Black Coffee

greenbeans wrote:

beanophile wrote:

I'm a home roaster, and usually take mine with a bit of cream.

hey beanophile,

i started home roasting around a year ago. i've just been putting beans in a cast iron pot on a gas bbq outside and stirring. i'm looking for something with a stirring mechanism that i can use on the bbq since it will produce a more even roast but don't want to invest a bunch of money. what do you use?

If you are surface heating your beans then you are inherently going to have an uneven roast. Cheap methods for a more even roase would include a popcorn popper or the paint gun/dog bowl method. Better yet is to invest in a home roasting machine. You don't have to invest a ton of money although the more expensive ones are generally better. They start ~$150. Look at Sweet Maria's for info.

Just buy decent quality coffee and keeping drinking it black and you will develop a taste for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2gKHHmGXZ4

I agree that good coffee should be the starting point no matter what - it's shocking how big of a difference in taste there is between "average" coffee and "good" coffee. After that, though, I don't think there's such a thing as how coffee was "meant" to be taken. If you enjoy it with cream, take it with cream. If you enjoy it with sugar, take it with sugar. You're not ruining the coffee or breaking some sort of made up rule by adding to it.

As a note: I recently had this at a breakfast place in DC:

http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/

. Not sure which type they were brewing, but it was the best cup of drip-coffee I've ever had.

My theory on starbucks: They produce a crap cup of drip coffee (ie, pike's place) that is purposefully weak bodied and overwhelmingly bitter. This drives their customer base to retardedly over-milked and over-sugared pseudo-coffee drinks that cost $5 a pop, thus driving up profits. Also: deprives Americans of caffeine, a known metabolic stimulant, and instead adds hundreds of calories per beverage to the American diet, therefore perpetuating the obesity epidemic.

Yeah, their Pike's Place and Cafe Verona are not that good. Their French Roast is quite good, and that is what I brewed at home this morning. Italian is good, too. They have (had) another dark/bold type that I used to find all the time that I find no more. It was VERY good.

greenbeans wrote:

hey beanophile,

i started home roasting around a year ago. i've just been putting beans in a cast iron pot on a gas bbq outside and stirring. i'm looking for something with a stirring mechanism that i can use on the bbq since it will produce a more even roast but don't want to invest a bunch of money. what do you use?

i still like cream and sugar in my coffee but would like to not want it since it would be easier to travel with. there, still on topic.

I use a Whirly-Pop. It's cheap and you can do up to a pound at a time. With practice you can get a pretty even roast, but it also depends on the bean. I've tried electric popcorn poppers and a Fresh Roast (among other methods), but I keep going back to the Whirly-Pop even though it is still manual. I can't afford a Hot Top, and Behmors seem too limited for their price. It's been a fun hobby.

The Thingy you refer to is probably a "My K-Cup" Insert. I used it a few times but the coffee always tasted "off" was not a fan. Hopefully you will have more luck.

I only drink my coffee black and can recommend for the Keurig Emeril's bold variety and Newman's Own Extra Bold. You can get a box of 80 kcups pretty cheap at Sam's.

After reading Davids "Home Coffee Roasting," I have been curious about the Whirly-Pop. Did it take you a lot of trial and error to get a consistent roast/avoid baking?

lost my login wrote:

After reading Davids "Home Coffee Roasting," I have been curious about the Whirly-Pop. Did it take you a lot of trial and error to get a consistent roast/avoid baking?

No. I was surprised at how good my early roasts were. I would intentionally screw things up just to test the limits, like roasting as hot as possible or starting with a cold roaster. I have a standard profile and method I use that works for most beans, but you have to tweak it based on the bean. Dry processed beans are more finicky and prone to scorching or unevenness, but high elevation wet processed beans can handle high heat and produce very consistent results. I roast a lot for espresso, and I think it works nearly as good as any method once you get the hang of it. The only drag is the time commitment it takes to stand and crank for 10 minutes or more.

It's kind of like going from drinking light beer to craft beer. Eventually the latter tastes great.

beanophile wrote:

I use a Whirly-Pop. It's cheap and you can do up to a pound at a time. With practice you can get a pretty even roast, but it also depends on the bean. I've tried electric popcorn poppers and a Fresh Roast (among other methods), but I keep going back to the Whirly-Pop even though it is still manual. I can't afford a Hot Top, and Behmors seem too limited for their price. It's been a fun hobby.

i saw those and they look like they are made of aluminum which is why i wondered how they can get hot enough. is this electric? Would the electric pop corn popper get hot enough? i'm shooting for around 450-500 but i'm only guessing. this has to be done outside given the smoke.

i've only been using kona beans so far but i may veture out.

greenbeans wrote:

i saw those and they look like they are made of aluminum which is why i wondered how they can get hot enough. is this electric? Would the electric pop corn popper get hot enough? i'm shooting for around 450-500 but i'm only guessing. this has to be done outside given the smoke.

i've only been using kona beans so far but i may veture out.

