Coffee machine

[DaLoCo]

 

What comes out should be black and strong - too strong for most people, just like all good espresso - so add boiling water from your kettle to get the consistency you want. On no account put less coffee in the basket. That will give you over-extracted coffee, which is where too much water goes through the coffee, pulling out sour flavours you really don't want in the cup. Horse-p#ss, IOW. Remember, ALL espresso drinks start with a great shot of espresso, even if you drink cappuccino, lattes, americanos or whatever.

 

 

(just enough for three or four days - anything more will go stale

 

A last thought on milk - low-fat steams just as well as full-cream if you have a decent steam wand, and low-fat doesn't mask the coffee flavour like full-cream does.

 

Cheers!

 

Some excellent points on a good coffee there.

 

I tend to store my coffee grind in the fridge, it helps to keep the staleness away as the fridge is a kind of dehumidifier, otherwise vacpac. I am 75 km away from decent coffee, so I have to store it up. Thankfully a local shop has started roasting, so I will definitely be keeping fresher beans.

 

I have realized that low fat is actually easier to steam, and yes, the coffee does have more flavor.

 

To make coffee you need to determine what you want. For me the process of making is part of the routine, it makes me relax. Taking a break to focus on creating a coffee often provides the interruption my mind needs to refocus freshly.

 

If you just want to drink it, get an automatic machine.

[DaLoCo]

Long life or fresh?

 

Full cream or low fat etc?

 

I am als rather interested.

 

I found long life low fat works fine

[GBguy]

Splat and Wayne - I haven't frothed milk on the stove for a few years, since I got a machine with a proper steam wand. I do remember that full-cream was better than low-fat with the stove-top-and-beater approach, but I don't think I ever used long-life/UHT that way.

 

With a steam wand it's different. UHT seems to work okay (at least it did, the one time I tried it) but, with fresh milk, the fresher the better. Colder is better, too - gives you more time to "stretch" the milk into micro-foam.

 

It may be useful to differentiate between the micro-foam that we aim for with a steam wand, and what you will get from other methods. Micro-foam has bubbles that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, so the milk develops a satin-like sheen. Also, the old days of producing a cap of stiff foam floating on a sea of milk are long gone - we now aim for all of the milk to have a light, creamy consistency, that you can part with a spoon but which immediately "heals".

 

To get this consistency, you'll often see a barista whacking his milk-jug on the counter top (settle down, boys!) to break up any remaining large bubbles - and then swirling the jug and/or pouring the milk from one jug to another to integrate the foam and milk. If you want to do latte art, you absolutely have to get your milk to the right consistency.

 

The other advantage of a steam wand is that you can control the temperature of the milk, which you do by touching the side of the steaming jug - when it's too hot to touch, it's ready. Too-hot milk is can have a burned flavour, and is considered a fault - even though quite a lot of people complain if their cappuccino isn't scalding hot.

 

But it's a bliksem to get micro-foam without a proper steam wand. In my experience, the best you can hope for is a fairly silky cap of foam on top of hot milk, but I must admit I haven't tried all the gadgets that are available...

[Grebel]

I went and bought a 250g bag of freshly ground Ethiopian coffee from Columbo at lunchtime yesterday after reading this thread. Had a chat to the guy at the shop and he recommended NOT keeping your coffee in the fridge as the change in temp from the fridge to the ambient room causes condensation to form. Coffee is apparently very hygroscopic (It absorbs moisture) and this moisture absorption is not good for the ground coffee. Your coffee last longer if stored airtight in a cool dark dry place.

 

That straight from the source. These guys roast their own beans as well as do their own blends and they will grind according to your proffered requirements (Moka, Espresso machine, French press, etc) Very cool bunch of guys with a lot of coffee knowledge and experience.

[Wayne Potgieter]

Splat and Wayne - I haven't frothed milk on the stove for a few years, since I got a machine with a proper steam wand. I do remember that full-cream was better than low-fat with the stove-top-and-beater approach, but I don't think I ever used long-life/UHT that way.

 

With a steam wand it's different. UHT seems to work okay (at least it did, the one time I tried it) but, with fresh milk, the fresher the better. Colder is better, too - gives you more time to "stretch" the milk into micro-foam.

 

It may be useful to differentiate between the micro-foam that we aim for with a steam wand, and what you will get from other methods. Micro-foam has bubbles that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, so the milk develops a satin-like sheen. Also, the old days of producing a cap of stiff foam floating on a sea of milk are long gone - we now aim for all of the milk to have a light, creamy consistency, that you can part with a spoon but which immediately "heals".

