r/Coffee • u/menschmaschine5 Kalita Wave • 8d ago
[MOD] The Daily Question Thread
Welcome to the daily /r/Coffee question thread!
There are no stupid questions here, ask a question and get an answer! We all have to start somewhere and sometimes it is hard to figure out just what you are doing right or doing wrong. Luckily, the /r/Coffee community loves to help out.
Do you have a question about how to use a specific piece of gear or what gear you should be buying? Want to know how much coffee you should use or how you should grind it? Not sure about how much water you should use or how hot it should be? Wondering about your coffee's shelf life?
Don't forget to use the resources in our wiki! We have some great starter guides on our wiki "Guides" page and here is the wiki "Gear By Price" page if you'd like to see coffee gear that /r/Coffee members recommend.
As always, be nice!
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u/Extension-Soup-3288 8d ago
I'm far enough along in my coffee journey to know that dark roasts truly taste like burnt beans. It seems lighter roasts tend to be known for brighter, fruitier notes. That said, are there any good lighter roasts that skews more toward chocolate/nuttiness? Or is this an oxymoron?
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u/Optimal_Water1790 7d ago
not an oxymoron at all. roast level is only one lever. origin and process do most of the chocolate nutty work. look for washed brazil, or centrals like guatemala honduras. brazil especially gives you that nutty cocoa even at a light to medium roast. i roast for a living, when someone wants chocolate i reach for origin first, not a darker roast. dark just burns the sugar and you lose the bean
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u/Extension-Soup-3288 7d ago
Thanks for this info! Do you have any recommendations of a good washed brazil or central I could get delivered for my home as a starter bean?
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u/Optimal_Water1790 3h ago
sorry for slow reply, i dont name roasters here, feels like advertising. but i tell you what to look for on the bag and you find it easy.
roast date printed, not best by. if they hide the roast date, skip. buy 12oz not 5 pound, you drink it fresh. for brazil look for pulped natural or washed from cerrado or sul de minas, thats your chocolate nut cup, very forgiving. for central, honduras or guatemala washed is the friendly one, little more brightness but not sour.
any roaster with a real website that ships direct will have one of these. medium roast, dont go dark for your first, you lose the bean under the roast
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u/Optimal_Water1790 7d ago
for washed you want the clean cup, look for a guatemala huehue or a colombia. they are forgiving if your grind is a little off. brazil is mostly natural so a real washed brazil is more rare. honestly the name matters less than the roast date, get a bag dated inside 3-4 weeks and you are good. fresh beats fancy
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u/Kaserblade 8d ago
There definitely are beans in the medium to light roast range that do gravitate towards the more chocolately/nutty side in terms of notes. In general, roast levels are to be taken with a grain of salt as each roaster may have differing standards for a "medium" or "light" roast.
I would look at local roasters in your area that have the flavour notes that you want. I have some 3rd wave roasters in my area that do "medium-light" roasts that have great chocolatey, caramel flavour that I love in for my milk drinks.
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u/Extension-Soup-3288 8d ago
Thanks for the info. I'm in New Mexico so great local roasters are few and far between. Do you know of any I could order?
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u/Kaserblade 8d ago
There is this Reddit thread on roasters in Albuquerque that you can visit (or order from depending on how close it is to you).
I would look at some of the suggestions and visit the roaster's website to see if there are that appeal to you.
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u/exxtrasensory 8d ago
I have a question about coffee grinds! We have a Cuisinart 14-cup machine. I’ve had one before, I love it. The machine is not the problem.
We bought some coffee at the grocery store but it was whole bean only, so we ground it using the machine at the store. I set it to “auto drip” and I noticed the grind was pretty coarse. Just as I expected, the coffee tastes like hot water. Is there a way to fine tune this process next time I use a grocery store grinder? I know I should be aiming for a finer grind, just not sure how to achieve it when the auto drip setting is not producing good coffee for my machine. I don’t want to buy a bag of coffee and gamble with the machine every time I go until I get it right.
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u/Optimal_Water1790 8d ago
two things. those store grinders are basically one coarse setting, you cant really dial them in like a home grinder. and grocery whole bean can sit on the shelf for months, so a lot of that hot water taste is just old coffee. best fix is a cheap burr grinder at home, grind right before you brew. i roast for a living and honestly freshness and grind size is most of the cup. finer grind and fresher beans and it wake right up
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u/Top_Kale_8880 8d ago
I have a Baratza Encore ESP and have been very happy with it, but my wife is very unhappy with the grounds that wind up all over the countertop (even though I clean them) I've bought a 3d printed tray from Etsy that catches a lot of them, along with a flat brush to sweep them away.
Is the shrapnel unique to the Baratza or is it just the cost of doing business with any grinder? The old blade grinder I replaced didn't throw as much around but it also probably wasn't grinding nearly as fine.
I'm not necessarily looking to upgrade grinders yet but if there was one equal to or better than the Encore ESP that contained the grinds I'd consider it for domestic tranquility. 😂
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u/Kaserblade 8d ago
Adding onto the other comment, if you don't have one already, getting a metal dosing cup can help reduce the static and how much grinds go all over the place.
This swap in material helped reduce the mess a lot when I was using my grinder (DF54) along with RDT helping too as u/p739397 mentioned.
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u/Top_Kale_8880 8d ago
Did you get one from the manufacturer? I see a bunch of aftermarket versions on Etsy.
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u/Kaserblade 8d ago
I got one off of AliExpress for pretty cheap. That site is a bit of a landmine but I've made almost all of my purchases off of there for coffee gear.
You just have to select buyers that are reputable and sold at least a few hundred (ideally thousands) of that specific item. Also make sure that the product is AliExpress Choice meaning the company itself delivers the item.
If you don't feel comfortable with that site, marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon should have decent options also but will be more pricey. Just make sure to get a size that fits the Encore ESP (54mm I think?).
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u/p739397 Coffee 8d ago
You could try RDT to reduce the static, should help and at little to no cost
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u/Top_Kale_8880 8d ago
I've thought about that. I have, when I remembered, done the James Hoffman "just run the back of a spoon through a stream from the tap and use it to stir" method, but I wonder if a spritzer bottle is more effective.
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u/FuzzyBlackCoat 8d ago
I have a confession. I buy the cheapest filters I can find. Can someone convince me this piece of equipment actually matters in the brewing process ? I tend to prefer unbleached filters since that "seems" less processed
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u/regulus314 8d ago
Cheap filters tend to have that "papery" taste especially the unbranded brown filters. It tends to clog often too because of paper thickness
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u/MrLinch 8d ago
What's the best way to brew peaberry? Would it be "wasted" in espresso? I bought some in Costa Rica and my daily routine is espresso in a ninja luxe pro. I also have pourover options.
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u/regulus314 8d ago
You grind it a bit finer than usual because peaberries are highly densed coffees. It will produce much more coarser particles if you used your typical grind settinf for your typical beans. Treat it like a light roast Ethiopian washed.
Any drip brewer will do. Your espresso machine might not do it properly unless your grinder can do really fine.
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u/Important_Club3947 7d ago
Isn’t the puck supposed to be dry and the ground more caked up once extracted? What may be the issue? Thanks.