Clever Coffee Dripper

Coffee, cigars and rum go togther like priests and choirboys. Indeed the brothers are known to have a tipple now and then. Oh and some rum, cigars and Belgian beer as well, lol...
Hassouni
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Clever Coffee Dripper

Post by Hassouni »

Or other similar products. Anyone used one?

I've been using a Hario manual grinder with the Hario V60 system for a while know, and it works great, but I'm bloody sick of manually grinding beans and delicately pouring the water in just so when I first wake up and can barely tell my ass from my elbow.

To that end, I just pulled the trigger on a Baratza electric burr grinder, so that solves the manual grinding part.

As for brewing, the CCD seems perfect, similar product as the manual filter cones, but without needing great finesse and constant attention.

So, is this the answer for my bleary-eyed first coffee of the day?
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

For purposes of elucidation...


Image

The CCD sells at Maria's for $18-22 and is really not a whole lot different than the system on your good old Senor Coffee with the exception that instead of draining into the coffee cup, the good Senor is designed to drain into your coffeepot. But as for a cup?

Technically you could simply load an appropriate amount of ground coffee into your Senor Coffee - without using the pot - and pour an appropriate amount of hot water in, let it brew, lift it out and drain it into your cup by laying a butter knife just off center across your cup, then lowering the filter onto it and voila! Your own Possibly Cleverer Coffee Dripper. Caveat: requires dependable ass and elbow differentiation.

Seriously, this is just a common dripper with its valve designed to be activated by the rim of your cup. Not a bad idea. Maria's sales pitch is this...
In essence, the Clever Coffee Dripper combines the best features of French press and filter drip brewing, eliminating the drawbacks of each. With French press brewing, you have control over steeping time, but heat loss and sediment in the cup can be a problem. Brewing with a paper filter is easy and convenient; the problem is lack of control over steeping time (i.e. the coffee begins to drain immediately).
In sum the French Press controls brew time but has sediment, while the ordinary drip filter controls sediment but not time. Thus the CCD. But perhaps they need to read their own website.


How 'bout the Aeropress?

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This is a kind of French Press (controlled brewing time) - BUT - has a handy filter (no sediment). Does it work? Let's ask, uh, Maria...
Brewing with the AeroPress gives good control over the variables - you can easily adjust the water temperature or water-to-coffee ratio to change the results. In my tests, the cup results match both the full pot Technivorm brews and my cupping results (the process where we mix grinds directly with water and use a spoon to taste many coffees at once.)
In sum, yes. And just like the CCD you deliver the coffee directly to the cup. I have one and the only thing that keeps me from using it - or the CCD - is that in the morning and just like Hass I just want a cuppa decent Joe from my always relatively fresh, home roasted, freshly ground coffee (typically a blend of Columbian and Ethiopian). I do NOT want to have to boil water and/or wait for it to cool to some "ideal" temperature. Nope, I want my brewer to do ALL the work while I toast my homemade rye bread.

Ergo Senor Coffee, though I admit to filling the unit with hot water from the tap. Same goes for grinding - for drip style coffee the Krups One Touch is economical ($17), very fast and does quite well. Couldn't be easier to use or maintain and is bulletproof. An oh, has a nice safety cap to prevent the accidental insertion of an elbow...
Last edited by Capn Jimbo on Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hassouni
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Post by Hassouni »

I should have pointed out that I have a Zojirushi automatic water boiler, so I have nearly boiling water available at the push of a button whenever I want.
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Post by sleepy »

Your Clever Dripper is another variant on the Melitta coffee maker. IIRC, numerous sources provide single cup drip cones, using #2 filters. These are designed to sit on a cup and provide a single cup/mug w/ 1-2 tbs of ground coffee. Only trick is learning the pour - a little bit to thoroughly wet, pause a half a minute, fill cone to capacity of your cup, let drip, enjoy!

It's effectively what I used for years for my afternoon cuppa. Enjoy!
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Good stuff...


Truth be told, I rather like this CCD idea. It's not all that expensive, and I daresay the coffee would be better. Just for the fun of it I think I'll measure the number of cups Senor's filter basket holds, place a filter, add that amount of grind, pour the aforesaid amount of water into Senor's water tank, and let him fill the basket with good hot water - wait - then use my patented butter knife across the cup method to fill the pot and/or my cup.

