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Medium Format and Coffee

Shashin

Well-known member
In Maine, we used a stainless steel percolator to make coffee. If our power went out in snow storms (and with six months of winter, it was a common event), we could always make coffee on the wood stove--we heated our house with only wood and a Newfoundland dog, although the dog could not make coffee, but we love her none the less.

I quit coffee on July 6, 2019. But that was not the fault of the percolator...
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
My best coffee has been made in a small Bialletti stove-top coffee maker, with a bean roasted and ground to my specs by the local roasting house. The way I make it is a 19 minute exercise for two cups of espresso.

But most of my coffee these days is brewed by a Keurig machine, using Boyd's bio-degradable pods. Their coffee is excellent and the Keurig is convenient.

Such it is.

G
 

darr

Well-known member

--

Coffee makes my heart pitter-patter too much whereas tea does not.
When I do make coffee, I mix 50% regular + 50% decaf and I grind the beans.
My grinder is nothing fancy, but it works.
This is my french press. I like the color.

Great conversation thread!

Kind regards,
Darr
 

aly324

Member
As said above, spend money in a nice burr grinder. Achieving a consistent and repeatable grind without generating too much heat is more important than the coffeemaker.

The Aeropress (already recommended above) is neat and easy to use, and has a small footprint. Depending on grind size, water temperature, and pressure applied, it can basically replace a pourover, a French press, and a Moka pot all at once--and produces a cleaner coffee, both in taste and in lack of particles. It can even sort of produce some crema if you use a very fine grind of an oil-rich bean. It costs nothing and is unbreakable. Can't go wrong with it.

The so-called "Third Wave" coffee culture has saturated the more serious cafes with fruity, floral, acidic light roasts, and baristas who belittle you for asking for cream or godforbid sugar. I really dislike this trend.

Dark roasts get a bad rep because of their association with Starbucks etc. But a well-done dark roast that's rich and punchy while retaining a rich texture is wonderful. If that's your thing, Japan is the place to go, with its own coffee tradition dating back from the late 19th century.
 
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MartinN

Well-known member
Ah ha!

Just found my first coffee appliance... only 2 miles from home!

https://m.barnesandnoble.com/w/home...cup-espresso-maker/29232116?ean=0076753067997

I think I will pick it up tomorrow after we return from the hospital.:)

Pictures later!!!:thumbup:
You probably want a real burr grinder. It is essential with different coffee equipment to get the appropriate grind and experimenting with the taste and strength of different grind grades can be fun. The best thing however, with a grinder
is that you can get a fresh grind every time and don't have to rely on the coffee companys grind. Ground coffee gets stale
quicker than beans and if you buy some pre-ground to start with that moka pot, it could be advisable to buy only 250gr
packets. I too started with a moka pot, and one great thing with it is that you get real piping hot moka. It is much more
difficult to keep the coffee hot from an espresso machine. The supposed cup warmer tray is not so effective on machines.

Happy drinking, but don't overdo it ;)
 

vjbelle

Well-known member
Ah yes...

But I don't like the grinder so much, and it is getting pretty long in the tooth. I am thinking of getting a separate grinder and an Aeropress to try something different. I just need to research grinders. Are hand grinders worth anything?

Dave
An aeropress is very forgiving with respect to grind. The latest aeropress championships are using a very coarse grind with around 20 grams to 8 ounces of water for a cup of coffee. You can find recipes on the aeropress site if you visit the championships.

Victor
 

MrSmith

Member
The so-called "Third Wave" coffee culture has saturated the more serious cafes with fruity, floral, acidic light roasts, and baristas who belittle you for asking for cream or godforbid sugar. I really dislike this trend.

Dark roasts get a bad rep because of their association with Starbucks etc. But a well-done dark roast that's rich and punchy while retaining a rich texture is wonderful. If that's your thing, Japan is the place to go, with its own coffee tradition dating back from the late 19th century.
I think this trend has revolutionised coffee and resulted in a better product, coffee is a fruit, coffee cherries are picked not beans (it’s this outer layer that makes for ‘natural’ processed coffees) floral fruity notes are an improvement on burnt bitter ashy ones. That said a well pulled robusta espresso from an Italian train station cafe is still something to enjoy.

Thing is a lot of roasting used to have very little in the way of profiling and was just taken to first crack and beyond, now it’s more of an art/science and resulting in a more refined product.

Burnt over roasted commodity coffee isn’t going to go away, it’s 99% of the coffee business but seeing as this forum is at the 1% of image making then it’s only fitting to look at high grade coffee as defined by the SCA :thumbup:
 

tsjanik

Well-known member
............My 7-year old Kitchen-Aid machine just died. So, no coffee today ...........
Dave:

Good luck with your new coffee appliance, but there is never a reason to forego coffee if you can heat water. You could have made "cowboy coffee": ideally a coarse grind added to a pan of heated water the allowed to seep and then decanted. If you object to small pieces of bean you can also pour through a filter or even a paper towel. I've used this on many backpacking trips and it's good, similar to that from a French press. My current coffee maker is pictured below, another vote for DeLonghi. The beans in the container were roasted in my garage yesterday and home roasting is something I highly recommend if you have a good exhaust hood or somewhere to roast where the smoke is not a problem. Roaster prices vary considerably. Mine was inexpensive and paid for itself in a very short time since green coffee beaans are much less expensive than roasted. Want a light and fruity roast? You can have it in 10 minutes; if you prefer dark and robust, it takes 12 min.

Tom
 

Attachments

mristuccia

Well-known member
As said above, spend money in a nice burr grinder. Achieving a consistent and repeatable grind without generating too much heat is more important than the coffeemaker.

