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Is it appropriate to refer to God as "It"? I have recently read in a book about some debate around the fact that God is considered a masculine figure (He/His) and that we should find gender neutral of expressing the same ideas. In my native language it is very hard to do this (God is a masculine noun and it is also derived from Domine Deus which also sounds masculine). However, English has the advantage of having "it". According to Wordnick , "it" usage guide is also: Used of a nonhuman entity ; an animate being whose sex is unspecified (..) It sounds like a good fit, but I am wondering if this is ever appropriate or even offensive. Question: Is it appropriate to refer to God as "It"? <Q> In English, the appropriate non-gender pronouns are 'they' and 'them', but this construction is clumsy if people attempt to use it all the time. <S> It simply does not work as a substitute. <S> It does not adequately express person. <S> Babies are sometimes referred to as 'it' because, I suppose, their personality is not yet apparent. <S> English just does not work like that. <S> When a voice was heard from heaven saying : <S> This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. <S> [Matthew 17:5 KJV] ουτος εστιν ο υιος <S> μου ο αγαπητος <S> εν ω ευδοκησα αυτου <S> ακουετε <S> the voice used the masculine gender pronoun, αυτου - 'him'. <S> I think that should be respected. <S> Throughout the Hebrew and Greek scripture - God's revelation of himself - the masculine pronoun is used. <A> The first time we see a pronoun for God is in Genesis 1:5 (NASB) <S> 1:5 <S> God called the light day, and the darkness <S> He called night and there was evening <S> and there was morning, one day. <S> Now one might say that this is how Moses (considered the author of Genesis) referred to God. <S> So we can look at how each Person of the Trinity referred to the other. <S> Let's refer to them as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd persons of the Trinity. <S> 1st Person sends a message about 2nd Person through an angel to Joseph: <S> Matthew 1:21 <S> "She will bear a Son ; and you shall call His name Jesus, for <S> He will save His people from their sins." <S> (NASB) <S> 2nd Person (named Jesus) speaks about the 1st Person as "Father": <S> Matthew 5:45 <S> so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. <S> 2nd Person speaks about the 3rd Person (Holy Spirit - see below) and refers to "He" and "Him": <S> John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit , whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.(NASB) <S> Further, per the complete revelation of the Bible, Christ will come back for wedding His corporate bride (Rev 19:7). <S> And He is the bridegroom (John 3:29). <A> This is as much a theological as a linguistic question, not least a question of other languages than English — in particular Hebrew — and their translation. <S> Canonical English as well as canonical Christianity unequivocally assign a male gender to the Jewish/Christian god. <S> On the other hand, if you are looking for answers beyond the canon, all bets are off: How we speak and what we believe is ultimately our own decision. <S> By the way, the linguistic question is quite interesting, not least because Hebrew does not have a neuter and one of the words used for God, Elohim , is plural. <S> You also may find an article in the New York Times by Rabbi Mark Sameth interesting. <S> He argued that there is more gender fluidity to God than one might think. <A> No, “It” is inappropriate because God neither inanimate nor an animal. <S> One fairly common practice is to avoid using the pronoun altogether. <S> As a matter of style, it takes a lot of thought to pull this off well, but it doesn't necessarily require awkward English. <S> You can do a lot with strategic passives, controlling your sentence structure, etc. <S> A mild consequence is that sentences come across as awkwardly emphatic. <S> “God will accomplish God's purposes.” <S> The alternative to the reflexive pronoun is “Godself,” like “God can speak for Godself.” <S> That's a neologism, and therefore could serve as an intention way to communicate one's position on the matter. <S> It is a reasonable question, but obviously a politically charged one, whether using a masculine pronoun for God meaningfully affects people's perceptions of God. <S> People differ as well in their perceptions of English style, so it is good to be charitable in assessing other people's writing. <S> (On a separate gender issue, I prefer to use a generic feminine, or to alternate between masculine and feminine, rather than use singular “their.”)
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But, no, it is not appropriate in English (and, yes, it is offensive) to call a person 'it'. We should refer to God in the manner God wants us to refer to God (not using a pronoun here intentionally).
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What is the difference between ESV, NIV and NKJV My daughter is In college and is wanting to buy a new Bible. She has these three options.. I would like her to have one that is easier to understand but still accurate. What are the differences and what do you recommend for her? <Q> Without knowing more about the reasons for your daughter wanting to buy a new Bible, and why it is she has only these three options, it is impossible to make a recommendation. <S> However, having background information about each of these Bibles will help her to come to a decision. <S> Below are links to three articles, which provide a brief history as well as pros and cons on each Bible. <S> I have partially quoted from each article: The English Standard Version (ESV) is a revision of the 1971 edition of the Revised Standard Version. <S> The first edition was published in 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. <S> The ESV Study Bible, also published by Crossway Bibles, was published in October 2008. <S> It uses the ESV translation and adds extensive notes and articles based on evangelical Christian scholarship. <S> Under noted theologian J. I. Packer, who served as general editor, the translators sought and received permission from the National Council of Churches to use the 1971 edition of the RSV as the English textual basis for the ESV. <S> Difficult passages were translated using the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other original manuscripts. <S> Source: <S> https://www.gotquestions.org/English-Standard-Version-ESV.html <S> The New International Version (NIV) committee held to certain goals for the NIV: that it be an “accurate, beautiful, clear, and dignified translation suitable for public and private reading, teaching, preaching, memorizing, and liturgical use.” <S> The NIV is known especially as a "thought for thought" or “dynamic equivalence” translation rather than a “word for word” translation... <S> The greatest ‘con’ of the 2011 NIV is the inclusion of gender-neutral language and the necessity of interpreting rather than translating in order to present a more culturally sensitive or politically correct version. <S> Source: <S> https://www.gotquestions.org/New-International-Version-NIV.html <S> Although the New King James Version (NKJV) uses substantially the same Hebrew and Greek texts as the original KJV, it indicates where more commonly accepted manuscripts differ. <S> The New King James Version also uses the Textus Receptus ("Received Text") for the New Testament, just as the King James Version had used. <S> The translators have also sought to follow the principles of translation used in the original KJV, which the NKJV revisers call "complete equivalence" in contrast to "dynamic equivalence" or “thought-for-thought” used by many other modern translations, such as the New International Version. <S> Source: <S> https://www.gotquestions.org/New-King-James-Version-NKJV.html <S> I hope this information will be helpful. <A> First, because we are reading the Bible in translation (ie, not the original language) we must depend on the translators to properly convey the thought of the original text. <S> There are no perfect translations - all have their strengths and weaknesses. <S> For this reason, I would never depend on a single translation to convey all the subtleties of the original. <S> Always more than one and preferably several. <S> My favourite five are ESV, NIV, NRSV, NASB and NKJV. <S> I note the following about these versions: <S> All are produced by large committees that keeps them reasonably (but totally) free of sectarian bias <S> All except NKJV use NA27/28 Greek NT text. <S> The NKJV uses the Textus Receptus. <S> The differences between these is a matter of much unnecessary debate in some circles but the differences never affect any Bible teaching. <S> Many verses in all five of these will read almost word for word the same. <S> Where there are significant differences suggests that translators struggled and there is room for differences because our understanding is imperfect. <S> Hope <S> this is helpful. <S> If I were making such a selection, I would buy all of them. <A> RSV NIV NKJV |---------------------------------------------------------| Thought for thought. <S> Word for word <S> Whilst NKJV is more word-for-word, RSV is more Thought-for-thought. <S> This implies that NKJV is nearer to the original Hebrew and Greek scripts but could be difficult to be understood whiles RSV is more self explanatory because the translators tend to communicate the idea of the original Hebrew and Greek scripts.. <S> NIV on the other hand balances the two which makes it preferable to many. <S> I prefer NKJV mostly and crosscheck scriptures from RSV and NIV. <S> It is a matter of choice. <A> I have used the NIV as one of my daily readers since the late 70's early 80's. <S> I would not recommend the latest version as the translators have ventured into the area of commentary on some verses. <S> If you read the older and latest versions side by side <S> you will find the translation to be longer in the new version. <S> I started using the ESV several years back and find it to be an excellent blend of nearly literal but still easy to read. <S> When I teach I use the ESV as my primary teaching Bible. <S> I will run a comparative translation when teaching with my Bible software using the following translations: ESV, NIV 1984, NIV, KJV, NKJV, HCSB (now called CSB or Christian Standard Bible). <S> Generally they read well together. <S> When there is a difference I find it more do to a word that is hard to translate into English.
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The ESV and NASB try to be a literal as possible (no translation is completely literal), while the NRSV and NIV are less literal but contain more polished English.
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Can a Catholic priest excommunicate someone for premarital sex? I was a Catholic. I did my sacraments according to the Catholic lifestyle. When I was born, I was baptized. Around age of 8 years, I got my First Holy Communion, and around 14 years of age, I went to confirmation classes and got confirmed. I got pregnant at age 17 and married outside the church, since my parents didn't approve of my condition or choice of the baby's father. Sex was preached as a mortal sin, and without confession, I would go to straight to Hell if I died. My parents disowned me and so did the Catholic Church, the priest told me I would be excommunicated. I don't know that any form was filed, and my parents apologized for doing me wrong many years later, instead of having the baby and having him adopted. Am I excommunicated or is all I need to do to go to confession to return to good standing in the Church? <Q> Talk to a Priest. <S> You would not be able to receive Holy Communion, and I suspect that you may be confusing the two <S> Even if you are excommunicated your excommunication can be lifted. <S> Again a chat with a Priest, or an appointment for Confession would be the place to start. <S> It does not seem like your marriages were valid, a Catholic has to marry in the Church or receive a dispensation. <S> This is good news because you can get a decree of nullity for your previous marriages and convalidate your current one. <S> That, and a good Confession should allow you to receive Holy Communion, assuming that you are not excommunicated or that if you are it has been lifted. <S> Again a chat with a Priest should point you in the right direction to get the process started. <A> Am <S> I excommunicated or is all I need to do to go to confession to return to good standing in the Church? <S> No way. <S> The excommunication is automatic only for some very special kind of sins, and only a Bishop can perform an "expicit" excommunication. <S> Anyway, your sin may be forgiven as any other sin, in the usual ways and under the same conditions. <A> My son is alive now at age 49. <S> I chose to give birth and love him unconditionally. <A> Can a Catholic priest excommunicate someone ... <S> There are two types of excommunication: <S> One type is done automatically if you have committed certain kinds of sin. <S> One example would be if you are involved in an abortion. <S> If you commit such kind of sin, you are excommunicated even if nobody but you knows about the sin and even if you don't know that you are excommunicated. <S> The other type is a decision of a bishop . <S> The bishop can decide to excommunicate you if you have done certain kinds of sin. <S> As far as I know, having a family without being married is neither a sin that automatically leads to an excommunication, nor a sin that allows your bishop to excommunicate you. <S> An ordinary priest is not allowed to excommunicate you. <S> However, if he knows that you committed some kind of sin that automatically leads to an excommunication and therefore you are already excommunicated, he might inform you about that fact. <S> Not knowing exactly what you did and what you didn't do, nobody here can tell you if you are really excommunicated or not. <S> One very important point that I cannot understand in your question is if your baby was aborted or if it was born and is alive today. <S> And if it was aborted, if you agreed or if you were forced to have that done against your will...
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As far as I know marrying outside the Church is invalid but does not incurr automatic excommunication.
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Were the early Christians known by any other name? We see in Acts 11:24-26 (NRSVCE): "For he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord. Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.” I wish to know how the name Christians used for followers of Jesus stuck . Antioch was a part of ancient Greece, and the word Christian had its origin in Greek word Christos meaning the Saviour, known as Messiah in Hebrew. That St. Luke wrote the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles in Greek, may also have contributed to the firming up of the name Christian . But then, we see Jesus being addressed as The Nazarene all through the Gospels and the Acts. It is therefore, strange that His disciples were not called Nazarenes by the Jews who were more comfortable with Hebrew language than with Greek. My question therefore is: Were the early Christians called by some other name in languages other than Greek? If they were, why did those names become defunct? PS: In southern India, Christians in the good old days called themselves as Nasrani , a name derived from the Syrian word for Nazarene. <Q> Were early Christians known by other names than Christians? <S> Take your pick, those who followed Jesus were called Christians, Sect of the Nazarenes, Followers of the Way and Sheep . <S> Christians--"and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. <S> And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch," (Acts 11:26). <S> Sect of the Nazarenes--“For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes," (Acts 24:5). <S> Followers of the Way--"and [ <S> Saul who became Paul] asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem," <S> (Acts 9:2). <S> Sheep--“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; <S> 28 <S> and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand," (John 10:27-28). <S> They were also called saints : <S> Which thing I also did in Jerusalem: and many of the saints <S> did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. <S> - Acts 26:10 <A> Originally, Christians were identified as "belonging to the Way." <S> (cf. <S> Acts 9:2) <S> I'd surmise the reason that "Christian" stuck had to do with the fact that it was much clearer than the original title <S> and it was in the lingua franca of the region. <A> In addition to other answers, several scriptures refer to early christians as "saints": <S> Acts 26:10 <S> 2 Kor 13:13 Romans 12:13 <S> Phil. <S> 4:22 <S> When searching for this term I have found it in OT scriptures as well, so there is probably some kind of reference to those: Ps 34:9 <S> Ps 50:5 <S> Ps 132:9 <S> Ps 149:5 <S> Without looking too much into it, I would interpret this as meaning "HIS covenant people", or alternatively HIS priests. <A> Other than the names already mentioned, the Early Church called itself Catholic. <S> The first written evidence of it is in a letter from St Ignatius of Antioch at around 100 AD. <S> It is assumed the name was popular from the beginning though. <S> It was used to differentiate itself from the "ethnic" religion of Israel (Judaism), because catholic means universal in Greek. <S> Here's one source but there are many: <S> St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop, and an Apostolic Father of the Church,wrote a letter to the Smyrneans... <S> (Rev 1:11) .
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The early Christians were called by different names.
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Were birthdays celebrated by believers anywhere in Holy Scriptures? Is there any mention of a birthday celebration among Old Testament Israelites or New Testament Christians in the Holy Scriptures? <Q> Were birthdays celebrated by believers? <S> Does "celebrate" mean only the inclusion of cake, ice cream, balloons, streamers, presents, friends, and family singing songs, showing pictures, opening presents, pinning the tail on the donkey, and blowing out candles? <S> Or how "celebrate" means only about dancing girls and beheading of enemies? <S> Or would it be more mundane, as in I "celebrated" my birthday last month, realizing my age on the earth? <S> If the latter, than of course, they "celebrated" their birthdays. <S> For example, they knew Jesus was 12 years old when He visited the temple. <S> They knew John the Baptist was 30 years old when he became a priest. <S> One can't know these things unless someone "celebrates" one's birthday. <S> Again, we don't know exactly what "celebrate" <S> meant because it is not recorded exactly how they "celebrate" those birthdays, but we do know they didn't pretend the dates didn't exist or in fact were not material to their lives. <S> Birthdays were obviously "celebrated". <S> Subsequent to the New Testament, there is the account of the Martyrdom of Polycarp . <S> He knew he was 86 when he was tried in the fire and martyred. <S> Of course once you are dead, no one is observing your birthday on earth, but what is interesting is their thinking they might observe his birthday into death. <S> Other answers posted quote scripture examples. <S> There were obvious birthday "celebrations" too deviant, just as there might be today. <S> But there are other birthday "celebrations" in the right spirit. <S> PS To add, according to this site , Isaac the first Jewish baby was weaned at 24 months. <S> Abraham and Sarah had a great feast. <S> Tradition places it on his second birthday. <A> A simple text search of the Bible on BibleGateway returns 3 references in the King James Version: <S> And it came to pass the third day, which was Pharaoh's birthday, that he made a feast unto all his servants: and he lifted up the head of the chief butler and of the chief baker among his servants. <S> -- <S> Genesis 40:20 <S> But when Herod's birthday was kept, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. <S> -- Matthew 14:16 <S> And when a convenient day was come, that Herod on his birthday made a supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee; -- <S> Mark 6:21 <S> (Referencing the same event as the Matthew passage above) <S> Searching on the NIV instead turns up the three passages above, and also Job 1:4, where the translation claims that Job's sons' feasts on their "days" were birthday celebration. <A> One example is omitted by the other answer (argument from silence inherent therein notwithstanding). <S> Job 1:4-5 <S> And his sons would have a feast every man on his [birth]day at his own house, and would call for their three sisters to eat and drink with them. <S> And when the days of the feast were concluded, Job would sanctify them, rising early in the morning and offering a burnt offering for them all, "in case," said he, "my sons have sinned, and have blessed God in their hearts. <S> " <S> And so Job would do for each of their [birth]days. <S> (It's debated/debatable whether "blessed" is a euphemism for "cursed" here or not, or an expression of remorse or repentance—the former is more probable, and seems to be a convention used elsewhere in Job (1:11); it could have been an idiom of his day that has been lost to time.) <A> Birthdays were celebrated by pagans(the Pharaoh). <S> On the third day, which was Pharaoh’s birthday. <S> Genesis 40:20 <S> Nowhere in the bible are you going to find Israelites celebrating birthdays(except for wicked Herod) <S> On Herod’s birthday, however, the daughter of Herodias danced before them, and pleased Herod. <S> Matthew 14:6 <S> Job wasn't celebrating birthdays, his children were holding a feast. <S> Job wasn't a Hebrew. <S> Also, it looks like rich kids celebrating, doesn't look like birthdays, <S> but i digress <S> His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day, and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. <S> Job 1:4 <S> Knowing someone's age isn't synonymous with celebrating birthdays. <S> You can know someone's age without celebrating it. <S> I wouldn't use outside sources to know if Abraham celebrated birthdays. <S> Some of those scholars are liars. <S> They will tell you that the Lord never physically appeared to Abraham and other nonsense.
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The answer would turn on one's definition of "celebrate".
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Where can I find the Graduale Romanorum in Latin or Croatian in physical format? I've been looking for the official Graduale Romanorum which sanctions which hymns, chants, etc. are allowed to be performed during Mass. Unfortunately, I could only find the Latin version in digital format. Also, if anyone knows a good hymnal in Latin or Croatian or where I can find official documents with texts, it would be much appreciated. This comment on this article inspired me to look for it. <Q> Check out Benedictine monasteries in your region or other institutes of religious formation , especially for Croatian sources. <S> Then again their is always Amazon . <S> Graduale Romanum <S> Addendum: <S> The Benedictine Order in general and Solemnes Monastery in particular have been asked by Rome to preserve the heritage of Gregorian Chant as the official Sacred Music of the Church in the Latin Rite. <A> The Graduale is officially published by the Solesmes Abbey , in France. <S> Here is the shop website, with some examples of chant books, including the Graduale Romanum . <S> As Ken said, you can find it in some benedictine monasteries. <S> At least I did. <S> There are some online full texts around (e.g. here ), but as far as I know, not the most recent edition (if it were so, it would probably be a copyright breach to have it, and surely a sin). <S> There are plenty of more resources online with chants. <S> For example, here , here and here . <S> Last but <S> not least, there is this impressive website with links to videos of chants, with scores and lyrics, for pretty much every time of the year. <A> So is the 1961 Liber Usualis . <S> (cf. <S> CMAA's Music PDFs and Book PDFs ) <S> GregoBase is a comprehensive database of Gregorian chants. <S> CC Watershed has scores, audio, and videos of Mass propers .
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A PDF scan of the 1961 Graduale Romanum is available from the Church Music Association of America (CMAA) .
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writing and pronouncing Bible references How would you say this Bible reference: Malachi 3:7b,8 & 10,11?Also, is it written correctly? <Q> I generally use “through” (spoken) or a hyphen (written) for any adjacent verses, and “and” (spoken) or a comma (written) to signify a jump in verses. <S> Malachi 3:7b-8, 10-11 Malachi three seven bee through eight and ten through eleven. <S> Or Malachi chapter three verses seven bee through eight and ten through eleven. <A> As bruised reed has demonstrated , generally when you're reading a reference you just read what it says. <S> If you were using this to announce a reading, <S> then there are a few ways: <S> In Roman Catholic liturgy the details aren't necessary <S> A reading from the prophet <S> Malachi <S> In Church of England liturgy, in traditional language the reference is read in “reverse order” <S> Here beginneth the seventh verse of the third chapter of the book of the prophet Malachi <S> Other liturgies <S> There may be no set way. <A> There are two popular ways to express in notation those collection of verses: Grouped by passages: Malachi 3:7b-8 & 10-11 <S> pronunciation: <S> MAL-ah-kai chapter three verses seven bee to eight and ten to eleven. <S> List of verses: Malachi 3:7b,8,10&11 <S> pronunciation: <S> MAL-ah-kai chapter three verses <S> seven bee ,eight,ten and eleven.
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I’ve certainly heard “The first lesson comes from Malachi chapter three, starting to read from the second part of verse seven”
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Is it sinful for priests or/and those in state of religion to hug women? Question. Is it sinful for priests or/and those in state of religion (eg. Franciscans, Dominicans, etc.) to hug women (of course, we are not speaking of hugging mother, sister or something like that)? Argument against. We can see this happen publicly on the show The Voice (about 7 minutes and 45 seconds in the video). Also, I see many examples in the youth groups where the priest becomes (very) friendly with the youth. So, obviously those who have authority are seen to do such things and I have seen no one to reproach them; so it seems that they are not doing anything evil. Argument for. It would seem that all hugging between male and female (which are not husband or wife or are family) is sinful (so for a priest or religious it is also a sin). For it is mentioned as a sin in the Eisenger Confessionale p.180 : qui deliberate exosculatus aut complexus fuit vel tetigit mulierem (who deliberately kissed, hugged or touched woman) <Q> So as to avoid scandal, can. <S> 667 on enclosure prohibits certain people from entering cloisters. <S> Can. <S> 667 <S> §4 governs how semi-cloistered nuns (i.e., those with episcopal enclosure) can be outside their convents: §4. <S> For a just cause, a diocesan bishop has the faculty of entering the cloister of monasteries of nuns which are in his diocese and, for a grave cause and with the consent of the superior, of permitting others to be admitted to the cloister and the nuns to leave it [ their cloister ] for a truly necessary period of time . <S> Contemplatives, who are under papal enclosure, need the Pope's permission. <S> Lust <S> If the hugs are done for lustful motives (cf. <S> Summa Theologica <S> II-II q. 154 a. 4 ) Over-familiarity <S> Super Io. , cap. <S> 4 <S> l. 6. <S> : " nimia familiaritas, reverentiam minuit, et contemptum parit " ("over-familiarity diminishes reverence and breeds contempt") <S> Sacrilege <S> Just like a chalice, consecrated to hold the Precious Blood, used for a profane purpose (such as for drinking water) <S> would be sacrilege, so, too, is "laying violent* hands on clerics or religious of either sex" or "the commission of acts of unchastity by or with a person bound by the public vow of chastity" sacrilege. <S> * <S> The hugging you show in your YouTube video appears violent, forced upon her. <S> Also, regarding your link to the The Voice show, listen to this sermon: " Sister Cristina & the Current Church Crisis ." <A> Is it sinful for priests or/and those in state of religion to hug women? <S> If it were there would be well founded guidelines to be found in every diocese, seminary, house of formation, etc etc. <S> One can find on YouTube popes being hugged by women too. <S> That stated, this subject matter merits a caveat. <S> Although it may not be intrinsically sinful for a priest to hug a woman, it should something rarely done. <S> More often than not, it is the priest who is the recipient of this gesture. <S> Prudence dictates that in order not to be tempted in such circumstances, priests should strive to avoid such occasions where they can be tempted by the Devil into committing sin! <S> This whole question reminds me of the story found in the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great about how the demon tempted a bishop to sin against chastity by simply patting the back of a nun. <S> This particular episode as recounted by Pope St. Gregory the Great would make a great Halloween story: Chapter Seven: of Andrew, Bishop of Funda. <S> I know, though experience that there exists Benedictine cloistered nuns that according to their tradition will not hug anyone, they will not even shake hands with someone. <S> On the other end of the spectrum, I know of cloistered Poor Clare religious that will hug women visitors and shake hands with the men. <S> Hugs given to or received by priests or consecrated religious is not intrinsically sinful, but could be the occasion towards sin. <S> Thus it should be frowned on, to say the least. <S> As side note, I have noticed that married deacons are very generous in this regards in our diocese. <A> A Protestant point of view: <S> Every Christian is a priest, since we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and thus have no need for an intermediary to speak with God, and the leaders of the Church are simply that: people who have been blessed with the spiritual gift of leadership, and a particular role in the body of Christ that allows them to use that gift for the betterment of the Church. <S> Therefore, the question of "Is it sinful for a priest or religious leader to hug women" is equivalent to "Is it sinful for a Christian man to hug a woman?" <S> The answer to that would be "Probably not, but it could be. <S> " Sexual immorality is certainly a sin, and if a hug is intended to lead a person into sexual immorality, that would certainly be sinful. <S> Similarly, if by performing an action, a Christian leads someone else into sin, that would also be sinful. <S> However, a chaste hug with no sexual intent would likely not be sinful in itself - in many cultures it is a standard greeting, even, often accompanied by a kiss on the cheek.
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It is not intrinsically sinful for priests or religious to hug or be hugged by members of the opposite sex. Yes, it can be: Scandal
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How would Jesus write his full name as, in civil records? Jesus, Joseph, Mary, James, John - these were popular first names used by the Jews in the days of the Lord. Naturally, each would have some additional names like that of his/her father or of the clan/house, in order to have an identifiable full name, in civil records . I am therfore , curious to know as to what the full name of Jesus was in civil records say, `Jesus son of Joseph '. Do the Catholic traditions give any clue to such a name ? <Q> First, I'd point out that even in modern times full names are far from unambiguous. <S> My own fairly uncommon first, middle, and last name together are not enough to uniquely single me out. <S> All legal records use some other way of identifying me: a birth certificate number, a social security number, a passport number, a residence permit number. <S> Civil governments in our modern world ALWAYS use something beyond assigned names to keep track of people because names simply don't cut it. <S> In the ancient world there were not good ways of keeping track of id numbers. <S> Databases were not centralized and UUIDs were not a thing. <S> Instead they would group records. <S> In the near east of Jesus' era the Romans handled this by region. <S> This is why when the census was done just before Jesus birth everybody had to register in "Their own city". <S> That also explains why Jesus was commonly known as "Jesus of Nazareth". <S> Nazareth being a small town and there not being too many popular figures coming out of there, that was enough to place him in most people's minds. <S> We don't have any civil records from the era that record anything more than what we have in Scripture, but Scripture gives us a pretty good idea how he was known both colloquially and legally. <S> In particular Matthew was a former tax collector and Luke was a historian. <S> Besides identifying his place (Nazareth) the most accurate way to identify people was to list off some of their genealogy. <S> Matthew 1:1 <S> The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. <A> How did Jesus write his full name in civil records? <S> Jesus never signed such a document. <S> There is no historical records or proofs that Our Lord Jesus called the Christ ever signed a single civil document whatsoever. <S> Thus this question is complete speculation to say the least as we have no idea as to how he would do so: <S> Jesus of Nazareth Jesus of Galilee <S> Jesus, Son of Joseph Jesus, Son of Mary Jesus of Nazareth, of the House of David Yeshua (ישוע) <S> Ben (בן) Yosef (יוֹסֵף) <S> I have never heard of any Catholic Traditions dealing with this subject. <S> Your guess is as good as mine! <S> A typical Jew in Jesus' time had only one name, sometimes followed by the phrase "son of ", or the individual's hometown. <S> Thus, in the New Testament, Jesus is commonly referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth" (e.g., Mark 10:47). <S> Jesus' neighbors in Nazareth refer to him as "the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon" (Mark 6:3), "the carpenter's son" (Matthew 13:55),[46] or "Joseph's son" (Luke 4:22).[47] <S> - Jesus (Wikipedia) <A> Jesus did pay tax, as we see at Mtt 17: 24-27 "....... <S> "But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. <S> Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. <S> Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." <S> That shows his name was there in the records of the tax authority. <S> It would not have been, in all probability, just Jesus.
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In John, the disciple Philip refers to him as "Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth" (John 1:45).
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God said in the Bible: ”I am who am!” What does that expression mean? ”I am who am!” What does this expression mean? God expressed Himself like so in the Bible. But what I want to know is what does it mean? What is its intrinsic meaning? <Q> God said : I am that I am. <S> [Exodus 3:14, KJV.] <S> I am that which I am. <S> [Exodus 3:14, Young's Literal.] <S> 'I am' expresses a personal existence, an individual being. ' <S> Elsewhere, God reveals that he is eternal, he is the Creator of all things : <S> Hast thou not known? <S> hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? <S> there is no searching of his understanding. <S> [Isaiah 40:28, KJV.] <S> Jesus Christ, the Son of God, states 'God is Spirit' (John 4:24, KJV). <S> The mode of God's existence is eternal spirit. <S> As such, he is known by faith, not by human sight or by scientific knowledge. <A> It is helpful to remember that in the time of the events of the Old Testament, names very often had meaning that were understood by those who heard the name. <S> Moses means "from water," because the daughter of Pharaoh took him from the water, Isaac comes from the Hebrew "he laughs", and so forth. <S> Often these names will identify a distinguishing characteristic of the person who has the name. <S> This is the case here with God. <S> As to the intrinsic meaning of that declaration: the chief distinction between the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, versus any other gods, is that the former actually is , whereas the latter are all fictitious; therefore the true God's name is the statement that He is, which sets Him utterly apart from the false gods invented by man. <A> “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” <S> Rev. 1:8 <S> I agree that it's an expression of His existence or state. <S> 58 <S> Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” <S> 59 <S> Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.
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That I am' or 'that which I am' expresses a form of being, a mode of existence.
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Who did God talk to in Scripture? I think I know at least 2: Abraham and Moses. Are there any others? Were the Prophets just inspired or did any of them talk to God? <Q> Adam and Eve (in Genesis) <S> Cain (in genesis) <S> Abraham (in Genesis) <S> Satan (in Job) <S> Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar , and possibly Elihu (in Job, from a whirlwind) <S> Moses (in Exodus, Numbers, possibly Deuteronomy) Aaron and Miriam (in Numbers 12) <S> Samuel (in 1 Samuel) <S> Elijah <S> (the still small voice of 1 Kings 19) <S> King Belshazzar and his banquet guests (Daniel 5, if you consider writing to be speech: the finger writing on the wall) the crowd surrounding John the Baptist at Jesus' baptism <S> Paul on the road to Damascus (in Acts) the Apostle <S> John (in Revelation, technically a vision) Some Theophanies are uncertain. <S> Joshua met an angel with a sword which many believe to be the angel of the Lord, making it more than an angelic visitiation or a vision. <S> Many prophets begin their accounts saying that the Word of the Lord came to them. <S> It is not spelled out in each case whether that was direct appearance, dream, vision, or strong inner voice, so we cannot say. <S> Fun fact: Of all the recorded instances where God spoke directly to people, his longest address was to Job. <A> All the people that Jesus "talked to" in the Gospels were "talked to" by God, since Jesus is God. <S> In addition, in Acts, Jesus appeared in a blinding apparition to Saul (who became Paul) and talked to him. <S> That is why we call Paul the "post-resurrection apostle." <A> The audience at Jesus' baptism. <S> While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and <S> behold, a voice out of the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to Him!” <S> Matt. <S> 17:5
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Noah (in Genesis)
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Is there an appropriate response to "Jesus Loves You"? For Catholics we've got a lot of cool call and response stuff built into our liturgies that can easily translate to everyday life. So if someone in a truck shouts at me "Dominus Vobiscum", I know to say "Et cum spiritu tuo”. I was wandering around down in the southern US a few day ago and someone in a truck yelled at me "Jesus Loves You". I thought that was wonderful and it really cheered me up. I waved and said "thanks". Is there a cool thing that Protestants say (like "ping" - "pong" on IRC or that cool sign Harley guys do)? I know Bill Cosby thought it was cool that Protestants say "Amen", but I don't think that's an "Amen" moment. I want to say "Thanks for remembering me, Jesus loves you too!", I don't want to say "I know, ain't I cool". Also, and this may be pertinent information to the question at hand, I really did look like a hobo at the time. I was walking from a Motel 6 to a Wafflehouse wearing 3 shirts, a jacket, a scraggly beard a stocking cap and carrying a mug and I'd just been camping for the weekend, the fact that I left my sleeping bag and over-stuffed backpack in the hotel room didn't seem to improve my appearance. <Q> I guess if I was in Italy <S> and someone said "Jesus loves you" in Latin, I might reply "et tu frater" or "et tu sorror". <S> Don't know if I could get away with "Jesus te amo" or if that would give out the wrong signal, though. <S> In English, I would probably respond with "You too, brother" or "You too, sister". <S> Or perhaps "Such love! <S> Amazing love!" <S> accompanied by a great big smile and a cheery wave. <A> 'God bless you' is the most common courteous response I can think of. <S> Or more simply : <S> Bless you. <S> Wikipedia comments on both varieties as does the Cambridge Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary (IV/9/b). <S> It is in scripture (Numbers 6:24) : <S> The LORD bless thee, and keep thee [KJV] Jesus commands to say it even to enemies (Matthew 5:44) : <S> Love your enemies, bless them that curse you [KJV] <A> This calls for a rapid, pithy, meaningful, unambiguous (choose any four) response as the truck begins to recede into the distance :-)! <S> I suggest a loud immediate <S> "Hallelujah!" <S> Arm raised in air / "fist pump" <S> A smile helps. <S> The following are somewhat related. <S> They need to be 'meaningful' and not just ritual formula to be useful: To the more mundane and usual "have a good evening / afternoon / rest of your day" from cashiers and similar <S> I usually respond ~= " <S> And you too" (or similar - loudly enough to (hoepfully) be recognised. <S> That's would not be overly meaningful in either challenge or response, except, that most people do NOT respond to this standard salutation at all, so any response at all is more likely to be noticed. <S> This very seldom meets with overt negative response, moderately often meets with no response but often enough to be worthwhile results in a positive reaction. <S> I'm an older than young 'white' guy. <S> A degree of discernment is accordingly needed, but, I try to smile at strangers who I walk past. <S> A gratifying amount of the time this results in a returned smile - often with a quite surprised initial look, followed by a response of (what usually seems to be) pleasure - probably that someone actually took the time and effort to flash a visual 'hello" in our usually ships-in-the-night public world. <S> Casual interaction with strangers can be a lot of fun. <S> This can be at a somewhat below Good Samaritan / Jedi Master level and still form a useful part of the fabric of and-your-neighbour-as-yourself. <S> One can be useful along the way. <S> The old grey guy has a fair bit of fun in the process. <A> Is there an appropriate response to “Jesus Loves You”? <S> One either returns with another such compliment or one increases the value return so to speak. <S> One could respond as such: Jesus loves you too! <S> Or something similar to the following. <S> Jesus loves all (mankind)! <S> Let us always recall the words of St. John the Apostle: 16For <S> God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. <S> - <S> John 3: 16 <A> While I haven't had this particular experience, I'm pretty sure that an average person who attends my church would be likely to respond with "Amen. <S> " My church isn't very ritualized, though, so a variety of responses would be possible, even likely. <S> --I think any other response would be highly individualistic.
