Better coffee. One cup at a time.

Month: November 2014

Putting Butter in Coffee- The Tasting Results Are in!

It is Thanksgiving week and I thought I would take a break from some general coffee topics and do something that is fun, trending, and well… possibly unhealthy. Butter is something that is a Thanksgiving staple at most feasts and, with the recent trend of people adding it to their coffee, I thought it was time to test a butter in coffee recipe.

Butter and Coffee-Background Information

A major cause of the recent popularity of butter in coffee is the founder of the website Bulletproof Executive, David Asprey. While traveling in Tibet, David was invigorated by a cup of tea with yak butter in it. From that experience, he came up with a recipe for Bulletproof coffee which contains, among other things, 1-2 tablespoons of grass-fed, unsalted butter.

Butter in coffee is supposably giving people a quick and easy breakfast alternative that provides six hours of energy. It does not sound like a good idea to consistently consume 2 extra tablespoons of butter for breakfast every morning and I personally will not be doing this. There is a good article on Healthline that discusses some reasons why putting butter in your coffee may be a bad idea.

But what does it taste like? I am a believer in the old adage that everything tastes better with butter. How could coffee be the exception? I drink my coffee black, but the prospect of putting butter in a cup of coffee is too intriguing to pass up.

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The Best Coffee Grinder-How to Choose?

Grinding your own coffee at home can dramatically increase the your brewed coffee quality. Coffee loses it’s freshness much faster in ground form over whole bean form. If you are looking to increase your cup quality and you are not grinding your own coffee, buying the right coffee grinder will give you some serious bang for your buck.

There are two basic types of coffee grinders you can purchase. The first is a standard blade type grinder (think Magic Bullet). The second type is what is known as a burr grinder. These two types of grinders have totally different ways of grinding coffee and thus have different results.

The importance of particle size and consistency

Before I break down the two types of grinders and make a few recommendations, I would like to talk about particle size and consistency . Particle size as It relates to coffee is how coarse or fine you grind your coffee. Based on your brewing method, you may want a larger particle size (for an immersion brewing technique like French Press brewing) or smaller particle size (Like for espresso).

One of the most important elements with particle size is consistency. You want to have all the particles to be roughly the same size. You do not want some really big chunks and some fine powdery chunks in your grind.

If you have an inconsistent grind, you will have an inconsistent cup of coffee. You will not get all the flavors you want out of the big chunks of coffee and the powdery coffee dust will be over extracted. The result will be flavors you do not want in your cup. Particle size and consistency are very important for cup quality.

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Getting Started- Pour-Over Brewing 101

A Genuine Handmade Cup of Coffee

Brewing a cup of coffee manually- without a coffee maker, can be a relaxing and enjoying daily ritual. It can also seem pretty daunting at first. If you are curious about manual brewing, the barrier to entry is actually really low. It can be about as simply as you want it to be.

One of the most popular methods of manual coffee brewing is a manual drip brewer, also known as a pour-over. This method is comparable in concept to what a standard coffee maker does with some very important exceptions.

Probably the most commonly known manual brewing method is the French press. Nearly everyone is at least familiar with the iconic glass pitcher and plunger attached to a screen combination. If you are interested in a French press brewing guide, it can be found here.

One important difference between an automatic drip coffee maker and a manual drip brewer is the water temperature. Many automatic coffee makers simply do not get the water hot enough to extract all the flavors you want out of your coffee. Water that is just off the boil, around 200-208 degrees Fahrenheit is widely accepted as the standard for ideal water temperature range.

Most pour-over brewers are a simple design— a device filter extracted ground coffee from hot water. Still, there are lengthy YouTube videos, heated forum debates, and even a manual brewing championship. Don’t get too caught up in all the technical details. You are just brewing a cup of coffee. It’s going to be great.

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