Coffee maker for beginners

Hollister11

I don't know the first thing an out coffee. The coffees I drink are nescafe americanos or insomnia Americano.

What coffee maker and beans are the best for a beginner to learn about baking your own fresh coffee.

CantGetNoSleep

A good start might be an aeropress and a grinder to grind your own beans (can't recommend a specific one as I don't know enough)

murphyebass

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

A good start might be an aeropress and a grinder to grind your own beans (can't recommend a specific one as I don't know enough)

Aeropress is soooooo good and stupidly cheap.

Get the coffee shop to grind your beans specifically for the aeropress and your good to go.

If you have a spare €200 or so for a burr grinder go for it.

The biggest mistake made by newbies to the coffee scene for want of a better word is buying an expensive machine and a cheap grinder and wondering why they can't replicate the results of a decent coffee shop.

The grind of your selected coffee is 90% of the equation.

J_E

You can get an Aeropress and a Hario Mini mill together for about 50 online. That will make you some really great coffee without a major investment, and then you can experiment with beans from different roasters.

murphyebass

J_E wrote: »

You can get an Aeropress and a Hario Mini mill together for about 50 online. That will make you some really great coffee without a major investment, and then you can experiment with beans from different roasters.

That's the way to go actually. Forgot that's what I bought my dad at Christmas. Great little hand grinder. Takes a bit of time but well worth the results.

Effects

murphyebass wrote: »

If you have a spare €200 or so for a burr grinder go for it.

A beginner will never spend €200 on a grinder, they just won't see the logic in it.

Glebee

Definitely for a beginner get an aeropress and get the coffee shop to grind your beans specifically for the aeropress. So simple and great coffee with very little hassle and expense. Its a great way to see the difference between decent coffee and instant.

MightyMandarin

Effects wrote: »

A beginner will never spend €200 on a grinder, they just won't see the logic in it.

Well wouldn't you just be better off getting a Hario hand grinder for ~€20 to start out with?

mossym

hopefully after a year the OP is well sorted at this point?

Day Lewin

You don't need any kind of a "maker" to infuse ground coffee beans in just-off-the-boil water.
Boil the water, let it cool a few seconds, then sprinkle on the ground coffee in the correct proportions.
(40 ml of grounds to 240 ml boiled water)
Wait until the grounds are steeped, then stir in. Wait a minute, stir again.
All you really need now is some means of separating the brewed liquid from the gritty grounds.
A very fine strainer will do the trick.
That's all a French Press is, really - a separator.

Pour your coffee through said very fine strainer into a warmed mug. Enjoy!

As for the beans themselves, there are hundreds out there and they can be roasted pale or dark, and ground to many degree of coarse or fine. The simple method described above works fine with medium-ground coffee - eg same as for a French Press or any Metal Filter.

I use these: http://www.finum.com/filters/permanent-filters/brewing-basket-m.html

mraie

Aeropress is a great start. You should check out Adverts for grinders, can get some great deal.

Conba

After three years of being inseparable from my Aeropress I've abandoned it since I started cold brewing a few months ago. I was never happy with my inability to achieve consistency with the Aeropress but with cold brewing I have the sweetest, smoothest coffee I could want, all week long after a single brewing session over the weekend. Just boil the kettle and cool it down with concentrate straight from the fridge. Perfect. Every time. Also very cheap and simple to do for beginners and experts alike.

dball

more details please conba.
What coffee are you using and how much grind

Conba

The really nice thing about doing cold brew, for me, @dball is that I get to try a much wider range of coffee than I used to when I was buying whole bean for the Aeropress. Yeah, of course there's a world of coffee to explore there but my budget stretched to the supermarket stuff mostly - Tesco Signature beans usually. That was because I'm the only coffee drinker in the house and bags of ground kept going stale with me before I got to the end.

Whereas now I'm able to try lots of different ground coffee (from the supermarkets again) and grind size hasn't mattered because it hasn't been an issue for me with the filter paper I'm using. So as well as my Aeropress taking a holiday in the back of the shelf so is my grinder. And the time I spend cold brewing at the weekend is less than the time I spend grinding and brewing (with the Aeropress) all week long, when it was added up.

mossym

and i'm the complete opposite, after numerous coffee making methods the aeropress is by far the most consistent method of making coffee for me. horses for courses and all that

murphyebass

mossym wrote: »

and i'm the complete opposite, after numerous coffee making methods the aeropress is by far the most consistent method of making coffee for me. horses for courses and all that

Yeah, I have to agree with this. Aeropress is consistant as ****.

And moreover, it's incredibly forgiving. my 4 year old could make a good cup of aeropress!

Espresso, maybe not so much.

Caroleia

Conba wrote: »

The really nice thing about doing cold brew, for me, @dball is that I get to try a much wider range of coffee than I used to when I was buying whole bean for the Aeropress. Yeah, of course there's a world of coffee to explore there but my budget stretched to the supermarket stuff mostly - Tesco Signature beans usually. That was because I'm the only coffee drinker in the house and bags of ground kept going stale with me before I got to the end.

Whereas now I'm able to try lots of different ground coffee (from the supermarkets again) and grind size hasn't mattered because it hasn't been an issue for me with the filter paper I'm using. So as well as my Aeropress taking a holiday in the back of the shelf so is my grinder. And the time I spend cold brewing at the weekend is less than the time I spend grinding and brewing (with the Aeropress) all week long, when it was added up.

hi Conba would you mind sharing how exactly you make the cold brew? I can see a few machines on Amazon but sounds like you're using a manual method?

Conba

Sure, I just followed the (manual) Jamie Oliver recipe here, more or less http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/

I didn't bother with the muslin sieve though - I just used used Melitta coffee filters for that bit.

Caroleia

Conba wrote: »

Sure, I just followed the (manual) Jamie Oliver recipe here, more or less http://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-features/features/how-to-make-cold-brew-coffee/

I didn't bother with the muslin sieve though - I just used used Melitta coffee filters for that bit.

thanks a lot - I want to try it and was hoping to find a method that didn't involve messing about with muslin