mr. coffee, you need to be a little more clever

Well, dispite the delay I have found some time to write this post. This past week the LDP 1's have been in the water for their lifeguard certification course and I haven't had much time to do anything other than my job. This is a welcome change from the days of not knowing what to do, but rest is nice as well. On Monday we leave for the Allagash, so I won't be able to blog for a couple of weeks. I'll be back the following Tuesday evening.

For this post I'd like to address the issue of good coffee. Most people don't want to invest a lot of time or money into equipment for their coffee, which I can understand. But I think nearly everyone has access to a automatic drip coffee maker (Mr. Coffee, Cuisinart, etc.) and by using the following method you can have much better coffee than by just throwing the grounds in and hitting the button. You'll want to make sure that the filter basket has a mechanism to keep the coffee from dripping through if the coffee pot isn't under it. If it doesn't you'll have a hot mess all over the place. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

The first thing you'll need is the coffeemaker. Get your usual filters and pre-wet those with boiling water. This rinses out the filter taste from your cup. The second thing you will need is a grinder. A conical burr grinder is best, though if you don't have one you can use pre-ground or grind with a blade grinder. Don't tell the coffee snobs I said that, because it really isn't the best. I used about 7 spoonfuls of coffee for this recipe.

The next thing you'll need is hot water. This is the "coffee" maker at camp, but the red lever provides water that is hot enough to do the trick. You can also boil water on the stove or in a hot pot, just let it rest for about twenty seconds after removing it from the heat. You're looking for about two-hundred degrees. After your water is ready and your filter is rinsed you can put the grinds in the filter-basket. Put enough water in the filter basket to allow the coffee to bloom (about 1/4 full) for about thirty seconds, then fill the basket up the rest of the way.

I use my watch to time, you're going to want to start with a 4.00 infusion. Stir at about the 2.30 mark and the 4.00 mark, at which time you should slide the coffee pot under the filter basket.

The thing I like about this method, versus the clever coffee dripper, is that the brewed coffee drains really quick. I've never been able to get the brewed coffee out of the clever quickly enough for my taste. When it's done, it's done. The coffee needs to drain quickly, or you risk over extraction.

I hope to try this out with my hand grinder and some better coffee, but as is it works pretty well.

I'll write again in a couple of weeks, in the meantime check out the Allagash River. That's where I'll be from Monday until the following Tuesday.

Luke
luketlancaster@gmail.com