How are your coffee beans lately? Mine are AWFUL!

[BobL]

If you do use any of the demin waters, watch out for corrosion of your SS coffee pot, as the low minerals in the water can strip metals out of any container. The 70/30 water seems a safer bet.

I agree, I also reckons it doesn't taste as good.

A friend of mine, who worked in the coffee business as a machine technician, and I have discussed this ad nauseam. Apparently small amounts of salts and dissolved gasses (ie oxygen) are required in the water to assist with a proper extraction of the coffee. We did many taste tests together - I could barely tell but he has a very sensitive palate.

Years ago did a barista judges course and exam together which included a palate sensitivity test and he scored much higher than I did on that test.

Based on my friends advice at home I set up water purification system under the sink that includes a standard sediment (1) and charcoal filter (2) and then a mains water pressure driven pump (4) that drives the water through a reverse osmosis filter (3). The RO filter is slow so it feeds a 10 L pressure tank (T) which is then connected to the coffee machine. This cuts the variable total dissolved salt (TDS) content of our water from 200+ ppm (of all Australian capital cities, Perth has the saltiest water) to around 20ppm.

There is also a demineralizer cartridge (5) under the sink that produces <0.1 ppm TDS water but I don't use that for coffee but for wares "chemistry experiments". M is a meter that monitors the after the RO or after the demineralizer.

CMwater.jpg

[FenceFurniture]

I'm still no closer to getting a definite result. I did finally track down some Distilled water at Repco (for a mere $7.19 a litre) but the most nuetral tasting water is Pureau from the supermarket. It has nil minerals and so incredibly soft on the palate.

This morning I used the original beans from Aldi ("Dark Beans") using distilled water, and once more it tastes like it has been blended with tea leaves - just awful flavour, so it got thrown out. So then I made a pot of Illy (the $60/kilo beans) and it is better, but not terrific.

I believe I can eliminate water as the problem.
Certainly the Dark Beans are not up to scratch so I will be returning them.
I am certain ther is nothing wrong with my sense of taste because everything else is fine (including subtle things like telling different waters apart).
I still can't eliminate the pot as (at least part) of the culprit, but that really would seem unlikely, given it is only 2 months old and has been yielding great coffee until a couple of weeks ago.

[ian]

I'm still no closer to getting a definite result.

This morning I used the original beans from Aldi ("Dark Beans") using distilled water, and once more it tastes like it has been blended with tea leaves - just awful flavour, so it got thrown out.
So then I made a pot of Illy (the $60/kilo beans) and it is better, but not terrific.

I believe I can eliminate water as the problem.
Certainly the Dark Beans are not up to scratch so I will be returning them.
I am certain ther is nothing wrong with my sense of taste because everything else is fine (including subtle things like telling different waters apart).
I still can't eliminate the pot as (at least part) of the culprit, but that really would seem unlikely, given it is only 2 months old and has been yielding great coffee until a couple of weeks ago.

so is the problem mostly related to the Aldi Dark Beans?

How long ago did you open the packet of Aldi coffee beans? if the taste of your coffee changing coincides roughly with when you opened the new pack of beans, could the actual beans be off?

evidence I'm associating
the Illy beans are tasting OK, not terrific, but still OK. This could just be the difference between Aldi and Illy beans.

the coffee from the "new" pot was tasting fine until a few weeks ago.



for now, I'm guessing the problem is most likely related to the beans themselves.

[FenceFurniture]

Hmmm. Maybe it's time for me to quote my original post again.

In the last couple of weeks I've noticed that the flavour of my regular coffee beans tastes like it is a 50/50 blend with tea leaves, which is bloody awful. I buy the dark blend beans from Aldi which I have found to be very good, especially at $12 a kilo.

I use a stainless steel Euroline coffee pot, (have done for ten years) and have only just replaced the previous one two months ago. It took about a week to get a good brew out of it, but since then has been yielding really good coffee. The old one was starting to smell like an ashtray for some reason.

So I figured it must be the beans that were crook. Bought another two different types from Aldi (Brazil and Peru) and they're not really any better. So then I thought maybe it's just all the stuff coming out of the Melbourne roasters that Aldi get supplied form, and I bought a packet of Lavazza Quality Ora this morning. Same thing - no really improvement in the crap flavour. I even brought out the old coffee pot, only to find that it delivered the same poor result.

Now I'm wondering if this is a bean supply problem, given that South America has been ravaged by Covid? I even suspected the milk this morning (newly opened though), so I drank some straight up and it is fine. It must be the beans! I think I have eliminated everything else.

How are your beans going?

Note that even though these beans are only $12 a kilo, I very regularly get favourable comments about the quality of coffee I make, so it's not because these beans are "too cheap to be any good". I wouldn't use them if they were.

[FenceFurniture]

so is the problem mostly related to the Aldi Dark Beans?

How long ago did you open the packet of Aldi coffee beans? if the taste of your coffee changing coincides roughly with when you opened the new pack of beans, could the actual beans be off?

evidence I'm associating
the Illy beans are tasting OK, not terrific, but still OK. This could just be the difference between Aldi and Illy beans.

the coffee from the "new" pot was tasting fine until a few weeks ago.



for now, I'm guessing the problem is most likely related to the beans themselves.

