My significant other doesn’t care nearly as much about coffee as I do, so we always have pre-ground supermarket coffee at home. Tastewise, it’s usually rather dull and bitter because apparently, that‘s what people expect coffee to taste like around here.
I wonder if there is a method/recipe that can compensate for those flaws. The Aeropress is pretty versatile, so going for lower temperatures and/or shorter extraction times comes to me as a natural first step in this investigation. Doing a pour over with this stuff feels like I‘m wasting precious V60 filter papers though tbh 😄
Any further suggestions? I own a V60, an Aeropress, a cheap drip coffee machine and the (in-) famous IKEA french press. My kettle only allows for adjustments in 10°C steps, but features a temperature display, so I can go reasonably precise on that end.
Cheers! ✌️
Honestly, your ingredients are going to far surpass any brewing method. I’ve brewed cheap coffee in my Chemex that didn’t taste very good and quality coffee in a hotel in-room Coffee machine that tasted amazing.
Good Beans + Good Water gets you like 70% of the way to good coffee.
Yeah, I‘m aware. That‘s the reason why I’m reluctant to use my good consumables in aimless experiments.
What I‘m looking for really is some way to deal with overly bitter grounds, and I know the basics of extraction. Maybe someone just happens to have gone down that path already and can say something like „Put them in a french press, 50 grams per Liter, water not hotter than 85°C, steep for two minutes max“ or so. 🙂
consider cream and sugar ;-)
I already do oat milk, and try to get away from it for purity and calories 🙈
If I were to provide a suggestion, I would start with fresh grinding your coffee from beans. You can get a pretty cheap manual grinder for like $20-30. I don’t remember the name of mine (it’s generic) but it was like $30 on Amazon and is great when I travel.
Next time you’re in a coffee shop, grab their cheapest blend. Coffee shops, in my experience, have fresher beans than the grocery store, especially if they roast their own coffee.
It doesn’t have to be the $26 organic single origin, just something that’s been roasted more recently than 6 months ago. Maybe you’ll be able to convince your S/O to get some better coffee in the future.
I do grind fresh usually. It’s only that we got this stuff at home already and I hate wasting coffee when it’s going stale just because no one uses up an open bag, even if it’s bad coffee.
As a bonus, knowing how to get anything remotely decent from these raw materials, it would enable me to do so when I don’t have my nice things with me, be it at work, at my friends & family’s homes or on vacation.