💾 Archived View for gemini.hanakiri.moe › blog › 20240216-coffee.gmi captured on 2024-03-21 at 14:46:23. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
All units in this post will be in metric, not only because it is more universal, but because it is much easier to work with coffee in metric measurements and it is what I use when brewing my coffee. So, any mention of degrees will be Celsius, not Fahrenheit. As for other measurements, they will be listed after the number like normal.
Despite my setup, not all of these things are required for coffee consumption, really, one just needs beans and a brewer (and of course a cup to drink from). However, whole beans with a grinder will net you much better tastes.
If you are new to the hobby, you might ask 'why would you spend all this money for this setup and not just either buy a coffee maker and pre-ground beans or go to a coffee shop and buy coffee when you want to drink it. To answer the latter, it is mainly due to my preference for black coffee, I do not put any sugar, milk, nor any other sort of flavouring in my coffee (although you could do this if you wanted). To answer the former, taste and freshness, simply put. Ground beans lose their taste and freshness less than an hour after they are opened and oxygenated, so by buying whole beans (preferably freshly roasted) and grinding only what you need for your brew, and right before you brew the coffee, you will have the best taste. This is also why I have a storage container that is completely blacked off (to prevent sunlight) and forces air out of the container when sealed, so that the beans stay as fresh as possible for as long as possible.
There are many types of grinders for grinding coffee, and likely not necessarily one type that is better than all the others.
Firstly, you have a dichotomy between hand, and electric grinders. Electric grinders will always be more convenient than manual/hand grinders. They do, however, have a major con of being very expensive. Much of what you are paying for when buying an electric grinder is the electric motor, and good ones are very expensive. For manual grinders, you have the disadvantage of having to use yourself as a motor, but you have a major advantage of them being cheaper than their electric counterparts. Simply speaking, the money you spend on a grinder will usually get you more out of the actual grinding mechanism in a manual grinder versus spending the same amount of money on an electric grinder.
Secondly, you have the type of tool used to grind the beans. Blade grinders are what you will find in many, if not most, cheap electric grinders. Just like any other type of blender, they will spin and cut the beans down to the size you want to brew your coffee, usually they are time based (the longer they run, the finer the grind). Burrs are the other main type of tool used to grind beans and are what you will find in all expensive and high-end grinders due to them being, by most people's standards, significantly better than using blades. Even then, however, burrs can be broken down into different burr types, usually conical and flat. For the sake of this post, I will not go into the details between each because you will generally not find flat burr grinders until you are willing to spend a lot of money (and flat burr grinders are almost always on electric grinders bar a very few set of flat burr manual grinders).
If you are really light on money or not sure if you will stick to the hobby, buy an electric blade grinder and use that as it will be the cheapest grinder you will find. If you are not light on cash, but still do not want to break the bank, I recommend buying a manual conical burr grinder such as an 1zpresso, as you will get much more bang for your buck from a manual grinder at lower price ranges than an electric one.
Many people that brew coffee like to brew at specific temperatures, I however almost exclusively brew at 100 degrees because I do not see much difference between brewing at boiling and lower temperatures. I mention this because, you can save a lot of money by buying an electric kettle that does not use any sort of temperature selection and only brings water to boiling. If, however, you wish to brew at different temperatures like many others do, or like me, brew a lot of tea, investing in an electric kettle that allows temperature selection is definitely worth it.
As for kettle types, you have standard necks, and goose necks. For coffee, goose neck kettles are almost always superior, and despite the fact that I do not own one (my kettle is a standard neck) I would recommend getting a goose neck kettle for the better control.