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"Amen" would be common and I can't think of any other specific response that I could expect to hear When leaving any brief casual encounter with a stranger / friend I hadn't met I try to say "God bless you".
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According to the Calvinist, why "believe" if something is known absolutely true? From this link : Christians have said Scripture is infallible because they have believed that God’s Word is incapable of erring and thus contains no errors The above sentences maybe to everyone else is easy to be understood by the Calvinist, but not for me (especially I'm not a Christian). To me, God's Word is absolutely the truth. So to me it doesn't need to be believed. It's just like there is an ice cube in the fridge, then it doesn't make sense if I say "I believe that ice cube is cold" . To me, the chronological order is like this : Christians have believed that "X" writing is God's Words. So, Christians believe that "X" writing is Scripture. Since God's Words is infallible, then Christians believe that "X" writing is infallible. So to me, the "believe" is not on the God's Words, but that "X" writing which is believed God's Words. The chronological order is : IF there is a writing which is believed God's Words THEN that writing is infallible . Later on : Because this writing is believed God's Words then this writing is infallible Another quote from the same link: If God never lies , His Word never lies either. We can therefore trust it to be free from all error The same, it's confusing to me as the IF is on "God never lies", while my own chronological order the IF is on "the writing" ---> IF this X writing is God's Words THEN there is no lie in this X writing. (Why the "THEN" is like that ? because God never lies). Because to me the IF is : IF the writing is believed God's Words then the writing does not endorse anything untrue in the point of view whoever believe that writing is God's Words then it raise a question: *how "God never lies" is the IF ?* "The Christians have believed that God’s Word is incapable of erring" So my question is: how "God's Words is incapable of erring" is a believe ? Please ignore the question if the sentence in the quote is just a circular sentence like this : 1. Christians have said Scripture is infallible because they have believed that Scripture is incapable of erring and thus contains no errors 2. If Scripture never lies, Scripture never lies either. We can therefore trust it to be free from all error <Q> You can only be as confident about something as you are confident about the basis for that something. <S> So just as you say, the Christians who believe in the infallibility of scripture believe it <S> , they don't know it <S> like they know that 2 + 2 = 4 or that gravity is real. <S> It's not possible to prove the infallibility of scripture. <S> There's no science that we can do to prove the infallibility of scripture. <S> There's no sound deductive argument to prove the infallibility of scripture. <S> Neither can we prove that the scriptures are inspired by God or are God's word. <S> The best we have is many lines of inductive reasoning that lead us believe that it is most likely that the scriptures are infallible. <S> If you see Christians saying that they "know" the scriptures are inspired or infallible, don't see that as a scientific or rigid deductive philosophical kind of knowledge, but instead the kind of relational knowledge you have when you say you know your parents or your spouse loves you. <S> This kind of knowledge and belief is grown on the basis of years of experience of reliability. <A> According to the Calvinist, why “believe” if something is known absolutely true? <S> Philosophically speaking it is wise to live in agreement with truth. <S> 2 + 2 = 4 is known to be true, so one would be a fool to live life believing that 2 + 2 = 29. <S> Secondly, our values and behaviors are shaped by what we believe whether it's true or not. <S> To me, God's Word is absolutely the truth. <S> So to me it doesn't need to be believed. <S> I would argue that this is why it should be believed. <S> Think of all of the negative consequences in life that people experience for not believing what is true. <S> Furthermore God's word being absolutely true is independent of our belief. <S> Believing <S> it's true <S> doesn't make it true. <A> Its a matter of simple English. <S> If anything is true we believe it. <S> If its not true we don't believe it. <S> Unfortunately the idea has got around that "believing" something is when you decide you want that something to be true but do not have sufficient evidence to <S> know <S> it is true. <S> In fact, in Biblical language, "believing" is sometimes more than just "knowing", not less. <S> The Devil knows that Jesus is the Son of God, but the Devil does not believe in or on the Son of God, meaning the Devil does not have a loving trust of the Son of God but rather hates the Son of God. <S> However, we believe many things because we have sufficient evidence to believe them to be true, even though we cannot absolutely prove them to be true. <S> For instance: I believe the sun will come up tomorrow morning, even though I cannot absolutely prove it; <S> but, I am confident enough it will so that I live on the assumption that it will; <S> I believe this chair is reliable to sit on (I do not absolutely know it, but I am confident enough to sit on it, which means I have a very strong confidence in it); "Believing" and "knowing" can often be considered to have the same meaning.
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To say you believe something to be true is virtually the same as to say you know something to be true.
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How does the Church define reason? How does the Church define reason?Does the Catechism of the Catholic Church give a definition? Fides et Ratio did not have a definition even if it is a encyclican on the subject. I find this a bit strange. <Q> It is not for the Catholic Church to define reason, but to teach how reason contributes or hinders our understanding of God, who is critical for our salvation: <S> When a philosophy (or science, which is properly below philosophy) devalues reason too much below what the Scripture or Tradition says, the church will re-establish <S> the existence and competence of human reason. <S> For example, in light of Neural networks and Artificial Intelligence, some scientism position sees human being as nothing more than an animal with an advanced brain that one day can be completely simulated by a machine. <S> On the other hand, when Nietzsche dares people to "grow up" and make their own ethics and values, the Church will step in and say that reason has overstepped its authority because reason cannot supplant the natural law implanted in human conscience by God Himself. <S> Philosophy is free to define what reason and rationality is as long as certain aspects of human nature as taught by the Church stay intact. <S> Therefore <S> Fides et Ratio 's main purpose is to guide Catholics in the 20th century on how to make use or guard against modern philosophies in connection with applying the church doctrines in a believer's faith life: <S> It is a kind of re-establishing the boundary between the church's domain (charged with guarding the proper use of the revelation from God in Scripture and Tradition) and the philosophy's domain (charged with exploring everything that rationality can discover on its own) <S> It is a guide to reconcile the findings of both domain, because at the end of the day we cannot have parallel but contradictory truths that destroy each other's credibility. <S> There is only a single rationality and a single revelation to resolve a single matter. <S> Faith and Rationality must cooperate harmoniously to determine which sphere has the authority and <S> if there is a conflict, which one takes precedence depending on the matter and the discipline. <S> Please see an excellent commentary on Fides et Ratio by Prof. Alfred J. Freddoso , a Catholic philosophy professor at Notre Dame who teaches courses on St. Thomas Aquinas as well. <A> How does the Church define reason? <S> Catholic Culture gives us a short, but easy definition as to what reason is. <S> REASON <S> In general, the mind in its function of attaining the truth. <S> Also the basis or evidence used by the mind in its pursuit of truth. <S> It differs from the intellect, whose proper role is to perceive the truth, whether arrived at by a reasoning process or perceived immediately as intuition. <S> Reason, therefore, is a process, where intellect is possession. <S> The Catholic Encyclopædia gives a much more detailed description as to what reason is. <S> The closest I can find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church is as follows: <S> 286 Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. <S> The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason, even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. <S> This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: " <S> By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear." <A> Human reason is what, without divine Revelation, enables us to know that God exists and what His divine attributes are. <S> Chapter 4 <S> The Catholic Church, with one consent, has also ever held and does hold that there is a twofold order of knowledge distinct both in principle and also in object ; in principle, because our knowledge in the one is by natural reason, and in the other by divine faith; in object, because, besides those things to which natural reason can attain, there are proposed to our belief mysteries hidden in God, which, unless divinely revealed, can not be known.
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"On Faith and Reason" of the First Vatican Council's Dei Filius describes human reason by contrasting it with knowledge obtained by faith from divine Revelation:
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Why did God banish Adam and Eve for eating fruit? Yes, He told them not to but if you can humour me a little, why should this punishment be regarded as fitting the crime? It’s just fruit, right? Isn’t God testing our patience with such an injunction? Would you respect me if I told you not to touch my really delicious pot of lamb stew because you will be dead if you do, especially if the children are having a really tasty dinner? <Q> You've missed exactly what Adam and Eve missed - the tree of Life. <S> There it was in the midst of the garden. <S> And there it was - the Word of Life - 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it.' <S> It isn't food. <S> You can't digest it. <S> Partake of it and you will die. <S> But another (created) spirit drew near. <S> (For they had not taken of the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden. <S> They had not partaken of the Word of Life which said 'the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it'.) <S> And Eve hearkened and ate. <S> And Eve gave to Adam to eat. <S> And in that very day, they died. <S> This is about human nature. <S> It is a matter of how humanity is to Live. <S> Adam was made a living soul and he lived and breathed. <S> But there was a Tree of Life in the midst which he needed. <S> And he did not partake of it. <S> He chose to seek sustenance from another direction. <S> From knowledge. <S> Rather than partake of Life, he chose knowledge. <S> Which assumes his own ability to see aright and to do aright what he sees. <S> Rather than to partake of Life itself. <S> He wishes to be independent of the Deity (in whom is Life) who made him. <S> Chooses to hearken to a created spirit, encouraged by a created woman. <S> And he dies. <S> And he is banished from the garden, for he has failed in his humanity to rise to the purpose of the Creator who made humanity for a purpose. <S> This is profoundly and fundamentally spiritual. <S> It's not about physical fruit. <A> Most Christians would say that Adam and Eve's sin wasn't about eating fruit, but rebelling against God, their rightful and loving ruler. <S> Sin can't be quantified in general, but especially not rebellion against God. <S> What's the "fitting" punishment for rebels? <S> Expulsion from the land of the ruler you rebelled against doesn't sound too unfitting. <S> And they were still permitted to live in God's land actually, just not his special garden. <A> Without the introduction of prohibition, human choice would have lain dormant and faith, having no opportunity to work, would have been dead . <S> The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the item of prohibition. <S> But if you look at what the temptation was you will see that ingesting fruit is not what ruined mankind: <S> Gen. 3:5 <S> "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil ." <S> The manifestation of the sin (the fruit of it, if you will) was eating from the prohibited tree. <S> The sin itself was in rejecting God as the one qualified to delineate between good and evil for him and in taking that mantle upon himself. <S> Adam died to the Word of God (the source of Life) as his governing authority in that moment because he claimed it for himself and internalized the desire to be his own 'god'. <S> All of humanity has inherited that death. <S> The banishment from the garden was not penal but protective. <S> Gen. 3:22-24 " <S> Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. <S> Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever— ” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. <S> He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. " <S> It is not good for man to live even a temporal life in the belief that he does not need God to discern good and evil for him. <S> He sent His Son to be the new access point.
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God removed/cut off access to the Tree of Life so that man would not live forever in that state of spiritual death.
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Do any denominations teach that humans exist before birth? I'm agnostic, and there is is a specific symmetry in the timeline of life, when looking at it over all time. To me, a person does not exist before it is born, and does not exist after it died. During the lifetime, there is a period of growth, and a period of decay. Looking at it from the beginning of time to the end of time, this has a symmetry that has a certain beauty in it, I almost feel the symmetry is spiritual. Whether time is finite or not does not matter for it. It would be interesting whether it is seen that a person exists between conception and birth, but does not fundamentally change the question. Is there a concept comparable to this in any Christian denomination? The important and beautiful aspect is the symmetry in spacetime. <Q> I'm not sure if you'd include Mormonism as a Christian denomination, but the Mormon church definitely believes this. <S> They believe that people were "Heavenly Father's" spirit children in heaven, who are now in the flesh on earth: Spirit Children of Heavenly Parents . <A> To my knowledge there are no Christian denominations that teach the pre-existence of humans except (as Daniel Stein has pointed out) the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons). <S> Every denomination apart from them teaches that humans begin to exist at conception (which is technically before birth <S> but I assume the question wasn't about that), and become human at conception or some time between conception and birth. <S> That certainly applies to Catholic, Orthodox and all Protestant groups that I am aware of. <S> There are many scriptures that testify to the continued existence of people after death, but none of the mainstream scriptures teach of existence before conception. <S> Jeremiah 1:5, which could be taken like that, is taken to mean that God foreknows of a person's existence - <S> i.e. God knows of their existence before it happens. <A> A The pre-existence of the soul is a cornerstone of all ideas of reincarnation, so all religions that espouse reincarnation believe in it, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. <S> That includes Zoroastrianism, some sects of Judaism, especially those that accept the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. <S> For example, in The Book of Wisdom it says: As a child I was naturally gifted, and a good soul fell to my lot; or rather, being good, I entered an undefiled body. <S> (Wisdom 8:19,20 NRSV) <S> The Books of Esdras and Enoch are similarly cited, for example, by Mormons. <S> Some scholars believe this idea influenced later Jewish beliefs, such as the Medieval kabbalists. <S> See: <S> The idea that the soul is the human instrument of spirituality became more prominent over the course of Jewish history. <S> The only thing that all Christians would agree on is the pre-existence of Jesus' soul. <S> This article gives a summary for many denominations: Compare Religions: <S> Pre-Mortal Existence of Man <S> These denominations affirm belief in pre-existence: <S> Christian Science Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) <S> These denominations have no formal statement and leave it up to the individual: <S> Disciple of Christ Presbyterian <S> Quakers United Church of Christ <S> Some Early church fathers believed in the pre-existence of souls, such as Origen of Alexandria, a neo-platonist. <S> For additional discussion of that topic, see: Did any other early church fathers besides Origen teach the pre-existence of souls?
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Some religions teach pre-existence but not reincanation. The Greek Philosopher Plato taught the idea of the pre-existence of the soul.
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Is the Greek word Protoktistos used anywhere in the Bible? Arguing against the teaching that Jesus is a created being, some point out that calling him the firstborn of all creation (Colossians 1:15) does not mean the first created. The trinitarian will often say that had the scripture intended to say Jesus is the first created thing the word Protoktistos would have been used rather than prototokos.Then they state that the word Protoktistos is never used in connection with Jesus. My question is:Can you cite examples in the scriptures where the word Protoktistos is used? I would like to compare the places it is used with the places where prototokos is used. <Q> I am quoting from Young's Concordance and therefore looking at the KJV :- Κτιστης <S> Ktistes ' <S> Creator' occurs once. <S> ... served the creature more than the Creator [Romans 1:25] <S> Κτιζο, ktizo - the verb to create - occurs fourteen times. <S> But neither protoktizo nor protoktistos nor protoktistes ever occur in the (KJV) bible. <S> My 1,700 page special American edition of Liddell & Scott lists both πρωτοκτιστης <S> protoktistes 'first founder or creator ... and πρωτοκτιστος protoktistos ' <S> founded or created first' as occurring in Hellenistic Greek literature, other than the bible. <S> (Note that the first 'o' is an omega ω, and the second is an omicron ο.) <S> Πρωτοτοκος <S> prototokos (from the word τοκος <S> tokos meaning 'usury') occurs nine times in the KJV Greek text. <S> In saying 'the Greek text' I mean the belated Scrivener text of 1894, as the KJV translators did not actually produce a Greek text but used - largely - Erasmus and Beza and the Computensian Polyglot. <S> Tokos is used twice in scripture in parallel passages of the gospel accounts and relates to usury (interest on money loaned) each time. <S> The word 'born' is not actually present in the word, as such. <S> Any interpretation of the word needs to convey the meaning of the root word tokos as well as the meaning of the prefix, protos , which indisputably means 'first'. <S> In a generational context, prototokos does not draw attention to the matter of a birth, as such. <S> The word is much more forward looking than that. <S> It is a matter of the 'return' on an 'investment', the initial birth (in the context of birth, which is not essential to the word) being the first 'token' of the success of the entire'project'. <A> Πρώτοκτιστός is not found in the Bible. <S> However to assume that it would have been used at Col 1:15 if the Son had been created <S> is an argument from silence. <S> If there were examples in Paul, the NT, or the LXX, then they could be examined. <S> What is more pertinent is the syntax and grammar of the phrase in Col 1:15 compared to its use elsewhere. <S> Πρωτότοκος when the head noun of a genitive phrase is always a part of a group defined by the genitive phrase. <S> For example Exodus 34:20, firstborn of your sons, πρωτότοκον τῶν υἱῶν, in the LXX. <A> Using the Blue Letter Bible to search for that term we can see it yields no results. <S> In Col. 1:15, as seen in MGNT, that's the term used for "the firstborn" which can be read in more detail in Strong's G4416 - prōtotokos . <S> Strong's info addresses what you're looking for. <S> It states πρωτότοκος prōtótokos, pro-tot-ok'-os; from G4413 and thealternate of G5088 ; first-born (usually as noun, literally orfiguratively):—firstbegotten(-born).
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The closest word I could find results was prōtotokos / πρωτοτοκοσ , found 40 times in LXX, 3 times in MGNT and 3 times in TR.
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What was God's goal in creating life? I am agnostic and rationalist and I spend quite a lot of time reading the arguments of tenants of intelligent design (but rarely interacting with them). Regularly, one of these tenants claims something like "there should be a reason/cause for us to exist" or "life must be hard/meaningless without a purpose/goal". I disagree with that statement, but it made me wonder: What was God's purpose, according to the Bible, to create life? I got that, once life is created, God, being a benevolent deity, wish for us to live a good life according to his Word, in order to go to Heaven and enjoy eternal happy life (in opposition to an eternity of torments in Hell). But, why creating life in the first place? In opposition to not creating anything or creating a universe with no life (a clockmaker is satisfied with the mechanisms he created, even though they don't bear life). Boredom? Curiosity? Because he simply could? Is there anything about his intent in the creation in the Bible, or, is it claimed to be beyond our understanding? <Q> It isn't entirely clear whether you're asking what is the purpose of all Creation or just of human life. <S> Isaiah 43:7 Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory Psalm 19:1 <S> The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. <S> Romans 1:20 <S> For since the creation of the world <S> His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead... <S> Isaiah 45:18 <S> For thus says the Lord, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, <S> Who did not create it in vain, <S> Who formed it to be inhabited... <S> Putting all of the above pieces together, all of Creation was made to bring glory to God, but more specifically, man was created to appreciate the glory of God, and the Earth to enable the creation of mankind. <A> God, love is ... is the literal translation of John the Apostle's words in I John 4:8 (KJV). <S> And we read, also : <S> For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory , to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. <S> [Hebrews 2:10 KJV.] <S> With the coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God the Father is revealed. <S> He that hath seen me <S> , hath seen the Father [John 14:9 KJV] And also revealed is his true purpose, from the beginning. <S> His true purpose is to have sons. <S> And to bring them to glory. <S> The creation was a means to an end. <S> And there was a liability in the very nature of creation. <S> The liability of what created creatures would do. <S> And do it they did, as we see in Eden. <S> Created spirit, created woman and created man conspired together. <S> Sin came into the world. <S> But all had been foreseen. <S> And provision had already been made. <S> God's wisdom and foreknowledge has seen the liability : Deity, in unanimous counsel, had covenanted to effect salvation. <S> This is revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. <S> O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! <S> how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! <S> [Romans 11:33 KJV] <S> Even the activities of men on earth, working in contradiction to his own purpose of creation and salvation, were foreseen - and actually pre-determined : Him (Christ), being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: [Acts 2:23 KJV] God's purpose, from the foundation of the world, was a purpose of Divine Love : to create beings who would share his glory and be in union with him for ever. <S> This he does in Fatherhood, bringing many sons to glory, overcoming all - in his wisdom - that prevents his will and purpose from being fulfilled. <A> I was under the impression that God created life for the same reason that a Mother or Father might create life; to bring us Joy. <S> Unless of course you don't believe that children bring joy, which some days is very true. <A> Ultimately, we cannot know for sure what his goal(s) were. <S> All our best attempts (even those using the Bible) may fall sort, since God's goals may be beyond what our language can convey. <S> So our answers may be part of the actual answer, but we cannot be sure that they are the complete answer.
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Either way, the fundamental answer is the same: for His glory.
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What would be the best version of the bible for me? I came across this forum while doing a little bit of research. I just want to say first I do not consider myself Christian. I was raised Christian but always felt it forced on me. I have not been to a church service for 10 years and have no interest in going right now. That being said, I want to get a bible and read it so I can make an informed decision on what I should believe. I am looking At purchasing a bible but don’t know what version would be best for me. I want a version that is easy to read but at the same time not an interpretation and as close to a original translation as possible. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Side note: I went to a Lutheran church for the majority of my childhood. My mother still goes to the same church. My dad is a Christian but goes to a different denomination of church. I don’t know what kind. <Q> The major translations of the Bible are the King James Version (KJV), the New International Version (NIV), the New American Standard (NAS), the New King James Version (NKJV), the English Standard Version (ESV), and the New Living Translation (NLT). <S> The KJV and NAS attempt to take the underlying Hebrew and Greek words and translate them into the closest corresponding English words as possible (word for word), while the NIV and NLT attempt to take the original thought that was being presented in Greek and Hebrew and then express that thought in English (thought for thought). <S> There are pros and cons to each type - the article will help to explain. <S> You may find this article helpful - it gives insights into these different translations. <S> https://www.gotquestions.org/most-accurate-Bible-translation.html <S> For more detailed information into the history of how the Bible has been translated, and what those translations are, please refer to this article: https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-versions.html <S> I realise this presents you with more information than you might need, <S> but, if you are to make an informed decision as to which Bible to buy, then this is a good way to go about it. <S> One thing I would recommend is that you buy a Bible which contains cross-references, maps, a concordance and so much more to make the Bible come alive and to answer questions that will undoubtedly arise as to start to read. <A> In addition to Lesley's excellent answer, I recommend to FIRST check out BibleGateway.com which offers customizable parallel translation of dozens of English translation such as Psalm 91 in NLT,NIV,ESV <S> so you can have a preview. <S> Make sure too choose passages that have archaic sounding language; <S> Psalms, Proverbs, and prophetic books (like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel) are good ones to compare. <S> Once you decide on a translation , you can focus on choosing the binding (leather, paperback, etc.), the print (small, normal, large), and the extra features (maps, concordance, dictionary, articles, notes). <S> The website bible-researcher.com offers many objective resources to evaluate translations, including a convenient "one stop shop" to read each translation's Preface <S> where the translation committee describes in great detail the translation principle used. <S> You can find reviews and prefaces of common translations suggested by Lesley here: <S> New King James Version (NKJV 1982): 1997 Preface , Review , Wikipedia New International Version (NIV 1984, 2011): 1984 Preface , 1984 Review , 2011 Preface , 2011 Review , Wikipedia New American Standard Bible (NASB 1995): Preface , Review , Wikipedia English Standard Version (ESV 2001): 2011 Preface , Review , Wikipedia New Living Translation (NLT 2004): Preface , Review , Wikipedia <S> Finally, some popular translations such as NIV and NLT have gone through different editions, so pay attention to the year of translation as well, which affect inclusive language (NIV after 1984 experimented with this, backtracking some in the 2011 edition), or on the other hand more neutral translation (such as the 2004 (2nd) and later editions of the NLT). <S> Great index of all those years: 20th Century English translations 21st Century English translations <S> Which translation is today's best seller? <S> See the April 2020 CBA Bible translation list . <A> For Bible Study and research digital bibles with links, and references can be very helpful. <S> There is an nice App for Android "MySword - Free Android Bible" where you can compare many different versions of the bible. <S> It has the KJV linked with Strong's Concordance. <S> For Bible reading, i personally recommend a paper bible. <S> It is easy read. <S> It uses Yahweh in stead of LORD <S> This bible is not so common in the online bible portals because the copyright is still active. <S> But there are digital and online versions to try it.
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One of my favorites is the New Jerusalem Bible.
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How many times Jesus was montioned in both of Holy Bible and Holy Quran? Is there someone here give me the number of citations of Jesus in the original version of the Holy Bible ? I say to you in the Holy Quran He is mentioned 32 times and we have a Surah called Merry which means Meriam in Arabic language Mother of Jesus ? Is there the same in the Holy Bible ? Note : Am afraid that the number of citations of Jesus in Holy Quran is greater than its citation in the Holy Bible Edit I have edited the question without changing its meaning such that I want exactly the number of citation in the original Holy Bible not in the corrupted version. <Q> In order to avoid arguments about corrupted versions and exactly what consistutues a mention of Jesus, let us cut straight to key point. <S> You write: <S> I am afraid that the number of citations of Jesus in Holy Quran Greater than its citation in Holy Bible <S> That is unquestionably not true <S> Four books of the Bible (the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) are life stories of Jesus, and talk about virtually nothing else. <S> They are called the "Gospels" and make up about 82400 words. <S> That is more words than there are in the Quran. <S> Another 23 books of the Bible talk extensively about Jesus. <S> They, together with the Gospels, make up what is called the "New Testament". <S> They have a total of around 100,000 words. <S> The number of explicit mentions of Jesus in the Bible (not counting ones where one of his titles is used instead of his name) is about a thousand, more than twenty times the number in the Quran. <S> This is unsurprising. <S> Jesus is the Central figure of the Christian scriptures and the Christian religion. " <S> Christian" comes from "Christ", which is a title of Jesus. <A> I'm glad you are asking this question as I enjoy inter-religious dialogue. <S> If you are asking how many times his name is referenced, I think your count from the Qur'an may be incorrect since Jesus (Isa, ibn Maryam) is said to be used 39 times in the Qur'an here . <S> Alternatively, for the Bible it depends on your translation and method of interpretation. <S> For example: Bible prophecy in the Old Testament (Jewish Bible) are considered references to Jesus by many New Testament Scholars (Injil etc.). <S> Hosea 11:1 <S> When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. <S> (NIV) Is cited by St. Matthew in Matthew 2:15 as being ultimately about Jesus. <S> You also must take into account different titles which refer to Jesus like Messiah or Christ. <S> This is similar to Prophet Muhammad being called simply the Messenger of Allah, rather than being referenced by name. <S> In the New Testament, a largely ecumenical translation (NRSV) uses the name Jesus 999 times. <S> Christ is used 468 times, and Messiah 66 times . <S> Some of these uses may be redundant where people say his name and title together as in "Jesus Christ" but it certainly rises above 1,000 references contra the 39 in the Qur'an. <S> Finally, a common name Jesus used in reference to himself was "Son of Man" which he used 82 times just in the Injil . <A> The number of times Jesus is mentioned in the Bible varies by translation. <S> In the King James Version, it appears 983 times, while in the New International Version, it is mentioned 1273 times. <S> Numbers for other words and other translations here .
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The amount of the Holy Bible talking about Jesus is much more than the entirety of the Quran.
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Does there exist within the Catholic Church a church, cathedral or even an altar dedicated to the Holy Spirit? Does there exist within the Catholic Church a church, cathedral or even an altar dedicated to the Holy Spirit? With the recent events occurring in Turkey about Hagia Sophia I was wondering if there is such a thing as a church, cathedral or even an side altar within a church dedicated to the third person of the Holy Trinity known as the Holy Spirit or the Holy Paraclete. In the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, the feminine personification of divine wisdom as Holy Wisdom (Ἁγία Σοφία Hagía Sophía) can refer either to Jesus Christ the Word of God (as in the dedication of the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople) or to the Holy Spirit. - Sophia Hagia Sophia (Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia, 'Holy Wisdom'), officially the Great Holy Mosque of Ayasofya (Turkish: Ayasofya-i Kebir Camii Şerifi) and formerly the Church of Hagia Sophia, is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul. Built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople, it remained the largest church of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, except from 1204 to 1261 when it was converted to a Roman Catholic cathedral. In 1453, it was converted into an Ottoman mosque upon the fall of the city. In 1935 it became a secular museum, and in 2020 will re-open as a mosque. Completed during the reign of the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I, it was then the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture and is said to have "changed the history of architecture". - Hagia Sophia If there are any churches, cathedrals or altars dedicated to the Holy Spirit are extremely rare, if they exist at all. <Q> Translation help (in case the map still shows Polish labels) <S> - English to Polish: church - kościół of the Holy Spirit - Świętego Ducha/Ducha Świętego (the ordering of words is not that important in Polish due to extensive declination of nouns - 7 cases) <S> EDIT: <S> The churches on the map are all Roman Catholic except for the 2 mentioned above. <S> 95% of Polish citizens declare Roman Catholic faith. <S> Most of them are not participating in religious practices <S> but that's a different story. <S> You may only find Protestant churches in bigger cities and some relatively small areas close to borders with Czechia and Germany. <S> Orthodox churches are also present only in bigger cities and areas close to the eastern border with Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russia. <A> There are several churches dedicated to the Holy Spirit in Italy. <S> Padova (Padua): Spirito Santo in Padova – Spirito Santo Venezia (Venice): Chiesa dello Spirito Santo (Venezia) Firenze (Florence): Basilica di Santo Spirito <S> A long list: <S> Chiesa dello Spirito Santo Another: Chiesa di Santo Spirito <S> All are Roman Catholic; quite likely the list is not complete. <S> No cathedrals, as far as I know. <A> Canon Law allows it. <S> Commenting on the 1917 Code's equivalent to the 1983 Code's <S> Can. <S> 1218 <S> Each church is to have its own title which cannot be changed after the church has been dedicated. <S> canonist <S> Dom Charles Augustine, O.S.B., writes : Titles of churches may be: the Blessed Trinity or one of the three Divine Persons 35 , Jesus Christ or one of the biblical mysteries, the Blessed Virgin or any one of her special attributes, the angels and saints or some conspicuous events in their lives, as, for instance, the conversion of St. Paul. <S> 35. <S> God the Father is, as far as we know, not chosen, because of the fact that He is not represented as sent ( defectu missionis divinæ ).
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There are some churches dedicated to the Holy Spirit in Poland: Google Maps Exclude the westmost one - Armenian (not catholic) and the eastmost one - Orthodox.
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Do Protestants think of Mary as the "Mother of All Peoples"? I recently ran across a photo of a statue of Mary with her arms outstretched horizontally and the caption "Mother of All Peoples." A Google search reveals that this title is derived from a similar title, Lady of the Nations, associated with a Dutch visionary in the 1930s. See The Lady of All Nations . I'm curious to know to what extent "all peoples" or "all nations" who are not Catholic accept Mary as "mother." For example, what do various Protestant denominations teach about Mary's role, if any, in God's plan for human salvation? Are there any Protestant groups who look to Mary in the role of companion or advocate? <Q> I am quoting, below, from the Second Helvetic Confession which is a generally accepted statement of the Reformation : <S> It was adopted by the Reformed Church not only throughout Switzerland but in Scotland (1566), Hungary (1567), France (1571), Poland (1578), and after the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Scots Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism is the most generally recognized confession of the Reformed Church. <S> The Second Helvetic Confession was also included in the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.'s Book of Confessions, in 1967, and remains in the Book of Confessions adopted by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). <S> Helvetic Confessions - Wikipedia <S> The Helvetic Confession only makes one mention of Mary, the mother of Jesus : <S> For Scripture has delivered to us a manifest distinction of persons, the angel saying, among other things, to the Blessed Virgin, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Luke 1:35) Chapter III - The Second Helvetic Confession <S> In regard to images in general there is this statement : <S> But in fact in order to instruct men in religion and to remind them of divine things and of their salvation, the Lord commanded the preaching of the Gospel (Mark 16:15) - not to paint and to teach the laity by means of pictures. <S> Moreover, he instituted sacraments, but nowhere did he set up images. <S> Chapter IV - The Second Helvetic Confession <S> As noted in comment, above, the only place in scripture to speak of a woman being a 'mother' to all humanity is the pronouncement upon Eve when Adam named her : And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living . <S> [Genesis 3:20, KJV] <S> As noted in comment, the Wikipedia entry on Anglican Marian Theology does not carry sufficient citation to be a reliable statement of the very broad spectrum of belief within the Anglican/Anglo-Catholic community. <A> The word Protestant covers a lot of ground and some dispute as to who belongs to that group or not. <S> Early Protestant Reformers were originally Catholics and mostly continued believing much of Catholicism’s Mariology, though that generally changed over the years, provided they were not killed and actually had time to review all their inherited beliefs. <S> Most of those reformers were vastly different in their beliefs from beginning to end. <S> The churches or religions which sprang from them however have stagnated, sometimes not even following their founders final or later theology. <S> A slightly concise but reasonably useful writeup can be found in “Protestant views on Mary” at Wikipedia. <S> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestant_views_on_Mary <A> The simple answer from mainstream Protestantism (if such a term is possible) is no. <S> It is only when Mary approaches the status of the second Eve, in much the same way that Christ is the second Adam, that this theological tendency arises. <S> Since mainstream Protestantism strives towards 'Sola Scriptura' and since Mary as the second Eve cannot be found in Scripture without much theological gymnastics, the answer is no. <S> A corollary of this is to say that, as Eve disobeyed in the garden and Adam cooperated with her , so Mary obeyed and undid Eve's wrong just like Christ undid Adam's wrong. <S> The problem is that this makes Mary's obedience primary since Mary's obedience brought forth the Christ <S> so that he could obey . <S> Paul clears this up by declaring that the woman was deceived but Adam was not. <S> He neither cooperated with Eve nor was he tricked by her. <S> He received the command from God before Eve's creation and he alone transgressed. <S> Eve became a transgressor because she was 'of Adam'... <S> In Adam all die (1 Cor. 15:22). <S> "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh ; she shall becalled Woman, because she was taken out of Man ." <S> - Genesis 2:23 <S> Mary as the second Eve has nothing she can correct, it is Adam who must be redeemed.
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Most Protestant faiths now recognise Mary as a fallible human like everyone else and ascribe no special place or dogma regarding her at all.
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How important is tamping coffee for an espresso machine I observe that coffee servers (I refuse to use the term barista) will apply pressure to the coffee grounds using a variety of methods and pressure. This seems to vary wildly and I'd like to know how important is this? Is there some general rule of thumb when it comes to recommended pressure? My thoughts were that the fineness mattered the most for espresso machines and that reasonable enough pressure when tamping is enough but what do expert's use and believe. <Q> Tamping is one of three key controls you have over the espresso brewing process; <S> The others are dose (the amount of coffee used) and grind coarseness. <S> Together, they allow the coffee machine operator to produce a puck of the correct density and consistency through which the pressurized water can be pushed through. <S> Keep your variables the consistent <S> and you'll be able to dial in the best end-product. <S> I've been able to pull great shots using anything from just the weight of the tamper itself to my full weight pushed onto a puck, keeping all of the other factors where they needed to be to create the correct puck density. <S> See this video below for more detail: <S> What is the Right Way to Tamp? <A> Let's start off with what the function of the tamp is. <S> Function <S> The tamp is cylindrical in shape and is ideally just snug enough to fit into the portafilter smoothly. <S> What the tamp does, is prime the coffee bed to be met with water. <S> What we know about the water is that in general, in commercial machines, water is applied with 9 bars of pressure. <S> Physics tells us that pressured water flow will take the path of least resistance. <S> By this logic, the tamp functions by making the coffee bed smooth, even, and robust enough to be hit with 9 bars of pressure and extract evenly. <S> Barista Health <S> Note: <S> In no way am I a qualified physician. <S> This is not to be considered medical advice. <S> If the surface one tamps on is on the proper level, the barista should be able to tamp with their elbo at a 90 degree(ish) angle, and their wrists in a semi-straight path to prevent damage. <S> The barista can then use their body weight, and not muscle, to perform the tamp. <S> By leaning into the tamp with the correct path, one can achieve about 30lbs of pressure. <S> Experiments with varying pressure <S> Personally I have experimented with varying pressured tamps and have found that applying a greater pressure than 30 lbs produced little effect, at most, a longer extraction. <S> There are other variables that should be adjusted instead, such as the grind size, to achieve such an effect. <A> This is a good question. <S> The answer usually given is that it creates an even density to prevent water channeling through a path of least resistance. <S> But does it work?I volunteer in a church community coffee shop open for two mornings and one afternoon a week. <S> We have a two port commercial espresso machine. <S> There is a wide range of about thirty volunteers most of whom are not coffee drinkers and each volunteer does maybe just a few days each month. <S> While we have automatic measured grinder removing variables at that stage the tamping process is very variable: different pressure and puck not being level. <S> But, the resultant coffee seems to be consistent and good, we have positive comments from customers who are not locals but passing through our village and see our signage. <S> So, in my opinion, tamping is not as significant as many claim.
