The Beans, The Gear, The Geeks
George Howell, Tasting – Two hours with George Howell! Or is it three? Is this any way to spend a day? If you’re into high-end coffee it is. George will be teach you to spot the nuances of dry and wet processed coffees. Your taste buds will never be the same. You too can become the neighborhood showoff when it comes to discerning palate. 
Jim Schulman, Espresso – If you want to spend another couple of hours, consider Jim Schulman, an amateur espresso enthusiast who’s also written doctoral-level dissertations on water and freezing coffee. Jim will walk you through all the various stages of espresso gear so that you know almost as much about it as he does. If you’re getting into home espresso or just want to experience an epiphany in your own technique, Jim’s presentation will enlighten you.
Oren Bloostein, Well Equipped Coffee drinker – At a time when Chicago had open barrels of good-but-not-great bean at Treasure Island, New York City already had Oren’s, a chain or fresh roasted coffee stores. Unlike Starbucks, Oren’s roasted dark enough to develop but never singe the beans. Oren Bloostein himself roasted and he was obsessed with freshness. The amazing thing is he still roasts this way. He still runs his stores first and foremost as bean stores, not brewed coffee stands. Best of all we have Oren himself, here and in person. Oren will present an overview filled with in-depth, but practical information, basic enough for the coffee entrant, but deep enough to get you to take notes. Oren will prove that an inexpensive pour-over Chemex is all you need to derive complete satisfaction from your coffee.
Todd Larabee, Drip Coffee Makers of All Kinds – Todd Larrabe is a coffeemaker importer. He will be introducing you to various manual drip makers from Hario and others. He will compare the flavor profiles of each and, with the help of some noted baristas, demonstrate them.
Michael Janssen, Sowden SoftBrew – At a time in history when coffeemakers are becoming more automated and contain the highest parts count in history, George Sowden designed a ground-breakingly simple coffeemaker, the SoftBrew. Michael will demonstrate this unique cross between an elegant tea kettle and French press, perhaps the simplest-ever coffeemaker.
Scot Wil, Grinding – Scot is a rare bird, a grinding expert. His company, Modern Process makes huge grinders for industry. I’ve had them test grinders for my CoffeeCompanion.com reviews. Scot will compare blade grinders and disc (burr) grinders and how different particle size distribution affects your coffee’s brew quality and the relationship between ground particle size and brew strength. If you think you understand grinders, think again. Scot just might convince you that the grinder, not the brewer, is the single most important link in the chain towards coffee cup perfection.
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
My friend and I would like to attend Coffee-Con. Are there still passes left?
Thank you
Yes, there are, just register right at this site.
Its nearly mpsoiable to get it fine enough in a food processor. You might wanna start like that then maybe wrap it up in plastic warp put it in a zip lock and try pounding it with a rolling pin or flat headed meat cleaver or something like that. If you still cannot get it fine enough you can always make a cold pressed ice coffee out of it soak it in cold water stirring occasionally for three or four days and you will have a low acid yummy ice coffee to drink
I will have to agree with Mazzy Star on this one. Burr grinders, while more pxneesive, are much better at grinding coffee to a consistent grind than their blade type counter parts.Other than using burrs (grinding wheels) to grind coffee, choose a grinder for its features. Some of them have automatic measurement systems, that grind what you need, and no more. This is good because roasted coffee in whole bean goes stale in about 2 weeks, while ground coffee will go stale in a matter of hours.Burr grinders can be a bit on the noisy side when in use, so look for one that has an insulated motor housing if that is a concern. The bottom line, you get what you pay for. I am not sure I would pay a couple of hundred dollars for a burr grinder choose a mid priced model, and you will probably get good value.One more thing. If you are planning on grinding “flavored” coffee beans, AND non flavored beans, you may want to consider purchasing 2 grinders. The flavor oils in the flavored coffees coat the grinder and will cross contaminate the non flavored coffees. This is especially important if you are really into the high end coffees. Nothing like paying $30 per pound for an exotic high end coffee, only to have it taste like hazelnut.~enjoy!
Just wanted to say that the cup of cowoby coffee this morning was amazing. My preference seems to be toward strong, thick coffee that you kinda have to chew. Maybe it is from years of making french press because my husband doesn’t like coffee (gasp!). I’m still trying to win him over, but so far all he really likes are cubano shots with a little cream and some cinnamon. Anyway- keep making the cowoby coffee. It was great- and really fun for the fall, too. Have a great one out there today!-Keri
I concur with Jay Brian the AeroPress is the signle best coffee-related accessory I\’ve EVER used. It\’s easy to use, quicker than quick, and makes really outstanding espresso. American-style coffee made with the AeroPress reminds me of the fancy Italian coffee stands I encountered last time I was in Europe rich (not watery) with a wonderful bit of crema. Seriously, forget the $500.00 espresso machine just buy an AeroPress from Roos Roast!
