I have a stovetop percolator that is heated by the burner on the stovetop. It's handy for making coffee on a wood-fueled camp stove.
I'm still paying around with brewing chicory granules, and realized that I flaked out on the directions. You put 1TB in 1 cup of water in a covered pot, bring to a boil, then simmer for 10-15 minutes. -Letting the chicory sit rather than simmer yielded a tea-like liquid. -Letting the chicory simmer for 10 minutes made a very very dark liquid. I can't compare the tastes because I used all of the first tea-like batch to amend coffee. I tried the second [simmered] batch straight (no cream or sugar), and it's thick and strong. I read a little about making chicory coffee, and some sites say to not brew it for too long or it will turn bitter (which is why I simmered it for 10 minutes and not for 15.) Another site says that chicory can be strong, and personal tastes run from 1 tsp to 1 TB per cup (1 TB = 3 tsp.) I don't plan on drinking much of this straight, I plan on primarily using it to dilute both "normal" brewed coffee and the specialty Teecchino coffees. It will cut the caffeine and add inulin to my diet (discussed in this thread.) When this batch runs low, I'll make the next batch with 1 tsp per cup and do a direct comparison.
I decided to brew another batch of chicory. This time I used 1 tsp per cup rather than 1 TB. It's a little weak, so I mixed the 2 batches together. It looks like 2 tsp per cup is gonna be the sweet spot. This is the roasted chicory root I've been brewing:
That all sounds too involved for me, with the chicory. I've been using chicory granules for years, in nearly every pot of coffee, but I just sprinkle some over the grounds before brewing and it smooths the taste out some.
I had been doing the exact same thing until I read the package and it says to simmer for 10 minutes. In fact, I had been grinding it with the beans. I'm trying to extract the inulin, so I made enough to fill a large canning jar and put in the fridge. We'll see how long it takes to go through it. I might make larger batches (since there's really no hands-on time), or I might go back to grinding it with the beans and figure that's sufficient (most likely outcome.) I'm sure not gonna make it every time I want to stretch a pot of coffee. Right now I'm in my "messing with it 'cause it's new" phase.
I really like stretching my coffee with brewed chicory (I already went through the quart jar I brewed), so I brewed a larger batch this evening, filled a jumbo 6 cup (1 1/2 quart) canning jar, and put it in the fridge. Dunno how long this hobby will last, but it does help cut back my consumption of caffeine...and it's pretty good.
I found a new gadget on Amazon. This appeared on my Vine products to test, so I ordered it. Regular price is $27 but I got it free for an unbiased review. The MasonTops cold brew system for coffee or tea. I have never tried coldbrew coffee so I'm curious to see how this works.
I do cold brew with coldbrew tea bags, and use instant for my iced coffee. I haven't done any iced coffee this summer because of stomach issues. I usually add some milk so maybe I will try one tomorrow. Let us know how this works out.
There is a State brand here, named community coffee. It is so strong you can't let it sit over the heat. The coffee services that serve businesses with the machine and accessories provide small half cup size paper cups. I drank it for a long time while working in Opelusas because the dealership owner was a Cajun. I have to say today it would be a bit too much for me, I drink my Folgers one cup per morning and that's about it.
Community Coffee is a popular brand on Amazon. I recall Luzianne coffee ads from when I was a kid, but my dad was pretty much either brewed 8 O'Clock or instant Sanka. I've taken to making a drink that is 1/2 brewed chicory, 1/2 instant chicory, a half tablespoon of cacao powder, and some Half & Half (lotsa halves, huh?). It's a pretty robust hot chocolate.
Before I started buying whole-bean coffee, Luzianne was my favorite coffee that I could buy in the store.
I started drinking morning coffee when I was still eating from a High Chair. Still had morning coffee the time I was in the Army stateside. That changed soon as I was assigned to active aviation crewman. Every morning all the flights would leave before the sun was fully visible. I cannot ever remember a morning of having breakfast in a mess hall. I could probably count each time on two hands that I actually ate from our mess hall. I lived on sodas and beer and I soon started to love that cold beer every evening once we landed, it was only a good little run to our back door from the revetment and I would have my cold beer in my hands before the main rotor stopped spinning. That's all I wanted was that one beer because I was thirsty and not drinking water all day. Most of the crew chiefs would have a water bottle but mine liked the beer better. A few times we would stuff a coke into the storage compartment for our lunch but it would always be warm. To tell you how early we would all get airborne the mess halls on the air field would stack cases of C-Rations at the back door and all the crews would grab one box for lunch. You had to be an early riser to get a good box, like the Ham and Butter Beans, or the Spaghetti and Sauce and a couple more but they all had the little paper box of cigarettes and you would have a tin of cheese which looked like a can of shoe polish on the outside and it would actually shine your boots if you really wanted to do that. One box had a wicked chocolate covered coconut that was probably the worst tasting crap I ever ate. I can't describe the crackers that were stuffed into the box because you would never ever find anything like that on a store shelf, simply because the shopper would never ever come back to shop there. Now there was some yellow cake and I think it was peaches but you really had to get up early to get one of those. No coffee but I think I remember seeing instant packets in one of the boxes. It was a long time ago. I do not eat breakfast but I do have that one cup of coffee every morning and I take my time sipping it and enjoying it. It is the one thing that has not been raised to ransom levels. I still pay the same for one of the small Folgers plastic containers of Classic Brew. I tried buying Maxwell House for a time several years ago but I learned that it was not and never will be as good as Folgers.