Woodworking Coffee Adicts

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Originally Posted by Ozkaban

Interesting Bob. Would explain why many long blacks come with no Crema at all.

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That - combined with stale coffee (beans and/or grinds) and/or over extracted.

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Though when I make them at home, I boil the kettle and allow it to sit for a little while (have never measured the temp), then add two shots of coffe to it, and have always had plenty of crema.

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If you roast your own you are Waaaaay in front and letting the kettle sit is also a much better way to do it. Same with plunger and instant coffee..

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Oh, and when I say lingering, I mean not drinking it within a few seconds. I'm not just drinking it for the caffiene, but to relax and enjoy the drink for a bit. May not be the pure way of doing it, but that's the way I like it :rolleyes:

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Sure - I appreciate lingering over a coffee but then again I can take milk or occasionally for my second lingering cup I might have a warm long black. My mornings start with one or two espressos (both double shots) and then I'l have a milky one to linger with, on weekends I might then have a second milky or sometimes a long black

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Interesting about the milk too, though I find milk diltues and competes with the flavour so much.

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Yep I agree, which I why I prefer a 14g coffee shot with milk. My lingering milky's are only moderately hot and flat: 25 ml Espresso, 30-40 ml cold "half and half" milk and then ~100 ml of moderately hot water. This maximises the coffee taste.

Steaming the milk increases the dissolved concentration of lactose which is why warmed milk tastes sweeter and if you don't like sweetness or lactose that is not going to help either. I tend to just use cold milk.

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An Australian cappuccino is 30-60ml coffee and about 170ml milk/froth (as opposed to the 30ml shot, 30ml milk, 30ml froth that is supposed to be in traditional italian cappuccinos...) Milk has a reasonably strong flavour and I just don't like it in coffee.

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I agree - 170-180 g of milk and froth is way too much milk and it then becomes more of a coffee milkshake
Most Italian's don't know how to steam milk properly and tend to over steam it.

I also like what I call a minicap, 25 ml 14g (double shot) espressos with 25 ml of lightly textured steamed milk - minimum froth. Yum

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Originally Posted by BobL

Steaming the milk increases the dissolved concentration of lactose which is why warmed milk tastes sweeter

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Ah! A friend and I were talking abou this over a coffee this morning. (Although he has stopped having coffee. It all started when he had a killer flu and then he discovered that he didn't have heart burn anymore. :C He just gets to complain about the tea now. :doh: )

By the way, I had a wonderful coffee at RIPE this morning in Sassafras in the Dandenong Ranges,Victoria. Wonderful food too. Even worth riunning the gauntlet of pushbike riders on the weekends. :rolleyes::D

My worst coffee is not so much a horror story as a bit of time travel.
We were driving up in the wimmera and noticed a sign saying "real coffee". We went in and ordered two coffees. Instant coffee from a catering sized tin with undissolved lumps and the spoons still in the mugs. Served to us at chipped laminex tables.
Turned out that the "real coffee" related to a brand of ice-cream.
Cheers,
Jim

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Originally Posted by jimbur

Turned out that the "real coffee" related to a brand of ice-cream.
Cheers,
Jim

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Coffee ice cream would have been worth the stop!!! That Connoisseur Cafe Grande ice cream is unreal :2tsup:

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Originally Posted by BobL

T...letting the kettle sit is also a much better way to do it. Same with plunger and instant coffee..

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Good idea... will try it next time i do plunger

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Originally Posted by BobL

I also like what I call a minicap, 25 ml 14g (double shot) espressos with 25 ml of lightly textured steamed milk - minimum froth. Yum

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Kinda like a longer than standard mac. I tried it at lunch - it was quite enjoyable. Much more intense flavour for the whole cup. I have dubbed it the 'Cafe Bob' - bobaccino didn't seem right :doh:, and shal be a fixture from now on :2tsup:

Cheers,
Dave

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Originally Posted by Ozkaban

Coffee ice cream would have been worth the stop!!! That Connoisseur Cafe Grande ice cream is unreal :2tsup:
Good idea... will try it next time i do plunger

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Coffee icecream YUM :2tsup:

I once had a Coffee icecream affogatto with crushed carmelized sugar wafers and a drizzle of Kahlua - Just a tinse over the top maybe:rolleyes:

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Kinda like a longer than standard mac. I tried it at lunch - it was quite enjoyable. Much more intense flavour for the whole cup. I have dubbed it the 'Cafe Bob' - bobaccino didn't seem right :doh:, and shal be a fixture from now on :2tsup:

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Yep - extra long mac :2tsup:

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Originally Posted by Ozkaban

Coffee ice cream would have been worth the stop!!! That Connoisseur Cafe Grande ice cream is unreal :2tsup:
Good idea... will try it next time i do plunger

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Coffee icecream YUM :2tsup:

I once had a Coffee icecream affogatto with crushed carmelized sugar wafers and a drizzle of Kahlua - Just a tinse over the top maybe:rolleyes:

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Kinda like a longer than standard mac. I tried it at lunch - it was quite enjoyable. Much more intense flavour for the whole cup. I have dubbed it the 'Cafe Bob' - bobaccino didn't seem right :doh:, and shal be a fixture from now on :2tsup:

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Yep - extra long mac :2tsup:

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Originally Posted by BobL

I once had a Coffee icecream affogatto with crushed carmelized sugar wafers and a drizzle of Kahlua - Just a tinse over the top maybe:rolleyes:

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Ahh, Affogatos. Yet another coffee that no one seems to know how to serve :doh:

My favourite variant is a scoop of Sarah Lee French Vanilla (or Weiss Vanilla bean), double shot of coffee and a single shot of baileys. Not overly traditional, but sensational :cool:

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Originally Posted by BobL

Adding hot (90ºC) water to a shot of espresso in a regular cup or mug quickly destroys the crema and rapidly releases the volatiles from the shot. Adding boiling water not only does this but immediately cooks the coffee as it decomposes some of the sugars and oils making an acrid tasting brew. To maximize the retention of the original coffee taste no more than moderately hot water (about 50º) should be added but this does not suit most coffee drinkers who after a hot drink they can linger over. Even at 50ºC a wide open cup will quickly release the goodies and the longer it sits the more escapes and decomposes. So lingering with a black coffee unfortunately for me means lingering with ordinary coffee.

For guests who ask for long blacks I try putting a dash of cold water in it before adding water from the coffee machine boiler but they nearly all say it's too cold and then want me to nuke it in the microwave! NOOooooooo!

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I have always made a long black by putting hot water in the cup and then the extraction on top. I have done it this way for no other reason than it was how I was taught. I don't know if it helps to preserve the crema and consequently the taste.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by tea lady

A friend and I were fantasizing about opening a cafe called "the half decent cafe" cos they were so hard to find. How come there are cafes everywhere but they can't make coffee OR tea! :doh:

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TL

I am afraid that Leanne and I fell into this trap. Fantasizing about having a glamorous little coffee shop that is. We were offered an opportunity to walk in to an existing business and took it on. Fundamentally we didn't know what we were doing and had had no previous history in hospitality or catering. Leanne was a competent cook and I was enthusiastic. They were our credentials.:rolleyes:

We served excellent quality food, all made on the premises, offered 19 different teas (loose leaf) including 4 green teas and excluding some herbals, an excellent coffee (way better then most), opened 7 days a week and a couple of nights for dinner and in the end hardly made a living from it.

The only thing we were not going to do was starve to death:D.

We had a get-out clause in our lease and get out we did before we deceased:(.

In many ways I don't regret this little excursion in our lives, but I would not do it again and I would certainly explain to anybody contemplating this life how exacting it is.

Regards
Paul

BobL

Re posts 32 & 33.

I laughed:D.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Ozkaban

Though when I make them at home, I boil the kettle and allow it to sit for a little while (have never measured the temp), then add two shots of coffe to it, and have always had plenty of crema.

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Dave

In principle, the way I used to do it too. One shot for a cup two shots for the mugs (ceramic fluid recepticle, not the customers:wink:)

Regards
Paul

I too am a combined addict being hooked on woodwork and coffee. I am at present tasting the range of coffee bean supplied by the Cleanskin Coffe Company in Brendale near Brisbane. I was drawn to this company because they produce a blend specially for the fund raising activities of a group of Ambulance people in QLd who are raising money for the Jamie Jackway foundation.

Jamie was a qld paramedic attached to the helicopter unit in Townsville. On the way down on the winch to boat with a patient on board the cable snapped and Jamie was dropped to the deck ending up a paraplegic. My interest in this was aroused as I am a volunteer ambulance officer.