To be continued...
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Post by Hassouni »

Just to clarify, I don't have a CCD. Just a Hario V60, and it's the precise pouring that I can't be bothered with when I've just woken up, that I'm hoping the CCD can avert
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

MacGuyver lives!


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In yet another harebrained adventure I just hadda MacGuyvre a test. For me it all started with Mr. Wizard. Work? Are you kidding? Household chores? They can wait. MacGuyvre a cuppa Joe? Now you're talkin...


The Method:

Having dreamt of sugar plums and clever coffee dripping all night I awoke with a mad grin and jumped to my aching feet. Like tasting rum this deserved a test and yup - a reference standard. And as always, done on the absolute cheap.

For the test:

First I measured the capacity of Senor Coffee's filter basket: 3 cups. Good. Next and lacking Hass' sophisticated water heating apparatus, I simply poured 3 cups of our good tap water into the water reservoir of the good Senor, and ran the water through the empty basket and into the awaiting Senor's coffee pot below.

Next I put a filter in the basket, tossed in 3 measures of ground coffee, and poured the now ideal temperature water into the basket. Per the anal retentive Maria I waited 1-1/2 minutes, gave it a stir and left it brew for a total of EXACTLY 4 minutes. Well, close. Now the tricky part!

Using my now patented butter knife method, I returned the now capless Senor's pot to its usual position under the basket, reached in and used the butter knife to open the valve and - MacGuyvre Lives! - my now Even Cleverer and Cheaper Coffee Dripper delivered just less than 3 cups of hopefully great java to the pot.


The Acid Test: How'd it taste?


And was it worth all the BS to make it? Yes and no, er good and maybe. I like my coffee hot - not because I wanna sue MacDonald's (though I would - for convincing us that in addition to paying too much for crappy food we're also led to clean up our own tables) - nope, I just like it that way.

In truth, the coffee did in fact taste better. It was just notably smoother in a strange way, a sense of improved integration and mellowness. Not that I necessarily dig that as in the morning one rather needs more of a slap in the face. It's in the evening that effect is more appreciated.


The Acid Acid Test: the Reference Standard

Now any of you who have spent more than 4 minutes perusing the Project have been often reminded of the importance of a reference standard, or at the least a comparison to a known spirit. Many is the time Sue Sea and I were ready to give a higher score when the reference rum brought us back to our senses.

That's true for all.

So natch, I quickly brewed another 3 cups but this time letting the good Senor do ALL the work. In short order I now had two fresh, hot cups of coffee to compare: the Even Cleverer drip with the smiling Senor's. Would my earlier impressions hold? Or was I just nuts? Don't answer that!

The - tada - result? The Phenomenally More Clever drip WAS better, smoother, somehow fuller - noticeably but not dramatically. And to be fair - and at least for my now patented method - quite a bit more work. But not a centivo more in cost though. Ha! The other limitation: by pressing the Senor into service limited me to 3 cups of java - enough for me, but not for Sue Sea.

Another factor - for me - is that the Senor is run only once for 8 cups of coffee, nicely retained in its nice, insulated SS pot. Two cups for me in the am, two for Sue Sea somewhat later, and a couple for us together after that. Prepared once and once only by our good Senor.


Flat Ass Bottom Line

1. The CCD or any of the like designs - will make what some may consider a better cuppa Joe. I did, with certain reservations (lack of a good slap). Mind you the differences are notable but not dramatic.

2. The "small" CCD will deliver just 10 oz of java, the "large" just 18 oz (barely more than 2 cups). For lonely bachelors this is perfect. You see the design is based on the notion of delivering the fresh, hot brew directly to a cup or two. That is both its success and its failure.

For couples or families that normally brew a nice 8 or 10 cup pot every morning, having to go through the CCD procedure 4 or 5 times? When asses and elbows are indistinguishable, the mind fuzzy and tempers short? This my friends is surely a consideration, especially when the improvement is less than dramatic.

However to be fair, if the CCD were available in a "Family Economy Sized" version that would make an honest 8 cups, count me in.



*******
Capn's Absentminded Note: Hass' real inquiry was whether the CCD - with it's handy valve - would avoid the need for the coordination of ass and elbows in the early am. Even though our need for a full pot of coffee - once - trumps the CCD for now, the CCD is clearly easier in the sense that all you have to do is time it. No need for variable, shaky hand pouring at some indefineable rate. Nope, it's just pour the water, stir once, wait for 4 minutes and done.
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

You think I'm obsessed? Think again...