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While techniques vary, the "rule of thumb" is to apply roughly thirty pounds of force evenly across the puck; however, the key is consistency.
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Are high-end cone grinders adjustable? I switched from a modestly priced blade grinder to a moderately priced cone grinder because the results were inconsistent (some very fine powder and some only fragmented beans mixed with usable grounds). Will I have more consistency and control if I switch to a high-end cone grinder? I'm thinking about a refurbished restaurant grade grinder, not an industrial grade machine as one might find at a Starbucks or boutique roaster. <Q> Some even have macro and micro adjustments. <S> For example the Baratza Vario grinder Hand grinders are also adjustable, and provide a good grind. <S> See the Hario range <S> The larger commercial grinders are sometimes aimed more at bulk output than at a precise and consistent grind. <S> They grind the coffee very quickly, which may not be the quality you are looking for. <S> Some people prefer grinders that operate at a lower speed so that the temperature of the burrs stays low, reducing the chance of the grind getting over roasted <S> Here's a list of mid to high end grinders. <S> You will notice that they all have adjustments. <A> Yes. <S> What you describe as a conical grinder is also known as a burr grinder. <S> Burr grinders are important because they allow you to create ground coffee that is both homogenous and set to a specific granular size/coarseness. <S> This is a key feature and selling point of these grinders and it easily allows the user to grind for espresso one moment and drip coffee the next. <A> Most high-end automatic grinders allow you to adjust for coarseness, not speed, as they're driven by a gear box that makes them operate consistently. <S> This is important, because consistency allows you to produce exactly the same cup that you did previously by simply reproducing the grind / tamping / temp / etc. <S> If you drink exotic beans, such as alamid , then you probably want to also purchase a hand (crank) powered burr grinder as some beans are particularly sensitive to the heat that can be produced by the grinding process itself. <S> While ceramic burr grinders do very well at minimizing heat, it's nice to have a hand grinder for when you want full control. <S> The Breville smart grinder is a very good grinder for home use at a just above entry-level price. <S> All the control you want, easy to use, extremely consistent and handles baskets or portafilters of either size. <S> For a hand grinder, I'm quite fond of my antique steel burr grinder: <S> I can grind enough for a double shot in about 30 - 45 seconds, the top knob adjusts for coarseness while how fast I move my arm controls the amount of heat I produce just grinding the beans <S> :) <S> I don't use blade grinders because you have no real control over either - they tend to get too hot and <S> they produce inconsistent grinds.
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Yes, high end grinders are generally adjustable.
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What type of roast has the lowest caffeine content? I'm aiming to reduce my caffeine intake, but don't want to drop coffee altogether. What roasts / beans release the least amount of caffeine into my body when drank? <Q> In general, darker, arabica roasts have less caffeine. <S> Arabica (as opposed to robusta) inherently has less caffeine in it naturally, and darker coffees have less caffeine since they have been roasted longer or at higher temperatures, essentially "burning" the caffeine out of the bean. <S> EDIT <S> For some science, Arabica is usually found to be about 1.2% caffeine and Robusta is typically 2.2% caffeine <S> Source: <S> Differences between Arabica and Robusta Coffee <S> Chris in AK has a great explanation in the comments as to why darker roasts are perceived to have less caffeine <S> Caffeine's melting point is 455F which is well above what most beans reach during the roasting process. <S> Essentially, caffeine content changes because the mass/density of the beans change (they lose water and undergo changes in the roasting process). <S> If you measure your coffee by volume, dense greener beans will have more caffeine. <S> If you measure by weight, darker roasted beans will have more caffeine. <A> Caffeine is chemically stable even when passed through its boiling point (evaporation temperature) of 312°C (593.6°F), as demonstrated in this study, Thermoanalytical study of purine derivatives compounds by Schnitzler et al (Ecl. <S> Quím. <S> , São Paulo, 29(1): 71-78, 2004): <S> The evaporation of caffeine occurs without decomposition, in compliance with the infrared spectra of caffeine and solidified sample collected after evaporation... <S> (page 75) <S> Even a dark roast cannot proceed for long past the "second crack" temperature : <S> When the coffee reaches approximately 224 <S> °C (435 °F), it emits a "second crack", this sound represents the structure of the coffee starting to collapse. <S> If the roast is allowed to progress further, the coffee will soon fully carbonize, and eventually combust. <S> While the caffeine is not significantly affected by roasting, much else about the coffee beans is transformed (increased volume, loss of moisture, carmelization of sugars), thus changing the mass and density of the coffee bean. <A> If your goal is to reduce caffeine intake you don't necessarily have to change the type of coffee you're drinking - only the quantity. <S> I too felt the need to cut down on my caffeine intake. <S> I solved it by letting myself drink all the coffee I want until lunch time and then switch to tea in the afternoon and night. <S> This way I get to keep my caffeine consumption down and still drink the coffee I want. <S> As far as I know (and see Kyle's and hardmath's posts) the type of roast doesn't appreciably affect the caffeine level/
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It is a common misconception that darker roasts have less caffeine.
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How hot should water be to brew ground coffee directly in a cup? I don't have a coffee press so I just brew ground coffee as you would tea: in the cup. How hot should be the water to brew with this method? Should it be boiling, or a lower temperature? <Q> Since the exposure to the grounds is so direct, it's easy to burn the coffee at boiling temperatures. <S> You want a full body, but not a burnt taste (yuck!) <S> Turkish Coffee World recommends about 158 degrees Fahrenheit or 70 degrees Celsius. <A> I'm no expert, but a frequent enjoyer, and I also use freshly ground coffee in a cup, then pour water over it. <S> I always go with boiling water and have never heard of any reason to change. <S> My coffee tastes great too <S> , so I think I'm doing it right. <S> By the way, in my country (Sweden) we call that a 'Turkish' brew. <A> I go with around 165 degrees <S> Fahrenheight (73 C).
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Your method most closely resembles Turkish Coffee , which is suggested to be served at hot, but not boiling temperatures.
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What does the 'strength' mean (in numbers)? The coffee package I've bought has 'strength rating'. It's 3 out of 5. I wonder what that 'strength' means? How it is measured? Does it relate to the caffeine amount? The coffee package is from Germany, and from what I've seen, all coffee sorts have this rating, so it's a kind of standard. <Q> Coming from Germany myself I have seen this rating only on a single brand of coffee. <S> There is no standard for this (even though us Germans seem to like standardizations), but basically strength of the coffee is about the inherent bitterness and caffeine content you get out of it. <S> The stonger a coffee the more caffeine and also the more bitterness <S> you will usually get. <A> When people talk about strength they often confuse different things like the flavor intensity, caffeine concentration, roast grade, how full bodied a coffee tastes or how much bitterness it contains. <S> If someone orders a coffee at a corner bakery and asks for a "strong coffee" they probably mean a high ground coffee to water ratio and a lot of dissolved caffeine. <S> If someone complains in the same bakery about coffee that is too strong they probably mean that it is too bitter. <S> If a coffee professional is talking about coffee strength however, they are most likely referring to the total amount of dissolved solids (or TDS) which is measured with a refractometer. <S> An espresso ranges somewhere in between 7% and 15% while a filter coffee is somewhere around 1,5%. <S> That means an espresso is 93%-85% water and a filter 98,5%. <S> The rest is what has been extracted from the coffee. <S> Keep in mind that this is not to be confused with extraction. <S> Higher extraction (bitter coffee) doesn't make a strong, but actually a "weak" coffee. <S> Because you are running more water through the coffee the TDS will start to decrease at the point where the next ml of water is extracting less of the solids than the ml before. <S> That means that in terms of flavor "strong" means often the opposite of what people would actually associate with a strong coffee. <S> Holding the dosage constant, a strong espresso (too little water, thus something like a ristretto) would taste kind of sour, salty and unbalanced. <S> A weak espresso (too much water) would taste bitter. <S> The point is, strength refers at first not to flavor but to the TDS which is determined by your coffee preparation and not by the roasting. <S> The same coffee roasted darker is not stronger, it just received more heat. <S> Now, your package of coffee probably refers with it's "three out of five strength" to the roast grade (probably a medium to dark roast) which is just misleading marketing in my opinion. <S> Some additional reading: Analyzing espresso recipe strength and Espresso Recipes: Understanding Yield <A> It's marketing jargon. <S> In this case, it likely refers to the darkness of the roast, as there is often confusion about difference between darkness of the roast and the strength of a cup of coffee. <S> And then, strength is determined by how many solubles you have dissolved into the water. <S> If you want stronger coffee, use more grounds per measure of water. <S> Over-extracting the coffee will make it stronger, but it will also make it more bitter and less pleasant at the same time. <S> (If you're interested, here is a more detailed explanation of this). <A> The Starbucks-owned brand "Seattle's Best Coffee" uses numbers on its bagged supermarket coffees, too. <S> I equate it to the stars you can use to order Asian takeout with more or less spiciness. <S> There's no set scale I've ever found, but it's a general way to tell the consumer where on the spectrum each product (roughly) lies.
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In truth, coffee has no "strength" until it is brewed.
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Which type of coffee grinder is the quietest? Perhaps my question should be "What is the best type of grinder to use at my desk if I work in a cubicle and use a French Press?". I have tried finding decibel measurements on Amazon's website, but most of the coffee grinders listed don't specify them. <Q> First, lets ignore blade grinders entirely. <S> Any grinder that doesn't have a motor will be relatively quiet. <S> You'll be at the mercy of the crunching beans, but that's it. <S> Add to this that the more the grinder weighs, or the more "heft" <S> it has to it, the quieter it will typically be due to the additional mass damping any vibration. <S> When adding a motor to the mix, each step between the motor and the burrs adds an opportunity for noise. <S> The pecking order is basically... Hand Grinder -- <S> > Direct Drive Flat Burr -- <S> > <S> Direct Drive Conical Burr --> <S> Gear-Reduced Burr <S> While Decibel ratings are available from most manufacturers, they're difficult to translate into a subjective estimate of "harshness." <S> I deal with these regularly and found that some of my favorite grinders are technically louder than several others, including the Baratza Vario. <S> The difference is that they have a much more mellow drone rather than the gear motor's quieter whine. <A> Perhaps you could compare some grinders there. <A> A manual coffee grinder like the "Hario Ceramic Coffee Mill". <A> Based on my experience, a hand grinder is the absolute quietest that you can buy, but it also take a bit of elbow grease. <S> And if you're shopping for an older parent (like I recently did), then those arthritis hands can't handle that manual grinder. <S> Like others, I did my research on places like Quiet Home Lab and Amazon reviews. <S> I also ended up buying the Capresso Infinity for my dad. <S> He seems to enjoy it - and it is quiet compared to his last grinder, <S> so I call that a win! <A> There are hand grinders, which are quiet but the question is - do you really want to grind by <S> hand?So you want to see some grinders which are designed to be quiet. <S> That can be hard to find though. <S> Capresso infinity is calling itself the quietest grinder - <S> at least I read so in this detailed review on coffee grinder world . <A> Well, sharing my experience about this, i was in need of a coffee grinder and my first requirement was it should be quiet <S> or i will not buy it. <S> After searching it manually on LA market, could not find a good one that is quiet and then decided to give a try to search it online. <S> Came across Quiet Gadgets from google and after reviewing every grinder in the list bought the Bravile BCG 820 <S> and i am quiet happy with it. <A> The Comandante Hand grinder or another similar grinder would have to be the best option. <S> The grind on a Comandante is superior to most other hand grinders on the market, though the price is rather high. <S> In the $200 range I believe. <S> It is worth every penny for the discerning coffee snob.
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As such, a direct drive grinder will typically be quieter than anything involving a gearbox. WholeLatteLove.com actually provides decibel ratings for many of their coffee grinders such as the Mazzer Mini . Well even decibel ratings did not prove to be quite best thing to measure, because they also depend on different things, some noises aren't as disturbing as others,...
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How to grow coffee at home? I am a heavy coffee user and I want to know what's in my coffee and therefore I'd like to grow coffee in my home. Is it possible to grow coffee in an apartment? <Q> It is possible to grow coffee indoors. <S> If allowed to grow as a tree they can reach 8 feet tall but if trimmed occasionally you can get the plant to grow more like a bush around 3-4 feet. <S> This will change some based on the exact type. <S> Coffee plants prefer shade with a couple hours of direct sunlight in the morning. <S> Keeping it by a window should be about right. <S> Depending on your climate you want to be careful taking it outside during winter. <S> As J Musser mentioned, this will be a long process that will yield very little, but it can be done. <S> On the plus side, coffee plants are evergreens and look very nice as indoor plants. <S> You can read more here . <S> Edit: <S> Stealing @JMussers comments to add to my answer <S> They do look good, though. <S> My point was, indoor coffee plants aren't that effective. <S> Outdoors, a good plant will produce around 2-3 lbs. <S> of grean beans per year. <S> They are usually planted about 8'x8' apart, or a near equivalent, so 680 plants per acre, = <S> around 1700 lbs of green coffee per acre per year, under good conditions. <A> If you have enough space in a garden or you can rent a piece of community garden, you can consider setting up a greenhouse . <S> As such, you can control the optimal environment for your plants and don't need to invade your living area. <A> In an enlightened environment, but not directly under the sun, keep the temperature in between 15 °C and 25 °C, use plenty of water to the soil, water once a week when hot, water once in two weeks when cold, don't eat its leaves. <S> As the title itself asks for how to grow , I would like to answer that also. <S> A few days ago, I have encountered an Arabica plant. <S> A very small one, at most one years old. <S> At the bottom of the pot there were these instructions illustrated. <S> I place the photo of the tag below. <S> Happy farming! <S> Note that, Cenaphora (aka Robusta) or Liberica may have different instructions. <S> Meanwhile, as Liberica is a very large tree, I don't expect anyone tries to grow them at home.
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One large apartment plant will only produce enough coffee for a few cups worth each year, and that's after years of growth.
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Most moka pots don't work on my induction stove. How can I still use them? Most moka pots don't work on my induction stove. How can I still use them? I use a camping stove temporarily, but it requires me to buy gas refills every now and then. Is there an easier way? <Q> Yes, you just need to get a pot that's made of the right stuff. <S> Induction hobs only work with magnetic metals. <S> Traditional moka pots are made of aluminium, which is why they don't. <S> I have one that looks like this: <S> A quick search on Amazon should find you what you want, or enquire at your nearest big cookware store - <S> the advisors there should be able to show you which ones will work (most will have indicators on the box in any case). <A> You can buy an induction adapter. <S> A quick search easily shows a few models. <S> Disclaimer: I have never tried one yet. <S> Legacy gas around here. <A> Shop for stainless pots with a magnet! <S> If it sticks, they will work provided the base is big enough. <S> I found a larger unbranded one (at Goodwill!) with a flared base that works perfectly with my portable induction cook plate. <S> Start at 1500 watts and drop down to 300 as soon as the liquid begins to show up in the upper container, the drop even lower and finally off to avoid the final surge of overheated steam. <A> At least thats what my father uses. <S> Its also nice because you can place it on the kitchen table <S> so you don't have to get up once the coffee is ready. <S> (Not to mention that this is a very handy device for keeping food/beverages warm and on the table). <A> I had the same problem, and found a simple way to solve it: you might have a pot or pan that actually works on the hob <S> , right? <S> so, just put this one, empty, over the cooktop and then the moka pot inside this pot or pan. <S> It has been working for me so far : ) <A> Please allow me to confirm the size thing: i use an alessi 3 cup on a portable induction hob, and have used on one permanent one - the base is about 3 inches - Works beautifully. <S> Have just tried on another built-in induction hob (whirlpool schott ceran) and nothing. <S> Take aways: - the magnet test is good to show potential to be an induction pot- the "induction" mark on the base of an item likewise <S> (like this moka pot)- not all induction hobs, however, are created equal. <S> WHen looking through the manual on this hob that's NOT working with the pot, it does not say what the "minimum" size is for surface (eg, what is "too small"); all it says is if the thing is "not of the correct dimensions for your induction hob, the message "no pot" will appear in the display ". <S> Who knew one had to ask about "minimum dimensions" for a hob?? <A> PS - just found a hack for an induction hob that has failed to start up with one small indcution hob - as commented above: Use two, as shown! <S> It's a fluke <S> there are two of these available, but my guess is putting on anything induction-ish with the moka pot will work. <S> Satisfaction, of sorts. <S> At least i can make coffee again :) <A> CNC Kitchen solved the issue by placing an iron disc inside the boiler. <S> This way he was able to make coffee even with a moka made of plastic.
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If you want to stick with your pot and don't want to use an adapter you could also buy a single stove like this one: If you can stick a magnet to your coffee pot, it will work.
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How does coffee grind size affect coffee taste I have a grinding machine with a lot of different settings. Even between the categories of Fine and Medium there are sub levels of grinding. I'm not sure how they relate to the flavor of the coffee. Is there any research that shows how the grind affects the taste of the different types of roasts? <Q> The main reason for different grinds is the different brewing processes. <S> If the water is exposed to the grounds for a very short amount of time (e.g., 10-15 seconds for espresso), you need a finer grind to provide enough surface area to extract the coffee from the beans. <S> If the brewing time is long (e.g., the ~4 minutes of french press), you need a coarse grind to avoid over-extracting the grounds and getting something too bitter to drink. <S> That's really the heart of it. <S> If the grind is too coarse for your brewing method, your coffee will end up under-extracted, weak, and acidic. <S> If it is too fine a grind, your coffee ends up over-extracted and bitter. <S> Your grinder is a good brand; if you still have the manual, it includes a guide to grind vs. brewing method. <S> If not, the capresso.com site includes PDF versions. <A> In your title, you mention grind consistency . <S> This is different from but related to grind size - an inconsistent grind (such as a whirling-blade type "grinder") will have sizes all over the map, from dust to half a bean. <S> The dust will be over-extracted, and the half-a-bean won't contribute much flavor at all. <S> A consistent grind (one with particles in a small range of sizes, neither excessively large nor excessively small) makes it more feasible to get the contribution of all the coffee grounds to the beverage without over-extracting any of the grounds - thus making it possible to get a more consistently predicable cup of coffee, without off flavors from some part of the grounds and no flavor from another part. <A> It's already been stated that grind size will change depending on your brewing method. <S> Here is a quick break down of which grind size aligns with what brew type(the most popular ones). <S> Keep in mind <S> everybody's taste is different, You may have to make small adjustments to find yours. <S> Coarse - French press , Cold Brew <S> Medium to Medium <S> /fine - Manual drip, Automatic drip Fine - Espresso, Turkish <S> You might find this resource helpful. <S> Happy Coffee!
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Having fine control over the grind size in a consistent grinder makes it possible to adjust the grind to produce the best cup (to your taste) in the equipment you have for brewing.
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Why do we need to fold the border of filters? Standard and V60 paper filters require we fold the border before spreading them for dripping. I believe this is just because of their manufacturing process. But would there be any other reason? Folding that border makes the surface uneven in the end, and it can sometimes be harder to control the water flow. <Q> I did a little bit of research at the site of inventor of the coffee filter. <S> It's Melitta from Germany. <S> In the german FAQ <S> I found the following: <S> Warum falte ich <S> Filterpapier vor dem Einlegen um? <S> Damit die Kaffeezubereitung optimal funktioniert, muss dasFilterpapier genau in die Form des Filters gebracht werden. <S> Diesgeschieht, indem <S> Sie die beiden geprägten Ränder umfalten. <S> DasFilterpapier schmiegt sich dadurch an den Rand des Filters an undsitzt tief im Filtereinsatz. <S> Durch diese gute <S> Passform kann sich dasFilterpapier während des Brühvorgangs nicht einklappen <S> In English: <S> Why I fold the coffee filter? <S> For a good result the coffee filter must be in exactly the form of thedrippter. <S> This is done by folding over the two embossed edges. <S> Thecoffee filter is nestled by the edge of the dripper and sits deep init. <S> Through these good fit, the coffee filter can not collapse duringthe brewing process. <S> Additional fact: The coffee filter was not invented by Melitta the company, but by Melitta Bentz . <S> Sorry for that bad translation. <S> My English is really not the best. <S> Please improve me! <A> Here is what I found: Trying to tear out a proper filter is difficult. <S> Filters do resist to boiling-water temperature. <S> Trying to tear out a proper filter along the seam is quite easy. <S> The seam glue is not weak these days, but this way there is no risk of tearing <S> (e.g. if there is a defect in the seam), and the surface area inside the filter is also more uniform---the filter stands well in place. <A> Good Morning coffee drinkers ! <S> I am now getting on for 70 years old <S> and I remember when my mother in Norfolk UK bought her first ground coffee filter machine. <S> She used "Melitta" filters and told me to always fold the two seams. <S> I have never forgotten this advice and along with a lot of knowledge passed on over the years I continue to do this. <S> I settled in France around 30 years ago and have never noticed any one folding the edges over here - even my french wife has never accepted that it is necessary. <S> However, she has, from time to time had the filter collapse when she has been responsible for preparing the coffee..... <S> SO - the reasons for doing this are to me, at any rate fairly clear and I agree with the reasoning of both the Melitta company & Eric Platon.
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So, by folding the filter on the seam, it seems we kind of hide the seam from direct contact with hot water. There is a seam in the first place, because it is easy to manufacture fold-able filters this way (I am looking for a citation here).
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When does coffee go off? If I've ground a batch of coffee, I know I should use it as soon as possible, but if I store it (in an opaque, air-tight, slightly-below-room-temp container), how long have I got to use it? Are there any key points at which the quality will degrade (e.g. after a day, after a week)? <Q> The graph below shows the quick 1.5 standard deviation drop in quality within the first 14 days (marked in red). <S> *See note below for details Staling in the context of coffee has a commonly agreed on definition - the loss of volatile aromatic compounds and the oxidation of surface oils on the roasted coffee beans. <S> The loss of aromatics affects the flavor profile because: 1) they are both part of the same degradation process and 2) <S> the majority of what you taste in coffee is flavors from volatile aromatics through retronasal olfactory sensation. <S> This graph was created using data from Analytical Flavor Systems where we build quality control and flavor profiling tools for craft beverage producers. <S> Perceived Quality is a non-hedonic assessment of a product's quality. <S> This time series is taken from a degradation study. <S> Ground coffee, on the other hand, will stale within minutes. <S> 70 cc of ambient air is enough to render one pound of coffee stale. <S> On average, this process takes seven minutes. <S> Interestingly, the degradation curve looks about the same! <S> Data Analysis Minutia (notes) <S> This time series model was segmented using daily <S> Perceived Quality means from a random selection of 15,000 coffee reviews. <S> All coffees included are whole bean, freshly ground, third wave coffee brewed in a Chemex with a bleached filter. <S> Certain other brewing methods, particularly methods optimized for older coffee such a Nel, may show a different degradation curve. <S> The staling point was selected by a parametric statistical change point analysis, which searches for shifts in the mean and variance of a time series. <S> This time series was modeled for change point analysis using a Poisson distribution as we're searching for the average number of coffees that go stale within a specific time-point, and the model was set to find at most one change . <A> The flavor constituents of roasted coffee are the result of high roasting temperatures. <S> After roasting, they continue to be affected by environmental factors, their own natural instability, and interaction with other compounds. <S> The most important of these processes are: Dissipation into other media. <S> Aromatics evaporate from the surface of the coffee into the atmosphere or are dissolved into solvents, where they often interact with other chemicals. <S> Non-enzymatic browning reactions. <S> These involve carbohydrates, usually sugars, in carmelization and Maillard reactions. <S> Carmelization occurs when a sugar gives up water and carbon dioxide, changing the structure of the sugar and its taste. <S> The Maillard reaction is the result of an interaction between amino acids and carbohydrates in which an aromatically perceived substance is formed. <S> When the Maillard reaction takes place at a high temperature (as in coffee roasting), the result is usually desirable roasted flavors and aromas, but when it takes place at a lower temperature, the result is flat, gluey, and cardboard-like flavors. <S> Oxidation. <S> Oxidation is any reaction in which one or more electrons are moved from one chemical to another, producing two different compounds. <S> In coffee, the most common process is that an oxygen molecule donates two electrons to a compound, forming a new (differently perceived) compound and bonding with hydrogen to form water. <S> The engine that drives all of these processes forward is thermal energy (heat). <S> This energy can be in the immediate environment, a result of other chemical reactions, or already present in the product. <S> According to a high-rep legit subreddit AskScience user, Unlike all of the other posters in this thread, I have done this experiment. <S> A cup of brewed coffee left at room temperature for 24 hours had about 60% of its caffeine remaining. <S> There's been lots of talk of caffeine's chemical stability, but it's a carbon and nitrogen source for bacteria. <S> Edit: also, coffee left at 4 degrees celsius for 2 weeks had less than 5% of its original caffeine content. <S> The method of assaying caffeine was capillary electrophoresis, a pretty reliable method. <S> Sourced from <S> The Black Bear Micro Roast and Reddit. <A> Generally, there is the Rule of 15 . <S> Green coffee lasts fresh for 15 months, roasted (stored in an opaque, air-tight, slightly-below-room-temp container) 15 days and ground 15 minutes. <S> This applies mainly to specialty coffee since it has the most aromas and tastes. <S> Even if you open a bag of beans and do not grind them, once the air reaches the beans you can notice that taste degrades in few days. <S> You would have to get most of the air of the container so that the coffee lasts 15 days mentioned above.
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Whole Bean Coffee Degradation Over Time Whole bean coffee will go stale within 14 days - on average.
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Why do some people sneer at Starbucks coffee? Business practices aside, Starbucks coffee seems to get a lot of derision from people who consider themselves coffee aficionados. Why is this? I can understand why one might not like the idea of an enormous creamy, iced, syrup-filled beverage, but is there anything wrong with their actual espresso? An example of this common mindset is presented on Time.com : [...] no coffee snob I know would be caught dead drinking a latte, especially the Starbucks latte they implied. <Q> In order to maintain consistency, Starbucks roasts their coffee a tad bit longer than many might prefer. <S> The espresso you get in New York is going to taste exactly like the one you got in Hong Kong, or New Delhi <S> - that's actually kind of impressive. <S> Still, if you're someone that likes their beans just past the second 'crack' - you might find their espresso a bit too dark, a bit too bitter and a bit too expensive to be accepting of a disappointment. <S> Now, the coffee that they sell in bags gives you plenty of options - you can still get a nice blonde-roasted bag of single source Arabica at many locations. <S> If you're there to order something with milk in it, then you're probably not going to notice just how dark the beans really taste - you'll probably just enjoy your coffee. <S> However, if you tend to take espresso straight, or a drink that is basically espresso cut with water or very little milk, you might thumb your nose in the air a bit. <S> Then again, I'd take a bitter-ish espresso over a cup of bland-ish drip any day. <S> People love to complain if given the opportunity. <S> If you like their espresso, enjoy it - if not, well, drink other espresso :) <A> Starbucks is a coffee-chain, but "It's not about the coffee" . <S> Their main focus is actually the personal experience of going there. <S> They train their employees to remember regular's names (and not only that; the get loads of training on handling people, conversation tactics, and personal skills), they have that "your name on the cup" thing, and generally, their focus is actually the reception you get and how you feel going to Starbucks. <A> I like the answers already here, but want to add on a bit. <S> Coffee freshness is an extremely important variable when selecting coffee. <S> There are roughly 800 volatile molecular components found in coffee and much of it evaporates within several days of resting <S> and/or minutes after grinding. <S> A true coffee snob is very interested in a "roast date" rather than a "best by date" because it gives you a read on freshness rather than the fabricated "expiration" that the roaster arbitrarily puts on the bag. <S> Imagine selecting bread at a bakery and they won't tell you the day it's baked, it is rather mind boggling! <S> Since starbucks is an international chain, coffee freshness does not become a economical priority when servicing thousands of stores and millions of customers. <S> Roasted coffee sits in warehouses until it is finally delivered and used by the barista or bought off the shelf by the consumer. <S> It appears that Starbucks shelf-life is 12 months according to their Standards for Food Suppliers .
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So while their coffee might be good, if one goes there and ignores all the other factors and solely focuses on the taste, one might find that there are better places in town.
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What preparation method yields the most caffeine? I want to make the most caffeinated coffee possible. What method should I use to yield the most caffeine content per liter? <Q> The first thing you want to do is choose the right bean and the right roast. <S> Longer roasting removes some of the caffeine from the bean, so a lighter roast would be preferred. <S> Additionally you should chose Robusta beans, since their inherent caffeine content is higher than that of arabica beans. <S> The next step is the grinding. <S> The smaller you grind, the easier it is to extract "material" from the ground. <S> This is due to the additional surface area you expose. <S> Then the last step is the extraction. <S> The longer you expose the ground to water, the more substances you absorb. <S> The extraction roughly has three steps: Extraction of Acidity Extraction of Sweetness Extraction of Bitterness <S> Usually you try to stop extraction after the second step, to have the coffee taste nicely. <S> By that point in time most of the caffeine is already extracted. <S> If you'd want to get all the caffeine out of a ground, you'd have to go through with extracting the bitterness, too. <S> But for general purpose drinkable coffee it's definitely preferrable to stop after extracting the sweetness <A> Brew method doesn't make any difference in caffeine content. <S> Caffeine generally extracts very quickly from the grounds... as fast or faster than the acids, so you will have most of it in your cup regardless of brew method. <S> Continuing to over-extract the coffee isn't going to yield any more caffeine, either, at least not in any significant measure. <S> I certainly wouldn't brew over-extracted coffee just in hopes of a little extra caffeine. <S> ( source ) Darkness of the roast does affect caffeine content in way, because it affects the weight of each bean as it roasts. <S> If you measure your grounds by weight (as you should), dark roasts have more caffeine. <S> Though if you measure by volume (as is more common), then light roasts will have more ( source ). <S> So, for more caffeine, favor dark roasts, but be sure you measure your coffee by weight, not volume, if you're comparing to light roasts. <S> Some people talk about whether espresso or drip coffee has more caffeine. <S> The problem with this is it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. <S> A cup of coffee has more caffeine than a shot of espresso... <S> but of course it does <S> , it's eight fluid ounces of coffee compared to one fluid ounce of espresso. <S> And if you were to compare equal volumes, the espresso has far more... because it uses about eight grams of beans per ounce where drip coffee is around two and a half. <S> And by that, I mean use more grounds. <A> I would say that using a cezve to brew turkish coffee has the potential to yield a very strongly caffeinated coffee. <S> The beans are grinded to powder which leads to very intense extraction and it is usually boiled several times.
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Which, in a roundabout way, gets to the point: the best thing you can do, if you want more caffeine, is brew it stronger, using any method.
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Is Kopi Luwak safe to drink? Kopi luwak, i.e. Vietnamese weasel coffee, is made from beans that have been consumed and excreted by civets. It can cost as much as $3000/lb, so few have probably tried it. This process doesn't seem incredibly sanitary. Is this coffee safe to drink? Do people contract diseases from drinking it? <Q> In The Philippines, we often call this 'Kopi Alamid ', and it truly is one of the rarest coffees on the planet. <S> At around $20 per 75 grams (local price), it's also one of the world's most expensive coffees. <S> The palm civet is a nocturnal cat (well, more like a ferret, but technically a cat) that eats the berries (beans) and is extremely picky in its diet. <S> For the civet to choose a bean, it has to be <S> just right when it comes to the aroma, and given the sensitivity of this creature's nose, said aroma means the bean is perfect. <S> Some say the digestive process itself lends to better flavor, it can be a matter of heated debate depending on where you ask ;) <S> The thing is, the cat doesn't digest the whole bean, just the outer pulp. <S> Farmers follow them around and wait for nature to take its course, then the beans are processed in a very safe manner. <S> Farmers typically get just a kilo or so a day, it's quite an intensive process. <S> I drink it as often as I can afford to do so, and I have never gotten sick. <S> It's a partly fruity, partly nutty and just an all over cozy and relaxing taste that I highly recommend if you're able to get the coffee. <S> Just be prepared to pay quite a bit, and ready to consume it quickly after getting it home (it does not keep as well as others, probably due to local transportation issues prolonging the time it takes from roasting to actually get to market). <S> If you have a hand-powered burr grinder, I recommend using it and grinding pretty gingerly, even the heat of most ceramic grinders is enough to lose a little bit of the fruity taste you'd otherwise get. <S> Really, treat these beans like royalty, they're that good. <S> If you buy some, try to avoid buying from farms with captive civets - the growing popularity of this coffee has led to a cottage trapping industry, which is (unfortunately) likely to seriously endanger them soon. <A> The Civet cat is out of the Java bag, and people around the world are bidding up the cost for this delicious coffee to $200-400/lb. <S> and above. <S> While I would like to convince you this coffee is dangerous and give you my address <S> so you can send it to me for proper disposal <S> , honesty compels me to point out the proper preparation makes it perfectly safe for human consumption. <S> A University of Guelph, Ontario study by Massimo Marcone bears this out, finding it has fewer bacteria than regular coffee. <S> "As a food scientist, I'm skeptical that anything being in contact with feces is safe," said Marcone. <S> "But tests revealed that the Kopi Luwak beans had negligible amounts of enteric (pathogenic) organisms associated with feces." <S> Harvesting of Civet green beans is very labor intensive, with each bean being individually graded after washing and drying. <S> Then the best of the beans are typically given a medium roast , reaching internal temperatures between 410°F and 428 <S> °F . <S> This is hot enough to kill any bacteria. <S> Compare the recommended safe cooking temperatures for meat at 140°F to 165°F, or even the <S> autoclave temperature of 250°F. <A> It's pretty safe to drink, but you might want to educate yourself about the way the coffee is produced. <S> Read this for example. <A> Yes it is safe to drink. <S> But to everyone's surprise it has got many benefits like it is good for ulcer patients, protects teeth and many more. <S> Know all the facts regarding this Indonesian beverage in All About Kopi Luwak .
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Yes, it's perfectly safe to drink and extremely delicious . Many people often hesitate to consume it as the coffee beans are actually partly digested coffee cherries eaten and defecated by the Asian palm civet.