 

To get this consistency, you'll often see a barista whacking his milk-jug on the counter top (settle down, boys!) to break up any remaining large bubbles - and then swirling the jug and/or pouring the milk from one jug to another to integrate the foam and milk. If you want to do latte art, you absolutely have to get your milk to the right consistency.

 

The other advantage of a steam wand is that you can control the temperature of the milk, which you do by touching the side of the steaming jug - when it's too hot to touch, it's ready. Too-hot milk is can have a burned flavour, and is considered a fault - even though quite a lot of people complain if their cappuccino isn't scalding hot.

 

But it's a bliksem to get micro-foam without a proper steam wand. In my experience, the best you can hope for is a fairly silky cap of foam on top of hot milk, but I must admit I haven't tried all the gadgets that are available...

 

Ummm, what do you do for a living? (besides drink a lot of coffee)

[GBguy]

Some excellent points on a good coffee there.

 

I tend to store my coffee grind in the fridge, it helps to keep the staleness away as the fridge is a kind of dehumidifier, otherwise vacpac. I am 75 km away from decent coffee, so I have to store it up. Thankfully a local shop has started roasting, so I will definitely be keeping fresher beans.

 

I have realized that low fat is actually easier to steam, and yes, the coffee does have more flavor.

 

To make coffee you need to determine what you want. For me the process of making is part of the routine, it makes me relax. Taking a break to focus on creating a coffee often provides the interruption my mind needs to refocus freshly.

 

If you just want to drink it, get an automatic machine.

 

Thanks, DaLoCo. I routinely freeze the whole beans. They seem to keep indefinitely, and have that just-roasted quality when they are thawed and ground. I haven't had much joy with the fridge, though - are you talking about whole beans or ground?

 

I do agree about the process being (nearly) as important as the coffee, but I think you and I may be in the minority

[GBguy]

Ummm, what do you do for a living? (besides drink a lot of coffee)

 

Freelance journalism, PR, editing. Coffee has been a passion since I tasted my first cappuccino more than 40 years ago. If I win the lottery, I'll open a coffee shop/roaster/training school... Anybody out there want to invest?

Edited May 10, 2012 by GBguy

[rouxtjie]

Freelance journalism, PR, editing. Coffee has been a passion since I tasted my first cappuccino more than 40 years ago. If I win the lottery, I'll open a coffee shop...

My one vice...a good cap

 

Love seattle...they are my fav, vida too...wish I had one of those machines in a seattle...

[GBguy]

I went and bought a 250g bag of freshly ground Ethiopian coffee from Columbo at lunchtime yesterday after reading this thread. Had a chat to the guy at the shop and he recommended NOT keeping your coffee in the fridge as the change in temp from the fridge to the ambient room causes condensation to form. Coffee is apparently very hygroscopic (It absorbs moisture) and this moisture absorption is not good for the ground coffee. Your coffee last longer if stored airtight in a cool dark dry place.

 

That straight from the source. These guys roast their own beans as well as do their own blends and they will grind according to your proffered requirements (Moka, Espresso machine, French press, etc) Very cool bunch of guys with a lot of coffee knowledge and experience.

 

I know those guys - and they certainly know their stuff. Wayne Oberholzer used to work there until he moved to Origin Coffee in the Cape. He won the national barista championships a couple of months ago.

 

And it's true that coffee absorbs moisture easily - particularly if it's ground, which vastly increases the surface area on which condensation can form. But if you keep whole beans in the freezer, in zip-lock bags, and defrost slowly (wrap the bag in a tea-towel and leave for half a day before opening) the beans stay dry. There is at least one blind-tasting of frozen vs fresh beans on the net that showed there's no difference in taste - and I've been doing it for years with good results.

[DaLoCo]

Thanks, DaLoCo. I routinely freeze the whole beans. They seem to keep indefinitely, and have that just-roasted quality when they are thawed and ground. I haven't had much joy with the fridge, though - are you talking about whole beans or ground?

 

I do agree about the process being (nearly) as important as the coffee, but I think you and I may be in the minority

 

I store the grind in the fridge (forgot to say, in an airtight container, it probably will last about twice as long as being stored outside...remember, I am 200m from the beach. I just take what I need, so the coffee leaves the fridge for about 30 secs....

 

If I leave it out or just in an airtight container it goes bland in about a week....in the fridge, maybe two and a half weeks. I have not had the luxury of being able to buy by smaller weights till very recently.

