have is a Cimbali Junior that I bought 17 years ago that weighs ~35kg, back then it cost about $3.5k
It's a single group version of the older Cimballi multi group heads.

The machine has been modified it substantially.
The first things i did was removed the water tank , added pressure reducing valve and plumbed it into a mains water, purified (reverse osmosis) water system.
The waste tray was also plumbed into the under sink sewage pipes.
The parts for the water purification system are nominally valued at about $600 but I got them from a mate in the water purification business for about half that.
Using purified water means I have only needed to descale the boiler 3 times in 17 years and the last time I did it it probably didn't really need it.

The machine is left on many hours of the day so there has been some plumbing wear and tear over the years.
I have replaced the brass steam valve, one of the solenoids, and the boiler draw back valve. The hot water valve weeps occasionally so it also needs replacing.
Last year the on/off touch pad switches on the front of the machine died - replacement was going to cost ~$100 so I bypassed that by adding small momentary switch next to the old switches.

A couple of years ago I replace the noisy vibe pump with a commercial rotary pump drive by a 1/8HP 3P motor and a small VFD.
The pump/motor/VFD and pressure sensors are in a cupboard under the machine.
I also added a microprocessor and LCD display to read and display a bunch of things
Some details of that conversion here
Coffee machine experiments (https://metalworkforums.com/f309/t203747-coffee-machine-experiments).
This was before the modification - the grinder on the left is an Iberital, the one on the right is the Mazzer Mini.
490651

For camping we use SS Moka pots. Being of Italian descent we had these at home and I still like this kind of brew.

During the naughties I got seriously into coffee and even trained as barista competition judge but it was too expensive to maintain accreditation so I stopped doing it after 2 years.
I judged a few local comps but my taste buds aren't sensitive enough to be a higher end judge - I eat too much spice and strongly flavoured foods.
During the accreditation examination I only JUST passed the sensory sections of the exam.

[woodPixel]

The machine I have is a Cimbali Junior....

Bob, there is not much of that machine LEFT to be called a Cimbali :)

Its the ship of Theseus!

:)

[BobL]

Bob, there is not much of that machine LEFT to be called a Cimbali :)

Its the ship of Theseus!

:)

Yeah sometimes I think that way too.

About 95% of the machine is still original, and apart from the pump and pump switch switch I have generally used brand name parts so I think it can still be called a Cimbali. These days I do use non- Cimbali original consumables like silicone group head gaskets, and I replace some raging fibre washers with home made phosphor bronze ones.

One right royal PITA was I dropped the plastic (ABS?) drip tray about 10 years years back and it created a small crack the inside teh tray so that dirty water would leak over the electrical controls. I cleaned the crack out and applied some rubberised epoxy (slightly flexible) but that only lasted about 6 months. On asking what a replacement cost it was about $120 :oo:

Teh crack grew so that it spanned across the whole bottom of teh tray and I re-glued it multiple times. Eventually I mixed up about 50 ml of epoxy clear and poured that into the tray and tilted the tray back and for the so the epoxy ran up the sides of the tray forming a sort epoxy layer all over the inside of the tray. This has been there for abut 3 years and although its yellowed it's still good and solid.