I just looked at Walmart's website to see what they sold this for in my store. Looks like the same price as your store. -McCafe Premium Roast, Breakfast Blend and Colombian (ground) work out to $4.77/pound in a 30 oz. canister -The above are just north of $7/pound in a 12 oz. bag -They don't stock the French Roast That's way cheaper than I've been paying for my coffees, but I always buy whole bean. Interesting they charge me more to skip a step.
Over the past several years, I have considered myself somewhat of a coffee snob. I don't mind paying more for good coffee. I have tried a number of different coffeemakers, determining that I prefer to go backward in time and use a percolator, but that this is too much trouble for my regular coffee needs. Rejecting pre-ground coffee for a whole bean, I have tried out a few different grinders, settling on a manual crank grinder that allows me to have full control over the grind. I try new coffees as they come first, and then decide whether a particular blend needs to be mixed with another coffee or whether it needs to have a pinch of chicory added. However, through all of this, I don't measure the amount of coffee that I use. I just dump it into the grinder until it looks right, adding less to a strong blend, and more to a light blend. Then again, I don't measure anything when I'm cooking either.
I always measure my coffee. I'm not good at estimating that kind of stuff. The last perked coffee I had was one of those 50 cup jobs at a church function. I let Rozine (pushing 80 at the time) put in the coffee. She knew when it was "enough" by eyeballing it. Your comment about percolators being "too much trouble" reminded me of when they finally came out with filters that fit percolator baskets. I like good coffee, but being around the house all day, I drink too much of it to buy high-end stuff. If it were only a couple of cups in the AM and maybe a couple after dinner, it would be a different story. My coffee consumption is one of those things that has fluctuated throughout my life, having given it up a few times only to eventually return. I doubt I'll be stopping again. Maybe if I cut back to a reasonable amount...
I have an old percolator that I have had for decades. I have since found it but when I was having trouble locating it, I bought a new percolator a few years ago. Making coffee with it is easy enough, but then there's the cleaning. Not a major chore, but more of a one than with my drip coffeemaker. There is also the fact that I work downstairs, while our kitchen is upstairs. I do make a pot of percolator coffee a couple of times a month, though. I had a 40-cup percolator coffeemaker that I used when I was in college, and I'd bring that into work while I was a machine operator at a paper bag plant on the graveyard shift. Not allowed on the day shift or swing shift, I suppose it wasn't technically allowed on the graveyard shift either but we generally ran a skeleton crew on that shift that didn't include anyone who cared. I gave it away to some organization here in town about fifteen years ago. They asked to borrow it and I told them they could keep it. Making "good" coffee with a 40-cup percolator wasn't a skill that I had ever perfected. Usually, I go through two pots of coffee a day, plus a few cups of the K-cup stuff, as we have a Keurig upstairs. When I first tried the Keurig, I loved it but have come to not care much for K-cup coffee. A few times a year, I switch to tea. Each time, I think that I could do that instead of coffee but, after a few days, I'm back to coffee.
Here’s some coffee with a political background. It is a bit of history that in 1942, the Democrat administration of FDR limited and actually socialized the civilian consumption of coffee. Since the production of coffee was lowered to around 65% of it’s norm, the administration rationed coffee so each civilian could have an equal share and still have a meager amount left for the military. Many have surmised that the lack of production was due to an inability to deliver the beans from Brazil, Columbia or wherever. On the flip side of that coin we find that the government had their hands in it and refused to purchase the extra amounts needed for the military which actually caused the slump in production. Either way, socialized coffee came into being (along with a lot of other commodities) and being the inventive critters that we are....... Enter the world of Washington and Nescafé instant coffees, K-rations and C-Rations. Now, I am not sure what kind of instant coffee was in the C-rats that we were given, but after 365 days of drinking that stuff, ANY coffee, no matter how strong or old it was, if it was perked, it was fantastic! Thankfully, I’m much more refined and forgiving now and no longer blame the government under LBJ for feeding me instant sewage under the guise of coffee. And, also thankfully I didn’t get killed in Vietnam but most certainly had I drunk much more of that powdered junk I would most assuredly have become a statistic anyway. Wow, to think about it, I found the perfect coffee for me about 2 years ago under a Republican administration. Spooky......
Yeah, I got the water tank model. I have not and will not weigh my coffee. I once I have made a pot or two of a brand, I know how the measuring goes and whether I need to add one scoop extra "for the pot." The only time I don't measure coffee is when I use a percolator; I just dump coffee in to a certain level in the basket. Though I suppose technically that is measuring. I remember my grandma boiling coffee in an old metal stove-top percolator until it was almost syrup. I used to grind beans but like most other things I "used" to do, I prefer the easy way these days.