They are aluminum. They used to make a steel model, but you can't find them anymore. Electric poppers work, but you have to find the right models, and they only roast about 4 oz at a time. I roast inside with the range hood on. Unless you live in Hawaii and can get cheap Kona I'd definitely try other beans. I get almost all my beans from Sweet Marias. They have great coffee and lots of good info about roasting.

Once you go black, you never go back.

Hey everyone, thanks for all the replies! Some cool stuff in there. But...and not to be pushy...I am still holding out for some anecdotes about enhanced/better/improved running/training/racing performance from the switch. This is all about how switching to black coffee improved your running.

Stuff like, "The cream was causing me to be phlegmy and cutting that out helped my breathing."

"Getting the sugar out helped shave off a couple pounds and I was able to train at faster paces and improve my times."

Stuff like that.

Coinstar wrote:

This is all about how black coffee improves your running.

I know a cup of black coffee in the morning about an hour before the run gets the bowels moving quickly so I don't end up having to take a dump in the bushes somewhere.

One time I ordered a coffee at a drive-thru window and asked for cream and sugar. When I was almost done the coffee, I took off the lid and saw that it was black. I was surprised that I couldn't tell the difference. That was 5 years ago; I've gone black ever since. I think people who drink their coffee black are bad-ass.

slainte wrote:

Once you go black, you never go back.

I honestly cannot believe that it took, what, 35 posts before this was posted.

Coinstar wrote:

Hey everyone, thanks for all the replies! Some cool stuff in there. But...and not to be pushy...I am still holding out for some anecdotes about enhanced/better/improved running/training/racing performance from the switch. This is all about how switching to black coffee improved your running.

Stuff like, "The cream was causing me to be phlegmy and cutting that out helped my breathing."

"Getting the sugar out helped shave off a couple pounds and I was able to train at faster paces and improve my times."

Stuff like that.

You are looking for too much, sorry.

If you think you have a milk allergy, drop the milk. Pretty simple, eh? Either add no type of "lightener", or try a little soy milk or something like that. My personal opinion is that more people who are not used to true black coffee (no cream or sugar) will miss the sweetener more than the lightener.

As far as the sweetener, did you say you were using an artificial sweetener? Personally, I think that stuff is pretty gross. It is much sweeter than sugar, so that might be why you are having trouble switching. In small amounts, artificial sweetener is not bad for you, but unless you have a weight problem, a teaspoon or two of sugar or honey is obviously not bad for you either. Yes, if you were drinking 6 cups a day with tablespoons of sugar in there, sure, that might add a little weight to even a runner. But that would be an excessive amount. For most people, having a cup or two a day, with maybe a couple extra teaspoons of sugar, this will make no difference to their body weight. Furthermore, a little sugar before a run might help fuel you, give you more energy, and make you run/workout harder.

So if you don't like it completely "black" (no lightener, no sweetener), and your concern is milk allergy or excess sugar/calories/artificial crap, the solution is easy:

* go with a VERY SMALL AMOUNT of non-dairy creamer (soy based) or no lightener at all

* go with a VERY SMALL AMOUNT of sugar

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. You can go 99% black and avoid your concerns. But again, unless you were drinking tons of coffee and really loading it up with tons of cream and sugar, I don't think the calories were a big problem (especially since you were not even using sugar apparently, but zero calorie sweetener). If you are worried about milk, that's easy, stop putting milk in there and choose nothing or something non-milk for the lightener.

But unless you had a serious milk allergy, I don't think this switch is going to make a dramatic difference in your life or running (but who knows, the placebo effect is powerful. If you believe it will happen! )

Coinstar wrote:

Stuff like...

"Getting the sugar out helped shave off a couple pounds and I was able to train at faster paces and improve my times."

Stuff like that.

Most runners I know (myself included) have to pretty much eat everything in sight just to keep from completely wasting away. One might like black coffee for any number of reasons, but I can't imagine that any distance runner would benefit from the reduction in calories.