I moved flat in January and my coffee got worse overnight. Same beans, same grinder, same recipe, same everything. It all tasted like it had been sitting out for an hour. So I did what everyone does. Ground finer. Then…
Coffee is over 98 percent water and it is the thing almost nobody adjusts. Changing it fixed problems I had been chasing with grind size for a year. What water does Minerals extract flavour. Distilled or fully softened…
Took my beans, my grinder setting and my scales to a friend's flat and made the same brew. It was noticeably better sweeter, more distinct, less like a general brown flavour. The only difference was the water. I am in a…
I bought several bags of the same ground coffee from the same shop, three months apart. Tasted side by side, one is good and the other is bad enough that I want to return the rest. The only difference I can find is a…
I drink coffee from several sources brewed at home, from cafés, occasionally from a can: and I have no idea how they compare in caffeine. Published figures are broad ranges and clearly do not account for what I actually…
Somebody gave me a substantial bag of a very dark roast as a gift. It looks almost black, it smells burnt, and brewed it tastes of ash and bitterness. I am not opposed to dark coffee, I enjoy a properly dark Italian…
Light roast washed Ethiopian that makes a lovely floral V60. Cold brewed it at 1 to 8 in the fridge for eighteen hours, coarse grind, filtered through paper, then diluted one to one. It came out flat, slightly papery…
18g in the stock double basket, 36g out, and the shot takes 38 to 42 seconds, which by every guide I have read should be over extracted. It tastes sharply sour with a bitter edge underneath. I have gone three steps…
One litre glass press, 70 g coarse, water just off the boil, stir at one minute, plunge at four. At four it tastes weak and a bit sour, so I tried eight and got something drying and harsh at the back of the throat. I…
Conical dripper, 22g coffee to 360g water, and total brew time is stuck around 1:30 whatever I do. I have gone from a medium grind down to nearly espresso fine and the drawdown barely changed, though the cup did get…
Five year old drip machine, hard ish tap water through a jug filter, 60 g of coffee to a litre, medium grind on a burr grinder. It used to finish a full carafe in about six minutes and now it takes eleven, and the…
Picked up a bag roasted two days earlier, which I thought was a win, and every shot has gushed and tasted thin and sharp. The bloom on filter is enormous, foaming right over the top of the cone. Same grinder and same…
Every cup has a layer of sludge in the last inch and it gets in my teeth. I am at the coarsest setting the grinder goes to, four minute steep, plunging slowly. Coffee itself tastes good until the last few sips. Is this…
Total budget is 400 dollars for both, buying used is fine, and I only make espresso and the occasional flat white. Everything I read says grinder first, but a 350 dollar grinder leaves me with a 50 dollar machine which…