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Does coffee cause dehydration? Actual scientific information on the effects of food and drink is notoriously hard to sift from all the dieting pseudoscience. I know that caffeine is a diuretic, which means it will cause me to lose more water, but given that I'm dosing up on it with water, will I lose more water than I gain? Even if it doesn't for longer drinks, will drinking espresso result in a net loss of water? <Q> Though caffeine's action as a diuretic is hotly debated, recently it seems the scientific consensus is that caffeine in normal doses is a weak diuretic in caffeine-naive individuals only (those without a tolerance), and only in doses exceeding 250-300 mg, or 2-3 cups of coffee. <S> To go even further, A profound tolerance to the diuretic and other effects of caffeine develops, however, and the actions are much diminished in individuals who regularly consume tea or coffee. <S> The New York Times exposed this myth in this article : <S> Researchers found no significant differences in levels of excreted electrolytes or urine volume [between those given caffeine and a placebo]. <S> Here is another good resource for answering these questions in a clear, FAQ-style and features a good list of references on the topic. <A> As I understand it caffeine itself is a mild diuretic. <S> Some say this effect quickly goes away (within a week). <S> Even if it does not for coffee the mildness of the diuretic is mostly compensated by the water intake. <S> I suppose in the case of espresso there may be a net loss of water, but it would still be very minimal. <S> I am not a doctor, so I have not fully researched this. <S> I have not provided links because there is such varied opinion on the topic. <S> Someone from the medical community might be able to provide a definitive reference. <A> Even though caffeine may be a mild diuretic, most coffee is over 99% water, contributing to hydration . <S> I read about an interesting study that measured no difference in effective hydration between several classes of beverages (carbonated, caffeinated, sweetened, or not). <S> They're all mostly water. <S> See also No evidence of dehydration with moderate daily coffee intake: a counterbalanced cross-over study in a free-living population.
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And from the same review of the literature : Doses of caffeine equivalent to the amount normally found in standard servings of tea, coffee and carbonated soft drinks appear to have no diuretic action.
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Is it easier to froth full-fat milk? Is it better to use whole (full-fat) or semi/skimmed milk for a cappuccino, or does it make no difference (other than the taste)? Will one type of milk be easier to froth? <Q> The short answer is yes. <S> The absence of the milk fats means that the foam will not "coagulate" as easily. <S> The proteins chains in milk are polar: one end of the chain ishydrophilic (attracted to water), and the other is hydrophobic(repelled by water). <S> Because milk is mostly made up of water, as soonas those proteins unfold, exposing their ends, the hydrophobic endsimmediately try to get as far away from that water as possible. <S> If youwere to look at a single tiny bubble in a cup of foamed milk, you'dsee that the hydrophobic ends of the milk proteins are all pointedinwards, towards the water-free interior of the bubble, while thehydrophilic ends stay put in the aqueous environment the bubbles aresuspended in. <S> This structure helps keep the air bubbles intact for a long time after the steaming > process, all the way into your cup (and into your happy, soon-to-be caffeinated mouth). <S> For a wonderful article on the topic see: http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/12/milk-foam-what-is-microfoam-why-does-milk-foam-what-is-a-cappuccino-coffee.html <A> From experience it seems slightly easier and is less runny. <S> The difference for me is pretty negligible with semi-skimmed vs. whole milk. <S> Skimmed on the other hand always ends up quite watery for me, but that may have something to do with the way I'm frothing it. <A> Whole milk takes longer, but makes for a creamier froth. <S> I think it would be worth experimenting with to see which one you prefer. <S> I like the texture of the whole milk froth better, but its not what I like to have on hand for everything else.
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Skim milk is easier to froth and it is drier.
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Is it safe to brew old coffee? I found a 10 year old package of coffee. Is it safe to brew it? Or should I get a new one? <Q> If it's refrigerated, it'll last for at least a week, as long as you didn't pre-dairy it. <S> Unrefrigerated, I wouldn't trust it for more than a day. <S> Coffee is a crappy growth medium and it should start out the next best thing to sterile, but, even covered, its going to start to get moldy. <S> Obviously if you add dairy, then you're dealing with that dairy shelf-life, and that isn't very long at all. <S> First, is your idea of going bad that it has a funny taste and is not as fresh as it once was, or is it that it actually tastes as though it is spoiled? <S> Once your coffee is opened and introduced to oxygen, the shelf life timer begins to tick. <S> Storing coffee in hot, humid, or sunlight areas will only make matters worse. <S> Do you typically buy your coffee ground for you? <S> With a far greater surface area of coffee coming in contact with the oxygen, those grounds are going to stale much quicker than whole beans will. <S> I highly recommend investing in a hand or electric grinder to experience the fresh taste and aroma of beans you’ve ground yourself. <S> When coffee goes bad, it can become bitter and even rancid. <S> Every bean will react differently to oxidation. <S> If you start to notice your expertly roasted beans losing quality and general yumminess, it may be time to buy some fresh beans. <S> Don’t know how to find amazing, fresh coffee? <S> I wrote a guide on that. <S> No matter what you do, you will not be able to get that fresh flavor back once it has left the bean. <S> The most important thing to do is keep it locked up tight. <S> However, if you are a true coffee lover, it may not sit around long enough to even think about going bad. <S> Just remember this rule of thumb: about two weeks after roast the coffee will start decaying. <S> I would close this question as "Too broad" but then. <S> Sourced from http://www.coffeebrewguides.com/ <S> and https://cooking.stackexchange.com/ <A> I tried it with 2 year old beans that weren't ground and kept in their original container (not completely sealed...) and in a cool, dark cupboard. <S> It doesn't taste as fresh, but it actually tastes not bad considering. <S> I finished the whole cup of it. <S> I used a french press to try it. <S> Hope this helps anyone out there wanting to use their old coffee beans, like me! <A> A dry roasted coffee bean is not a high risk for mold or for other types of airborne pathogens. <S> However, oxidation which occurs naturally will degrade the quality and taste of the bean. <S> So while it might be safe it the bean was kept in the package for 10 years, I would avoid consuming any of it. <A> A sealed package is perfectly safe to brew with. <S> Depending on the packaging, it may or may not be noticeably inferior to fresh coffee, but then, "fresh" sealed, commercially packaged coffee (often months old) is not "fresh" in the same sense that a paper bag from your local roaster is "fresh", <S> so consider what you are comparing it to. <S> A metal foil or can package is quite impervious to oxygen and moisture, so the rate of "aging" is effectively reduced; a plastic package without metal foil layers would be more prone to show age effects. <S> An opened or perforated package would also age poorly.
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Yes, coffee can go stale when it comes to taste, but it won’t actually be spoiled or dangerous to drink. The best way to keep your coffee fresh is to store it in a container that is air tight and will remain cool – but not in the refrigerator.
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Coffee cup patina; is there any logic in not washing the cup I first encountered the practice of never washing a coffee cup, when I was sternly warned, and nearly physically threatened by a former employer to never wash his coffee cup. Apparently it is an old military tradition to never wash out your coffee cup, and being a retired service man he continued the practice. Is there any logic behind this, does it noticeably effect the coffee, or is this just an old, superstitious tradition? <Q> It may be superstition but many people, myself included, don't wash out their coffee cups. <S> I rinse out my cup but don't wash it - I don't want soap going into my favorite coffee cup. <S> I like the way it smells of coffee. <S> I don't have to see or touch my favorite coffee or tea cup to know which one is which. <S> In addition I never use soap on either my coffee or tea filters. <S> Would I notice the difference if I had two identical mugs - one with the "patina" and one without? <S> Maybe not. <S> But I prefer it that way. <A> The origin of not washing your coffee cup stems from the age when coffee cups were made of metal. <S> An example can be still be seen with the Italian practice of seasoning a moka pot. <S> When a metal coffee container (moka pot or coffee cup) is new/washed, the coffee takes on a metallic flavor. <S> Once the container has been used once or twice, the oils from the coffee seal the internal surface preventing the metallic flavor from tainting the brew. <S> (Many Italians believe that a new moka pot is not usable until several pots of coffee have been brewed and dumped out first) <S> It is easy to imagine the evolution from practical process to tradition by thinking of the time of transition from metal to ceramic coffee mugs. <A> Could be a way of "marking" your mug by way of the stain suggesting that the mug is in use. <S> This only works for coffee mugs that are tied to a desk. <S> Consider that in a restaurant, mess or chow hall, mugs filled with coffee are washed and folks who drink their coffee from stained mugs will drink coffee from clean ones. <S> I know I do. <S> At work, I drink from a stained mug. <S> Why? <S> Because I'm indifferent to it and kind of lazy. <S> But at home, we put our coffee mugs in the dishwasher. <S> I get no sense of a difference in taste from cleaned or stained. <S> Most work spaces are fairly impersonal, so injecting some ownership over something even as small as a mug is worth something. <S> BTW, why would you bother to try and wash a co-worker's coffee mug? <A> Patina, may be dangerous if the cup is made of copper. <S> Patina is a formation of oxidation, and the greenish copper oxide is poisonous , please get rid of copper cups or make them plated with tin as in traditional Turkish cezves. <S> (See this related answer .) <S> It may be beneficial for a few days, up to a week for example. <S> Then, the oils will start to rot and add a sour taste to the flavor. <S> (See this answer .)
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The young service members who had not used metal coffee cups would be used to washing them, while the old senior leadership would still be in the habit of not washing them and probably had developed a taste for it (hence swearing that it tastes better when the mug is "seasoned"). Another perspective may be the smeared oil and its contribution to the overall flavor (or at least the the oil prevention of metallic taste). I think it just comes down to personal preference and has nothing to do with logic.
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Use for old grounds? I'm aware that coffee grounds can be great for composting, but living in a large city makes that more difficult than I'd prefer. With every cup of coffee comes a bunch of soggy grounds that I normally throw away shortly after. Are there any constructive uses for spent grounds, be it culinary, cleaning, or scent related? <Q> The fragrant smell lasts a long time also surprisingly. <S> Also it seems to be useful in fridges too. <S> That link lists the following: <S> Deodourize fridge <S> As a scouring agent A cheap varnisher Dye for paper Promoting Hydrangea health Ash absorber <S> Exfoliant Cockroach trap <S> Fortifying plants <S> Compost <S> So the above is quite a good list of uses that could be applicable for your situation <S> I just found 34 uses here too, I have to say though that using ground coffee as a method for salting a path didn't work for me. <S> Additonal uses: <S> slug killer mushroom grower <S> carrot and radish feed <S> worm attractor cat deterrant (this didn't work for me) <S> play doh dirt <S> make a pin cushion <S> garbage disposal cleaner drain cleaner add weathering to wood meat tenderizer <S> make energy bites egg dyeing coffee candle <S> make fossils treasure stones <S> paint <S> flea bath <S> remove build up from hair eye bag remover <A> Roaches love coffee. <S> For someone living in a city a roach trap seems like a good solution (but I wouldn't recommend it from personal experience). <S> I live in NYC and roaches are a problem. <S> The last thing you want is for roaches to tell their friends in neighboring apartments that YOUR apartment is a good place to find yummy things. <S> You may be killing them <S> but you'll be attracting them faster than you can kill them. <S> It didn't work for me. <S> It may, however, be an excellent solution in a single family detached house in which one brought roaches in with the groceries. <S> In that scenario you have a given amount of roaches and when they're gone - the problem is gone. <A> This may sound a bit insane, but I've known ladies who will take the old grounds and, with the help of plastic wrap, apply them to cellulite trouble areas. <S> It's only a temporary fix, but if it's something that bothers you, it's good for at least a night out.
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They are very good as de-odourizers, we use them in the kitchen and sometimes in a small perforated plastic container in the footwell of the backseats in our car. deodorizing salt salt scrub face mask path/road ice melter I wouldn't use coffee grounds as fertilizer in house plants either for the same reason (see below).
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How do I get started in roasting my own beans at home? I'd like to experiment with roasting my own beans at home. I'd like to keep the equipment requirements as basic as possible. No fancy gizmos or machines. I have a gas stove. <Q> By far the easiest way to start at home roasting is with a hot air popcorn popper. <S> You can get a used one for $5 at a thrift store or pay approximately $20 new for one. <S> Or perhaps you already have an unused one laying around. <S> There are also people and websites out there showing you great ways to modify or make them better with cheap addon parts or hacks. <S> I started with one and after I decided I was hooked <S> I spent the money on a commercial made roaster, but I learned most of what I know with a hot air popper in my front yard. <S> If you don't have great ventilation in your house over your stove, accidental overroasts and dark roasts become a major problem. <A> There are several ways to roast your own coffee at home on low budget: <S> Pan <S> This is one of the extremely minimalistic ways to roast coffee, but the degree of complexity is very high as the coffee beans need constant attention due to the nature of the heat that arrises only from one side. <S> Oven <S> This is likely one of the most common ways to roast coffee at home and a significant step up from the pan, hence the heat is more homogenous. <S> You are still required to mix the coffee now and then hence the plate usually becomes hotter than the upper part of the coffee beans while in the oven. <S> Popcorn machine <S> This is likely the best method to use at home, but also very messy as the chaff is likely to twirl around while the coffee is being roasted. <S> A method for catching the chaff could be a simple filter that can tolerate heat or a oversized strainer. <S> Roasting tips Never leave the coffee while roasting, the process can escalate very quickly and turn your beans into coal Cool down your beans quickly after the roasting process, do not leave it on the heat source Coffee generates chaff which has to be disposed, this is usually a pain when roasting in the oven and pan. <S> Use a thermometer <S> so you can log the roasting time and duration for analysis. <S> Roasting can generate a lot of smoke so either roast outside, near a window or use ventilation. <A> Sweet Maria's is a good place to start: <S> Sweet Maria's Coffee Library . <S> They've got quite a bit of information on the coffee roasting process as well as suggestions on hot air roasters and methods. <S> Personally- <S> I'd skip the stovetop roasting and the oven roasting. <S> It's useful in so much as you learn the major stages of coffee roast development <S> (color shifts / smells / cracks) <S> but it's EXTREMELY hard to roast coffee evenly, which means you'll learn enough to be quickly dissatisfied with roasting this way. <S> A hot air popper is a really good place to start. <S> I had a hard time getting consistent roasts (and didn't want to get into modding right away), but the quality was so much better than anything I could do in/on the stove. <S> You can get one on Amazon for ~$25... <A> I roast the coffee I grow in a cast iron skillet over wood or gas. <S> Stir continuously. <S> When they start to crackle you know you are getting close. <S> As you stir blow out the chaff, either with your lungs or some other tool. <A> One method not mentioned, but is similar to the others, is using a heat gun. <S> This gives you a bit more control over the beans and roast than when using a popcorn maker or oven, and is fairly cheap. <S> more info: https://ineedcoffee.com/roasting-coffee-with-a-heat-gun-a-top-down-approach/ <A> Don't waste your time with any kind of stove top roasting, not only because you can't control the process well enough to get consistent results, but also because the smell and smoke will be too obnoxious and your spouse/roommate will hate you for it. <S> Also don't waste your time with any kind of hot air popper that isn't specifically designed for roasting coffee. <S> Again, too many uncontrollable variables that will sabotage your best efforts without extensive customization or instrumentation. <S> The least expensive, most reliable starter method is to buy a hot air (fluidized bed) roaster specifically designed for roasting coffee. <S> I have a Fresh Roast SR500 that has served me well for a couple of years. <S> I've gotten to the point to where I am able to produce consistently excellent coffee at exactly the roast level I want. <S> Even with a dedicated coffee roaster it took me a couple of months to trial-and-error my way to anything drinkable. <S> Reading a couple of online home roasting forums has helped immensely but trying any of that without a proper roaster would have been a waste of time. <S> I've added a digital thermometer to my setup so I can actually see what's going on temperature wise in the roasting chamber, but other than that <S> it just the stock setup. <S> Total cost is less than $200 and that's gotten me two years worth of great coffee. <S> If you decide it's not for you, you wouldn't have too much trouble selling it online for not too much less than your purchase price. <S> On the other hand, if you turn out to get hooked on home roasting, like me, you'll wish the thing would hurry up and die so you can go out and spend a lot more for a serious drum roaster. <S> :-))
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I think the biggest issue for stove top roasting is the smoke.
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Where to buy small batches of unroasted beans I want to dabble in home roasting. Where can one typically source unroasted beans from? Do roasters typically sell unroasted beans to the public? I have never seen unroasted beans for sale in a store. I'm not asking for specific store or supplier recommendations, more so the general avenues to source unroasted beans. <Q> I have heard that Costco or maybe it was Sam's Club were selling them as well (albeit in larger quantities). <S> Keep in mind that shipping can be prohibitively expensive for small quantities. <S> and they ship in a flat rate USPS box; so shipping is very reasonable and only adds roughly a dollar per pound (for a twelve pound order). <S> I know are other good websites out there, but Sweet Marias has provided me with excellent customer service when I've had order issues (burst bags in shipping) and <S> their website is very thorough, including forums, education and product reviews/recommendations. <A> I recommend Sweet Maria's . <S> You order online and the beans are shipped to you. <S> They have many different varieties, including Ethiopian. <A> I purchased several pounds. <S> Also if you have amazon prime it ships free.
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There are several websites that sell unroasted or green beans in a range of quantities and will ship. Amazon sells them for a pretty decent price. I order 12 pounds at a time from Sweet Marias
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What is the ideal method/temp of brewing Turkish coffee in a Cezve? Are there specific methods to brewing the perfect Turkish coffee and temperature to heat it to? <Q> You should heat your coffee upto about 70 degrees Celcius <S> so it builds a foam or froth but do not let it boil! <S> You need to keep it at this stage for as long as you can, and if the coffee starts to get to hot and appears to rise then move it off the heat and repeat at most 2 times. <S> A few important things are use fresh coffee or it will not foam as well <S> pre-heat the water in the pot first, without the coffee, just until it starts to heat up do not stir until the coffee sinks itself <S> Here's a link to a useful page on Turkish coffee world website with a method for making Turkish coffee. <S> http://www.turkishcoffeeworld.com/How-to-make-Turkish-Coffee-s/54.htm <A> I would like to excuse and interrupt this thread kindly as an experienced native drinker. <S> The supplied link in @William Moore's answer requires sugar. <S> The continuous misunderstanding about sugar usage with Turkish brewing in North America is so surprising to me. <S> In Turkey, regular Turkish coffee drinkers hardly –if not never‒ drink their coffee with sugar. <S> However, sugar is optional in recipes. <S> In @William Moore's own recipe, in 2nd article, pre-heating does not add any visible advantage, only shortens the time to brew. <S> This is actually what is needed to keep the foam intact and prevent the vaporization of the lipids in Turkish brewing. <S> However, you can provide it by using stronger fire easily in contrast to William Moore's 4th article. <S> It is better to use the time span as the size of your cezve may change, you may brew just for yourself or for five people. <S> The recipes mentioned here has flaws in my opinion <S> and I don't think you can brew delicious Turkish coffee based on these. <S> Please check this answer . <S> I have explained my own style of brewing Turkish coffee with photos. <S> Also, commented a more detailed recipe that includes quantitative values of an official Turkish Coffee Institute. <A> The best coffee of this type I ever had was at Cesve Coffee in Moscow. <S> There they slowly heat the pot in a sandbath. <S> You can see it in the photo via the link given. <S> The procedure takes about 10 minutes and the result is fantastic. <S> A cesve with a thick bottom is used. <S> They import these from Turkey, from Soy .
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allow the coffee to heat slowly, not on a high heat (I don't directly place the pot on the heat ring - slightly off of it)
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How to make coffee concentrate I searched around a bit and found a few recipes for coffee concentrates, but most of them read more like high test cold brew recipes. Where I work we have a few "coffee" (note the quotation marks) machines that use the stuff. The "coffee" from these machines is really awful and I was wondering if there are alternative methods for making it. My first thought was to take drip coffee and cook it down and reduce it into a concentrate, has anyone tried this? Am I way off track? Is there a better way? <Q> Just make cold brew! <S> It's called "cold brew", but you can still make good hot coffee out of it. <S> Cold brew is essentially hyperconcentrated, but slow-brewed, coffee. <S> It's very popular in the United States in the summer, because it's very easy to make excellent iced coffee with a cold brew concentrate. <S> (Just add water and ice.) <S> But you can also make a cup of hot coffee out of cold brew concentrate: just add hot water instead of cold water and ice. <S> Here's a recipe , but I'll summarize it. <S> You need: ~12 <S> oz coarsely ground <S> coffee <S> ~6 cups water Pour water over coffee in a large bowl or pitcher and stir. <S> Cover with a tea towel and let sit on the counter (or fridge) for 24 hours. <S> You can vary the coffee:water ratio and brewing time depending on your preferences. <S> Strain thoroughly. <S> Reserve the delicious liquid and discard the grounds. <S> The concentrate will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week. <S> To make a cup of hot coffee, add about 2 parts hot water to 1 part cold brew (depending on your taste). <S> Add the hot water slowly until it's tasty to you. <S> Dilute with a similar amount of cold water for iced coffee - then add ice. <S> Add milk, sugar, and other fixings as desired. <S> (If you're drinking it iced, you'll want to use simple syrup to sweeten, since plain sugar won't dissolve well in cold liquid.) <S> Bon appetit! <A> It's more of a syrup than a concentrate if I recall correctly. <S> While it's a whole lot of flavor in a little container that needs to be diluted in order to reconstitute, it's not like heavily concentrated coffee that's been cooked down, as you mention. <S> You could try strong coffee and any gum that you'd use in cooking to make a relatively thin non-sweet syrup, I'm pretty sure nothing in any common bean would prevent them from binding. <S> What you'd have to look out for is the tincture possibly damaging the machine, which leaves very little room for trial and error (or margin for error at that). <S> You'd also have to watch out for machines that need to 'validate' the capsule as 'authenticated' before agreeing to make coffee. <S> Note, I'm assuming you mean those "Nespresso" machines or similarly clever abominations. <A> I'm a big fan of the elegant simplicity of Cory Doctorow's coffee concentrate recipe . <S> Not quite as much of a syrup as others here have described, but it's a great way to get quality out of medium quality beans. <S> My tweaks <S> : I use a 5:1 water:coffee ratio (usually 1 liter of water & 200 grams of beans). <S> Instead of a coarse grind, I use a medium grind. <S> I steep for 12-15 hours. <S> I tend to use medium-dark roast beans <S> (Costco often has 2 pounds of Major Dickason's pretty cheap, and those work fine <S> if you don't have anything else available). <A> You can make regular drip coffee with 4-5 times the usual amount of ground coffee. <S> Dilute as desired. <S> Any remaining can be refrigerated a good 48 hours if you store with minimal headspace of air.
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But anyway, even for other applications, a syrup made using a strong espresso would probably work the best.
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Is it possible to burn coffee while brewing? I know some people who refuse to drink in large coffee chains as they say that the coffee they produce tastes "burnt". Is it actually possible to burn coffee while brewing, or is the flavour they're complaining about coming from something else? <Q> Burn? <S> I've heard that some large chains "burn" their beans while roasting :-) <S> But not while brewing. <S> A major coffee chain, seen on almost every other corner in some places, is known for their very dark, "burnt" roast. <S> Many people like this sharp taste and associate it with caffeine and their morning pick-me up. <S> Other people find this "burnt" roast to be overwhelming and consider this heavy roast to be destructive when using high-quality beans. <S> In any case the burning happens at roast - not when brewing. <A> I've had coffee that tasted burnt in a lot of cheaper restaurants and from common coffeemakers in homes. <S> It's uniformly been stuff that's sat on a warmer for a long time (like, an hour or more) after brewing. <S> Keeping coffee on heat after brewing "cooks" it down, just as keeping a soup or sauce on a simmer reduces it. <S> However, it has the opposite effect on coffee than on sauces or soups; instead of making it richer, it destroys the more delicate flavor compounds and makes it taste burnt. <S> Even reheating coffee in the microwave can make it taste more like an ashtray than coffee. <A> It depends on the method of brewing. <S> Brewing methods where grounds are exposed to a heat source directly ( <S> Turkish, for example) could allow the grounds to be heated to the point that they started to roast/cook/burn (again). <S> Most methods of brewing, however, only have the grounds exposed to boiling or near boiling water which is ~210F and less than would be necessary to start cooking/roasting/burning the coffee beans again. <S> Many of these other answers actually talk about burning or cooking down stored coffee after it has been brewed. <S> As to your question about large chains, my person belief is that the burnt taste most people experience is a branding issue. <S> Lightly roasted or medium roasted coffee will taste more like the bean it came from, or its origin. <S> The darker you roast, the more the origin flavors go away and are replaced by the roasting flavors of the bean. <S> As it so happens, the origin flavors of roasted coffee fade very quickly (sometimes in as short as a week). <S> However, the roasting flavors seem to hang around a bit longer. <S> Large chains dark roast their coffee because it makes it easier to consistently produce close to the same taste and the flavor of those dark roasted bean <S> will hang around a bit longer (less shipping and storage concerns). <A> Yes, coffee can be burned when brewing. <S> When an empty pot sits on the heating element in a restaurant coffee machine it can get very hot. <S> When the first stream of a new brew cycle hits the bottom of the pot, boils off very quickly, producing a horrible smell and taste that infuses the entire pot. <S> In addition to the water boiling off, the various organic compounds in the coffee are subjected to temperatures well above the boiling point of water for a brief time, until the volume of new coffee cools the bottom of the pot enough to stop the boiling. <S> Knowledgable staff know to leave a little clear water in the bottom of the pot to prevent the temperature from getting too high before the next pot is brewed. <A> In addition to all the great answers (most of the burnt flavor is typical for dark, e.g. italian roast) <S> I want mention something I encountered during my time as a bartender: <S> When having a portafilter (professional espresso machine, as used for cappuccino etc) it sometimes happens that you prepare (e.g. attach the handle with coffee to the machine) and then something comes up and you don't start the extraction process right away. <S> What happens then is that the hot machine heats up the ground coffee. <S> Which in turn results in a burnt taste of the coffee if left unattended for long enough. <S> My educated guess is that (due to the fact that ground coffee has a very large surface / very small particles) the coffee is burnt/ roasted even further at low temp. <S> Also note that the water is <S> only 94°C but the metal surroundings do not have to be this "cold". <S> As it should be able to maintain the water temperature even if you brew a lot of coffee. <A> It's a bit of a misnomer. <S> This actually happens in both tea and coffee, you don't really "burn" the coffee (or in my experience tea), but excessively high temperatures release chemicals called Tannins that possess a bitter, or "burnt" taste. <A> The word bitter is being used to describe two different things. <S> There can be bitterness in a coffee from over extraction which causes tannin to be present in the brew. <S> This can happen with light roast coffees which are over extracted as well as dark roast coffees. <S> There is much confusion about this nomenclature. <A> I think I know what you are talking about, the question is if a steam brewer can burn the ground during brewing due to the higher temperature vs. a pump operated brewer here is a link that might help
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Burnt coffee is also described as bitter coffee when it is really a burnt flavour.
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How can I cost-effectively improve the coffee supply in my company break room? I work at a company of about sixty people. Like most offices, there's a communal coffee machine in our break room. It's what I understand to be a typical drip machine, pretty confident it's a Bunn VPS 12 . The grounds used are Maxwell House. The filters are pretty generic looking, and the water is straight from our local tap. The end result of all this could charitably be described as burnt water. I know you can spend pretty much any amount of money on beans, roasters, grinders, presses, additives, and everything else that could possibly be coffee-related. But I'm not trying to make the best imaginable cup of coffee. I'm trying to make about 200 decent cups of coffee a day, for relatively little investment. I've cleaned out the machine with Goo Gone coffee maker cleaner , to no significant effect. Past that, everything I can think of involves permanent changes to the process, and I want to have some way to justify that before I push for it. Where would my investments of money and political capital be best directed? <Q> The easiest step would be to swap out the Maxwell House coffee for something of higher quality. <S> If there are local roasters nearby, check to see if they do wholesale or bulk orders, and then order some 5lb. <S> bags of coffee from them. <S> Since the idea is to keep costs low, they should be able to grind it for you ahead of time so that you won't have to add the cost of a grinder for the time being. <A> Coffee beans - <S> I mean the type of coffee you actually drip. <S> Exchange the coffee for 100% arabica coffee. <S> it does not have to be even single source coffee. <S> Good start for decent cup of coffee is ... <S> You bet, it is Starbucks. <S> While I personally am in movement away from Starbucks, it should be good choice for decent cup of coffee for reasonable price <A> My suggestion would be that you stop using the machine and take a pour over cone or french press and your own grinder to work. <S> The reality that I have found is that most people are willing to drink horrible coffee so long as it is free. <S> And that given that choice, most people would rather drink free horrible coffee than good coffee they have to pay for. <S> I tried for a long time to have a "coffee pool" at my office. <S> What I found is that a couple of people payed me money every now and again, but mostly, my good coffee just got poached by people that didn't notice the difference between it and Folgers. <S> I am much happier making my own cup of coffee when I want and not dealing with anything political or financial with my fellow employees. <A> If you think you can get some money but not a lot, I'd start by switching to whole-bean coffee and purchasing both a grinder and air-tight containers to store the coffee in. <S> Buy a mid-range grinder and two airtight containers (one for whole beans, and one for grounds). <S> At the start of every day, you can grind enough to get you through the day. <S> Coffee is best when it's used within about 2 weeks of being roasted and ground, though it'll still be drinkable longer than that, especially if stored properly. <S> The other thing you can do that doesn't cost any money is to experiment with how much coffee you use per pot. <S> I've been in a lot of offices where people assume that more grounds automatically means better coffee, but adding too many grounds can lead to a very unpleasant bitter, metallic, or acidic taste. <S> So try adding slightly less coffee when brewing a fresh pot and see if that helps, even if you don't change anything else. <A> First, try having decent filtered water delivered, and use that to fill the machine. <S> I know that it sounds trivial, but the quality of water can affect how any coffee tastes. <S> It can render your espresso tart, or turn your Folgers into mud pie soup. <S> This should also result in less build up of 'gunk' in your machine. <S> Second, eliminate your filters as a cause of bad taste. <S> To do this, heat some water to about 95 degrees Celsius, pour it through a few of the filters and into a container to cool. <S> Wait for it to cool, smell and taste the water. <S> Any after taste or odor? <S> While it's not always true, the more expensive the filter, the better the chance that it's not going to shed fibers or tastes into your brew. <S> Third, have your machine cleaned. <S> Ask any diner who does it for them, and take it to wherever that is. <S> Stuff can build up that a simple cleaning can't handle, the machine should be broken down and cleaned thoroughly, especially if you're getting that vegemite-like 'burnt' taste to things. <S> Finally, if Maxwell House is the coffee everyone can agree on, try putting a pinch of kosher salt in the basket with the grinds before you brew - it can really help to bring out latent flavors that might still be in the beans (provided that the coffee is still reasonably fresh), it won't make the coffee taste salty. <S> Not much, 10 crystals or less, but try adding a pinch. <S> The machine you've got is a classic workhorse, and I'm sure it's got plenty of get-up-and-go left, but it does need to be maintained periodically.
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Even cheap coffee tastes much better when it's fresh and freshly ground. I think pound for pound, you'll get the most out of: Having the machine professionally cleaned Having better water delivered, and using that to brew Tossing a few crystals of kosher salt in with the grinds It'll be best to take a multi-faceted approach, there are some things you can do that don't require a significant monetary investment, but it will cost you a bit of time in the name of science. You got it from the filters, change your brand.
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What is coffee bloom I make drip coffee (pour over for North Americans) at home and I would like to know: what exactly is coffee bloom? When I pour the initial amount of water the grounds swell up, and sometimes there is a minor eruption if I'm not careful, but is this just air trapped in the grounds and water solution trying to escape or is this CO2? Does this affect flavour? What affects the volume of the bloom? <Q> The gases themselves are largely composed of CO2 and moisture trapped in the grinds. <S> As when brewing coffee, we're trying to expose the grounds evenly to the hot water, the release of gas fights against this, causing channeling or uneven extraction. <S> This can affect your flavor profile by overextracting some of the coffee, and not extracting enough from the rest. <S> From my own experience, fresher, better-quality coffees tend to produce more gasses. <S> I would imagine this being because the gasses escape on their own over time from the coffee when it's just sitting around. <A> According to this site <S> it's a by product of the roasting phase and occurs naturally hence the reason coffee bags have a degassing hole. <S> When you grind the coffee the trapped gases are released and when the hot water hits it, this releases the gases quicker. <S> Factors aside from storage that can affect this phenomenon are: Temperatures that the beans were stored at. <S> Hotter means more gas release. <S> Humidity levels during storage. <S> Dryer levels allow more gas to escape. <S> Of course, high humidity levels may encourage mold and fungus growth <S> so you need to find a happy medium. <S> Bean hardness. <S> Harder beans mean more density for the gas to make its way through. <S> Roast level. <S> Roast level will have a large influence on bloom. <S> Extremely dark, oily, Italian roasts have a much lesser amount of out-gassing compared to exact same coffee roasted Full City. <S> Origin. <S> Some coffee origins are known to have more out-gassing than others. <S> if your coffee doesn't bloom at all or very little then it's likely to be stale or over-roasted. <A> I hope this isn't a trade secret or anything, but at Starbucks we recently got new measuring pitchers for pour-overs that have a long narrow snake-like spout. <S> It allows you to more or less just pour straight down the center. <S> The narrow "bore" so-to-speak gives a precisely controlled rate of pour. <S> Confusingly, all the documentation still refers to a bloom. <S> But with this fancy snake-neck pitcher, there really isn't one. <S> And the whole process is much faster, not having to stop in the middle. <A> As per Kyle above, YEs coffees fresher to roasting are expelling more gas than older ones that have degassed more. <S> indeed a definition of staleness may include no more CO2 is released. <S> hitting beans with water shows that this gas is happening. <S> But why bloom? <S> that is supposed to get the gas out so water can come in. <S> Does it? <S> if so for how much of what's ground? <S> just cuz you get a mushroom effect does that mean all the grounds in there got wet?? <S> there's a pretty good debate about "blooming" the coffee - and focussing on creating a bloom rather than focussing on really "wetting" the grounds To this end, coffee afficianados like perger and rao among others are skipping the bloom and just stirring. <S> as a scientist gotta say i go with the chemistry of that: if the goal is even absorption of water by even release - agitating those grinds is going to to the business better than a bloom that offers little insight into the evenness of the wetting. <S> Stirring ensures far less likelihood of channeling as water passes through too - would recommend reading/viewing rao on this point if interested. <S> so why not try it? <S> forget bloom and just stir. <S> see what that does to taste? <S> I've also found that coffees that are supposedly past their prime can be surprisingly flavourful given a good stir for ten secs and soak for another half minute and then the rest of the pour. <S> In other words another answer to the question "what is coffee bloom" <S> - it may just be "a ritualised futzing with CO2 gas in coffee that has little proven benefit for flavour extraction compared to stirring but provides more "show" for charging 4.50 at a coffee bar"? <S> bestm.c. <S> ps - a nice way to see if you've got the gas out of the fast 10sec stir of the slurry is that there are NO more bubbles coming out after that ten secs and as the coffee then sits for 30-45 secs total. <A> Bottom Line : When someone allows their coffee to bloom, they are pouring just enough hot water on the ground coffee to allow the gasses to be released but not so much that a lot of water starts dripping through. <S> The presence of CO2 is indicative that the ground coffee is fresh. <S> However, we do not actually want CO2 in the coffee we drink. <S> This article was informative. <S> Really garbage singing at the beginning of <S> this video <S> but I found it pretty informative and the visuals helpful. <S> The bloom is caused by the roasting procedure. <S> Whenever coffee beans are roasted, the heat causes carbon dioxide (CO2) to become trapped in the bean. <S> Once the roasted process is completed, the beans then begin to slowly discharge these gases a little bit at a time in a process known as “degassing.” <S> If you are using coffee roasted in within a ten day time frame, much of the carbon dioxide will be retained by the beans even though the degassing process has begun. <S> As soon as the beans are ground, the gases begin to escape much more quickly. <S> When hot water touches the ground coffee, they immediately begin to purge themselves of the carbon dioxide creating the bloom effect.