, I decided to give the Cuisinart a try baesuce it was cheaper. I’ve had this coffeemaker for two weeks and I’m already shopping for a replacement. First of all, it uses flat-bottom basket style coffee filters (Mr. Coffee-type filters), not the cone-style filters that are well known to produce better coffee. This info was not in any of the online descriptions or reviews. Secondly, it does not have a grinder not like the Capresso of Krups machines. Instead, it has a rotary blade chopper. Again, this info did not show up in any of the online descriptions or reviews. A blade chopper is not as good as a burr grinder, but you can still make a decent pot of coffee with a blade chopper as long as you are skillful in using it. With the Cuisinart, though, you have no control of the chopper so your skill or lack thereof is immaterial. Read on. To make a pot, put a fresh filter into the basket and pour water into the reservoir. Easy and straightforward. Next, lift the coffee chopper from the top of the machine, pry open the top with a fingernail then add the correct amount of beans to the chopper. This means you have to measure the beans for every pot. With both Krups and Capresso grind and brew machines, you add beans in bulk to the hopper (no measuring) then you instruct the machine how much coffee to grind for each pot much simpler. Then close the lid and place the chopper in the machine. Sounds simple, but I can’t do it without having to go get my reading glasses. That’s baesuce there’s a small round piece that needs to fit over a pin-type plunger and it just doesn’t want to fit unless you get it just right. Next you press the start button and what happens is the blades of the chopper start chopping the beans and at the same time centrifugal force makes all the beans whirl around inside the chopper. Part of the chopper wall consists of a perforated metal screen. As soon as a piece of bean is small enough to squeeze thru this screen, it does, and goes into the chute that leads to the basket. If this screen had a finer mesh, the coffee would just clog it up. So the mesh is fairly course and as a result you have coarse grounds. Coarse grounds in a Mr. Coffee-style flat basket. Bad, bad, bad. With both Krups and Capresso, you can choose a fine or coarse grind or anything in between. Then the water is heated, flows into the basket, and drips into the pot. Steam fills the inside of the machine including the inside of the chopper where it turns any remaining coffee grounds (dust) into mud. As a result, the chopper gets gummed up with coffee remains. This is not a big deal, but it adds another step to the care and feeding of this machine baesuce you have to clean the chopper in the sink after 3 or 4 pots. Are there any pluses? Yes. The pot has a good dripless spout. And the hot plate keeps the coffee in the pot at a good temperature. Also, you don’t have to use the built-in chopper. You can grind your owns beans, put them in the basket, then brew. But that kind of defeats the purpose of having a grind and brew coffeemaker, doesn’t it? What you have then is a machine that not only makes rather ordinary coffee, it’s also less convenient to use than its two main competitors baesuce of the measuring of the beans and the cleaning of the chopper. Of course, it’s cheaper than the competitors. Once again the old adage you get what you pay for holds true.
Hi Lora,
Your post is depressing. I ask myself how a designer would create such a woefully inadequate machine? Agreed, the blade chopper does not belong in a coffee brewing workflow. I tested two Cuisinart coffeemakers, each had very different problems from the other. They have typically good looks, but fall short of any culinary capability when it comes to good brewing. I would seek a refund on Amazon. Then take your money and get a good burr grinder (the more difficult of the two objectives) and a good brewer. There are good brewers for $100 if you scout for bargains. The grinder is something else. Poor burr grinders are not much better than a blade. I have no issue with flat-bottomed filters, in fact they offer some theoretical benefits, but in practice I would not decide on either. The parameters to seek in a brewers are 1) contact time between water and ground coffee – 4-8 minutes range, 2) ability to get all the grounds equally soaked with no dry grounds and 3) brewing temperature (195 t0 205F). I put those in order of importance to me. Grinder has one job, to grind to an exact size consistently. In drip it’s a little more complicated because the grind’s job is to keep the water turning into coffee moving along fast enough that it doesn’t back up but slow enough that it backs up enough to keep all the grounds under water.
Good luck!