 

Yah GBguy....the moment I take out my espresso maker everybody within earshot wants coffee As a result I end up taking 30 mins to get to my coffee. It takes me about 6-8 minutes to make a nice cappucino.

 

Oh yeah, another very important thing....you need to run just water through the espresso side after each espresso you make if you are making more than one in quick succession, to cool down the "nozzle"....otherwise the water starts steaming before it reaches the new grind, causing a loss of flavour.

 

I use a Russell Hobbs espresso maker with a steamer nozzle, so everything is very manual when I do it....cost about R550 eight years ago and it is still

going strong.

[GBguy]

I store the grind in the fridge (forgot to say, in an airtight container, it probably will last about twice as long as being stored outside...remember, I am 200m from the beach. I just take what I need, so the coffee leaves the fridge for about 30 secs....

 

Here's the thing - even if you open the container for one second, the air inside is replaced with new, moist air. What you could do is get some small zip-lock bags (your bank may give you a roll of them for free!) and put just enough coffee grounds in each for... well, however many people put their hands up whenever you take out your espresso maker. Push as much air out of each before sealing, and let them warm up before opening.

 

Coffee doesn't become stale suddenly, like milk going off, it seems to be a more or less linear process. Air and moisture are two contributors, but roasted coffee gets stale even in a vacuum, or when stored with inert gas like nitrogen (although both help).

 

Oddly enough, coffee can be "too fresh" - for the first day or two after roasting, it produces too much crema - just a lot of froth, really, while its de-gassing. It can still be used for Greek/Turkish/Ethiopian coffee, which is cooked in a little pot, but it's really no good for an espresso machine. If you put freshly roasted beans in a sealed container, it will inflate with the gasses which are escape from the beans - that's why there's a one-way valve in coffee bags.

 

After a couple of days the beans hit their peak, and produce the right amount and colour of crema - the colour of dark chocolate, or striped like Tigers Eye gemstones. As the beans get older, the crema gets more pale and less in volume, no matter how carefully you make your espresso. This doesn't show up as much with other methods - espresso is brutal!

 

I find by freezing freshly-roasted beans (within a day or two roasting), each newly-defrosted batch behaves like freshly roasted, even months later. However, they do seem to deteriorate quicker than never-frozen beans, so I keep only three or four days worth of beans in each bag. Once a bean is ground, it deteriorates in minutes, which is why serious baristas only grind for the coffee they are making at that moment.

 

Pre-ground coffee is never okay in a real espresso machine, in part because very subtle variations in grind can make a huge difference to the quality of the shot. You can still get a reasonable cup from pre-ground coffee with an AeroPress, moka, plunger pot or drip filter. In fact, coffee shops that do tastings of coffees from around the world - like the Betty's chain in England - don't use espresso machines, they use plunger pots, and put a (lighter) cinnamon roast on their beans, so you can really taste the subtleties of the climates and farming methods used (the beans themselves are all Arabica...)

 

Sorry, I do get caught up in this stuff...

[walkerr]

Sorry, I do get caught up in this stuff...

 

No apology needed - fascinating to get the views from someone who really knows. I always knew there was a lot of elements to a good cuppa, but never realised how much!

 

Thanks for the "Betty's" note - a nice reminder of York where my folks live!

[DaLoCo]

Sorry, I do get caught up in this stuff...

 

No issue....some good advice there, and time for a decent grinder too, I have the mini liquidiser type It is actually more for grinding herbs and spices.. I will also look for smaller vac bags that I can use for vacuum packing...seeing as I have the machine.

 

I do have a cut-off when I decide the coffee now goes to the perculator for general use. Funny enough, the same sign indicates when I need to change my guitar's strings. The coffee loses it's brightness, ie, it starts tasting ever so slightly dull.

[Tubeless]

I had a cheaper brand before and it gave me endless problems.

 

Dumped it and got this.

 

Great machine. Jura

 

http://krisshopair.com/img/prod/200245_M6Bf3VtvO.jpg

[DaLoCo]

I had a cheaper brand before and it gave me endless problems.

 

Dumped it and got this.

 

Great machine. Jura

 

http://krisshopair.com/img/prod/200245_M6Bf3VtvO.jpg

 

You sir....are a callous turd

 

I want one

[GBguy]

Thanks for the "Betty's" note - a nice reminder of York where my folks live!

That's the same branch my wife and I visited with my mother and father, both passed away since then. Must be 20 years ago. A memorable day. Went to the Jorvik centre afterwards.

Edited May 10, 2012 by GBguy