Beans don't get the chance to go off or stale around here. A kilo lasts for around 2 weeks. The Aldi Dark are the worst, but 2 other Aldi types (Peru and Brasil) aren't much better, and they all come from the same Melbourne roaster. Lavazza are a bit better but not great, Illy a little better still, but not great and certainly not worth $60/kilo.

There is one other device in the chain, and that's the grinder. I suppose I should eliminate that by doing a small batch in t'other grinder.

[Ironwood]

I just read through this thread and was thinking maybe something has changed on your grinder, then got to the last post and saw you had thought to check it against another grinder.
Maybe the setting has changed, or something is worn. Grind quality and consistency has a huge effect on the taste of your coffee.

[AlexS]

I have a wee testing device for demin water,

Shouldn't you have a water testing device? Wee would have a much lower pH than demin water.

[FenceFurniture]

Shouldn't you have a water testing device? Wee would have a much lower pH than demin water.

How did I miss that?

[Sir Stinkalot]

I too am a Coffee Snob, and when not tasting my own roasted green beans from said establishment (which is more often than not at them moment unfortunately), I use Aldi (Peru and Brasil) for simple convenience sake. No change that I can detect for the past few months, although I have been getting good extraction from the recently opened Brasil beans.

The Aldi beans seem to punch above their weight for their low cost. Not spectacular but certainly serviceable - particularly with milk. Roasting greens is always fun as it give you the opportunity to experiment with blends and different roast parameters. Unfortunately time is the enemy so Aldi are a decent backup.

[poundy]

here's a recipe for "standard" water for coffee. It's overkill, and nothing I'd expect people to use daily, but this is how coffee professionals remove the variability of water in brewing coffee (for sampling purposes mostly)

How To Make Basic SCA Coffee Brew Water - Whole Latte Love

[FenceFurniture]

I think he must get paid by the word. Tomorrow, when I'm not so tired, I'll "distil" that down to something that makes sense and can be digested without all the verbage. I'll make it just metric too.....

[Alh01]

Shouldn't you have a water testing device? Wee would have a much lower pH than demin water.

Must remember never to pee on the wee device, or the pH will mean many ions are free.

We always use a charcoal filter for coffee water, and that makes a brew that's OK to me. The local cafe uses a similar multi-filter and RO setup to that BobL showed under his sink, and it tastes slightly better.

Take the beans back to Aldi - they've sold you a bad batch!

[FenceFurniture]

I used the small Moulinex grinder on the Dark Beans this morning - they taste just the same - mixed with tea leaves.

Take the beans back to Aldi - they've sold you a bad batch!

I still think that is the most likely cause. I've already cleared the way with the manager to do that (including the opened bag).

[FenceFurniture]

How To Make Basic SCA Coffee Brew Water - Whole Latte Love

Using scales accurate to 0.1 gram (and not everyone will have these)
½ teaspoon Sodium Bicarbonate weighs 2.6 grams
2½ teaspoons Magnesium Sulphate weighs 12.4 grams (this is small granules, not powder which would be a little heavier)
1 US gallon is 3.785 litres
Distilled water can be substituted by Pureau brand, I'm sure. Pureau has nil salts and is a small fraction of the price - it is also obtainium.

Alkalinity buffer water - 1 litre water + 2.6g Bicarb Soda (NaHCO₃) (and use 66.5 mls or grams of this solution per 4 litres of "Coffee Water")
Magnesium Hardness Water - 1 litre water + 12.4b Epsom Salts (MgSO₄) (and use 195.5 mls or grams of this solution per 4 litres of "Coffee Water")

To make the Coffee Water:

1. remove 262 mls or grams of water from 4 litres.
2. add back 66.5 mls or grams of Alkalinity Buffer water
3. add back 195.5 mls or grams of Magnesium Hardness water

Or, do it the very simple way
Glider, as our resident Industrial Chemist, can advise on the efficacy of what I would propose here (I dunno if the solutions need to be separate - but I doubt it):

1. Get 4 litres of water
2. add 0.17g of Bicarb Soda (weigh 1g and divide it into 6 - do NOT inhale through a rolled up bank note)
3. add 2.4g of Epsom Salts (weigh 5g and divide it in two, traditionally done with a credit card )

The reason that Whole Latte Love makes up the separate litres of Magnesium water, and particularly Alkalinity buffer is because weighing 0.17g may be impossible with the instruments available. I still can't see why those two individual litres can't be combined for ease of storage though. Mick?

I have assumed that WLL has kept accurate track of all the proper measurements when he mixed Imperial and Metric, and I have assumed he means US Gallons. He may not even be aware that there are "US" Gallons and "Imperial" gallons (which are very different), for all we know.

I've checked the numbers and calcs a couple of times, but let me know if there are any errors.

[BobL]

Get 4 litres of water

1. add 0.17g of Bicarb Soda (weigh 1g and divide it into 6 - do NOT inhale through a rolled up bank note)
2. add 2.4g of Epsom Salts (weigh 5g and divide it in two, traditionally done with a credit card )

Looks good. Working that out in ppms, the Na comes out at 11 ppm and the Mg (from the epson salts) is 125 ppm .

SCA water is nominally 10 ppm for Na and 17-85ppm for Ca (Hardness), and 75-250 ppm for TDS.

My TDSs are usually <30ppm.