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Therefore, it is important to let your freshly ground coffee "bloom" for one minute to allow the majority of the CO2 to be released to avoid sour tasting coffee that results from pouring over too quickly after grinding the coffee beans. My understanding is that releasing the gases ahead of time prevent the gasses from interfering with an even extraction throughout the brewing process.
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Pouring technique for drip/pour over coffee I would like to know how to make decent coffee using a drip (pour over) coffee. The kit I bought was from Japan and I observe in espresso shops they tend to use a thin spout (or gooseneck) water kettle to control the rate of delivery of water. What else is important here aside from the fineness of the ground coffee? Are there a recommended set of steps? Should I pour from the middle outwards or edge towards the centre? Should I 'wet' the coffee first? Is there a recommended pouring time to perform all of this? <Q> From this site : Start with a grind size around that of coarse sugar. <S> (Think Sugar in the Raw.) <S> How much: Most pourover drippers work best when they're between one half to two-thirds full of coffee grounds. <S> Any less than that, and there won't be enough coffee to restrict the flow. <S> Any more, and your dripper may overflow. <S> You'll also want to make sure you're dripping into a large enough vessel. <S> If you're the more precise-measurement type, a good coffee-to-water ratio is between 60-70 grams of coffee per liter of water (a mass ratio between 1:16 and 1:14.) <S> Get your clean (filtered if you need it) <S> brew water ready. <S> You'll be using water that's about 30 seconds off boil if you're pouring straight out of your boiling kettle, or immediately off boil if you're pouring into a second pouring kettle. <S> I like about 207°F for medium to light roasts, and about 10° lower for dark roasts. <S> Start your clock and add enough water to soak all of the coffee <S> (a little premature dripping is okay). <S> Wait for the coffee bed to stop <S> the initial swelling (about 30 seconds) before adding more water. <S> Continue your brew. <S> The distance that your brew water drops can affect brew temperatures, as well as increase or decrease the amount of agitation that the falling water creates wherever it falls in the coffee bed. <S> In general, the lower you pour from, the better, if for no other reason than it's the easiest to create and maintain consistency. <S> When you stop adding water, your dripper will continue to drip for between 20 and 60 seconds. <S> Your target total brew time is about 2.5 to 3 minutes for dark roasted coffee, and 3 to 4 minutes for medium to light roasted coffees. <S> This includes the dripping time after you stop adding water. <A> I highly recommend anyone looking at a pour over to take a look at the Clever Dripper. <S> It's a pour over brewer with a plate at the bottom that restricts flow unless the unit is resting on a cup. <S> You can use it as a regular pour over or you can use it off a cup to steep your coffee. <S> It allows all the control of a press and the grounds free cup of a paper filter. <S> To answer your question, it depends on how you like your coffee. <S> Grind finer and/or pour slower and you will get a stronger cup of coffee. <S> Grind courser and pour more quickly and <S> you will get a weaker cup of coffee. <S> Pouring from the side seems to sometimes result in a small island of dry grounds floating in the middle of the cone. <S> For that reason, I generally vary my pour around the cone to minimize either effect and then stir some for good measure. <A> I'm not sure what the citation standards for this site or if a "hey this worked for me <S> , why don't you try it applies" <S> so please downvote accordingly and point me to the correct meta articles. <S> But, what I've done, ever since I started making pour over coffee after watching Alton Brown extol <S> it's virtues on Good Eats, is to use a tea pot with the lid closed and just pour slowly through the whistle-hole. <S> It kind of skunkifies the tea pot if you've got sort of hard water <S> (even happens to me with reverse-osmosis water), but it hasn't ruined the whistle-hole of the teapot and it does a good job to control the flow <S> and it's cheap and a multi-purpose solution.
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Pouring from the center sometime results in a raised edge around the rim, which isn't ideal when I am trying to fill the cone as full as possible, but in a true pour over, may be fine. Try to pour quickly, gently, and evenly across the surface of the coffee, pausing between pours to pace your brew to your target brew time (see below).
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What gives "diner" coffee its distinctive taste? At least in the US (and probably elsewhere), late-night diners are a popular place to get a cheap cup of joe. In my experience, diner coffee has a taste that's generally not found elsewhere (most people call it "bad", but that's not what this question is about). I'm wondering what causes this taste, and how they all get such similar tasting coffee? I assume the brewing process has something to do with it (those big commercial drip brewers which they all seem to use), but I've been to other places that used those with various different roasts and they all tasted different. So what else makes diner coffee taste like diner coffee? Examples of the kinds of places that serve this include chains like Waffle House, but also individual / locally owned diners. <Q> I think it is a combination of old stale grounds sitting on a burner for long hours. <S> The places you mention are generally open 24/7 or something close to it and have people ordering coffee at all times of day, so it's all made ahead of time and kept warm all day. <S> The cheapest coffee suppliers usually mix beans from all over the place and they all store them way past any freshness date. <S> Diners run on small budgets and generally buy the cheapest stuff, thus they all have the same "flavor". <S> I would knock it more if it didn't keep me awake behind the wheel more than a few times. <A> Comments on the question above, but I'd expand this as an answer as well because I don't see it mentioned yet. <S> Robusta tends to be cheaper than arabica, so this might also be a reason for its use (and the cited "cheapness") of the cup. <S> If you're used to fancy cafe coffee (which tends to be arabica), it's a rather different (albeit not necessarily unpleasant) experience. <S> See also this question on arabica and robusta . <S> Granted, this arabica/robusta distinction is oversimplification, because there are so many varietals, but here's one article on differences. <S> For example, robusta tends to have lower acidity, but higher bitterness. <S> If these are the attributes you attribute, it might be further robusta evidence. <S> If you were to learn the brand of coffee being brewed, that might suggest the variety of the beans, but that's probably difficult to learn from generic, anonymous diners. <A> Diner coffeemakers like Bunn store water in a tank and keep it hot 24/7, and then run the hot water through the grounds very fast. <S> Diners like this because they do not have to wait for the water to heat up and <S> the coffee brews fast and stays relatively hot. <S> But as we all know, this makes the water flat (not to mention calcium build up in the tank) and there is insufficient contact to extract all the flavor from the coffee. <S> I have tried a Bunn "diner" coffeemaker at home and while the coffee comes fast and stays hot, flavor suffers.
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That combination is not just a diner thing, I would also say it is the same as cheap gas station coffee in the US. Another possibility of "diner coffee taste" could be due to the use of robusta rather than arabica .
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What do I need to start cold-brewing? After reading Cory Doctorow 's Homeland , I started wondering about making my own coldbrew; it sounds delicious :) What do I need to start my own cold-brew? <Q> There are two ways to start with: plunging and dripping. <S> Plunging is to mix water with ground coffee, and let the mix sleep slowly. <S> Dripping is the same as classical hot-water dripping, except the speed is much slower. <S> The slowly / "much slower" part means about 8-12 hours, depending on the quantity of ground. <S> For example, I use 400mL/14oz and 40g/1.5oz of ground on an 8 hour drip. <S> The beans should be quite finely ground, as cold water does not penetrate the ground as well as hot water. <S> @henryJ exposed plunging in detail. <S> As for dripping, it is possible to use a standard filter stand and paper filter. <S> The hard part is to drip water slowly. <S> There are cheap devices on the market. <S> An alternative is to get one of those flasks used in chemistry class (a new one, never try with a used one---chemistry is scary). <S> The cheapest way is probably to get an empty plastic bottle, put the cap on, use a needle to make a tiny hole in the cap, fix the bottle upside down above the ground to start dripping. <S> The goal is for the water to pour drop by drop, at a rate of about 1 drop every couple seconds. <A> Cold brew is simply brewing coffee in cold water. <S> It's usually a long process (about 12 hours), but totally worth it. <S> The simplest method is using a french press. <S> Measure the amount of coffee and water you need for a regular hot french press brew, but instead use cold or room temperature water. <S> You can also buy cold brew systems. <S> I've never used it, but I heard this works pretty well. <S> Toddy T2N Cold Brew System <A> Excellent description and answers already (upvotes all around...); here's another take and some links to external resources and experimentation. <S> I use the "plunging" method, mixing grounds directly with water, as described in other answers by @henryJ and @Eric. <S> I find that the outcome of brewing, then filtering via French press, is too gritty or grainy, far more so than the store-bought stuff (which might be slow-drip, but I don't know how it's done on a production scale). <S> Filtering that result through a conventional coffee filter (e.g., like this ) takes a long time -- on the order of hours for some reasonable quantity of coffee. <S> I don't know exactly why, but I attribute this to the longer brew resulting in more stuff that clogs the paper filter; this clogging seems to happen no matter how coarsely I grind the coffee. <S> (I'd be happy to hear suggestions about that, though; doesn't seem enough for a question...) <S> I use a multi-step filtering process, putting the coffee through a few passes of cheesecloth or other cloth to hopefully filter out the bigger chunks first, but this is messy (hard to clean up) and seems wasteful. <S> Here's a few other techniques with similarly absurd steps to filter the coffee during or after brewing. <S> Both are steeping in the style of a tea bag, with the grounds wrapped in a sack. <S> using felt fabric after steeping in a paper basket filter; using a paper filter wrapped in a nut milk sack .
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Leave the press pot in a refrigerator overnight or at room temperature, push the plunger down in the morning, and you'll have delicious cold brew ready.
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How can I make filtering my cold brew easier? I use the "plunging" method of cold brew , and filtering the grounds out of the brew --I use a coffee filter in a funnel-- is very time-consuming (although thankfully it doesn't take me the "hours" this person describes ). How can I reduce the time and labour of filtering the grounds out of my plunged cold brew coffee? <Q> I got a tea infuser with a very fine mesh and put my grounds in that. <S> It holds fewer grounds than I used with the "raw" plunge, but it's much more pleasant to use: I just pluck the floating infuser out of the pitcher and empty the grounds from it. <S> There's no visible particulate in the resulting drink, though if I run the brew through a filter (which is a heckuva lot faster, as there's no clogging of grounds at all!) <S> it comes out with a small amount of lint-like residue. <S> And the last cup in the pitcher is much stronger than it used to be, but I'm not exactly complaining about that. <S> You could also go for an intermediate approach, using a tea strainer before you run the brew through a regular filter: <S> that'll get the big stuff out fast so your filtering doesn't slow down. <S> (Also, put a teaspoon in the funnel under the filter, so the grounds don't stick to the sides of the funnel through the paper. <S> It gives the liquid more room to flow.) <A> I tried making cold brew for the first time recently and I just poured the whole mess through the reusable metal screen filter that came with my cheap drip coffee machine. <S> My drip machine is the style where the top opens to add both coffee and water sort of like this: <S> It worked pretty well for the 8 cups or so that I made <S> and it looked like I probably could have gotten away with pouring a bit more. <A> Well this idea was not entirely mine. <S> Some of my senior colleagues gave me this idea a long ways back. <S> When I make Cold Brew, what I do is: <S> First simply let the coffee grounds steep in the water (no brainer here). <S> Then, when it's brewed, I use a normal paper coffee filter. <S> Then I use a very fine piece of silk cloth , thoroughly cleaned, as second filter <S> (after a while you will need to throw away the silk as it will become contaminated and may have a bad flavor). <S> The silk fibers are very thin and fine, so it normally gives me a nice and smooth result. <A> Container brew and discard the sludge <S> As detailed in this answer , make the cold brew in a container. <S> The grounds will settle to the bottom. <S> When you serve yourself, pour gently and the grounds will remain on the bottom. <S> Discard the bottom inch of coffee (depending on the container). <S> No filtering at all. <A> I have a Bunn airpot brewer <S> and I just take the oversized specialty coffee basket and stick it on top of my french press. <S> It works ok, but I would like to see better. <S> Even using this method and having a very large filter, it still gets clogged up after about 4 cups of concentrate, and that's after pre-filtering using the french press filter to get the majority of the grounds out. <S> I've read that cheesecloth can be used as well, but I have yet to try it.
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So I just put the metal filter in and poured the cold brew straight into the filter allowing the filtered brew to flow into the regular pot below. Use a tea infuser ! I may get a second filter, or a larger one, but for now I'm content making coffee more often because it's less of a chore each time. I may try the french press filter, then filter through wire mesh cone drip, then filter through paper, although this is getting pretty work intensive!
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Are robusta and arabica the only bean varieties? On this site, and virtually everywhere, I hear people speaking about coffee in terms of "arabica" or "robusta". I know these are two coffee varieties, but are there others as well? Why aren't those as popular? Where can they be found? <Q> Coffea Arabica and Coffea Canephora are the only two species of plants whose beans we use to make coffee - Arabica and Robusta respectively. <S> However, you may have heard of other 'types' of coffee that might be confusing. <S> For example Peaberry Coffee is not actually a separate bean type. <S> 5-10% of harvested coffee berries contain only one bean (instead of two). <S> These are usually discarded, but sometimes are collected and sold separately. <S> They are normally Arabica beans. <S> Furthermore, since 2008, 9 new species of coffee plant have been discovered. <S> These are not currently cultivated for beans though, as far as I can tell (though some species contain traits which would be desirable <S> 1 - self-pollination and caffeine-free beans). <S> 1. <S> Desirable for some people... <A> There are several varieties of coffee that have all derived from the three species of Coffea genus of the Rubiaceae family : Coffee Arabica <S> Coffee Canephora <S> (Robusta) <S> Coffee can be treated much like Wine: terroir and variety is key to growth, but then roasting and brewing is also extremely important for the final cup. <S> Several artisanal single-origin roasts will feature tasting notes, variety, and growing region to accommodate your shopping experience when reviewing what is in season. <S> A Bourbon variety grown in the volcanic region of El Salvador will brew a completely different experience compared to the highly-prized Gesha variety grown in Columbia, even though they can both be traced back to the Arabica species. <S> For more info on what to expect from these varieties, check out the Stumptown Guide to Coffee Varieties . <A> Intended mostly as an adjunct to @fredley's answer, but content overflowed a comment, then I kinda went overboard. <S> Though there are two (major) species of coffee (whose binomial names are indeed <S> Coffea arabica and C. robusta with significant biological differences ) <S> , there are a very large number of cultivars -- plants and seeds that are selected, or selectively bred, for certain properties, or simply cultivated in a particular area, but these cultivars are still (biologically speaking) the same species . <S> Here is a list of (some) coffee varieties ; see note [1]. <S> Perhaps you've seen some cultivars listed on packaging, like Harar, Java, Kona, or Yirgacheffe. <S> These can (but don't always) also indicate a region of origin (e.g., some cultivars are only grown in certain regions). <S> There are analogies to other plants, like the many cultivars of the following, for examples: cabbage , tea (which is mostly cultivars of one species , though there are other tisanes or infusions made of, e.g., herbs and other non-tea plants) <S> wine (which is made mostly from cultivars of one species, Vitus vinifera , of which <S> there 5 or 10 thousand cultivars , though wine can be made out of, e.g., other non-grape fruits also.) <S> As with tea and wine, other coffee-like beverages (though not actually coffee) can be made out of stuff like the roots of chicory . <S> You can also make a beverage out of the coffee cherry itself or the husks thereof; see also this question and my answer . <S> [1] - There is distinction between cultivar and botanical variety <S> but it isn't crucial here. <A> @To complement on the previous answers. <S> About the Rubiaceae families that are used for producing a good cup of coffee. <S> Besides the Arabica and Robusta families, you also have very good coffee coming from the Liberica family. <S> I've tasted several Liberica varieties, they make a very unique cup. <S> This variety is quite common in South East Asia where it was introduced to counter the coffee leaf rust. <S> You also have the C. Eugenioides <S> This variety is one of the 2 parents of C. Arabica. <S> I don't know of any comercial plantations of this variety it was cupped for 'variety' tasting during the 2015 SCAA Specialty Coffee Symposium <S> and I know of specimens planted here in Costa Rica. <S> About the genetic variation inside the C.Arabica family. <S> This study classifies 40 different varieties of the C.Arabica family by their genetic markers. <S> Among other things, it shows that the Bourbon varieties are very close to the Arabica Tipica, while varieties like Geisha, Purpurascens and Maragogipe have much more significant differences.
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Coffee Liberica (Liberian) As you can see from this Counter Culture graph , each variety has a unique lineage, likely designed to grow well in a specific climate and geographical region while producing a unique profile once brewed.
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What's the minimum recommended age for drinking a coffee? Is there any minimum recommended age for drinking a coffee? In example for ground or instant (in case there is any difference)? I would assume there are no limits for a decaf coffee? <Q> It is discussed in depth in the parenting site of Stack Exchange and the top answer thee states: <S> The bottom line is that caffeine is generally safe, but it does have significant effects in children as well as adults. <S> Note that children are much more likely to encounter caffeine in a soft drink than in tea or coffee; that's what you have to worry about, I think, not Starbucks. <S> A cup of green tea contains ~15 <S> -25 mg of caffeine, which is around the limit where there were no noteworthy affects for a 50 kg child, so if they want to hang out at a cafe, they don't even have to limit themselves to strictly caffeine-free options <S> Personally I'm not going to allow my children to have coffee before they are in highschool - that's the age where they can start to decide on things affecting their health. <A> I am not a doctor. <S> From a medical standpoint, pure caffeine (citrate) is often used in newborns with breathing problems in controlled doses (5 mg/kg/day) . <S> So, I wouldn't say it's dangerous for otherwise healthy small children in properly sized doses. <S> However, it generally isn't used long term and is used as a bridging therapy until a newborn's lungs develop fully. <S> That being said, I have small children of my own and don't plan to help them develop an addiction to a CNS stimulant until they are old enough to support that socially acceptable addiction on their own paychecks. <A> Quote from Health Canada : <S> Recommended Maximum Caffeine Intake Levels for Children and Women of Childbearing Age Children 4 - 6 years <S> 45 mg/day 7 - 9 years 62.5 <S> mg/day 10 - 12 years <S> 85 <S> mg/day Women who are planning to become pregnant, pregnant women and breast feeding mothers 300 mg/day <S> The following is provided to assist consumers in understanding the contribution of various foods to caffeine intakes. <S> At Daily Mail we can read: World Health Organisation has warned children and teenagers are at risk of 'potentially harmful adverse and developmental effects' Sales of caffeine and sugar-packed energy drinks should be restricted as they ‘pose a danger’ to children and young people, a study has suggested. <S> Lead author Dr Joao Breda called for restrictions to be put in place to limit the sale of energy drinks to children. <S> Large amounts of caffeine can cause heart palpitations, fits and even death, as well as raising the risk of Type 2 diabetes. <S> Related: <S> (article) Sales of sugar and caffeine laden energy drinks should be restricted as they 'pose a danger' to children at Daily Mail <S> What are the side effects of drinking too much coffee? <S> How long should I wait before I permit my children to have access to caffeine? <S> at parenting SE Effects of Caffeine on Human Health , P. Nawrot, S. Jordan, J. Eastwood, J. Rotstein, A. Hugenholtz and M. Feeley, Food Additives and Contaminants, 2003, Vol. <S> 20, No. 1, pg. 1-30. <A> Same with Chris in AK, I am not a medical doctor with a Ph.D or any degree. <S> As said in this website , USA has not made any guidelines but recommends putting caffeine to a minimum in younger kids. <S> Drinking too much coffee or at the wrong time can harm children in multiple ways. <S> Canadian guidelines though, say that: Canadian guidelines recommend that preschoolers get no more than 45 milligrams of caffeine a day. <S> That's equivalent to the average amount of caffeine found in a single 12-ounce (355-milliliter) can of soda. <S> Yep, preschoolers might as well be drinking a 12 ounce Cola-Cola every day. <S> Side effects in both kids and adults can be pretty annoying. <S> One way it affects young children maybe: <S> Lack of sleep <S> Unable to learn at school properly Sleepiness Adults... <S> Well you know what some of your side effects are. <S> You can say it can you get you drunk, except you get more active then sleepy. <S> Drinking coffee or high-caffeine drinks are said "to help with studying" but in a Houston news study, most college students can barely remember what they learned during their "caffeine overload". <S> But, it is all your decision. <S> If you think it's okay , do it and vice versa. <S> I hope this helps you!
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In short: there is no minimum recommended age for drinking coffee, but on the other hand it's not good idea to have kids drink coffee all day long.
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What's the recommended coffee to water ratio for cold brew? I was interested today in making some cold brew. I have a french press so I'd like to use that. What is your recommended brewing time?Does this make a concentrate?What ratio do you use later to dilute that concentrate? <Q> First, make sure to study <S> What do I need to start cold-brewing . <S> But since concentrate is not discussed there, I don't think your question is a duplicate. <S> Your French press concentrate could last a couple days, depending on the consumption. <S> Assuming you divide the volume of the French press by 5, you would need 1 part of ground coffee (the usual coarse grind you use in the press; extraction is weaker at low temperatures but the time makes up for it even with coarse grind) and 4 parts of fresh room-temperature water, which you gently mix and stir. <S> The coffee should sit for about 12-16 hours at room temperature. <S> Then plunge, and here is the concentrate. <S> To dilute, use another 8 parts of cold water or milk (or better, start with 5-6 parts and taste to determine whether you want it still thinner). <S> Here's my favourite article that discusses dripping methods as well. <A> | ratio <S> | |----------------------------------------------------------| |Stumptown | <S> 12oz | <S> 56oz | 16 hours <S> | .214 <S> | |Blue Bottle | <S> 16oz | <S> 67.6oz | 12 hour | .236 <S> | <S> |Ritual <S> | 4oz | 35.2oz | 18 hours <S> | .113 <S> | |Intelligentsia <S> | 8oz | <S> 56oz | 12 hours <S> | .142 <S> | <S> These recipes vary in concentration - the lower ~0.1 recipes are designed to be consumed without dilution, while the ~0.2 recipes are designed to be consumed in a 1:2 cold brew concentrate to water dilution. <A> 17:1 water to coffee ratio (by weight) for regular coffee 4:1 ratio for cold brew <S> The extraction will also be impacted by things like grind size, water temp & dwell time so in order to get a "golden cup." <S> Image from SCAA
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The standard recommended ratios for cold brew are: | Roaster | oz Coffee | oz water | time
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Difference between Turkish and Greek coffee? Is there a difference between Turkish and Greek coffee? Or is it the same thing with different names at different places? <Q> ...also called Arabic, Cypriot, Bosnian, and what not -- it is the same method. <S> The method itself (boiling finely ground coffee in copper cezve, typically sweetened, and served in a demitasse) is said to stem from 15th century Yemen, reaching Constantinople in 17th century and consequently spreading across Ottoman Empire. <S> Apparently, there are interesting variations to it. <S> For instance, Syrian coffee (and probably some others) is flavoured by cardamom. <A> Please do not confuse Arabic coffee with Turkish coffee. <S> Arabic coffee, called gahwah is something completely different than Turkish coffee ... which is called Turkish coffee in the Middle East. <S> It has completely different coloration and is also served differently. <S> It is also not sweet. <S> Wikipedia explains it thus : Arabic coffee, or ‘‘Al-Qahwa’’ <S> (Arabic: قهوة, qahwah, locally gahwah or g'hawah), is made from coffee beans roasted very lightly or heavily from 165 °C (329 °F) to 210 °C (410 °F) and cardamom, and is a traditional beverage in Arabian culture. <S> Traditionally, it is roasted on the premises (at home or for special occasions), ground, brewed and served in front of guests. <S> It is often served with dates, dried fruit, candied fruit or nuts. <S> This brewing method is common in Najd and Hijaz, and sometimes other spices like saffron (to give it a golden color), cloves, and cinnamon. <S> Some people add a little evaporated milk to slightly alter its color; however, this is rare. <S> It is served from a special coffee pot called dallah (Arabic: دلة) and the coffee cups are small with no handle called fenjan. <S> The portions are small, covering just the bottom of the cup. <S> It looks like this: Turkish coffee, on the other hand: <A> It has always been Arabic. <S> However, the World met the coffee you mentioned through Ottoman Empire, a Turkish country. <S> It became Turkish Coffee. <S> Some Turkish stuff is known as Greek too. <S> Let me say, Turkish/Greek delight, Turkish/Greek yoghurt and Turkish/Greek coffee.
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In Greece, it's become Greek coffee (along with the former "Turkish" Greek delight ) after conflicting with Turkey and the 1974 invasion of Cyprus.
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What is the background of brewing coffee with eggs? I hope the question isn't too broad or fuzzy. But quite a while ago, I stumbled across coffee that was prepared with eggs. The basic recipe involved mixing ground coffee with raw eggs (I think even with their shells), then cooking that mix with water and filtering it afterwards. The end result of that was in consistence and taste not much different from classic (drip, so to say) coffee, but had a notable and interesting by-taste of egg. This was quite bit unusual to me and I didn't ever encounter this recipe again (yet am not an expert on the topic either). So I would first and foremost like to know if that preparation method is some kind of established or regional variation of coffee and how that actually developed or what the reasons/advantages for this somehow unusual combination are, be they nutritional, historical or just because it tastes good. <Q> So I did a bit of research, and found a number of regional claims to 'egg coffee', including Swedish, Norwegian, Vietnamese and the American Mid-West. <S> Of course I also found an article on Putting Weird Things In Coffee , which should be taken with a pinch of salt 1 . <S> There seem to be a variety of approaches, but they seem to fall into three main camps: <S> Add just the white and the shell <S> Add just the yolk and the shell <S> Add the whole egg, including the shell <S> Across the different techniques, adding the shell was the only real unifying theme! <S> It's said to reduce bitterness (I imagine because the shell is essentially calcium-carbonate, which is basic). <S> The technique is to just crush up the shell, mix it and the egg contents with the coffee and pour over boiling water. <S> The grounds will bind with the egg protein and sink in the cup. <S> They can then be strained off. <S> The only other recipe I found is specifically for Vietnamese egg coffee, which I found here : <S> Ingredients 1 egg 3 teaspoons of Vietnamese coffee powder 2 teaspoons of sweetened condensed milk Boiling water Directions Brew a small cup of Vietnamese coffee. <S> Crackan egg and discard the whites. <S> Put the yolk and the sweetenedcondensed milk in a small, deep bowl and whisk vigorously until youend up with a frothy, fluffy mixture like the one above. <S> Add atablespoon of the brewed coffee and whisk it in. <S> In a clear coffee cup(we’re going for aesthetics here), pour in your brewed coffee, thenadd the fluffy egg mixture on top. <S> Presto. <S> Egg coffee. <S> 1 <S> : No, not like that. <A> I don't know any history behind the practice <S> but I learned it myself during a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon back in the early '90's. <S> The method was to put a couple of fistfuls of loose grounds in one of those giant porcelain coffee pots that look like they came out of a Zane Grey novel. <S> Follow with two whole uncooked eggs and with a big metal spoon, stir the whole mess in the bottom of the pot, breaking the eggs and mixing it well with the dry grounds. <S> Fill the pot with cold water and put on a hot fire until the thing boils. <S> Take the pot off the fire and open the lid, dribbling about a cup of cold water over the top of the liquid inside. <S> Somehow this settles all the solids to the bottom of the pot and the coffee really tasted pretty good. <S> My take was that the egg sort of smoothed out any harshness the crude method would have introduced to the coffee otherwise. <S> The grounds pretty much stay at the bottom of the pot and were not really a problem in the cup. <S> I couldn't believe it would work as well as it did <S> but I'm a believer. <S> Where it originated, I have no idea, but I have to believe it was away from civilization because the method was so crude. <A> I can't tell you where it originated, but I know that's how my German grandmother used to make it. <S> It does make the coffee a lot smoother. <A> I am familiar with the use of eggshell only. <S> The reason is for the benefit of calcium carbonate as has been mentioned before. <S> It takes the bitter edge off coffee brewed using methods which do not provide proper extraction i.e. poor quality drip machines. <S> The lack of proper extraction can make the coffee bitter or sour tasting. <S> The egg shell removes those unpleasant flavors.... <A> Egg shell boiled in the bottom of the pot reduces the acid in water used. <S> This would be well water or stream water. <A> Pretty sure it originated in the old West. <S> Chester makes reference to putting eggs in the coffee he brews for the sheriff's office in the TV show Gunsmoke. <S> That show ran for 20 years beginning, I believe, in the late 50's. <S> I would think the writers incorporated the use of eggs in the coffee because the concept was used by cowboys on the prairie. <S> It made cheap coffee taste better and provided a way to separate out the coffee grinds.
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The egg helps to absorb the grounds to keep them out of your cup, but it also helps to neutralize the acidity of the coffee. It's an old cowboy campfire recipe.
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Why would anyone want to hand grind their coffee? I often buy pre-roasted beans so that they last longer in storage. This means I have to grind the beans. I have a cheap spice grinder that does a great job at preparing the beans into ground coffee. It is easy to use, takes 5-15 seconds to process half a dozen cups worth of beans, and I have good control over how fine a powder to make the beans into. I'm pretty sure this is a similar story for almost everyone with an electric grinder. I saw a friend using a hand grinder. It took far longer and from what I saw there was no discernable difference between hand ground coffee and machine ground coffee in terms of texture (if anything the texture was less consistent when hand ground) . Given this, why on earth would anyone want to hand grind? <Q> Hand grinders will work without electricity. <S> You can generally get a conical hand grinder cheaper than you can get an electric one. <S> They also create less noise than a electric grinder. <S> Hand grinders will generally produce less heat than an electric (may affect bean flavor). <S> Many grinders are lighter and smaller than electric ones. <S> They are portable and can easily be packed for use when traveling. <S> As to the consistency, a conical grinder (electric or manual) will generally create a more consistent grind than a electric blade "grinder". <S> Electric blade grinders tend to produce dust and boulders. <S> I know because I use one at work daily <S> and I can see the inconsistency in the grind, but it doesn't bother me that much. <S> At home, my burr grinder creates a much more consistent grind. <A> When grinding coffee, the particle size of the resulting powder can be described with a bell curve, whose width (and thus, the powder consistency) varies on mostly the roast and the grinding method. <A> Though it may not result in any substantial difference in the coffee, hand grinding provides a more analog experience. <S> Speaking just for my self, I enjoy the hands on approach. <S> It certainly takes more time than an electric grinder, but if you're just grinding for a single cup of French Press or Areopress, it's not that much longer. <S> In general, though, a burr grinder is much better than a blade grinder. <S> It gives you a more even grind, which allows for better extraction. <S> A decent electric burr grinder costs at least $130. <S> You can get a good hand grinder for about half that. <S> For many people, the cost factor is the important one. <A> Your question has the statement that your blade grinder results in grounds that are equal or superior to the hand grinder in terms of texture. <S> This is generally not true. <S> There was a time when I would have agreed with you until a change in my brew method <S> showed me otherwise. <S> When using my Aeropress inverted, when I began to allow the grounds to extract longer, the large fragments separated from the finer powder and rose to the top of the brew. <S> They became visible and when I dumped the extracted grounds out onto a paper towel, I was shocked at how many very large - including a few whole beans - there were in the spent grounds. <S> One side of the spent puck had very fine powder and the other much larger fragments. <S> Having learned (from this site) that different flavor profiles from the bean extract at different rates, I could see how a consistent grind would result in a more consistent flavor profile. <S> I should also say that when I use my blade grinder, looking at the dry grounds, these large fragments aren't visible at all! <S> It's only when they are allowed to separate while brewing that they are obvious. <S> I would also add that I own one of the higer rated blade grinders out there. <A> Maybe your friend is sensitive to noise. <S> I'm sure you noticed that hand grinding doesn't product that deafening noise that most electric grinders create. <A> If nothing else, in the morning, the extra work wakes you up a bit more. <S> It's also one less electrical socket used. <S> One thing I notice is that different beans and roasts actually feel different while you're hand-grinding. <A> It's part of the ritual of coffee, which should not be underestimated. <S> A little later I would hear bell-like notes as someone pounded coffee in a brass mortar, varying his strong to produce the semblance of a tune. <S> Thesiger, Arabian Sands. <S> And personally, I enjoy making coffee for my wife or for my guests, so hand-griding <S> the beans makes the gesture more significant.
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A manual grinder with adjustable grinding size will produce a more consistence powder, whereas electric grinders (especially the cheaper household ones) will provide you with a wider curve with less guaranteed consistency. The roast however has a much smaller say in the consistency, but beans roasted darker may tend to give you a bit more percentage of fine powder as the beans dry out more and become more fragile. And I won't even mention how the manual grinding can become part of someone's morning workout routine... That being said, I find that the only time that I ever use one is when I'm out camping.
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What is the correct way to eat biscotti with coffee? Most coffee shops sell biscotti to have with your coffee. I've always wondered, is there a 'correct' way of consuming them together? Are biscotti ideally consumed with a certain preparation of coffee (e.g. a capuccino but not a latte)? Should I be dunking, or is that frightfully uncultured? <Q> Adapting "Golf is a good walk spoiled," (whoever said it; Twain probably didn't ), biscotti is a sure way to destroy a good coffee. <S> Italians dip in wine instead , not in coffee according to that article. <S> Dipping in that wine sounds marginally worse than dunking in coffee. <S> The soft, cookie-like biscotti available in many cafes won't hold up to any dunking at all, and will end up waterlogged and sad at the end of your sipping. <S> The break-your-teeth traditional biscotti seem to call for something, but they don't seem edible to me. <S> At the risk of this becoming an opinion-based discussion, for my money: If you want to drink coffee, just drink coffee. <S> If you want to eat a soggy cookie, eat a soggy cookie... but don't combine the two and risk ruining your perfectly good coffee in the process. :) <A> There actually is a scientific equation for determining how long and at what angle to dunk something in coffee. <S> Len Fisher won the Ig Nobel in Physics for working out the equation in his paper "How to Dunk a Biscuit". <S> He is British, so in my American copy of his book the paper is titled "How to Dunk a Doughnut" but the equations he works out would also suit biscotti. <S> A lot of it comes down to the makeup of the biscotti you are eating. <S> As @hoc_age mentioned some store "biscotti" are just kinda hard cookies and some are teeth-breaking dense blocks. <S> Using Len Fisher's equations though you could determine how long you could dunk the biscotti to soften it up without it collapsing into and ruining your coffee. <S> In the end I agree with @hoc_age, defend your coffee from invasion but to each his own, at least science has an answer! <S> I know quotes are better than links <S> but I can't find a public source of the paper <S> and it would be too long to post here. <S> I did find a BBC article from 1999 when he won the award: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/462987.stm <A> Speaking from family experience (my family is french). <S> My father's breakfast consisted of hard stale bread which he would dunk into a cafe au lait. <S> (Same as my uncles.) <S> They never did that with espresso - only with <S> the morning cafe au lait. <S> When I'm in France I see the older generation still doing that in the morning <S> - it's less common amoung <S> the younger generation. <S> As a side note " <S> to dip one's biscuit" has a sexual connotation in French. <A> Here is a link to "how to dunk a biscuit" paper @justin-c mentioned, which is surprisingly on Nature. <S> https://www.nature.com/articles/17203 <S> Here I quote his main contribution for solving the great conundrum from science perspective. <S> All I had done, in fact, was to write down the Washburn equation, derived2 in 1921 to describe capillary flow in porous materials: <S> where t is the time for a liquid of viscosity η and surface <S> tension γ to penetrate a distance Linto a fully wettable, porous material whose average pore diameter is D. <S> The equation is strictly true only for capillary flow in a single cylindrical tube in the absence of gravitational effects, but can be extremely accurate for more complex materials, including, as I found experimentally, biscuits. <S> Why this should be <S> so is a very interesting question. <S> In practice, I could use the Washburn equation to predict how long different biscuits could be safely dunked by the physicist'smethod, the longest dunkers generally giving the best flavour release (to my palate at least). <A> A Quick "Dip & Go" is the way to do it. <S> DO NOT LINGER or it will fall apart ( <S> No matter How Hard your Biscotti is
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I prefer the middle-of-the-road, softer, chewy biscotti that can be enjoyed without submerging in liquid.