When it comes to large quantities of coffee, the old pour-overs were always the very best. Electric Percolators always shut off when the temp is at around 180 or so and doesn’t guarantee a good cup which is why one does not use warm or hot water to perk with. I guess the best way to use an electric percolator and get consistency is to know the temp before it goes in the pot. The more consistency at the start, the more consistency at the finish. With the pour-overs, we would get the water out of the pot after it heated and pour it over the grounds until the coffee had the proper color and taste. Some restaurants measured how much water went over the grounds, some just went by the color and taste. Basically, most restaurants got rid of them because they were hard to work with, hard to clean and unsafe for those who had to lift a one gallon metal pot of hot water over their heads to pour over the grounds and into the coffee pot. Otherwise, the coffee was always good.
I've read 3 things that are supposed to make great coffee, besides the coffee itself: 1-Water temp must be in the 195°-205° range --Some high-end consumer models do this 2-The grounds must be pre-wetted and allowed to sit before the actual brewing starts so the coffee "blooms" --Some high-end consumer models do this 3-The water must have the exact right mineral composition and an alkaline ph level -You can buy a pre-packaged mix or do this yourself with readily available ingredients We shall see...
On a scale of 0-10, at around 4 in the morning, my patience level for Anything before my coffee is around -2 so I’d have to have a pot of coffee to make a “good” pot of coffee.
Yep, real coffee snobs approach their preparation like a gourmet dish. I love good coffee, but it is just coffee. For the two of us we just use the 12 cup Mr. Coffee. If we have guests or are having a special dessert I make French Press and pay closer attention to the grind If you buy preroasted coffee, buy whole bean and grind your own. Ground coffee disintegrates quickly. I buy green beans 30 lbs at a time. I like Costa Rican Monte Crisol Bourbon I like Indian Monsoon Malabar,Tanzania also produces some good beans.
My Bonavita BV1500TS coffee maker arrived this morning. Made a full pot (5 cups) of White Monkey using 50 grams of coffee and the pre-wetting function. 50 grams of this coffee=10 TB=5 scoops. It was way too strong. I made another pot using my 8 O'Clock/Hills Brothers blend. 40 grams of this coffee=7 TB=3.5 scoops. It was too weak. I then did 9 TB (4.5 scoops) and it is almost there, but still a little weak. I gotta zero this thing in for each coffee. Even at that, I can immediately tell the difference in quality...and it's HOT!!! This machine is different than a Mr. Coffee: -There is no clock -There is no waking up to a brewed pot of coffee because it has no clock/timer --You cannot use a mechanical timer because the "ON" switch is a spring-loaded (momentary) rocker -It does not *beep* when it's finished brewing -It's a thermal carafe, so there's no hot plate. Dunno how long it will keep a proper serving temperature. -It's a pour-over set up, so you have to deal with the basket of grounds in order to install the carafe lid The things I immediately like are: -The carafe of water was 191° immediately after the brewing cycle ended --My Mr. Coffee is 163°, and that's with the hot plate assist -The water was 181° after sitting for 5 minutes, without pre-warming the carafe -It's pretty fast...under 5 minutes to brew 5 cups -You can set it to pre-wet the grounds -The brew basket has a broad bottom so it securely sits upright on the counter as you fill it -The carafe lid has a spring-loaded handle you push-to-pour. (The lid is sealed to keep the coffee hot.) My "two places to the right of the decimal point" scale is due to arrive tomorrow, so I can then make "the perfect coffee water." I also have some chicory on order...no ETA as of yet. For $80 (marked down from $140) it's worth the money, if it holds up for the long-term. Heck, even the $300+ coffee makers have some negative reviews.
So my Bunn at 188° isn't too far off the mark. Isn't it frustrating making all the "test pots?" I have dumped a lot of coffee in the past few days. I started making half-pots to cut my losses.
Yup. And the taste seems to change after it's sat for a while, even in a thermal carafe. But after a couple of hours, it only takes 15 seconds in the microwave to make it hot again. I hope that scaling back to smaller pots is not gonna reset the learning curve too much. I would punch the "reset" button on the Mr. Coffee warmer after the 2 hours timed out, so should start making pots smaller than 6 cups. I'm taking notes as I go along. "Help! I've fallen down another rabbit hole and I can't get out!!" Maybe I'll go make some pasta.
And as Bobby perused the coffee thread he saw that folks were buying new coffee makers and also saw how bright and shiny they looked. Questions like, “Did they really make great coffee and how good can coffee be when it comes from something so shiny and new?” entered his mind. Suddenly, a huge epiphany overwhelmed his thoughts and Bobby said, “Well, if they make great coffee then I think I will get something bigger, shinier, and with more shiny buttons to push for surely it will make Fantastic Coffee”. my new imaginary shiny gold coffee pot.