Unfortunately most people make their stcileeon base on price. Some people make a choice after considering style’ or how it will look in the kitchen’.I have had several different grinders in the past 10 years and all were replaced after a year or less because they didn’t perform as claimed or they just plain gave out.I finally decided to listen to a few experts’ in the coffee industry and selected a MAESTRO PLUS for use at home. The experts’ I refer to are Tom at SWEET MARIA’S and the good folks on the List’ of Sweet Maria’s. Not only is the unit a great piece of equipment (manufacturing wise) but actually does what it claims it will do. I get a consistent grind from Espresso to French Press with the grinder. It has made a great difference in my home roasted coffee taste.I also convinced the folks at work to purchase the MAESTRO also and we are thankful we did. While using a Costa Rican bean a small stone found it’s way into the grinder and caused damage to the gears. Most grinders on the market would check’ the grinder to determine if it was a production error. I contacted the Folks at BARATZA (the manufacturer of the MAESTRO) and they informed my that the unit was still under warranty. They asked for my address and sent a replacement with instructions on returning the broken unit, post paid, with no cost to me. AND the replacement unit is deleivering even better performance than the original.The unit originally cost us $125.00, but it also save use $125.00 for get a quality grinder.Hope this helps Also posting a couple of links below
My wife Linda and I would liek to attend Oren Bloostein’s workshop.
Can we register for it?
Oren will be doing both Intro to Home Coffee Brewing. There are two sessions. Once you’ve registered for the event, go to the class schedule page and at the top there’s a register button. Oren is the common sense expert, the one who knows it all and is able to separate the real factors and the placebos.
Not to be snotty, but what do you excpet? This is a complicated coffee maker that’s not made by a coffee company. Cuisinart makes appliances, not coffee grinders. If you want a decent grinder get a Baratza Virtuoso or Maestro. Pay little, get little pay more, get more and you won’t have to deal with junk like this. Baratza will replace any grinder within one year after purchase with a new one.
Hi Kevin–
Jack and I are registered to attend, but couldn’t get in on any sessions. We’ve been talking about it all week, but just hadn’t pulled the trigger. Will it be worth the 3+ hour drive one way if we can’t attend any sessions?
Wow, sorry, I hope you came. We ended up opening a lot of classes, shoehorning in a lot of folks.
The interesting thing is what goes on inside a particle of coffee. Assuming transport is via small holes or pores that get bigger with extraction you could argue that the center of larger particles don’t actually feel pressure effects. Once you get beyond a certain depth (particle size) the most likely scenario is that the only thing which affects extraction is time. I actually look at a very similar process in mining as my main job so would love to find out more info on coffee leaching but the general principle is that there are 2 competing issues on what leaches and how fast. The first is chemical based- as in what it takes to liberate each soluble species in the coffee grain (which includes things like solubility and rate of dissolving, and probably pressure too and crucially this will be species dependent- i.e different species dissolve at different speeds)The second is diffusion based the time taken for water to get into the particle and for the dissolved species to travel out. For small particles diffusion is virtually nothing, for bigger particles it dominates.
I think you’re on an interesting track. I’m not sure anyone really knows what causes water to extract coffee oils. It would seem that water is a solvent, increasing its effectiveness at higher temperatures. Is agitation a factor? Is time the only factor? I’m not sure that adequate research has been done to say we’ve done any of this.
If you have the store receipt, go back and grind them in the etsros grinder. If not, a food chopper will give a coarse grind, not appropriate for coffee makers, but the right grind for a percolator. Hope this helps. (I tried grinding mine in my processor and my blender. Made the coffee weak. (I put a pan under the basket and poured the hot coffee back through, it helped but it didn’t taste as good.)
Apr02 My coffee rtnoiue these days is so pedestrian I refuse to even comment on it here.However, I am very familiar with hand grinders.From the age of about 5, it was my job to grind the morning coffee for my parents. At Mom’s house, I used a little braun electric grinder to prepare the grounds for her coffee while she made us breakfast.But at Dad’s house I used a hand grinder, almost identical to the one in your photo above, to grind enough coffee for at least 3 pots. I would sit in a chair by the fire, with the little box clamped between my knees and grind. And grind. And grind. And grind.The smell of fresh coffee being ground mingling with the smells of breakfast being grilled pancakes, eggs, bacon.No wonder my coffee rtnoiue is pedestrian! I have yet to have coffee flavour live up the anticipation those years of grinding created.
It all depend on how the coffee was made. For example, espresso which is extracted with high pressure releases most of the coffee flavors in the form of crema (millions of micro-CO2 bubbles filled with ceoffe aromats) . And crema is really fragile and loses its flavor and aroma as those micro bubbles burst, and in a matter of minutes you end up with a stale bitter coffee. However if it is drip ceoffe or plunger ceoffe, the flavor is directly infused into the hot water, so it takes longer for the coffee to lose its flavor. Whether you keep it hot or cold is not an big issue as the main thing that contribute to flavor loss is Oxygen. Similar to wine coffee loses flavor when it start oxidizing
Currently it sounds like Expression Engine is the best blogging platform out there right now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you’re using on your blog?