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Can decaf coffee be addictive? It is evident that decaffeinated coffee still contains a very low amount of caffeine . What I'm interested in is that if decaf coffee still contains some very low amounts of caffeine, and caffeine is addictive , therefore: is decaf coffee addictive? ★ I'm not talking about the 'habitual' dependence. I.e. the routine of drinking the same cup of decaf coffee everyday, but rather the 'physical' or chemical dependence. <Q> The amount of such cups of decaf will vary according to the brand chosen. <S> According to a study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology , and cited in the article Decaf coffee isn't caffeine free , they say that in average, a cup of decaf can hold about one-twentieth of the caffeine you get in a normal drip brewed coffee. <S> In that same article, they state that drinking more cups of decaf can compensate the lack of caffeine, and still be able to produce addiction. <S> So, it is indeed a matter of how many cups of decaf you drink. <A> Another take on addictiveness of coffee in addition to caffeine: there are several other psychoactive chemicals in coffee ; some links/references are available from this page and this page . <S> These chemicals include, for example, theanine , theobromine , and theophylline , in various amounts. <S> I can't find good sources to say if (or the extent to which) these or other psychoactive drugs in coffee are addictive as such. <S> But, for example, theobromine is also present in chocolate; it has been suggested as a factor that contributes to "chocolate addiction" ( citation listed at Wikipedia ). <S> Standard disclaimers : this isn't medical advice; I am not a doctor; seek actual medical advice if you have questions. <A> My experience, as someone who went from drinking 2-4 cups of normal coffee plus several black teas per day to drinking 1-2 cups of decaf (and no tea) is that it IS addictive. <S> hoc_age's answer that there are psychoactive chemicals in coffee other than caffeine makes sense to me. <S> The decaf I drink is the Swiss method of decaf which is supposed to remove more caffeine than other methods. <S> Yet if I don't have my decaf in the morning <S> I crave it - with the exact same feeling as when I would "need" my normal caffeinated morning coffee. <S> I've tried drinking Caro and other similarly flavoured hot drinks but my body still wants coffee, decaf or not. <S> It definitely feels like there is something other than caffeine that makes it addictive. <S> This is not withstanding <S> that caffeine itself is addictive; there is much science behind that to be in no doubt. <S> I had the worst withdrawal symptoms when I quit normal coffee that no amount of decaf helped with. <S> I felt physically sick and had crushing headaches that lasted a week and got worse every day until they finally disappeared. <A> I definitely get a caffeine withdrawal headache when I stop drinking decaf coffee for a couple days. <S> A decade ago I was a regular coffee drinker, but the addiction and need for regular caffeine infusion didn't fit well with motherhood's scheduling <S> and I had to stop. <S> I did completely cut out all coffee/tea/soda sources of caffeine and, after I re-adjusted, life was better. <S> Now when I drink, accidentally, 3 or more days (8-16oz/day) of instant decaf coffee in a row and then skip a 4th day.... <S> an, albeit milder, old caffeine withdrawal headache makes me notice I've missed out. <S> The only other sources of caffeine in my diet are a minimal bit of chocolate.
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Since decaf coffee isn't the same as caffeine-free coffee, the key point regarding addiction is the amount of daily servings of decaf coffee that deliver the 100 milligrams of caffeine needed to acquire some sort of dependence 1 .
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How should I clean a stainless coffee carafe? At the office, we have a coffee maker with a stainless steel vacuum carafe similar to this one . It has accumulated coffee residue in it from 5+ years of hard service, whilst receiving in return what I shall politely call "inadequate cleansing." It's a double-wall vacuum container. There is no heating element, so I'm not exactly sure what causes this buildup in the first place. The manufacturer user manual suggests to clean using dish soap / mild detergent, or the top rack of a dishwasher; I've tried both, neither worked. I have also tried scrubbing with non-abrasive brush, sponge, and dish detergents; improved, still lots of residue. I soaked in two batches of near-boiling water and bicarb (baking soda) for about an hour. The first rinse looked almost like brewed coffee; this was shocking . After all that, the situation was improved but there's still lots of residue. There are myriad suggestions for removing coffee stains from stainless steel, like this set of eight (8) from Wikihow . It suggests exposing the inside to various household chemicals: vinegar, baking soda / bicarb, bleach (!?), salt, ice cubes, etc. This other article suggests using a dishwasher detergent tablet but it uses anonymous tablets. It does give a nod to using dishwasher detergent powder (as I did with this other device ), but I'd prefer to know what is the actual cleansing chemical at work. So before I either abandon this (decidedly serviceable) carafe for a new one, or begin indexing my pantry for candidate chemicals: How should I clean this stainless carafe? Surely someone must have had and solved this problem. In addition: I'd also like to ensure that I don't make this worse in the process; e.g., scratching or etching the inside of the carafe. Are these carafes predisposed to buildup? What's causing it? Besides regular cleaning, is there anything else that will keep this thing cleaner for a longer period of time? <Q> Tannin is a chemical contained in coffee and this is what normally stains your coffee making / drinking equipment. <S> When using an espresso machine it is advised to 'backflush' your machine with cleaning powder which cleans away a build up of 'tannin' from inside the machine. <S> I expect a similar thing has happened to your carafe. <S> With an espresso machine you're advised to do it weekly with heavy use - so I can imagine an "inadequate cleansed" carafe would probably be heavily tannin stained. <S> You can purchase tannin cleaning powder from any coffee supplier, such as Happy Donkey . <S> Even though it is designed for Espresso Machines - it is perfectly safe to dissolve the powder in water and use it to clean other tannin stained equipment. <A> I have a Bunn coffee brewer with a stainless steel thermal carafe. <S> I have cleaned it, following the instructions in the owner’s manual and the results were surprisingly good. <S> Place a paper filter in the brew funnel and pour 2 teaspoons of Cascade powder dishwashing detergent into the paper filter. <S> Pour one carafe of cold water into the brewer and brew. <S> Allow carafe to sit for 10-15 minutes. <S> Using a long handled, soft bristled brush, clean the inside of the carafe. <S> Pour out the solution and rinse thoroughly. <S> The owner’s manual mentions “Cascade” by name. <S> The ingredients in Cascade follow. <S> Water softeners (complex sodium phosphates and sodium carbonate), cleaning and water spot prevention agents (non-ionic surfactant and chlorine bleach), dishwasher and china protection agents (sodium silicate), processing aid (sodium sulfate), suds control agent and perfume. <S> I don’t know of any way to prevent the buildup other than regular cleaning. <S> I hope this helps! <A> Imposing as the build-up of dark staining on the wall of your stainless steel carafe may seem, I predict it will come up with water and a bit of effort with a paper towel or other light cleaning tool. <S> I recommend using cold or lukewarm water as this will allow you rub at the (layers of) stain without risk of pain from hot water. <S> The build-up is largely from water soluble compounds in the coffee, and because the brewing process creates a concentration of these in hot water, as the brew cools these tend to come out of solution. <S> There will also be tiny particles of ground coffee, small enough to make their way through the filter/basket that holds the original coffee grounds, and these particles act to promote the staining/sedimentation, esp. <S> at the bottom of your carafe. <S> You've already seen the first evidence of success when the rinse water came out almost as dark as the brewed coffee the carafe normally holds. <S> It's large a matter of repetition. <S> However if the carafe were used to hold some coffee mixed with something else, such as milk or creamer, this can make a more difficult cleaning problem (because the fat in milk will act as a binding agent that resists water solution). <S> I assume that is not the case here since most people in the office will have their own preferences for adding milk or other creamers, if any. <S> It's a bit easier to see how quickly the staining rinses out of a glass carafe (several rinses may be needed, judging by your description of the build-up), but there's nothing about a steel carafe that would make the staining more difficult to remove. <A> I too used mild soaps, detergents, bleach, vinegar and scrubbing in a double walled 16 oz. stainless coffee cup, yet the coffee stain remained. <S> I finally used Cascade powdered dishwasher soap with great success, ending with uncolored stainless and no etching. <S> I put approx. <S> 1/4-1/2 teaspoon in the cup, fill with hot water, shake mixture and set it overnight with lid on. <S> I recently used a small amount from a Cascade POD of powdered dishwasher soap with the same success. <S> The Cascade dishwasher liquid detergent does NOT work. <S> Good luck! <A> I brew a pot with ~10% vinegar <S> and it cleans everything right up. <S> A second run of just water is done to help with any residual vinegar. <A> I have finally found the quick & EASY way to clean my stainless steel coffee carafe. <S> I am just amazed! <S> It worked like magic. <S> Just put a Cascade dishwasher detergent pod inside of your carafe. <S> Boil water on the stove and then put your carafe in the sink and fill it to the top with the boiling water. <S> It only takes about 30 minutes. <S> I did this, walked my dogs, came back and by the time I got back the water in the pot was black. <S> I used a long-handled spoon to stir it (know anyone who can fit their hands in one of these?!), poured the BLACK water out <S> and it was spotless. <S> I don't mean pretty clean. <S> I don't mean very clean. <S> I mean SPOTLESS. <S> I don't think my stirring with the spoon made one little difference. <S> I think Cascade and boiling water did that all on it's own. <S> So happy! <A>
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I have found a longer soak (overnight, usually) after preheating cold container with boiling water - wait for container to warm, dump water and refill with fresh boiling water and bicarb/baking soda generally solves my stainless steel thermos, which is functionally similar, and sometimes gets more interesting gunk (as I tended to put milk and sugar in it, so if it was forgotten for a while after use, it really needed cleaning...)
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How long should I leave my coffee for in a cafetiere (French press)? I'm struggling to find a good way of timing how long to let my cafetiere stand before drinking. Is there a rule of thumb for how long I should leave it per mug? Or is there more to it than that? <Q> Start with a coarse ground of coffee with about 1 ounce (28 grams) of coffee for about every 15 ounces (450 ml) of water. <S> The water temperature should be below boiling, about 200-205° F (93-96° C). <S> Stir in about 1/3 of your water to let the coffee grounds "bloom" for about 30 seconds <S> ; then add the remaining water, cover it, and let it steep. <S> The total brew time should be about four minutes. <S> Then press the plunger to the bottom and pour. <S> Once the plunger is pressed, be sure to dispense the coffee into another container once that brewing cycle is done. <S> If you let the brewed coffee sit with the spent grounds, it will start to develop a more-bitter taste and be somewhat over-extracted (unless that is an effect you are looking for). <S> Note <S> : There is also a "cold-brewing" method which requires several hour of extraction, but that is likely to be outside the scope of what you are asking. <A> My cafetiere has the instruction that you should not use boiling water (I think the recommended temp is 85 degrees centigrade) so as to not scald the coffee and then let it steep for 5 minutes before plunging. <S> Personally I swirl it around a bit about a minute before the 5 minutes has elapsed just to agitate it a bit. <S> Grumpy Mule recommends waiting 30 secs first before pouring the water on and waiting 4 minutes they also recommend wetting the grounds first, waiting for the bloom to settle before filling with water. <A> I also recommend you pour it into mugs or a separate serving container immediately, so that the grounds don't continue extract at the bottom. <S> If you find four minutes produces coffee that's a little sour or thin, add 30 seconds; if it's bitter, subtract 30. <S> I've found that dark roasts generally need less time, and light roasts need more.
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For French Press, my default brew time is four minutes before plunging (i.e. pushing down the filter). Every bean/roast is different, so adjust accordingly.
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Why does coffee taste better out of ceramic cups compared to a paper cup? I usually drink double espressos and they always seem to taste much better out of a ceramic cup compared to take-away paper cups. I ordered 2 back to back from the same shop within half an hour yesterday, one in a ceramic cup and one to go (I have a coffee drinking problem...) and the difference was still there - so same barista, machine, beans etc. Why is this? For sushi you are told not to eat it with a metal fork since it will supposedly taint the taste, so could this be similar? <Q> Both cup material and temperature are in play here, I think. <S> A big part of the coffee taste (and experience as a whole) is the aroma. <S> I personally find that paper cups (not surprisingly) smell and taste like paper . <S> Ceramic (or glass, porcelain, etc.) should be practically neutral. <S> If the cup has a plastic lid, that could contribute both to its own smell, or holding-in / reducing the coffee aroma that you smell, also. <S> (Aside: there are some interesting links to the physiology of smell and taste interplay at the Wikipedia article on taste .) <S> The very experience of drinking from a paper cup versus a ceramic cup is different ; heft, shape, handle, other aesthetics, etc., though this probably reduces to personal preference. <S> For example, I find sometimes that my lip sticks to the outside of the paper cup, which is unpleasant (to me, anyway :). <S> A plastic lid could be a factor here as well. <S> Temperature may also be a factor. <S> For example, temperature can affect the perception of bitterness . <S> A properly pre-heated ceramic cup/demitasse will help the brewed coffee be at a consistent temperature (without shocking it after pull) and keep it warmer for longer (so it doesn't cool down too quickly). <S> Such temperature changes could result in a difference in taste; keeping brewed coffee at a consistent temperature is recommended -- that and some other general properties are listed here . <S> Temperature stability of the brew will probably be different between paper and ceramic. <A> Keep in mind that paper cups are manufactured. <S> I have been in industrial plants my whole career. <S> There are odors, vapors and minute particles in the air that get packaged with the product. <S> They are not harmful per say but are released into the hot beverage on contact and could likely impart a flavor. <A> We at Delpac manufacture paper coffee cups. <S> The inside of the paper is PE polyethylene <S> coated (not wax). <S> There should not be a taste per se from this material <S> but there is a different "experience" from using a ceramic cup or mug.
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Any smell you get from the cup could affect the perception of taste of the contained beverage.
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Does the bloom matter in French Press? I am a fan of pour-over, generally speaking, and I understand the importance of wetting the grounds, then allowing them to "bloom" for 45 30 seconds or so before beginning the extraction. The main purpose of this is to allow carbon dioxide and other gasses to escape from the grounds, so they can extract more evenly. I have a coworker who is a fan of French Press, and he does a bloom in the French Press as well. I'm curious if this matters as much in this context, since the grounds are completely submerged the whole time. Is it important? If so, is it for the same reason or some other reason as a pour-over? <Q> I believe there is mysticism to blooming. <S> Don't get me wrong, I feel its important, but I don't think it does all the things that people claim it does. <S> Blooming is important when using fresh roasted beans(and you should be). <S> Blooming simply aids in removing CO2 from the grounds, which would otherwise create negative space between your grounds and the water. <S> It's simply used to provide a more even extraction. <S> You should also reduce your brew time slightly to compensate for the extraction that takes place during the bloom. <S> I'd typically bloom for 30 seconds, then push the bloom down gently without agitation(agitation effect solubility). <S> It would really depend on how you perform your bloom. <S> Do you bloom then start your timer? <S> Do you bloom with a small amount of water first, then add more to prevent too much extraction during the bloom? <S> Ultimately these differences in taste don't have anything to do with the bloom itself, but more so the extraction time brought on by how you perform your bloom. <S> The bloom itself does not effect taste, and it is an important part of using a french press, as its key to providing even extraction. <A> It's going to produce a stronger brew and probably more oils, likely resulting in more crema. <S> What you're essentially doing is heating the grinds, starting the extraction process a bit and then giving a small amount of hot water about 30 seconds to cool before adding more - very similar to what pre-infusing a puck in an espresso machine would accomplish. <S> Does it matter? <S> It could conceivably affect taste, so yes. <S> For gas levels - you would have to pour very carefully to avoid air bubbles as much as possible and observe, and I'm not even sure you could detect it. <A> In regards to non-espresso "crema," the one thing it does tell is the freshness. <S> A coffee roasted 2 days ago will have much more than a month old coffee that's been on the shelf.
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I think its a dubious claim to state that the bloom does anything beyond removing the CO2, thus providing a more even extraction. Blooming is important in any immersion brewing, and can even aid in pour-over methods as well. The extent that it might affect the flavor of the coffee would vary quite a bit depending on the beans, water and ground - but it will produce a difference in taste you can probably measure just by sampling in all but very dark roasts.
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How can I achieve a very bitter flavor using the French press? I'm trying to train my tongue to recognize the 'bitter' taste of coffee, so I can improve my methods. How can I achieve a bitter flavor with a French press? This is a real question as I am not sure if it is heat, steep time, or the coffee grounds that produce the bitterness. <Q> Bitterness comes from over-extracting the coffee. <S> The factors affecting extraction are: water temperature, time, size of the grind, and to a lesser extent, agitation. <S> Using hotter water (above the usual 198F-202F), longer steep time, or a finer grind--or any combination of the three--will result in over-extraction, which will make the coffee more bitter. <S> A darker roast will over-extract more easily as well, since an ideal extraction is typically 30-45 seconds shorter than a light roast. <A> I would recommend using the darkest/burntest roast you can find. <S> Something along the lines of an Italian or Spanish roast if you can find it. <S> You should end up with a significantly bitter brew. <A> As Keith and Chris note - a darker <S> (as in the darkest you can get) roast and boiling water is going to lead to a (in time, with experimentation, pleasant ) over-extraction. <S> This will not make your coffee salty, it will simply bring out the natural bitterness of the extra compounds the over-extraction will produce. <S> You can use a pinch of salt if you want to back off the temperature of the water, or how dark the roast is, in order to achieve basically the same effect as you would with either. <S> You have to experiment a bit, I use this method to get a more bitter / robust medium-roast Arabica quite frequently. <S> Also works wonders in drip coffee filters.
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Then, over extract the coffee as much as you possibly can by letting it steep much longer than normal. Something else you can do is add a pinch of sea / kosher salt to the grinds prior to pouring in the water.
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How can I make my coffee taste stronger using a french press or gold filter? I like drinking my own coffee at work, as it's cheaper and more convienient than buying espresso. However, recently I've been finding myself wanting a more long-black like espresso coffee. How can I achieve this using either a french press/plunger or a gold filter? <Q> I enjoy my homemade French-pressed coffee more than anything I can buy at an espresso shop, though a long black is my preferred choice if I'm away from home. <S> There are a couple of strengths of the espresso shop's infrastructure which you can emulate on a smaller scale: Good coffee beans <S> Buy good fresh whole beans and grind them right before you prepare the drink. <S> Strong extraction Use more coffee and/or grind it more finely. <S> More surface area will make it extract more and taste stronger. <S> You can even make it really thick and creamy and add it on top of water for the long-black-like experience. <S> There's a discussion about minimizing the grounds in your cup here . <A> I think you are going to have a hard time achieving what you are trying to do with the tools you are describing. <S> Espresso is a very specific brewing method that produces a very specific type of coffee. <S> Trying to mimic that flavor profile with other brew methods will generally fall short. <S> Using more coffee for stronger flavor is one option, but it ends up not being cost effective in the long run. <S> It is fairly inexpensive and makes a very strong cup of coffee using a reasonable amount of grounds that isn't espresso, but also isn't over extracted. <S> The downside is that it's difficult to generate crema with such a brew method. <S> You might be forced to figure out which aspects of the long black you like, then come up with a brew method that gets you close on those aspects, but is probably missing others that make up the true long black. <A> Aeropress is definitely the way to go. <S> It's the most "espresso-like" home brew option out there. <S> Here's my favorite recipe: http://yourbestdrink.com/how-to-brew-coffee/
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More extraction is an option, but over extracted coffee often has a flavor profile associated with it that isn't desirable as well. The closest you can get (in my opinion) on a budget is probably an Aeropress.
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How can I better work coffee into my morning routine I am a pretty lazy person and sometimes it takes me awhile to get around to making coffee. I have a french press and I grind my own coffee so it takes a little longer. What are some simple ways I can speed up my coffee making process or better work it into my morning routine without sacrificing quality? <Q> I had a similar problem and I ended with aeropress . <S> To speed up the process I use pre-grinded coffee which I store in the fridge. <A> I am pretty ineffective before my first cup, and my family doesn't want to hear anything since I'm the first one up. <S> So I make it easier on myself and them: <S> grind enough for the first cup the night before. <S> Store grounds at room temperature, not in the fridge. <S> This is a slight tradeoff in quality. <S> If you don't need silence, then just have the beans ready to grind. <A> Though now deleted, I most prefer @EdChum's comment: brew a pot of cold-brew the night before! <S> Pour and enjoy. <S> Cannot get easier or tastier. <S> For nearly instant hot coffee, use instant coffee powder . <S> Mix boiled water with coffee powder. <S> Attempt to drink while you prepare a better-tasting cup of coffee. <S> See tag instant . <S> For fast, automatic laziness -- yielding a quick, easy cup of passable coffee -- you can't beat pod-based automatic machines. <S> Fill the pitcher with water, insert pod, press button... done. <S> The only thing to mess up could be forgetting to place a coffee cup below the spigot. <S> Clean-up is practically non-existent. <S> I personally find the quality of this coffee to be low and unsatisfying. <S> Otherwise, streamline your French Press routine: <S> Start your water boiling. <S> Go about other business for a few minutes (or stare at the wall if other business is impossible before coffee). <S> When the water has boiled, grind your coffee and put it in your сafetière (French Press). <S> Add water; submerge coffee. <S> Wait. <S> Press and drink. <S> Begin clean-up: <S> dump grounds into compost and allow to dry on its own (a few hours). <S> Shake out dried coffee and rinse <S> ; repeat as necessary. <S> Commentary: <S> This permits really only 3 steps of brewing: boil, mix, press. <S> This is about as simple as possible. <S> By grinding after boiling, this minimizes the amount of time between grind and brew (crucial minutes!) and minimizes the overhead of manual interaction. <S> By using the multi-step clean-up process that I describe, this maximizes efficiency: get most of the coffee out by shaking when still wet (just brewed). <S> Allow to dry on its own, and the rest of the coffee grounds will come out easily. <S> A simple rinse is enough to get most of the remnants out without clogging a sink drain. <S> Long live manual coffee production methods! <S> See other guides from Coffee Geek , Blue Bottle , and How To Brew Coffee -- I prefer a simpler approach that I describe than all of those.
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Once you press the coffee, the cleanup is very fast. wash out the press and leave it ready prep the water (I use a hot water dispenser built in to my sink) and your cup do it exactly the same way every day so you don't have to think or decide
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Brewing with the same coffee grounds twice? My new job has me buying my own coffee for the first time in my professional career. I'm amazed at the amount of coffee I consume. I brew at my desk using an aeropress. Has anyone tried to use the grounds more than once? Any tips as I try it out? <Q> In general, I argue that you shouldn't be able to re-use the grounds. <S> That is, for any brewing session, your goal is to extract exactly what you want from the beans. <S> If you do this optimally for your method and taste, there's nothing left in the beans that you want; re-extracting will give you a different result. <S> The second brew might be drinkable and even tasty, but it will have a disproportionately small amount of stuff you might want, like caffeine and other flavour compounds. <S> But this suggests you might want to change other parameters of your brewing . <S> If you can re-brew your coffee with a result that you like, you might be able to, for example, use less grounds. <S> This saves money, which sounds like it's part of your goal. <S> Alternatively, you could brew a larger cup of coffee with the same amount of beans, or increase the extraction time. <S> In the case of AeroPress, for example, I find that many of the recipes are decidedly under-extracted, so this might be an explanation for why a second brew works for you; see this Q/A for what I mean by extraction in this case. <S> You could try this experimentally also <S> : brew a cup of Aeropress or pour-over as you usually do, then brew another batch in the same way. <S> For example, I find the last few drops of pour-over brew to be watery and off-tasting <S> but the entire batch tastes better together than either of the two parts separately. <S> If you like it, go for it. <S> Or use half the amount of grounds the next time. <S> :) <S> As a practical note, you might also consider simply to brew a larger batch of coffee all in one go . <S> You'll get a slightly different product but, for example, I find that I use way less grounds for a 10-cup thermal carafe than for 10 individual cups. <A> With a manual espresso machine, I have used the same grounds for two pulls. <S> They are ok in a pinch if I want that volume but don't want to redo the grind, tamp etc. <S> But honestly it is not as good as the first time through. <S> If I wait for the grounds to cool it is not really drinkable. <A> I used to do this for a co-worker and me. <S> We'd use three AeroPress spoonfuls of coffee (which is a lot) to make two cups. <S> I think the theory was that the saturation of that much coffee grounds in the small amount of water that took up what little room was left in the AeroPress chamber, was not efficient at all. <S> So we'd brew the same grounds twice. <S> This made for more bitter coffee, because the coffee was over extracted, and it pulled the tannins into solution. <S> We opted for simply letting the coffee brew longer and increasing pressure during the press to force extract more out of the grounds. <S> This yielded a much stronger concentrate that we'd then dilute to normal coffee/water proportions. <S> This created a delicious and full cup of coffee every time. <S> I think for your case, you'd be brewing hours apart with the same grounds to save money, and I think you totally could. <S> The issue I see is that most caffeine in coffee is extracted within seconds of brew time, so your second brew with those grounds may not yield a nicely drugged cup of joe. <A> I think this question has been satisfactorily answered for hot brewing, like in an Aeropress. <S> I think it's worth adding that double-brewing is worth trying if you cold brew. <S> I have recently tried double-brewing with my Filtron cold brewer, and found the results to be quite good. <S> A single pound of coffee yields 2 liters of extract with this method, which I dilute to roughly 2.5 gallons of coffee (320 ounces, in other words 20x16oz cups). <S> Cold brewing doesn't abide by the same rules as hot brewing because it happens at a low temperature and doesn't extract any of the bitterness typical of over-brewing at a high temp. <A> I've tried using coffee grounds twice and obviously there is a quality and potency difference, <A> I do this with a French press, usually with a medium roast. <S> My best results have come from exaggerating the quantity of beans the first time (many times at an increased extraction temperature), then extracting a second time with a larger water:coffee ratio. <S> I haven't taken measurements, but it don't feel a caffeine rush from the second extraction. <A> This morning I used my coffee grounds twice. <S> I forgot to buy more coffee, so I placed my French press with the used grounds in the refrigerator over night. <S> In the morning I brought the French press out with the used grounds. <S> I had about one tablespoon of fresh coffee grounds left in my bag of coffee. <S> I added that to the used grounds. <S> It came out pretty good. <S> No doubt the small amount of fresh grounds helped. <S> In a pinch, it beats going without coffee in the morning. <A> I tend to use coffee batches twice, as I use the first batch, I then place a little on top, and let it brew. <S> Though, do realize, I make my first batch extremely strong. <S> Tastes delicious that way. <S> I'm an amateur to my compatriots, but they never really complained about it to me. <S> (Navy)
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if you just really want to stretch your coffee more than you can use less coffee per cup or if you are like me and just like the feeling of having a warm cup then reuse the coffee grounds twice but the second time around it better to brew it twice as long. The only thing I can suggest is that when I do them one after the other, it is ok. That said, @Madmanta's answer makes a good point: it might work in some cases, such as Aeropress or espresso. So not only will the taste be bitter, but it may also put you to sleep.
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Kopi Luwak - real or not? I bought a coffee from a Duty free shop in Indonesia. 100g for ~14 USD , available on ebay for 23 USD It says: Mandailing estate coffeeSpecial BlendsWild Kopi LuwakGibbon ridge estateMandailing SumatraProduct of etc etc What it is? Is it real for this price? Is it blended with kopi non-luwak? Like only 1 or 5 percent of kopi luwak? Is it from wild luwaks? Website says yes, how does one know? They also have a video on youtube of a guy picking up excrements with his hand from a grass in a jungle. Why that? They also had some little more expensive one in a box (this one is a bag), not sure if it was only a different packaging. <Q> I actually might say no. <S> This type of coffee is rather expensive at $100 to $600 per US pound . <S> Yes, 100 to 600 USD. <S> This is natural Kopi Luwak coffee at a normal price. <S> The thing is, it's really up to you to decide for yourself. <S> If you can trust them, buy it. <S> If you think the product isn't what you want, don't buy it. <S> I will probably say no, but you make the final decision. <S> Good luck! <A> I'll say yes it's "real" <S> and it's "clever" marketing. <S> If one had a coffee plantation with wild palm civets running about, it would be easy enough to have some folks collect some "civet processed" beans and roast and blend them with some of your regular stock. <S> The result of this could be sold with bright stickers to the unwitting for a much higher price to supplement the income from you regular coffee processing. <S> Some people might feel this is misleading <S> and I'd agree. <S> However, I'd say it's far less evil than the plantations that have rows of caged civets and have reduced them to a processing machine. <A> By 'blended', I think what they're trying to tell you is that it's not single-source. <S> It's really hard to say from the packaging, but I think you're going to be getting 100% Arabica from several different farms, and that's not uncommon. <S> An average farmer yields <S> less than one kilo per day , so getting a single-source supply of this is quite difficult. <S> It's worth a try, looks like it's over-roasted for <S> my tastes, but it lets you explore a really good coffee at a less than prohibitive price - why not? <A> It's hard to say if it's real or not. <S> Have you found a web site for the company? <S> If it is real "wild kopi luwak," this is good in terms of quality, and you are also not supporting cruel treatment of kopi luwak. <S> Read more at about kopi luwak at: Kopiluwak360.com Kopi Luwak (Wikipedia) <S> These sites might have some tips on how to know if it's real or not... <A> Simple answer is "yes its real" Mandailing Estate prides themselves on this specialist coffee. <S> The plantation is deep in the mountain country of Sumatra. <S> As Civet Cats are a wild animal, they roam through the Sumatran jungle, and on occasion pass through the Mandailing Estate coffee plantation to feed on the coffee fruit. <S> They share the same jungle with Sumatran Tigers (yes, there still some left in the wild) <S> Like any wild animal they follow food sources. <S> So, when tigers are around the Civet Cats are not. <S> Hence the rarity... <S> Which is why Wild Kopi Luwak coffee is expensive. <S> Without some blending, it may be months or years without natural Luwak being on offer... <S> Like all good things in life... <S> A connoisseur should enjoy that which is special <A> i bought this blend luwak too in indonesia, being tried various luwak's, <S> if it is 100% luwak then they will write 100% . <S> by the way 100% luwak coffee doesn't taste good, in fact no single origin coffee taste as good as a blended one <S> be it java, columbia or brazil <S> this blend is perfect mixture and it have the distinctive smell and taste of luwak poop which means it is original. <S> don't worry
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i must say that this is very good coffee ( the word blend means it is mixed with arabica coffee and luwaks to give the good taste ). Go with your gut and say yes or no to buying that product. The word blend sounds a little fishy to me, as it usually means that it is not entirely pure Kopi Luwak. From the see-through portion of the packaging, it looks like the average quality / roast that you'd find on the shelves in most Philippine grocery stores.
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Is it possible to regrind beans? Is it possible to regrind beans? I have about half a bag of very nice coffee in a semi-coarse grind, and I want to use a brew method (Melitta cone) that's more appropriate for a medium-coarse grind. <Q> This is a pretty good way to ruin a burr grinder. <S> Worst case scenario, your burrs jam up so much that they can't spin and burn out your motor. <S> A blade could help, but I'd argue that the inconsistent grind you'd get wouldn't be much of an improvement in cup quality anyway. <S> Realistically you'd end up with some of your grinds unchanged, some at the size you want and some ground to dust. <S> The different sized particles would extract unevenly and the dust is likely to clog the filter. <S> That said, you're not going to break a blade grinder by regrinding, so give it a shot and see how you like the results. <S> At most you're out 20-50g of coffee. <A> With a blade grinder, yes. <S> They already just chop the pieces smaller and smaller until you stop, anyway. <S> But I make no promises that it won't clog the feeder. <S> It's possible that the inflow may be greater than it can handle. <A> The basic reply is "yes, that's possible". <S> With a manual burr grinder. <S> The thread warns well about the risks and shortcomings of electric devices for the job. <S> A manual burr grinder allows to control the coarseness and the speed at which the ground gets through. <S> This is how I do, luckily that is rare and usually in small quantities.
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With a burr grinder, it may be.
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Does it make a difference whether the moka lid is open or not? When brewing coffee with a moka pot, I often leave the lid open so I can better tell when the coffee is ready. Is having the lid off affecting the brewing process in any significant way? I imagine leaving the lid on will cause the water to heat up faster as the hot air inside the chamber cannot escape as easily, and I wonder if this affects the flavour or general coffee experience. <Q> This is so you can watch the progress of the extraction, and cut the heat at the appropriate time. <S> It gives you much more control over your brew this way - <S> for example, I cut the heat (and run the base under the cold tap for larger pots) as soon as I see the coffee running from the spout turn lighter, rather than waiting for the gurgle. <S> However, as for lid open/closed during brewing, I don't imagine this has any effect on the extraction. <S> The amount of heat lost will be tiny in comparison to other variables. <A> If you just keep the fire at low levels, and the lid open, you won't spill coffee all around. <S> That's what I do :) <S> I also noticed a difference in the layer of creme on top of the coffee, with the lid open, for some reason, it produces more creme. <S> Which doesn't make much sense as it reduces the atmospheric pressure. <A> Not sure about the effect on the brewing, but I found out a good reason for the lid. <S> I was brewing some coffee on the stove and had the lid open. <S> The liquid started pouring into the top chamber. <S> "This is great!" <S> I thought, "Why would anyone ever close the lid, you're missing the best coffee fountain show ever?" <S> Then at that moment, the 'last gasp/sputter' of coffee happened and sprayed hot coffee all around the pot and onto the stove top. <S> That's one good reason for the lid.
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So what I've been taught is that you should keep the lid open while brewing.