Anyway enough of that I was saying am tasting the range of coffees this company produces and am very impressed. Their range is all subtly different to each other and full of flavours.

I make my coffee using a Vibiemme expresso machine that has proved to be reliable and consistent over three years unlike my previous two Saeco machines.

Wanted a cup of black coffee with lunch in Ballina Yesterday.The young fellow had not been taught how to make a larger coffee and completely stuphphed the whole operation.

Young lass (waitress) came to the rescue and I wound up with a pretty good brew,

Apparently these pubs just put machines in and then just let the staff learn from each other!:o

"I want a coffee and I want it hot. Real hot!"

This is the cry that is dreaded amongst coffee makers. Why do we want a drink that is too hot to drink and will take the lining off your tongue and the skin off your throat?

Our answer to this problem was to take a cup, which is already warm having been kept on top of the coffee machine and fill it with hot water, also from the machine. Then we nuked it in the microwave for a minute, which superheated the cup itself. Then chuck out the water and proceed as normal.

The effect of this was to minimise the heat transfer from the beverage to the cup. The coffee extraction is still too hot for the human throat and without heat being transferred to the cup it seemed to satisfy the "hot" brigade without compromising the heating of the milk in particular. Long black and short black were not an issue as those people were not chasing hot liquid anyway.

Regards
Paul

Regards
Paul

I have the EM6910 and the EM0480 conical burr grinder.
I don't consider myself a coffee snob, I just make my coffee the way I like it, at least once a day and I have it down pat to my tastes.

I heat the machine, purge the steam and stretch the milk.
While doing this the porta filter (?) is in the group head warming up.
I then grind directly into the porta filter, fit it to the group head and extract immediately.
I don't use a bumper, I just scrape the coffee from the basket and flush it down the drain.

Even though I have a conical burr grinder I am lead to believe a flat grinder like the Mini Mazzer is much better.

I have also visited coffee plantations in Guatemala and was about to buy some beans but they then told us that 80% of their beans went to Starbucks so I didn't buy them.

I visited the States soon after Guatemala and had coffee at Starbucks, it wasn't bad.
Don't fall for the hype, not all Starbucks is bad, but it is bad in Australia.
They must use different beans here.

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Originally Posted by Jack E

I have the EM6910 and the EM0480 conical burr grinder.


Don't fall for the hype, not all Starbucks is bad, but it is bad in Australia.
They must use different beans here.

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I have enjoyed and made many coffees on the EM6910 and still have a RED one at work that has been badly abused but still keeps going strong....

As to the StarBucks and many other chains...

Beans and Grinders are important along with machines that are well maintained; however even with the best, if the staff are not correctly trained. Then the beans / Grinder and Machines are useless. And from what I see and experience, most of the issue comes back to poor training and a lack of a true understanding of the bean and what makes a real espresso :C


We will not even think about what many do to the milk :o:o

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Originally Posted by BlIss

We will not even think about what many do to the milk :o:o

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A mate of mine has a good term for the action often used - ie glazed faraway look in their eyes, holding the jug in a half-closed fist and jiggling it back and forth . . . . . .

Brief but expensive coffee story in the post.
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f122/travel-snaps-117545/

Read from about post 13 onwards

Looks like the man has done teh deal...

Wood and coffee; now for teh wooden modifications to the machine and accessories..

Well done Johno.

I have just remembered something. (It is 10 years since I made coffee in anger with a "proper" machine). We always used to throw away the first two coffee extractions of the day.

The reason being they didn't taste any good. Probably it is to do with the cleaning process. The closest I can liken it to is coating a tea pot (not scrubbing it clean) or seasoning a cast iron frypan.

It seems coffee has to pass through first.

Regards
Paul

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I have just remembered something. (It is 10 years since I made coffee in anger with a "proper" machine). We always used to throw away the first two coffee extractions of the day.

The reason being they didn't taste any good. Probably it is to do with the cleaning process. The closest I can liken it to is coating a tea pot (not scrubbing it clean) or seasoning a cast iron frypan.

It seems coffee has to pass through first.

Regards
Paul

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As a young apprentice many yars ago I was asked to make sure every one mugs were clean prior to smoko...

