• @tankplanker
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    13 months ago

    What’s your water and beans like? Do you grind at home already, if so what grinder do you have?

    • @Aermis
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      13 months ago

      Oooo, I just use ground beans and toss them on two filters and run the coffee pot. My water is kinda hard, we have an espresso machine (breville batista touch) that had us do a water test with our filtered water. If I’m doing espresso we try to do local seller beans from Fred Meyers.

      I don’t mind espresso, but an Americano just tastes like coffee that’s been watered down, or too bitter which I don’t mind. But just a drip has been a better taste for me. I’m not extremely picky but I would love to get a better taste because I’ve definitely noticed the difference in coffee beans.

      BTW I drink my coffee straight. No cream no sugar most times. And I love it iced.

      • @tankplanker
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        22 months ago

        Sorry for the slow reply, wanted to take my time writng a response for you.

        Is there any particular reason you are using two filters? The modern thinking is often centered around faster draws to get less astringency that is present in over extraction, can be seen as bitterness. If the water is sitting in the grounds for longer, everything else being equal, will have higher extraction up to a point.

        breville batista touch Is this your only grinder, is it grinding for the pourovers as well? Its a great machine capable of some great espresso, but its grinder is its weakest link and holds it back. Even a cheap hand grinder like a KINGrinder should offer a noticeable improvement if you are not happy with what you getting and you have already walked through the workflow.

        Is your water tasty to drink as is? Can you get hold of Volvic bottled water? That would be my preferred choice for a taste test, both as plain water vs. your water, and to make an espresso with. Obviously there are far cheaper methods to improve water, but as a quick and very simple taste test you cannot beat a one off using bottled water to understand if you can make improvements. Once you know if you can, then you can look at the most cost effective way to do so.

        For your beans, since you buy from a local seller do they also operate a cafe? How does their cafe prepared drinks (assuming they actually do a good job with these) compare to yours? Its a good starting point to understand how good a cup a cafe can get out of your beans.

        • @Aermis
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          12 months ago

          Thank you for the replies. I appreciate it a lot. You got me thinking hard on coffee now. I’m not sure why I used two filters. Maybe to stop it from flowing over the edges of the drip machine. But now that I think of it, why not use a pour over method? I looked up that hand grinder and see the pour over equipment bought frequently with it.

          I might have to try that with the water. But my water is very palatable. I live near Seattle, and my water dispenser is filtered through an insinkerator dispenser, which also does my boiling water.

          • @tankplanker
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            22 months ago

            You are very lucky with that water, saves so much effort and not a small amount of cash to sort it out otherwise.

            Best of luck for your search for that god shot off coffee!