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Adding creamer after boiling water vs before Hello all I started making instant coffee for the last few months. Due to a combination of laziness and lack of a proper coffee maker. I find that I actually enjoy instant a lot. Normally the process is 2 teaspoons of coffee, add boiling water and then creamer. My question is does the taste amplify if I add creamer before adding the boiling water thus transforming the coffee molecules in a different order? Thanks! <Q> I wouldn't say it would amplify it, and you may very well not be able to tell much of a difference. <S> Unless the milk or cream is hot, your coffee won't brew very well (or at least not as fast) on just the milk alone. <S> So by the time you add your hot water, it still shouldn't have dissolved the instant coffee enough to make much of a difference. <S> Still probably wouldn't make much of a difference other than it tasting more like a latte. <A> Since you want to amplify the taste I would suggest using water that is just about to boil (95°C). <S> I don't have experience with creamer <S> but when I used to drink instant I have always added sugar before water because it helped the coffee to dissolve better. <S> You should experiment with this by using even lower water temperature and watching the dissolution process with and without the creamer. <A> It's likely better to completely dissolve the coffee before adding creamer. <S> I'm inexperienced with instant, but with regular brewed coffee and tea, the addition of cream impedes the brewing/steeping process.
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If you wanted to experiment, I would try adding some hot cream or milk to the instant coffee first and stirring it up a bit.
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Is coffee really useful for alcohol hangovers When people experience a hangover due to too much alcohol intake the hours before, sometimes they are offered a good cup of coffee (at least in my country), not as the only or the main "treatment", but as a helping element in such a condition. Is there any scientific evidence for this? <Q> No. <S> Coffee is often offered to people perhaps about to pass out so that they will stay awake long enough that they can be kicked out of an establishment. <S> Alcohol causes dehydration, electrolyte imbalance and taxes the liver. <S> To this extent standard medical treatment is fluid, electrolytes, and vitamins. <S> Caffeine is never used in a medical setting to treat alcohol overdose or withdrawal. <A> A hangover is the body reacting to being poisoned. <S> Coffee, like any other liquid you might drink, will help with the dehydration. <S> If your drunkenness has caused you to sleep in, and you normally drink coffee every morning, your headache may be worsened or partially caused by caffeine withdrawal, so a cup of coffee will improve that. <S> And if you're feeling queasy, and take cream and sugar in your coffee, it's a way to boost your energy a bit without eating solid food. <S> But orange juice, tea, pop, or many other drinks would do the same, with the possible exception of the caffeine depending what drink you choose. <A> You can check Alcohol Hangover . <S> It has a section on treatments for a hangover which is very useful in case <S> you were unaware of some of those "tricks". <S> It also tells you what alcohol types correspond to certain hangover levels (e.g. wine vs. vodka). <S> To answer your question, they mention that there is no scientific evidence that coffee aids in such a situation. <S> so I'd doubt that it helps. <S> Also, if you look into hangover literature, e.g. Treatment and Prevention of Alcohol Hangover <S> (you should be able to get it for free if you search on google scholar), coffee is rarely even investigated as a possible treatment method.
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As already mentioned, coffee is not what you want to drink if you are dehydrated
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How long can I store roasted coffee beans? How long do they retain their qualities? In the coffee store near my home the seller told me that their coffee beans are stored for 1-3 months in their shop. But after purchase I'm also storing them for a few weeks. <Q> I assume you are storing them for a later grinding (likely just before preparing your cups of coffee). <S> According to some sources 1 , 2 , 3 , the main point is use it within a week . <S> For more than that, it is preferable to freeze them, and in this condition, for no more than a month. <S> A brief summary: For short term use (this week's coffee): <S> Do not refrigerate your daily supply of coffee (in order to avoid moisture). <S> Keep them in air-tight glass or ceramic containers, in a dark and cool place. <S> For long term use (no more than a month): If you have a large amount of beans, wrap them in small (weekly) amounts inside air-tight bags, and freeze them. <S> Once removed from freezer, do not return them. <S> If you are making coffee in an espresso machine, let them getting room temperature for one day. <S> 1 : <S> "How to store coffee. <S> National Coffee Association" 2 : <S> The Coffee Geek's Guide to Storing Beans <S> 3 : For better coffee, store your beans <A> Coffee is fresh only for about 7 days from roast. <S> I tried keeping in cool place, freeze and many more options but did not help too much, so I decided to get a coffee roast machine and just roast as much <S> I need for the 1-2 days. <S> All this is from my experience, not from books or anything else. <S> If coffee is out for couple weeks or months than is not tasting and does not have potency as should have. <A> The problem with coffee beams is the same as with any other product that has open/direct contact with the environment: oxidation (contact with oxygen): covering all the aroma under a heavily bitter taste. <S> humidity absorption: <S> smell and taste circulating in the surrounding of the coffee will be imprinted in its taste as it will be diluted in the water vapours and absorbed from the beams. <S> (This phenomena if especially important after the grounding, for example if the barista is smoking or heavily using deodorants etc, all of these will be imprinted in the coffee taste). <S> loosing aroma through evaporation/drying (as temperature changes during the 24 day, during the hotter hours it will dry and the rest absorb). <S> That is why coffee companies make everything possible to pack and isolate the beans/ powder once baked. <S> Illy for example insert nitrogen gas to prevent oxidation, etc.
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Keep only the amount of beans you know you will quickly use.
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How can I emphasize the sweet, fruity notes of my coffee? I know light roasts tend to have these flavors more. How can I brew to maximize these flavors? I use an Aeropress, but any answers are useful. <Q> Lighter roasts are going to have more of these flavors <S> but it obviously depends on the bean as well. <S> If all you are going to change is the method of brewing the coffee, I would recommend making sure you don't use too hot of a water temperature and trying to use a pour over. <S> I find pour over allows for more delicate flavors you are describing, rather than something like aeropress which can approach more espresso type coffee. <A> And by fruity, I truly mean fruity. <S> Like nothing you've tasted before. <S> No heat is added, so you will absolutely reap the benefits of fruity, light notes, while reducing acidity. <S> The process is heavily explained all over the web, so do a quick search for the proper method. <S> It's very easy, but requires about 12-24 hours to brew. <S> In exchange, you will have a concentrate that can last for a few weeks before it becomes oxidized. <A> Since you are already using an AeroPress, I would look for ways to get the flavor you want with the tools you already have. <S> First, make sure your water isn't too hot. <S> I've seen recommendations for as low as 185F which is far below boiling. <S> You would need a thermometer to accurately gauge the temperature, but at the very least make sure the water is well off the boil before you add it. <S> The longer the water is brewing, the more bitter notes will be extracted. <S> Finally, a bit coarser grind might also help. <S> The usual recommendation is for something slightly finer than what you would use for drip brew. <S> You might try something slightly more coarse and see how that goes. <S> If none of that works, of course you could always switch methods. <S> Good luck. <A> Lighter roasts keep more of their single origins nuances, but it's the variety, origin, and wash process that determines what the flavors are. <S> The brewing process is about extraction. <S> The balance of sweet/bitter/tannin/acid/flavors can be affected by your brew process. <S> I find that acids and fruit go hand in hand, and so the perception of the fruit flavors can be enhanced by acids. <S> Doing a cold brew I find is amazing for dark roasts, because it subdues the acids, and the dark chocolate/woody flavors don't work as well with a lot of acids in my opinion. <S> I believe an espresso brings out maximum acidity/brightness for any given coffee, and you get a lot of citrus notes, but that might be too bright to taste the sweet flavors you're looking for. <S> That means you want something in the middle just erring on the side of bright. <S> I would recommend this: find a Panama (or other central/south American origin) dry-processed (aka "natural") and brew it with gentle pressure for sweetness. <S> Dry-processed/Natural coffees are dried out with fruit flesh on before its removal, which allows the sweetness and flavor of cascara fruit seep into the beans. <S> Washed/Wet-processed coffees have their fruit flesh removed immediately, so they tend to have a cleaner coffee flavor. <A> Try espresso. <S> The short extraction time accentuates brighter, more acidic tones, and might bring out fruitiness, with less of the bitterness that comes with longer extraction times. <S> The fact that it is brewed quickly and in an enclosed chamber might concentrate more of the aromatics. <S> I'd also suggest a manual italian lever press. <S> They work wonders for light roast. <A> i suggest try different ratios, compare it,make those adjustments(grind size,steeping time) and most importantly your water temp, but yeah try v60 and see the difference, although im a fan of aeropress..
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I know this is not a standard method of brewing, but cold-press coffee tends to have lighter, fruitier notes. Second, don't leave the water on the grounds for too long.
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Is there a "caffeine metabolism curve", understood by general public? I've long been interested in how long caffeine stays in my body and what are the effects at different concentrations and times. For example, a popular site erowid has metabolism curves for most illegal drugs , along with side effects. However, it's caffeine entry is mostly anecdotal experiences. Here's an example of what cannabis metabolic curve looks like: Is there a similar metabolic curve with onset, total duration, peak, plateau for caffeine? Does the kind of coffee consumed affect the curve? <Q> Most medications approved by the FDA and used in a medical setting have such statistics. <S> Caffeine is no exception. <S> Onset is listed as 15 to 45 minutes with peak concentrations as 30 minutes in adults. <S> Half life for caffeine varies based on a number of factors. <S> For adults it is listed as 4 to 5 hours, however, studies suggest it is generally less for smokers. <S> It is much much longer for infants (52 to 96 hours) but generally by nine months of age, those numbers have dropped to similar levels seen in adults. <A> This might be helpful http://www.psych.nyu.edu/kuhllab/pdfs/Favila_Kuhl_2014.pdf Hope this helps. <S> It is the best thing I can find Research paper: Stimulating memory consolidation (Serra E Favila & Brice A Kuhl) <S> Please note that research study found improvements in memory only at 200-300mg levels administered 2 days before the test: <A> http://www.drugbank.ca/drugs/DB00201#pharmacology <S> No graph, but half life is listed as 3-7 hrs.
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Most drug databases have listed pharmacokinetics for caffeine.
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Hario V60 Plastic Dripper vs Ceramic Dripper: Is there any difference in brew quality? I am planning on purchasing a V60 and was wondering if there was any difference between the brew produced by the plastic and the ceramic Hario V60? <Q> The main difference between the ceramic and plastic V60 is heat retention. <S> The ceramic will retain heat and can be pre-warmed, creating a stable temperature. <S> Depending on who you are this may not make a huge difference <S> but I prefer the ceramic as I feel the plastic sucks some heat out of the water/coffee. <S> The other reason I prefer ceramic is for cleaning purposes. <S> The ceramic is nonporous and I've used mine for 6 months with no residue or stains whatsoever. <S> The plastic can form build ups from minerals in water or coffee and start to appear visually unappealing (not sure if it will affect flavor of coffee) <S> The plastic V60 is obviously more durable and resistant to bumps and minor drops, so it can be a portable solution for coffee. <S> so I prefer it. <S> I believe the grooves inside the brewer and the size of everything is identical, so you can't go wrong with any of them. <A> To add onto the previous answer, the main difference is indeed heat retention and cleaning. <S> It is also more breakable. <S> I recently wrote a blog post reviewing another Hario model, <S> the Hario V60 Copper , and another thing to keep in mind is that the more expensive ceramic, glass or metal Hario models will only improve your coffee if you've maximized other parts of your brewing. <S> That means a high quality, consistent grind, and proper water temperature. <S> I would look into a ceramic or copper Hario after improving these two things. <S> To clarify, the copper Vario is probably the best dripper because it distributes heat most evenly. <S> Upgrading to this or the ceramic dripper will only improve your coffee marginally, however. <S> Chances are good you could work on your pour technique or get a better grinder, and experience even better results. <A> I believe the previous answers have it backwards. <S> Plastic is less conductive and will retain more heat in the slurry. <S> The simple way to test this is to touch the side of the V60 during a brew. <S> The ceramic will feel much hotter because it's dissipating more heat. <S> A pretty thorough experiment on this is documented here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coffee/comments/2xhjgd/showdown_plastic_vs_ceramic_v60/
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The ceramic will hold heat longer and is easier to clean. However the ceramic V60 is the most visually appealing of the V60's (in my opinion) and it stays at my home on the counter
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Bulletproof Coffee: how to blend butter well When making Bulletproof Coffee, is there a good way to blend the butter or coconut oil well to prevent the oil floating? <Q> I have been drinking Bulletproof coffee since 2012 now, so made a few of them. <S> Originally I made a BIG mistake of just stirring butter in the coffee with coconut oil or MCT Oil. <S> You can see how horrible the oil slick looked with an old video <S> I did years ago <S> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rap-spa3RfI <S> Vitamix or Blendtec are two brand names <S> Dave has suggested. <S> My wife and I use one called Magimix and it revolutionised how the coffee looks and tastes. <S> So speed is the key. <S> I haven't found a difference by adding the butter or oil in a certain order or way into the blender. <A> I think there are 2 questions here. <S> The first is why oil and water don't mix. <S> The second is why oil rises, as opposed to sinking or staying in place. <S> First question. <S> There is an old saying in chemistry that like dissolves like. <S> What this means is that a substance tends to dissolve in another substance if the molecules of the 2 substances have similar electric dipole moments. <S> Think of an electric dipole like you think of a magnet. <S> The magnet has a north and south pole, and south end of one magnet is attracted to the north end of another magnet, and vice versa. <S> The electric dipole has a positively charged end and a negatively charged end. <S> The magnitude of the positive charge can be greater than that of the negative charge, or vice versa. <S> The difference between the magnitudes of the 2 charges and the distance between them determines the moment or strength of the dipole. <S> In general, dipoles with similar strengths dissolve in each other more readily than dipoles with very different strengths. <S> Oil (as in hydrocarbon-based oils) and water have very different dipole moments, so oil and water do not readily dissolve in each other. <S> The second part of the answer has to do with a force called the buoyancy force. <S> This is the force that causes some objects to float in water. <S> Suppose you want to dissolve 1 cubic cm of oil in water. <S> For this to happen, the oil has to displace 1 cubic cm of water. <S> The buoyancy force on the oil is equal to the weight of that 1 cubic cm of water. <S> Oil is less dense than water, so 1 cubic cm of oil weighs less than 1 cubic cm of water. <S> Therefore, the upward buoyancy force on the oil, which is equal to the weight of water displaced, is greater than the downward force of gravity on the oil, also known as the weight of the oil. <S> This inequality of forces causes the oil to rise in the water. <S> If the oil were denser than the water, the oil's weight (the downward force) would exceed the buoyancy force (the upward force), and the oil would sink in the water. <A> The times I have made it, I have used a blender (something similar to a bullet). <S> You won't ever get it completely mixed in, and it will separate, but you can get a pretty good dispersal to start by using a high powered blender. <A> While I haven't fallen in love with BPC, I've played around with it while testing out some of our most recent product releases at the coffee company where I work. <S> It's true that you need a higher speed blend than you can get by simply stirring the coffee. <S> That said, I've had excellent results with my Kitchenaid stick blender, similar to this one . <S> The two most important things in my experience are very hot coffee <S> (you don't want it congealing before you drink) and good grass-fed butter. <A> Saw a YouTube video somewhere that said mix collagen powder into the keto coffee to prevent oil / butter from rising to top.
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What I have found is that you basically need a high speed blender . Depending on the texture you're looking for, you can blend it shorter until the butter seems suspended in the coffee, or longer until it's light and frothy.
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Quality of ground coffee Recently I've had some amazingly bad coffee in local cafes, and this week I had the same experience with some ground coffee I bought. I used a french press for that. Watery, dark colour, bitter and hardly any coffee taste. Just to be sure I packed a moka express well and the result was awful, very dark and very bitter. OK, I know I should be using better materials etc., but bear with me. This reminded me, not in a nice way, of long past attempts to get a second brew from filter coffee. So is this just very poor quality raw materials roasted beyond the limit, or has the industry started to do something like extracting flavour for those capsules you see around and then roasting the heck out of the remaining grounds and selling them? Maybe this sounds a bit far fetched, but the food industry has form. <Q> but, assuming you live in North America, I don't blame you for that. <S> The time since roasting is important and, compounding on that, the time since grinding, thence finally how you brew it. <S> So your questions should be: <S> What did I do different in the way I brewed this time? <S> How long since this coffee was roasted? <S> How long since this coffee was ground? <S> Don't be afraid to ask the source when it was ground, and when it was roasted. <S> Time from roasting to now should be measured in days (not weeks), and time from grinding to now should be hours, minutes, or even seconds! <S> Even if the attendant cannot answer you it illustrates the fact that they don't know <S> and you do care. <S> Thence maybe one day you'll find a source where the attendant both knows and cares, so shop around. <S> Finally, there are different beans, different roasts, and different tastes. <S> So, once all of the above is attended to, you may still, quite reasonably, conclude that the taste of that particular roasted bean is not for you. <S> Again, exercise your options: go elsewhere, roast your own, etc. <S> Welcome to the endless search for something better. <A> It does seem a bit far fetched. <S> Those capsules are dehydrated coffee, not extracted flavor. <S> They are usually not much better than the bad experiences you are describing. <S> You can pretty much expect that if you are buying ground coffee, it's going to be some degree of stale. <S> Coffee begins to stale minutes after being ground so it's rarely a wise idea to purchase ground coffee that has been sitting on a shelf an indeterminate amount of time. <S> As for the poor coffee from local shops, many commercial roasting companies use a very dark roast to ensure homogeneity of their product. <S> Then the beans are stored generally much longer than one would want. <S> The easiest way to assure a consistently good cup of coffee is to roast at home with quality beans (so you always know you have fresh coffee) and brew at home as well so you can control the variables that lead to a cup <S> done how you like it. <A> The question is; are you going to compare a coffeehouse's newly roasted bean, perfectly ground, and freshly brewed experience, to an old previously ground product sold in stores which can't help but be anything less than disgusting?It's time to take your coffee expectations to the next level...find a local roaster, use beans within a couple weeks of roasting, purchase a burr grinder, and brew your freshly ground coffee within 30 minutes of grinding. <S> Oh, and use filtered water. <S> BAM!
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My first thought would be stale coffee rather than commercial conspiracy
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How can I improve this Chemex cold brew method? I do like my cold brewed coffee but it's difficult and inconvenient for me to make and keep in work due to the time it takes to steep, shared fridge space, etc. I came across this method recently... The iced method isn’t complicated. Basically, you prepare brewed coffee as you normally would, only you use half hot water, half ice you put in the bottom of the vessel. The hot, fresh coffee drips directly onto ice so that it’s cool and ready to drink right away. I've now tried it a few times using my small chemex and a ratio of 2:1 (water to ice) rather than 50:50. I'm trying the pour over much more slowly than I normally would to maximise the extraction while using less water. I can't really fault the taste, the flavour is still great, the finish is less acidic but obviously more watery. So while this method is indeed quick and uncomplicated I'm curious about 2 things: What else can I do to compensate for the extraction difference? I would really prefer it to be less watery. Am I potentially going to crack the pot with the combination of hot and cold? I can't find any info on temperature variances on the Chemex site. Edited to add information... For a hot-brew I normally use using 300ml hot water for 21g of grind. Here I'm using 200ml hot water in the pour over, to compensate for the 100g of ice that melts. I'm taking 6-7 minutes with the pour. Normally I would take 3 minutes. I'm making my grind slightly finer in order to extend time it takes the water to drip through. I would consider it to be medium-fine. <Q> What you're talking about is the "Japanese iced coffee" method, which is hot-water brew directly over ice. <S> In contrast, cold-brew is using cold water in contact with the grounds. <S> See techniques at other questions tagged as cold-brew . <S> This article from Counter Culture , also referenced in the article you linked, suggest Japanese iced as an alternative to cold brew. <S> The articles suggest that directly brewing hot coffee over ice retains more of the volatile flavour compounds. <S> If you have had true cold-brew before, most methods use several times as much coffee grounds to brew as with other methods (some then dilute this with, e.g., water or milk). <S> For example, normalized to a 200mL "cup" (~6.5 fl.oz.) of brewed coffee: Blue Bottle suggests about 3x more coffee for cold brew (45g per 200mL) than for drip (14g per 200mL). <S> If you're coming from that strength, it's no wonder you're finding it watery. <S> To your first question: If you want a stronger brew, why not simply use more coffee grounds ? <S> Your amount (21g grounds to 300g water+ice is about 14g/200mL cup) is already at the higher end of the spectrum for drip coffee; the industry standard is closer to 7g per cup/dose. <S> But if you want it stronger, use more beans! <S> On your other question: this temperature change shouldn't be an issue. <S> Even a lesser glass (e.g., non-tempered soda-lime glass ) shouldn't be a problem at these temperatures (slowly dripping boiling water onto ice). <S> (However, for example, ice into glass at oven temperatures could certainly be a problem). <A> When I hear "cold brew" I think something like Dutch Coffee, or coffee brewed with cold water and long extraction times. <S> There are many ways of cold brewing. <S> Some involve full immersion for a long extraction time, like Toddy. <S> Others slowly drip cold water or ice melt into grounds using a drip tower . <S> The second method is often prefered and offers the most balanced extraction. <S> Toddy might be the less expensive method, but for a plastic bin and some big paper filters I feel like a drip tower is better worth the money if you can find one for a reasonable price. <S> You can find some drip tower/dutch coffee makers on ebay in the $90 range. <S> As far as I'm concerned, however, you are not cold brewing. <S> You're just making iced coffee. <S> I do something similar with an Aeropress. <S> The Aeropress I would prefer for iced coffee, as it brews a concentrate. <S> I've noticed little difference in acidity, it may seem more mild simply because it's cold and acids tend to mellow out at cooler temperatures, but once ingested its all the same(hot or cold) if you're trying to ward of acid reflux or similar. <S> Cold brewing would actually make the coffee less acidic, rather than just mellowing out the taste of acidity. <S> If you're interested in trying the Aeropress method, I'd highly recommend it if you enjoy iced coffee. <S> You press the aeropress directly over ice, and it melts the ice to form a perfect ratio of concentrate and water. <S> Whereas most other methods are either diluted, or take time to cool. <S> This method produces iced coffee in the same amount of time it takes to make a hot cup of coffee with the Aeropress(1-5min), without diluting the coffee. <S> It accomplishes basically what you're intending to do, but with the aeropress rather than the chemex. <S> This method will take less time, produce a stronger cup, and is a bit cheaper(the <S> aeropress is pretty cheap). <S> You can brew a cup when you want it, rather than prepping coffee ahead of time. <A> Ever considered cooling your coffee down to 40 degrees immediately after you brew it? <S> This would keep the freshness as well as not dilute it. <S> Check out this link .
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Acidity likely wouldn't be reduced by cooling the coffee directly after, it's possible that the melted ice is just diluting your brew and cooler temperature mellows out the taste of the acidity. You said you're using a Chemex (e.g., classic 3-cup ) -- it is made from Pyrex brand borosilicate glass , which has very good thermal shock properties. However, I've had Toddy before and it does alright.
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Is there more caffeine with an AeroPress? I like everything about the AeroPress; however, I noticed that I exhibited symptoms which I usually only have when I've consumed too much caffeine. So instead of using two scoops during preparation per instructions, I scaled down to one. That seemed to help, but not enough--if I use the same coffee and amount in a conventional coffeemaker and consume it all in one sitting, I don't feel over-stimulated. Does the AeroPress simply make "stronger" coffee with regards to caffeine content? <Q> Aeropress coffee (hearby called Aerpresso in this post) is more concentrated than regular drip coffee. <S> However, if you are using similar amounts of grounds as you would in a drip machine, you shouldn't notice any difference. <S> Caffeine is highly soluble in hot water and most any extraction method utilizing hot water will result in nearly full extraction of caffeine from grounds. <S> Aerpresso ends up somewhere in caffeine concentration between espresso (very concentrated) and drip coffee (less concentrated). <S> However, the total amount of caffeine is dependent more on the amount of grounds used that the extraction method (with the above listed methods). <S> So the the final answer is no. <S> There isn't more caffeine, but the Aerpresso is more concentrated. <A> This is an intriguing question which I wanted to ask myself. <S> From what I could gather, there are two points here, one theoretical and one empiric. <S> As far as I know, caffeine is one of the fastest-extracting compounds in coffee, such that it is extracted almost immediately, so, logically, the amount of caffeine in a brew would only be determined by the amount of beans that go into it and not the brewing method. <S> Which means that whatever comes out of the AeroPress could not possibly have that much more caffeine than other methods. <S> Particularly, not significantly more than an espresso shot, since the amounts of coffee used are about the same. <S> When I first got my AeroPress, I (naturally) brewed some coffee with it. <S> Upon drinking just half of the brew, I got a kick stronger than after anything I'd ever consumed before. <S> Several days later I hosted a party where I served AeroPress coffee, and about two thirds of the guests independently noted that the coffee was unusually strong. <S> Solving this contradiction seems pretty hard. <S> Right now I see several (not entirely exclusive) possibilities: <S> first, that AeroPress brew really does have a significantly higher caffeine content. <S> Pretty unlikely, but the possibility is nonzero. <S> second, that AeroPress brew contains high concentrations of some non-caffeine compounds, which: are produced in significantly lower quantities with other brewing methods, and strongly contribute to the typical effects of consuming lots of coffee. <S> I don't know how likely this is, since I'm not aware of whether caffeine is the only major contributor to the effects of coffee. <S> finally, that it is mainly a placebo-like psychological effect. <S> Also unlikely, since the guests at the party probably did not have any prior preconceptions about AeroPress coffee. <S> Bottom line: <S> coffee from the AeroPress does tend to be perceived as stronger than average by a variety of people (including stronger after-coffee effects), but caffeine might not be the reason. <A> I believe that pressurizing coffee beans extracts more caffeine. <S> Espresso is steamed under pressure and produces very strong coffee and an old billetti maker boils and pressurizes the beans upwards. <S> I think that depending on the time you let the grounds steep and how hard you press the aero press you will get different results on caffeine strength. <S> I also don't think there is a way to be consistent since sometimes the filter is clogged <S> and sometimes you push harder or softer. <S> Still tastes great either way. <A> In that case, you'll get more kick of caffeine, cleaner finish, yet not stronger than the regular brewed or drip coffee in regards to how long you steep it unless you consider the kick of an overly extracted coffee strong.
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Well, for me: I'd say aeropress has more caffeine in it only if you're using filter-roast beans which I think is what you should be using, and most importantly it depends on the amount of coffee you are putting (coffee to water [91°C] ratio as well as time [a minute or two, max]). My own experience, however, suggests otherwise.
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What does a coffee cherry taste like? Do they keep long enough to ship? Can they be ordered from somewhere? Can they be dried/preserved/candied? Can the flavor be used ... perhaps in a coffee beverage? In the washed and semi-washing processing, the fruit is completely removed and discarded (and presumably not recoverable). In the dry processing, the fruit is allowed to ferment before removal, which presumably contributes much of the fruit and wine notes in dry-processed coffees like Sanani from Yemen and some single-origin Ethiopian coffees (eg. Starbucks Ethiopia Shirkina). If the fruit can do this ..., there must be more potential there, right? <Q> Lots of questions! <S> Starting from the top... <S> Taste? <S> The flavour is somewhat reminiscent of other red fruits, like a mild mix of fruits like raspberry, red mulberry, currant, cranberry, cherry, raisin. <S> I've only had them dried, so they have a little bit of a "dried fruit" taste (e.g., as raisins are to grapes). <S> To me, they also have a little bit of a mild taste of tobacco leaf. <S> When steeped in water to make a drink called cascara (see this question/answers) . <S> The beverage tastes to me a bit like rooibos (red bush tisane). <S> Some coffee shops sell the beverage. <S> Shipping? <S> I've only seen dried coffee cherries for sale. <S> Perhaps "fresh" coffee fruits are available in the coffee belt, but the seeds (i.e., coffee beans) are so valuable that I think the whole fruit doesn't make it very far outside of production regions. <S> Availability? <S> Various specialty retailers sell the dried fruit pulp and skins (some call them the "husks") -- here's one example from Verve . <S> Searching for coffee berries, cherries, husks, or for beverages like cascara or qishr may reveal more outlets. <S> Other preservation? <S> Coffee skins/pulp dry well. <S> Rehydrating is possible but underwhelming. <S> I have tried to make a kind of marmalade out of them; see this seminal question , and also a follow-up question of mine at Seasoned Advice . <S> I'm sorry to report that I have not had much success yet. <S> The dried cherries are tough, so not pleasant to eat outright. <S> Good ideas! <S> I really like the stuff, and am always happy to find others, and would be happy to hear more ideas about how to eat and drink coffee cherries. <S> EDIT: <S> For completeness, here's a picture of dried coffee cherry pulp/skins that I use to make cascara . <A> To me, a fresh ripe coffee cherry tastes like a rainier cherry, lychee, pear. <S> Not as plump with fruit as a cherry, but similar size and rounder, and yes caffeine. <S> The farmers we deal with will compost the outer fruit material, often let chickens peck around in it, and then they will use the compost on the farm as the soil needs the carbon material back to the ground for the shrub to produce more coffee. <A> We just got Cascara syrup in the store at the Starbucks where I work. <S> It will be available to the public in just a few days. <S> It tastes really good <S> but it is exceedingly difficult to describe. <S> It evokes memories of fruit compote that I had in Russia 20 years ago. <S> It has some notes that remind me of hibiscus tea made with the whole fleshy flower. <S> It is not too sweet (I'm putting extra pumps in mine). <S> And it is thicker than other syrups. <S> In an iced latté it tends to settle to the bottom.
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Coffee cherries are mild in flavour and slightly sweet.
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What is white coffee? What is white coffee ? Does "white coffee" refer to the roast level of the beans, or additives to the beverage, or is it some other type of coffee bean, or a different beverage completely? <Q> White Coffee, popular with drive-thru espresso stands in the Pacific NW, is very lightly roasted coffee that is milled (ground) about like kosher salt. <S> Baristas will brew it in their espresso machine and prepare lattes, white chocolate white coffee mochas, etc. <A> As suggested by several previous comments, there's several things that could be called "white coffee." <S> According to the white coffee article on Wikipedia, and other sources (e.g., coffeefaq , Nescafé ); others listed below. <S> Simply referring to coffee with whitener (e.g., milk, creamer, etc.); A Lebanese drink ahweh bayda , made from water, orange blossom water, and (perhaps) sugar (more here ) <S> Something called Ipoh white coffee ; of Malaysian origin, this refers to beans that are lightly roasted with margarine (and perhaps sugar and wheat), brewed and served with sweetened condensed milk. <S> Coffee beans that are roasted to the "yellow" roast level, then ground and prepared as espresso; the result is a pale yellow brew with a nutty flavour and assertive acidity. <S> A beverage originating in Yemen, probably from the literal translation qahwa bayda . <S> I've never had this, and can't find consistent information on it, but things that I have seen suggest that it's any number of different preparations, including the following: coffee made from lightly roasted beans plus spices; or a spiced coffee cherry tea (e.g., qishr ); or even something non-coffee similar to the Lebanese variety above. <S> A longer shot (so to speak...) is that it could indicate a flat white , which is a coffee drink similar to a cappuccino or latte but with higher proportion of milk. <S> There is also a company called White Coffee Corporation , but perhpas not what you're looking for. <S> I hope this is a reasonable (albeit, perhaps not acutely helpful) summary. <A> The term "white coffee" can be use to refer to any one of three separate beverages. <S> It can be used to describe regular coffee that has had enough milk or cream added to turn the liquid a very light or white color <A> To make white coffee, Abbey Roast , based in New Mexico, develop[s] <S> […] Brazilian Arabica beans at a lower temperature and finish[es them] when golden prior to the first crack. <S> This produces a light, nutty flavored coffee that is exceptionally high in caffeine and rich in natural antioxidants. <S> But do not be surprised when after brewing it is blonde in color and does not have the usual taste of coffee. <A> White coffee can be a few different things. <S> To some, it is just coffee with milk. <S> White coffee beans are coffee beans that have been roasted for a short amount of time at a low temperature. <S> White coffee beans are all about the roast. <S> It's the opposite of a dark coffee roast. <S> Although it has still been roasted. <S> An unroasted coffee bean is called a green bean.
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White coffee refers to minimally roasted beans.
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Storing cream in my office I have a coffee maker in my office, but no fridge for my cream! Unfortunately, even a mini/bar fridge would be too big for my office. What other options do I have for keeping cream good for 8-10 hours? I can bring just what I'll use for the day in the morning. The room is kept at 20-22C all day. How long can cream be stored at room temperature before it is risky to use? <Q> Companies (including Nestle ) make creamers that do not require refrigeration. <S> They are likely available in your local grocer, you just need to check the label and make sure refrigeration isn't required. <S> If you are paranoid about potential bacterial growth or contamination (like me) you may check into bulk buying the single serving creamers that they use at restaurants. <S> They require no refrigeration either and are sealed until use. <S> If you are looking to keep "real cream" cold for 8 to 10 hours, you may want to look into some sort of freezable lunch bag or small ice chest that will stay cold and takes up less space than a mini-fridge. <S> This would require substantially more effort, but may be worth it if you are particular about your cream. <S> Also from the comments below, you may look into a double wall vacuum thermos. <S> They are increasingly popular and come in a wide variety of qualities and prices, so do your research before buying. <A> There are some really small coolers that go for about $20, powered by USB. <S> This means you can use pretty much any standard USB wall charger capable of delivering 2.5 watts to power one. <S> It'll hold a 12 ounce jug of milk and keep it cold. <S> Stats says it goes down to 46°F. <S> While technically milk should be stored below 40 <S> °F for absolute safety and quality, most insulated lunch boxes with a 'freeze pack' get a bit warmer than that after a few hours. <S> Frankly, you run a small risk using anything but a refrigerator. <S> I don't think you'd run into a problem, but the only totally 'safe' bet in your case is creamer that doesn't require cold storage. <A> It sounds like both you (and @Chris) are talking about liquid cream or creamers that resemble liquid milk in some way. <S> If you're willing to stray from that... <S> Though I wouldn't eat them myself, consider also powdered creamers. <S> These can be based on dried milk (which is very nearly still food), or on non-dairy stuff (partially hydrogenated oils, etc., which I don't know what they are). <S> As for the safety aspect of your question, you have basically zero time at room temperature for milk to be truly safe. <S> According to this page , bacteria starts growing at about 45°F / 7°C; it'll get there pretty quickly if not cooled. <S> Practically speaking, you have some time but it is not hours. <S> I thought I had seen a chart of time-at-temperature (e.g., safe for 1 hour at temperature X, 30 minutes at temperature Y, etc.) <S> but I can't find anything like it now. <A> I worked at a temporary office for an insurance co. <S> and that's how they kept it cold. <S> The small cooler is a pretty good idea also. <A> Some options. <S> Have you tried freezing the cream, then using it as it melts? <S> This works for bottles of milk, but I have never done it with cream. <S> Fill an unglazed clay pot with cold water, putting in cream in a sealed container in the pot, was the water enverperates from the damp sides of the pot, it cools the pot. <S> To speed up the process put the pot in front of your desk fun. <S> A sealed container in the flush tank of a well used WC may work, if the cold mains water is cool enough, when camping a river is used in that way.
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Maybe a bowl with ice in it, perhaps an insulated bowl or container that is big enough to hold the creamer container and sufficient ice to keep it cold.