Fresh out of school and the smiles were always on me :roll: as well as a few well know tricks of the time... Blue Sparks for the welders, or when working with the cranes - sent to the store for a "Long Wait - thinking Weight "....

Any way, wanted to do teh right thing and asked my mum what was teh best way to clean stained tea mugs.. "SALT "

So wanting to get the old fallers off my back, got a bag of salt and spent the best part of 1hr scrubbing and cleaning about 15 mugs AND then washed and set them out on teh table. Boiled the big kettle, got the tea leaves all ready and the big tin of condensed milk.

Smoko time came and the machine shop cleaned up and made their way over to the smoko area...

WELL knock me over with a chuck key.... The noise and red faces and bellows... WT.... I bolted with a couple of those just under 50, chasing me well out into the yards...

Crapped my self and it was my dad later that night, at home; that he told mum what happened...

She laughed and told me.. Salt is good to scrub and clean, but like a good baking tray... The old timers like the tannin stain in their mugs a it gives it the tea flavour. Never scrub that stain off..

5 years later on finishing my trade as a Fitter and Turner, I was told I was lucky to not be killed that day AND that some of the old timers were still trying to get the flavour back, in them there tin mugs.

At a place I once worked, one of the women would, every so often, get sick of the scungy coffee mugs and put them through the autoclave. The screams would go on for a week, but she never learned ... until one day, someone araldited her mug to the shelf.

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Originally Posted by AlexS

At a place I once worked, one of the women would, every so often, get sick of the scungy coffee mugs and put them through the autoclave. The screams would go on for a week, but she never learned ... until one day, someone araldited her mug to the shelf.

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:rofl:

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

TL

I am afraid that Leanne and I fell into this trap. Fantasizing about having a glamorous little coffee shop that is. We were offered an opportunity to walk in to an existing business and took it on. Fundamentally we didn't know what we were doing and had had no previous history in hospitality or catering. Leanne was a competent cook and I was enthusiastic. They were our credentials.:rolleyes:

We served excellent quality food, all made on the premises, offered 19 different teas (loose leaf) including 4 green teas and excluding some herbals, an excellent coffee (way better then most), opened 7 days a week and a couple of nights for dinner and in the end hardly made a living from it.

The only thing we were not going to do was starve to death:D.

We had a get-out clause in our lease and get out we did before we deceased:(.

In many ways I don't regret this little excursion in our lives, but I would not do it again and I would certainly explain to anybody contemplating this life how exacting it is.

Regards
Paul

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Its OK Paul! I don't think I'm in danger of ever openin ga cafe! :cool::D

At the risk of being banned from this thread, at work I make myself a coffee with instant but put milk in the mug first and stir in the "coffee" then add the hot (not boiling) water! Seems to work at a pinch! Guess I'm not as much a coffee snob as I thought! The tea on the other hand. We're fussy about the tea!:p

I like Starbucks coffee grounds!!







































They make great mulch or are a good addition to the compost heap!!!:D:D:D:D

And they are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!:-

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Originally Posted by artme

I like Starbucks coffee grounds!!
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They make great mulch or are a good addition to the compost heap!!!:D:D:D:D

And they are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!:-

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And they keep slugs and snails away - they don't like the residual caffeine.

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Originally Posted by BobL

And they keep slugs and snails away - they don't like the residual caffeine.

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I wonder if they make the worms hyperctive?:rolleyes:

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Originally Posted by artme

I like Starbucks coffee grounds!! ......
And they are FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!:-

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Unfortunately somebody is having to pay for those grounds ...... :yuk:

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Originally Posted by Sir Stinkalot

Unfortunately somebody is having to pay for those grounds ...... :yuk:

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Fortunately I am no longer one of the payers!:roll:

In the search for a better coffee and to protect my coffee machine, which cost ~ 3 times more than my table saw, I decided to upgrade my water purification system. Until now I had been using a twin (sediment and carbon) filter system which produces nice drinking water but does not remove any dissolved calcium from the water. This builds up as scale in the coffee machine boiler and is a PITA to clean.