The Aeropress (already recommended above) is neat and easy to use, and has a small footprint. Depending on grind size, water temperature, and pressure applied, it can basically replace a pourover, a French press, and a Moka pot all at once--and produces a cleaner coffee, both in taste and in lack of particles. It can even sort of produce some crema if you use a very fine grind. It costs nothing and is unbreakable. Can't go wrong with it.

The so-called "Third Wave" coffee culture has saturated the more serious cafes with fruity, floral, acidic light roasts, and baristas who belittle you for asking for cream or godforbid sugar. I really dislike this trend.

Dark roasts get a bad rep because of their association with Starbucks etc. But a well-done dark roast that's rich and punchy while retaining a rich texture is wonderful. If that's your thing, Japan is the place to go, with its own coffee tradition dating back from the late 19th century.
Once upon a time I tried the "third way" coffee,
Never, ever, ever more. Definitely not for me. :facesmack:
 

aly324

Member
I think this trend has revolutionised coffee and resulted in a better product, coffee is a fruit, coffee cherries are picked not beans (it’s this outer layer that makes for ‘natural’ processed coffees) floral fruity notes are an improvement on burnt bitter ashy ones. That said a well pulled robusta espresso from an Italian train station cafe is still something to enjoy.

Thing is a lot of roasting used to have very little in the way of profiling and was just taken to first crack and beyond, now it’s more of an art/science and resulting in a more refined product.

Burnt over roasted commodity coffee isn’t going to go away, it’s 99% of the coffee business but seeing as this forum is at the 1% of image making then it’s only fitting to look at high grade coffee as defined by the SCA :thumbup:
I’ll always go for a good complex dark roast over floral and fruity, the coffee cherry’s natural soul be damned. I’d rather get fruity from tea or wine, but I don’t tell people what they like is wrong. And between a Starbucks French roast and third wave, of course I'd rather have the latter.

Refinement of taste is good. What I don’t like is the takeover by light roasts and relegation of darker roasts to mass market and ignoramus status in most of the west. “Good” coffee places in China have followed suit while Japan’s traditional roasters keep doing their thing. Korea is similar to Japan in my experience.

In Asia they’ve had fruity and floral in tea forever. They don’t need that from coffee.

In central Berlin you basically can't find a non-sour cup of "good" (I'm not even sure it's that good; it's more like hipster) coffee. You have to either suffer Starbucks or equivalents or go out to an area where older people live who remember how coffee used to taste, like Dahlem.

Time for good dark roasts to make a comeback, especially as you say roasting is now also much more sophisticated. Bitter and nutty have their own textures.
 
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MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Once upon a time I tried the "third way" coffee,
Never, ever, ever more. Definitely not for me. :facesmack:
I don't disagree, but it's likely you got a bad shot. It's very hard to get something tasty from "third wave" coffee, but it's not impossible. Personally, I'm a darker roast fan - with steamed milk. Fortunately, there are still some roasters out there who agree.

I tried roasting for a while, but it's hard to do in an apartment building (smoke - lot's of smoke!). You can do it in a frying pan, with a popcorn popper, or an inexpensive home roaster. It's much less expensive to roast your own, assuming you don't go in for a professional roasting machine. Then you quickly approach Phase One territory.

Apologies for the constant :lecture:. I love sharing information, and often go into professor mode.

Matt
 

beano_z

Active member
I'm not such an expert or anything on coffee, but I do find that it is quite essential on a (cold) sunrise shoot, it is both comforting and energy boosting. I just fill up my own mini thermos with some home made filter coffee and I'm good to go. These days I seldom go out without my cupholder as long as I don't have to be too conscious about weight.

Don't any of you bring your coffee on your shoots?

Tripod Coffee Cup Holder.jpg
 

MartinN

Well-known member
Now I'm happy again with my machines. A bit of cleaning made a good new start.

Untitled-2.jpg

Untitled-1.jpg

I picked up some decaf espresso roast from the local supermarket and the taste was pleasant when judging the first experiments.
The real bonus is that my stomach is not upset by these decaffeinated shots.

Satisfied and happy again:D
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Bialetti? Approved!
But this is not espresso, this is moka. Great taste, and wonderful smell all over the rooms by the way. :)
Enjoy!
"Bialetti Moka Espresso Maker" is simply the name. It's a stovetop espresso maker, see Wikipedia for a history of this device:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot

My problem with my beloved Bialetti now is that it's aluminum and when the kitchen was renovated I put in an induction stove top. I'm on the hunt for a Bialetti in stainless steel now... :)

G
 

MartinN

Well-known member
My problem with my beloved Bialetti now is that it's aluminum and when the kitchen was renovated I put in an induction stove top.
What happened ?
My machine is my second, the first was an ECM and the boiler and thermostat went amok and to my very disappontment the model was discontinued with no spare parts so after two trips to a repair shop it went to metal junk.
 

drunkenspyder

Well-known member
To put these beasts in Camera terms, the machine is Leica M10 territory, and the grinder is Sony A7RIII.

Yes, it's a snapshot with an X1D :D

Matt
A Monolith grinder by Denis Basaric. Most excellent. I knew there was a reason I liked you Matt. ;) I have owned several “titan grinders,” but none approaches the Monolith. I have both the flat and conical versions that I use with my Slayer and Speedster machines. I may have to take a pic.
 

MGrayson

Subscriber and Workshop Member
Slayer and Speedster! Those are beautiful machines. I enjoy the profilings possible with the manual GS/3, but you have to pay attention. If I don’t get a lever, my next machine will be programmable!

The Monoliths are, indeed, great. Part of me still wants a Robur, just as part of me wants to shoot 8x10 film. Fortunately, the rest of me has SOME sense (no offense to 8x10 shooters. You guys rock, but I can’t do it.)

Matt
 
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