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Why must the milk be frothed? Nearly every coffee machine has the milk go through this device which not only heats it up but causes it to froth up. Why is this important for a coffee? What's wrong with just heated milk? <Q> It's not that just heated <S> milk is wrong or tastes bad. <S> It's only that there are some (popular) coffee drinks that uses steamed or frothed milk (are not the same, read this ) by traditional way. <S> On those popular drinks you can find the cappuccino, latte, etc... <S> (as you can see on this infographic ), but at home you always can add regular hot milk to your coffee (but we all agree that it isn't feel and taste like the regular way). <S> Last, why are those techniques important for a coffee? <S> I think that gives a different flavour and tasting to the drink, due to its consistency (and of course, that let you to do some pretty nice latte art) <A> When heating milk with steam, aerating the milk (the process of drawing in air which creates foam) is essential to allow the milk to heat gently, without scalding. <S> If you're using some other heating process, you'll have to take care of preventing scalding in some (other) way. <S> So you get more flavor <S> bio-chemically. <S> As (good) baristas know, tiny bubbles taste better than big ol' soap bubbles . <S> This theory explains why. <A> In addition to flavor and latte art, I have heard that frothed milk also works as insulation, keeping your drink warm longer.
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An extra benefit of foam — particularly microfoam where the bubbles are too small to see — is that it changes the surface tension of the liquid beverage, potentially allowing more taste-buds to come into surface contact.
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Is it safe to consume roasted rice as a substitute for coffee beans? In the Philippines some people roasted their rice to make a substitute for coffee, this rice is uncooked rice. But I doubt if it is safe? <Q> I suppose the rice would not be burnt 1 (because that would taste horrible), but roasted instead. <S> Healthwise it is perfectly safe, like the other options mentioned above. <S> Just note that rice has no caffeine, so you wouldn't get the "kick" you get from real coffee. <S> 1 original post said "burnt", has now been changed to "roasted" <A> Since i was a child my mother always cooked roasted rice or we call that SARA SARA <S> ,I feel better everytime we drink it as replacement of coffee,but i suggest not to burn too much coz it taste bitterAs on our experienced <S> i noticed there's no side effect <S> ,it's just my opinionJust try it sometimes but don't take it everyday <A> i was diagnosed for an acid reflux and taking coffee is a No- <S> no... <S> then i took rice coffee/roasted rice as substitute and find it good! <S> no caffeine and <S> it makes me burp after a couple of minutes taking it.. <S> ,it's called "tinutong" in bicol..'coz <S> when i was a young:) my mom sometimes made it for me.. <S> then now i take it again... <S> it's been 5 months now that i didn't take any coffee anymore... <S> thanks to "tinutong na bigas" as my rice coffee! <S> i recommend this for you, guys! <S> no more acid reflux and of course be also aware and prevent from taking foods not suited for those with hyperacidity... <S> i'm taking research on it.. <S> ^-^....- Vanz Alpheus :-) <A> I'm from the Philippines and yes we do roasted rice to make coffee here. <S> It was the practice here in some provinces. <S> Several days ago i tried roasting approx 50 grams of rice to make some coffee. <S> I was told that it is a healthful substitute for the popular coffee of our generation. <S> Just like what was said in the other comment, "there's no punch in it like the coffee beans. <S> " But there's something unique about its taste that you will want some more after downing a cup. <S> Healthful? <S> i am not sure. <S> still doing some research that's why i came across this page.
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While I never heard of rice as coffee-substitute , people have used roasted malted barley, spelt, chicory or dandelion roots or even acorns (and other foods) to make a dark, aromatic brew that was used either separately or mixed with coffee, especially in times of scant resources.
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Ground coffee or beans I have just recently started drinking coffee, and have got myself a small counter top espresso machine. Some people in work have suggested that instead of buying ground coffee (I have been using Lavazza ground coffee) I should buy beans and grind it myself. I have asked why, but no one has been able to give a better answer than "it just is better", so I am hoping someone here can help me find a better answer to this question. Or is it just personal preferences? Also, as a newcomer to this, I know that the coffee someone uses is down to personal tastes and what have you, but I am just wondering if there are any coffee manufacturers who are very good when it comes to espresso (I mostly drink espresso). <Q> Ground beans have a much larger surface area by weight than whole beans. <S> When the surface of the bean is exposed to air chemical reactions take place. <S> I doubt that these reactions have been completely characterized but at a minimum they include some loss of aromatic oils. <S> In other words, the processes that lead to a judgment that coffee is "old" happen faster in ground coffee. <S> You can do the experiment easily and cheaply by comparing the results of coffee made with freshly-ground and pre-ground versions of same brand/date coffee. <S> You can always borrow a grinder. <S> The experiment might not work if both samples of coffee are old (or poor quality). <S> Otherwise I think you would notice a difference. <S> Whether the difference is worth paying for is a different question; but the only costs are a grinder and time to grind the beans. <S> A short answer to the question about brands might be: good, fresh Arabica beans are similar in many ways, up to roasting. <S> Some people prefer a light roast, others medium or dark. <S> Once you decide, find a brand that does what you like consistently. <A> The thinking is perhaps similar to spices. <S> Spices in natural seed form can be stored for years if sealed air tight at room temperature. <S> A similar thought can be applied to coffee beans, but stored for months maximum and not years! <S> Now that said, good pre-ground or beans needs good storage. <S> Prepare enough for no more than 1 week of use. <S> What I do and some may disagree <S> but it works for me. <S> Pre-ground that isn't used right away, squeeze excess air from bag, place that bag inside a plastic zip lock freezer quality bag, squeezing air from it and then zip lock seal, place in freezer. <S> Very important to allow frozen bean or pre-grind to come to room temperature before opening to use!! <S> Another quality pre-ground is Bustello and is an espresso grind. <A> If you do decide to pursuit (or at least try) grinding yourself, keep in mind, all things being equal, you want to grind your coffee beans at the last possible second (reasons already given by @daniel). <S> Also, you will want a coffee grinder which can produce an even grind fine enough for espresso. <S> At the lower end of the price range (under $100), this generally means ceramic burr grinders. <S> The $10 blade grinders from Walmart can't really give an even grind. <S> Good quality manual ceramic grinders, such as the ones made by Hario, are fairly cheap, but being manual, it means getting a good arms workout. <S> ;)
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Grinding beans just before use can give a fresher/stronger flavor with more natural oils and moisture content.
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Is it possible to Cold Brew using an Aeropress? Is it possible to cold brew using Aeropress? My inclination says yes, in a similar fashion to cold brewing with a French press. However, when I tried it, it became very hard to plunge. Aside from working on my arm strength, what tricks or methods can be used to ease that process? <Q> Don't brew in the Aeropress itself. <S> Brew in a jar like in classic methods and use the Aeropress only for fast and easy straining, taking care not to stir up the grounds from the bottom of the jar as you're pouring. <S> Most of the coffees you strain out this way should be an absolute breeze. <S> Only the last one you make (assuming a bigger jar) should give you any plunging force trouble, and that's if you insist on getting every last drop out (I know I do). <A> This might not be what you are looking for, but when I make cold brew in my french press, I don't like the grit and particulate that slips through the filter of the press. <S> To remedy this, I run it through my aeropress to filter this out. <S> It works much better than trying to put it through a regular pour-over cone because you can force it through quickly with the plunger. <S> It's not a fully-aeropress method, but it is my goto for cold brew. <A> I tried the method shown here (about half way down the page) <S> https://prima-coffee.com/blog/what-everyone-ought-know-about-iced-coffee-cold-brew-31371 <S> My first attempt wasn't successful as I made the bottle cap hole size larger that required which affected the flow of water resulting in a weak brew. <S> On my second attempt using another plastic bottle, it worked when I made the hole smaller. <S> Decent results, but making a coldbrew in a French Press is way better in my opinion (I use Verve Coffee Roasters Street Level Espresso Coffee Beans) <A> I've owned a Toddy and Hario Cold immersion brewer, and even tried using a french press. <S> I would imagine using approximately 36g of grounds (double grams used for hot coffee) in the Aeropress and allow it to sit overnight for 12+ hours. <S> It appears would be much easier to clean up than a Toddy or french press since you just plunge out the cake
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All methods share similar process in common, such as using cold or room temperature water over ground coffee, let it sit there and brew for over 12+ hours.
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Store Costco beans in individual vacuum sealed canisters? Is it a good idea to split bulk (2-3 pound bags) Costco coffee beans into separate (1 pound) vacuum sealed canisters? This would be done quickly for reduced oxygen exposure. I would use up a canister every 2 weeks. Will degradation of the beans over time (6 weeks total) be a significant problem? <Q> First, I think you need to start with the quality of the bean you bought. <S> I have noticed both at Sam's Club and Costco that more often than not, the bags of beans are not sealed. <S> You need to dig to find a bag where the beans don't slide around inside the bag. <S> If you can shake the bag and the beans move around like a box of cereal, move on to the next bag! <S> If a bag has lost the seal, you don't know if it has been 'open' for a week or three months. <S> Second, the debate goes back and forth about freezing or not freezing. <S> Do what fits your life style best. <S> Third, the more you can limit exposure to oxygen until you use the bean the better. <S> Coffee beans are like a lot of other items, they can become stale over time if cared for properly. <A> Yeah, why not? <S> And the "oxygen expossure" will be minimal (not necessary), but at least will be better than having it at one big container. <A> I store beans two ways, 1. <S> Place bag the beans came in, inside a plastic zip lock freezer bag, squeeze out the air and zip lock freezer bag. <S> Place in freezer, when removing beans, allow to warm to room temperature to avoid moisture collecting on frozen beans after opening. <S> The squeeze air out of original bag, the place inside plastic zip lock freezer bag, squeeze air out of it and refreeze. <S> I do this all the time. <S> 2. <S> Purchase a food vacuum sealer unit and seal-able bags that come with it, add beans to bag, maybe enough for 1-2 weeks of use. <S> Vacuum out the air and seal, place in freezer until ready to use but again, allow beans to reach room temperature before opening bag!
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Imagine a big container with all of your beans, there are gonna last the same time if you separate it on 3 containers.
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Why does espresso taste different to percolator coffee? I recently switched from percolator coffee to espresso. The taste is noticeably better. I feel as if it is common knowledge that espresso coffee is superior to percolator coffee. Why is it different? What are the scientific reasons for this? <Q> Espresso tastes different than percolator coffee, but not necessarily better. <S> Espresso extraction produces a more concentrated drink with a different set of compounds that you would get with percolator extraction. <S> With a shorter extraction time and higher pressure, espresso will have a slightly different set of compounds than you would get from the same coffee with percolation. <S> Some people prefer a more concentrated taste, however, some do not (many people think espresso is "too strong" when drank straight, thus the popularity here in the US of mixed espresso drinks). <S> This doesn't mean it's necessarily better. <S> Some types of beans are not well suited to espresso extraction and will actually produce a better cup when brewed with other methods. <S> All coffee can be benefited or hindered by brew/prep method, but the quality of the bean and <S> it's roast have quite a bit of influence in the matter. <S> Badly grown, processed and roasted coffee will not magically be made better by espresso extraction. <S> It might actually end up worse because concentrating it can highlight it's flaws. <A> In essence it's pressure, temperature and how coffee is generally ground for the method that make the difference. <S> Espresso forces water at high pressure (generally about 250PSI) and a specific temperature (generally between 92 and 94 degrees Celcius) through ground coffee. <S> Percolator coffee relies on gravity to move water that's generally boiling (100 degrees) through coffee. <S> The water temperature does make a significant difference because it is possible to burn coffee with water - which is one of the reasons that to many espresso drinkers filter coffee tastes burnt. <S> As per Chris' post, roast and been quality makes a difference - although I'd slightly disagree with Chris and say that it's more than a hindrance. <S> The same bean ground for espresso and produced by an espresso machine and then ground for and produced by a drip filter will taste much different - and he's right in saying that it will highlight a really bad bean. <S> It is also part of the skill of good baristas though that they know how to grind and extract almost any bean to get the best out of it, I know baristas who adjust for humidity though too <S> so how far you can go is a guess for me. <A> To me, espresso has a much better taste. <S> I learned this overseas, where, in many countries, they make traditional, straight espresso. <S> I know the modern American preference is coffee with lots of sugar and cream, but not for me. <S> I've used a cone filter at home with boiling water, to try to make espresso, but it tastes nothing like real espresso from a machine. <S> That's why I just ordered two espresso makers, one for work and one for home. <S> The second answer seems to give a good reason for the difference. <S> The high temperature must cause the burned taste.
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Grind makes a significant difference as well, Espresso coffee is generally ground finer than drip filter coffee which makes for a more intense taste for the volume of liquid.
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What Type of Coffee Is Used In a Coffee-Maker? I come from a land of tea-drinkers and have only recently taken a fancy to coffee. I just ordered this coffee-maker for myself, which is the first that I'll ever own. I am a bit perplexed as to what type of coffee is used in a coffee-maker. It gets all the more confusing since I couldn't get my hands on all the types on the internet. Until now, I had been making coffee with the help of this Nescafe. Is this instant or ground coffee? What is the difference between the two? Can they be used in my coffee-maker? Along with the coffee-maker, I also ordered myself a bottle of Grandos Espresso Instant Coffee . Would I be able to make it with the help of my coffee-maker? <Q> Ground coffee is just the roasted coffee beans ground up to a fine powder. <S> In order to make the beverage coffee, you need to combine this with hot water to extract the flavour (there are many different ways to do this). <S> Typically, there is a filter that makes sure that the water can pass through the ground coffee but none of the ground ends up in your drink. <S> Instant coffee is dried brewed coffee - they grind up the coffee beans, brew the coffee and then remove the water. <S> A coffee machine or coffee maker is used for brewing coffee from ground coffee, not instant coffee. <S> Instant coffee powder just needs to be rehydrated, so adding hot water is enough. <S> It will completely dissolve in the water, which the ground in a coffee maker will not. <S> The machine you bought seems to be an espresso machine (it puts the water with high pressure through the ground coffee). <S> This requires a relatively fine ground. <S> Preground espresso will probably work, or you can also buy a grinder and grind the beans yourself. <S> It also seems to have a pressurized filter basket, which means it will be quite forgiving and therefore easy to use. <A> You have bought a wonderful coffee machine which produces espresso (concentrated coffee) which can be consumed whole or mixed with milk/water to create amazing drinks such as latte's or cappuccinos but not limited to these. <S> To make it simple for you, I will make a short list of what you need to produce coffee on that machine. <S> Coffee Beans - I would suggest to step into Starbucks/Costa/Coffee Day or any similar retailer and ask for espresso blend/beans/roast. <S> If you can find the manager, explain the situation and ask for tasting. <S> Coffee Bean Grinder - You need something like this http://www.amazon.in/dp/B003U2V5GS or similar, but do make sure that the grinder you buy is capable of producing a fine grind, as we want the coffee powder to produce espresso, this is crucial. <S> The coffee you produce with this method will be divine, the aroma will fill up your spaces for sure. <S> What is critical is that you store the beans in their original form and grind only what you need, that will produce the freshest and tastiest coffee. <A> That is instant coffee(you only need hot water to make it). <S> Like Niko said ground coffee are coffee beans ground to small bits. <S> Looks like you've bought a good espresso coffee maker. <S> You need to find espresso coffee for that machine. <S> My favorites are Lavazza http://www.lavazza.com/ and <S> http://shop.meinl.com/default .I <S> usualy buy whole grain coffee and grind it at my home. <S> You can also make espresso coffee using espresso coffee pods (E.S.E. easy serving espresso). <S> Pods are basicaly grounded espresso coffee put in small pods, so you don't have to ground it at home. <S> Read the manual for your machine to make good coffee. <S> Edit: <S> Don't make espresso with Grandos Espresso Instant Coffee <S> ( don't ever make espresso with that machine if you don't have espresso coffee! ), until you buy real espresso coffee you can make instant (put one or two tea spoons in your mug and sip boiled or near boiled water over it)/ <A> Coffee maker usually only process ground coffee. <S> If you put instant coffee in it, it's gonna get messy inside-out. <S> So, ground coffee can only be processed with coffee maker to produce coffee that is really concentrated, unlike the taste of 3-in-1 and instant coffee. <S> While 3-in-1 or instant coffee, only need a cup with hot water to produce coffee. <S> If you are serious about coffee drinking, you should invest to learn more about ground coffee. <S> Instant coffee is just for casual coffee drinker
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If you want to make good coffee with that machine buy some good quality espresso coffee .
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How should I start a coffee export business? I am from Yemen, one of the world's best location for coffee. I want to start the coffee business and start a coffee export business but I have no experience in exporting and no customers to export to. Can somebody help how to start this coffee export business? What should I know and how to start? I am good with business (export process and LC and so) but I have no idea who buys coffee and how to approach them? Please help. <Q> As another dimension, I see a few trends that you might wish to consider. <S> Green beans. <S> More people are getting into home roasting, and green (processed but un-roasted) beans are the vehicle. <S> Also, green beans store better for longer time (e.g., freezing) <S> so you can capture a particularly good "year" or crop of beans for a longer period of time. <S> Even whole, unprocessed cherries might be an interesting notion. <S> Skins and pulp. <S> People make beverages out of the (usually discarded) fruit skin and pulp, called cascara , qishr , or other names. <S> These are difficult to find dried, and perhaps impossible to find fresh. <S> Direct marketing. <S> Another trend is (broadly) the "farm-to-table" strategy, where roasters or cafes will purchase beans directly from farmers. <S> There might be good business in brokering "direct" deals like this, by helping responsible farmers with good beans get good prices by selling directly to the end user (e.g., a local roaster) instead of through an aggregator or warehouse. <S> Just a perspective from a "consumer" standpoint. <A> The answer is going to depend a lot on what you already have and what you are trying to do, and it is hard to give a solid answer without knowing the specifics. <S> Are you a coffee producer? <S> Are you planning to broker the coffee buying it from producers? <S> Do you have an empty field where you intend to grow coffee, or a warehouse full of green beans? <S> Are you looking to sell the coffee to brokers, roasters, micro roasters, or retail? <S> What quality of coffee do you have? <S> Specialty coffee, orcommodity? <S> Depending on the answers to these questions, you may want to reach out to green coffee importers , to specialty coffee shops & roasters , or coffee buyers , or you may want to take your coffee to auctions like the cup of excellence , or start by becoming a Coffee taster ... <S> There is more than one way to get into the business of exporting coffee, getting the right coffee and known when you've got it, and how to take care of it once you have <S> it (supply) are as important as getting the right buyers and making sure <S> they know they are getting the right coffee and keeping them hungry to buy more of your coffee (demand). <S> Most countries that grow coffee have institutions aimed at helping producers succeed at exporting their crops, so looking around your local landscape for such institutions, other exporters and producers, etc... would also be a good way to start. <S> A quick google search yieled some interesting pages like Yemen coffee that could give you a few hints on where to get started. <A> I'd recommend firstly mapping your local market in order to identify your local competitors and focus on for example:What they have to offer? <S> What makes them unique?What <S> products they sell?Who are their suppliers and their clients? <S> With that in mind you'll need to think about what products you wish to sell? <S> Anything and everything? <S> Or specialise on a bespoke/specialist range? <S> With that focus source the products/prices and then the hard work of business development/marketing begins! <S> Good luck!
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You could seek out some exceptional beans with unique qualities and get those farmers into the specialty direct trade market.
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Best filter to use for cold brew? What's the best filter material to use for DIY set up for cold brew coffee? When I used a pour over funnel with a standard paper filter it seems to get clogged up faster than when hot brewing. <Q> I find the very same problem with cold brew taking a long time. <S> Though we have a few Q/A about this in the cold-brew <S> already, I think could stand on its own! <S> I use a "two-phase" method : using first a "primary" or "coarse" filter , like a French press plunger as described here and elsewhere, or a metal mesh tea or coffee filter as described here , or even a sock or cloth as suggested by this question . <S> This strains through quickly, but only filters the larger particles that would very quickly clog a paper filter. <S> Second, I put it through a paper filter <S> (I find Hario-style filters drain faster than Melitta-style filters). <S> I find this works the best of any setup I have used. <S> For completeness, we have a few Q/A about this already. <S> See for example making cold-brew <S> easier for some more ideas about "pre-filtering"; see starting out and equipment for some other tips; and even try cold brewing with AeroPress . <A> I've gotten good results cold brewing with an aeropress filter, as well as using a V60 bamboo paper filter. <S> Make sure that you add 2 filters, one below your ground coffee and one on top, so that the drops are evenly distributed into the coffee. <A> I've found the easiest and cleanest way to make cold brew coffee is with a pitcher and a milk bag. <S> ChestBrew has a great how-to video on this method that's very helpful. <A> These work well for me <S> https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Brew-Coffee-Filters/dp/B072MGP456 <S> I don't like to have a bunch of equipment, so <S> these get the job done for me.
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I also use filtered water to make sure I get the best tasting cold brew I can since we drink so much of it.
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How can I get a more even grind with a rotary grinder? In general, I prefer burr grinders for grinding coffee beans, but sometimes I have to use a rotary grinder. I'd like to understand how to best use the rotary grinder for grinding coffee beans. I find burr grinders generally produce a superior result in terms of grind consistency , less heat generated, and therefore final product is better. Sometimes in a pinch, however, I need to use a rotary grinder (e.g., it's the only grinder around; burr grinder hopper is full of other beans; flavoured beans that I don't want to pollute the burr grinder; testing to see if a newly roasted batch of beans is "ready", etc.) -- and there are some advantages of rotary grinders . I'd like to use the rotary grinder in such a way as to make the ground coffee particle size as even as possible. Is this even possible? I find that, no matter how I use the thing, I end up with some very large chunks (even whole beans) and some extremely fine powder. The result is only usable in filter coffee (drip/pour-over), but it simply doesn't "work" as well as when the ground coffee particle size is more even. I have searched for techniques or recommendations, but I find exactly nothing helpful on this, but I believe there must be some way to optimize the use of a rotary grinder. I have tried things like... Pulsing the machine. Turning on for a second, then letting the blades come to rest, then pulsing some more, until I achieve approximately the grind I'm looking for; Shaking the grinder up and down during the grinding; Revolving the grinder around in a circle the opposite way that the blades are spinning; Using more or less beans in a single grinding session ("half full" seems to work best for me) All of these seem to have minimal / marginal benefit. Is there any way to improve the coffee bean grind consistency using a rotary grinder? <Q> "Using more or less beans in a single grinding session" will yield the most bang for buck, usually. <S> However, this is highly dependent on your particular rotary grinder. <S> Rotary grinders are like miniature blenders. <S> Just like in a full size blender trying to make a milkshake or something, if you over- or under-fill the blender, then the blade won't be able to mix the ingredients as it cuts through them. <S> Cheap grinders won't be designed to mix very well as they grind, so with terrible grinders, you probably won't see much benefit to your strides. <S> You need to experiment with your particular blade-style rotary grinder to see how much you can add without prohibiting movement once the beans are fully chopped up, and without leaving too much movement where they just bounce around inside. <S> Too much room will create friction from the grinder chamber sides, and will start to warm up the coffee oils. <S> Too little room will result in the same bean being over-ground (too much friction from the blade), and you'll get coffee paste in the inner center of the grinder chamber. <S> Achieving consistency and repeatability to the level of a fast-food chain will be impossible, as rotary grinders are way to sensitive to how many beans you put in, as well as size and shape of the bean, how hard the bean is (age of bean), lunar phase, etc. <S> Maybe this is why all the big coffee chains use more expensive burr grinders in-store (not that the coffee is better, which it arguably is, its just more predictable). <S> Some fancy rotary grinders have timers and knobs and levers to set so you don't have to count to yourself before you let go of the grind-button. <S> That helps, but is far from a silver bullet. <A> Well, with any type of grinder you will always have what are called "fines." <S> A blade grinder will undoubtedly produce more, but if I were you I would grind your particle size as fine as you can go. <S> That way your deviation between the particle sizes is closer together, and should be easier to extract everything more even. <S> Even if you have to shorten extraction time, you should see a better cup in the end result. <A> When I use blade grinder - I find pulsing helps. <S> Pulse for couple of times, look at the result. <S> Pulse couple more times... and so on, until you are (sort of) satisfied with the result. <S> If you really want to get creative, you could pulse for some time, shake the grinder. <S> That will bring the roughest parts to the top. <S> Remove them into one container. <S> If the rest is ok - put that into french press (or w <S> /e way you make your coffee). <S> Put the undergrinded part back and repeat. <S> That may or may not prove worthy of your time, but it is an idea that crossed my mind, when I used rotary (blade) grinder. <A> I pulse, but start off with very staccato pulses/short time intervals. <S> This allows the beans and pieces to settle often and be in contact with the blades, making the grind more even. <S> After the really big chunks are gone, then I might hold the button down a bit longer. <S> I'm pretty happy with the uniformity <S> I get doing it this way.
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From what I could find, blade grinder is no match to burr grinder, no matter what technique or special shaking/tilting way you use.
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Should I grind my coffee beans at home, or en masse in the coffee shop? I bought a pack of New Orleans' PJ's whole bean coffee. It is a bit old, about a year. I am flexible type though, I'll drink it. The problem is my indecision about whether to grind it piecemeal or just all at once. I have a cuisinart machine that works quite well. But it's for a small amount. Curious as to the best way to ensure somewhat fresh cups. <Q> That's pretty straightforward: if you're not too lazy and have the equipment at hand, always grind only the amound needed just before brewing. <S> Check out <S> this answer for impressive data. <S> Now if your beans are year old already, this might not make a huge difference --- but there's no way that grinding it all at once could help you have ``somewhat fresh cups''. <A> You should always grind your beans just before brewing. <S> Also keep the beans in an airtight bag. <S> When you grind the beans you increase the surface of your coffee beans which means the area in contact with air is increased. <S> Oxygen is a very reactive molecule that takes part in the formation of peroxides and free fatty acids. <S> Both of these result in an awful bitter taste. <S> You would want to keep the area subjected to reactions with oxygen as small as possible for as long as possible :) <A> Beans are so old that it won't make a difference. <S> It's a hassle when you are tired and need a cup of joe, but the results are worth taking the extra step! <A> Provided your grinder is a burr grinder of some assortment - I would at least grind at home for the future, fresh coffee. <S> Otherwise if you are rolling with a fan/blade grinder, I've found better results using a precise grinder from a local shop. <S> If you are drinking year old coffee though... not sure anything really matters :)
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In general, you should be very particular about the freshness of the bean and then grind the amount of coffee you need only for that brew.
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Which major coffee shop has the freshest coffee? Is there a particular coffee shop where one may attain the freshest java ? <Q> By Major, are you referring to exclusively things like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, etc, etc? <S> If so, then I think I would have to go with Denny's actually. <S> Yes, they will leave a pot on all day, but I've never been in a Denny's that wouldn't immediately pull it and start up a fresh one if you asked for it out of the gate. <S> In places like Starbucks, Coffee & Tea, etc, there seems to be trick words or a menu item that tells them to grind and brew fresh, but that's something that one has to learn. <A> As an indirect answer to your question, find a coffeeshop that sells packages of roasted, whole beans with the roasting date marked on the package. <S> It's a good indication <S> such a coffeeshop will be using fresh beans and grinding them at the moment of brewing. <S> These two factors are the most important indicators of freshness. <S> Justification: <S> As stated in an early question about freshness of coffee , coffee is usually best when brewed in a narrow window: between a few days after roast and a couple weeks after roast . <S> If you're looking for beans to brew yourself: As stated in another question , always buy whole beans and grind them yourself just before brewing. <S> Bonus: <S> Even better, find such a coffeeshop affiliated with a local roaster. <S> You'll have higher confidence that the beans haven't encountered extreme temperatures (or humidity or other environmental conditions) during transport that might hurt the beans. <A> Green coffee (unroasted) can maintain quality for several years. <S> It is after you roast the coffee that it starts to lose freshness and quality. <S> (see the first answer to <S> this SO for data on loss of freshness after the roast) <S> So in order to find the "freshest java"sic, find the places where they roast their own. <S> Nowadays you can find small coffee shops that buy green beans and roast themselves, known as micro-roasters, in almost any mayor city. <S> (I know, by definition micro-roaster implies that they aren't a mayor coffee shop... <S> but they do have the freshest java ) <A> Try Peet's, and grind your own beans.
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One of the biggest factors in freshness is when the coffee was roasted .
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What factors determine coffee bean size? I bought a bag of Guatemala/Colombia/Ethiopia blend after having single origin Peru beans (all Arabica), and was struck by the difference in bean size: Peruvian beans were almost twice larger than the beans in the blend. Now I'm wondering whether the difference is conditioned by some environmental factors, or regional differences of the coffee plant, or the timing of harvesting. Of course, it can also be that any coffee plant anywhere produces beans of (significantly) different size, and then they are sorted into size-consistent batches (as per this guide , for instance). <Q> The single biggest factor in the size of a coffee bean is the botanical variety of the plant. <S> There is no amount of nutrition or growing conditions that can overcome the effect of genetics. <S> In this picture from our garden at Coffea Diversa you can see two examples at the extreme. <S> On one hand you have mokka, this variety has the smallest bean of allcoffee varieties. <S> On the other hand you have Maragogype, this variety has the largestbean of all coffee varieties. <S> There is no amount of fertilizer that you can give to a mokka grain to make it even come close to the size of a ripe Maragogype bean (and viceversa). <A> There are a large variety of factors that can affect bean size. <S> Obviously growing conditions can vary, and there is often variation of size within a single crop. <S> Keep in mind coffee is an agricultural product. <S> No one blinks when a crop of apples or oranges has a great variety in sizes, but many people seem to prefer their coffee beans a more uniform size. <S> Most places accomplish this with sorting <S> but it is artificial to some extent. <S> On the other hand, roast level is a controllable process that greatly affects bean size. <S> Beans expand and become less dense as they are roasted and lose moisture. <S> It is entirely possible that the same crop of sorted beans (all relatively uniform in size) will have different sizes due to variation in roast level. <A> Just to add one more variation, which is a little unusual. <S> A Monsooned Malabar is also a very large bean. <S> However, this is because the green beans, already bagged, are left to "air" in the moonsoon winds and they absorb moisture and expand to about twice their original size and also change to an ivory colour. <S> I haven't had Monsooned Malabar for a long time <S> but I don't recall them expanding a whole lot more in the roasting. <S> (The airing process results in them roasting quickly and they move very rapidly from first crack to second crack.)
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The difference in sizes between your blend and peruvian coffees are probably due to the botanical varieties of the beans.
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Best way to store unroasted/raw coffee? I'm using green coffee and would like to know how to keep the beans to protect from getting bad (mold). I try to keep them safe and to be all time ready for roasting. <Q> I have a few different varieties of green beans that I have stored in freezer style plastic bags for going on 1+ year now <S> and there is no mold present. <S> I roast a few batches a year and always get the same results out of my beans regardless of how long they have been stored. <A> Green coffee storage should be done similarly to roasted.1-free of contact with oxygen 2-cool3-away from light <S> This is according to National Coffee Assoc. <S> http://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Store-Coffee <S> I pre-weigh my beans to the exact amount weight that I will need for my roast. <S> (i.e. 100g) <S> and pack it in individual bags. <S> then use a machine that removes all the air and seals the bags. <S> I forget it's name <S> but the are inexpensive and do good jobs. <A> Double zipper Ziplock bags in a dry place away from light works for me. <A> Unroasted/green coffee stores <S> very, very well. <S> Keep them in containers or sealable plastic bags in a place that is pretty fairly temperature stable, dark and not particularly humid, and you should be fine. <S> I keep mine in the cupboard over the fridge. <S> They can be kept for months with minimal effort going towards storage with no impact on their after-roasted quality.
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I keep them stored at room temperate with as much air as possible removed from the bag.
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Coffee stain in coffee cups I've noticed that my coffee cups are getting stained. Neither myself nor the dishwasher can get the stains out. Any suggestions? (Other than buying new cups ;) <Q> Baking soda. <S> I use a standard dish sponge/scrubbie with baking soda and a little water and it comes completely out. <S> I've actually tried it with just a damp paper towel and baking soda <S> and it's almost as easy. <S> Baking soda has natural whitening properties and is a very gentle abrasive. <S> I actually started using it elsewhere <S> (sinks, counter tops, greasy pans) before discovering its use in coffee cups. <S> Salt has similar whitening properties (surprisingly to me) and is a stronger abrasive. <S> Haven't tried it in coffee cups, but you might consider trying that if you need a little extra cleaning power. <S> (Also: Aside from being cheap, baking soda / salt are food-grade and non-toxic!) <A> Another possibility for residual stains: Try soaking in powdered dishwasher detergent (i.e., stuff for automatic dish machines, not dish soap) and boiling water . <S> The process: put a small amount (~ 1 tsp / 5 mL) of powdered dishwasher detergent in the cup. <S> Fill cup with boiling water (very hot tap water might also be okay). <S> Stir to dissolve detergent. <S> Let sit for at least 1 hour or overnight. <S> Empty, rinse, wash with sponge or scrub brush and conventional dish soap as usual. <S> I did this to clean my heavily tea-stained equipment, and it worked great, as I noted in another question and answer of mine from Seasoned Advice . <A> Puro Caff <S> This stuff cleans stains from all my presses, thermoses, and cups...makes all like new again. <A> All the tips above are good and might help, but in my opinion a good coffee cup shouldn't get any stains what so ever, in case it does I suggest you to throw it away and buy a new one. <S> Why not using a regular espresso glass cup similar to: <S> These cups will never get stains :) <A> Use some thick household bleach with the option of adding a bit of warm water. <S> Leave this to stand in the cup making sure the stains are coated with bleach. <S> After leaving these for several hours the stain will eventually be removed! <S> Works on the toughest stains. <S> Remember: <S> wash this out thoroughly under a tap before using it! <A> I nice clean cup or mug certainly adds to coffee drinking enjoyment in my opinion. <S> Since coffee stains are somewhat oil based, I suggest you put in a dollop of coconut oil, sprinkle in some baking soda, salt, and a few drops of water, scrub with a toothbrush or nail brush. <S> Follow with some vinegar, then a hot water rinse. <S> Since your cup is warm it is a perfect time for another cup of coffee :-) <A> For ceramic mugs just use toothpaste and toothbrush.
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I've also tried baking soda + salt on counter tops and pans with great success.
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Coffee still left in filter part I am using Philips HD 7450/20 6 Cups Coffee Maker . Recently After every cycle I find that some coffee(brewed) is still left in the filter part. I tried cleaning the equipment using vinegar. Can someone suggest how to resolve this. <Q> From what your question seems to be asking - I believe that grinding your coffee more coarse is all that needs to be done. <A> If you're cleaning the equipment at least 15 minutes after finishing your coffee (and you threw away the leftover paper filter), then I can't see where else the coffee would come from. <S> Though sometimes I think some of the coffee will evaporate up , and fall back down as precipitation. <S> But in that case it's water. <S> If this doesn't help , then ... without more information, I'm thinking your machine may be the problem. <A> Try cleaning the machine with hot water and baking soda.
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Water will drain quicker through more coarsely ground coffee, and it seems like all the fine particles are eventually clogging the bottom of the cone.
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