The new system looks like this
https://www.woodworkforums.com/attach...1&d=1342885360

1 & 2 are the original sediment and carbon filters - our normal filtered drinking water is tapped off at this point
3 is a small reverse osmosis (RO) cartridge
4 is a permeator pump that uses the brine drain from the RO unit to fill and pressurise tank T. The waste brine then drains to waste via the red hose to drain D
CM is the Solenoid that opens on command from the coffee machine and delivers pressurised water from the tank to the coffee machine.
5 is a Deionizer cartridge that provides super distilled quality water for a variety of purposes and processes such as metal bluing.
M is the water quality out monitor.

Can I taste the difference - of course not, :D, but it should protect the machine.

very interesting cos i have just had my machine cleaned out because of cal builkd up .
i currently only run through a charcoal type filter straight after the pressure reducing valve on the town water supply , but after a little more than 12 months and after a recent filter change the machine started to play up with help over the phone to the machine tech in brissy i tried afew things to fix the issue but did no good so i had to take the machine to the big smoke , problem turned out to be calcium in a couple of pipes restircting the flow to the boiler ..she is up and running again now but i still have to come up with a better filter system to stop it happening again .
i have been thinking of plunbing it in to the tank water instead of the town water . my coffee guy in brissy gave me the ph number of a guy to ring who had the same problem with his evap air con and fixed it with a magnetic jigger , ( must ring him soon and get some more info on it )
my machine is a BZ35 .. which also reminds me i need to roast today among other things .
see ya

johno

This ones for you, Bob... Amazing setup!

http://www.lsdsports.com/images/blog...nt%20level.jpg

Strewth Bob.... :oo:

Cheers Guys,

While I do perhaps operate on another level I do know several coffee geeks that make me look pretty average. The guy I bought all this water purification gear from has a similar but bigger water purification setup as mine but he has also about half a dozen coffee machines. One machine is customised with a digital temperature control, a shotcam that point up underneath the brew head and displays the extraction on a small LCD screen located on a stand above the machine, and a set of coloured lights that shine out from under the machine that colour change depending on what the machine is doing

Tex, forget about the magnetic thing, my water purification mate is constantly being asked to replace these things with a real water purifier.

Interesting, Bob. What brand of sensor(s) and display to you have? What parameters are you measuring? Are you logging?

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Originally Posted by AlexS

Interesting, Bob. What brand of sensor(s) and display to you have? What parameters are you measuring? Are you logging?

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The conductivity meter/sensor is a cheapie (HM Digital) with a TDS range of ~1 to 9990 ppm. As there is a tank involved the flow is not continuous so logging is not that meaningful. The RO water output TDS is around 10 ppm which is pretty good while the deionized water is zero, meaning <1 ppm.

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Originally Posted by BobL

Cheers Guys,

While I do perhaps operate on another level I do know several coffee geeks that make me look pretty average.

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Bob

I have given this subject some thought over the last few days, but have been slow to respond. I think I may be turning into an ent, which I suppose is not too out of place for a woodworking forum.

Water for most drinks is quite an important issue. If you look, for example, at the producers of a famous Irish stout and malt whiskeys from Scotland, they place quite high store in the water they use.

So coffee should be no different. I am not totally convinced about demineralised water being the best (except perhaps for the coffee machine) as it has no taste at all. The best water I ever taste comes from a creek down at the property in NSW where we used to live. Completely uncontaminated upstream, (there's nobody there), it is a delight to drink even without any coffee in it:rolleyes:.

Demin water has nothing in it. In fact it is so devoid of anything we use it to cool the condcutors in our generators at work. The water is passed through the hollow conductors of the stator as it is the impurities in water that conduct electricity, not the water itself.

What are your thoughts on the taste aspect? I appreciate that your prime motive was to protect the coffee machine.


Regards
Paul

Glad this thread is still alive.

Found a place on the beach at Hervey Bay that serves the best coffee I have tasted anywhere in Qld.

Must check out the standard of the brew served by the bloke in the coffee place near SWMBO's massage therapist.

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Originally Posted by Bushmiller

What are your thoughts on the taste aspect? I appreciate that your prime motive was to protect the coffee machine.

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Yeah 90% of this palaver is to protect the machine. The water I am generating has around 10/12 ppm of total dissolved solids (TDS) which is about the same as the low end of fresh rainwater collected from clean skies. The best tea and coffee is generally recognised by the gurus to be made with fresh rainwater but I cannot tell the difference between the taste of coffee made with my plain filtered water with a TDS of around 350 ppm and the water I am generating.