Making Coffee

I recently decided to upgrade my coffee. Since I drink it daily, and since my 8-year-old Mr. Coffee drip machine was fading out, I thought the money was well spent.

It all starts with the beans! Instead of buying coffee pre-ground, I buy whole beans. Actually, these beans were given to me by a friend, but you get the idea.

The beans go in here: a Baratza Encore grinder. It has 40 different grind settings, so there’s plenty to experiment with.

Boiling water takes a long time (on my electric stove) and is imprecise. So I got a Bonavita kettle. You can set the exact temperature you want, the water stays at that temp for up to an hour, and the gooseneck spout ensures accurate pouring w/no splashing.

The coffee grounds and the water go into this gizmo, an Aeropress. I’d read a lot about how wonderful this thingie was for making coffee, and I’m happy to report that it works as advertised.

The round disc on the left is the filter; the T-shaped thingie on the right is what you use to stir the coffee/water mixture before pressing it through the filter.

I’ve barely had this setup for a week, so I’m still tweaking how I like to do things. With the upgrade from a drip machine to a manual coffee-making method, there are so many more variables to tweak:

  • Coffee bean type
  • Grind size
  • Water temperature
  • Water amount & coverage (how much water covers the beans)
  • Steep time (and whether or not you stir)
  • Press time

And so on. With any luck, I will be a coffee snob in no time flat. Or, perhaps I already am 🙂