Here's Maria's completely obsessive instructions for the CCD:
For the "large" CCD:

"For 15oz of coffee you'll need 18oz of water and 33g of ground coffee. For 30oz of coffee double that... but you'll have to refill the CCD twice"

And...

"We have found for the most accurate brewing that it is best to measure your water by weight" (!)
Is it just me or does anyone else actually believe there's such a huge difference that - my god! - actually weighing your water would make a real difference? Spare me. Here's the facts:

At 70 degrees: 8.329 lb/gallon
At 80 degrees: 8.318 lb/gallon

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water ... d_661.html

For a ten degree difference in your morning room temperature (not likely) the huge difference? Are you sitting down? It's just one tenth of one percent! Give me a freaking break. And for this Maria is recommending that you find and get out your scale, zero it in to account for the measuring container, then oh-so-carefully pour in the Maria-specified number of grams (!) of water? Do that and you'll be late for work. The human doesn't exist who can blind taste the difference with a coffee made with water measured by volume.

Surely they are kidding, right? Wrong.

Please gag me with a spoon. This is surely the most ridiculous, impractical and - honestly - nutty advice I've ever seen. But I will tell you this. For some bizarre reason the purveyors of "fine coffee" commonly go almost any length to create a faux-scientific atmosphere around what is really a bit less than rocket science. And you thought Sidney Franks's vodka was bad. A great example of this is Maria's forum where afficianados will actually add a couple hundred dollars of controls to an inexpensive popcorn popper used for roasting.

The real truth: roasting, like pot distilling can be quite competently done with the instruments you were born with: your senses of sight, sound, hearing and taste.

To be fair, I like Maria's and buy all my beans from them. For that purpose they are great, they know their beans and I trust their quality and selections. It's only when we get into the forced precision and high art that I find myself chuckling.

Weigh water for coffee? Really?
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Post by Hassouni »

I pour the water for my Hario with a Turkish coffeepot, and I know more or less how much 12 oz of water is on there, so I don't bother with weighing. Anyway remember, 29-let's say 30-mL per oz, 1 mL per gram, so 12 oz of water is roughly 360 grams. Weighing water and precisely measuring it's volume are really the same activity, but if you use a scale to weigh coffee, it's easier to just do the water by weight, assuming the brewing device is kept on the scale.

I initially weighed coffee as a "reference" standard, and can confirm that the Hario coffee scoop is pretty acurrate in its gram markings. Consequently I neither weigh coffee nor water anymore.
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Cold Brew

Post by bearmark »

I've been using a cold brew system in addition to my automatic espresso machine. The one that I use is a Ronco Coffeetime Brew System ($10 on Amazon), but the Toddy Cold Brew System is probably more popular ($35 on Amazon). I got the Ronco because it's cheap, I can travel with it (plastic instead of glass) and because it works just as well.

Here's an article about the advantages of cold brewing, which I greatly prefer to hot drip coffee. I still prefer espresso brewing or using a press, but the cold brew is close to the flavor that I get from a press. The system produces a coffee concentrate that you dilute to the preferred strength. If you're making iced coffee, then it really makes sense, but it also works for hot coffee by just adding boiling water. The key is that the coffee is only heated once (multiple temperature changes are not friendly to coffee, so this is important).
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*******
Capn's Log: A couple of excellent and very informative posts. Although Sue Sea makes Sun Tea all the time, why this never occured to us is a mystery. Bear's linked article is a must read - it convinced me that cold-brewing may reveal much more (and less acidic) flavor, which is actually a factor for those of us with a bit of reflux. Age sucks. Nice post.

BTW, what's even better is that according to the article, a real cheapskate like moi needs not even spend the $10, but can achieve a relatively long lasting and tasty concentrate in a mason jar. Hooah!
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

Yet another crackpot (registered pun) idea...


Just kidding, you must use an intact pot, although harebrained, er hairlined crackpots are just fine and philosophically superior. Hass, it seems your elbow and ass issue is quite real for most of us, not least moi, and when I read Maria's procedure for pre-heating the dripper and cup, wetting the grind, then having to pour with various timing and patterns, well...

It's just too damn early in the morning. And now you have a dripper that sits idle. Not so fast!!

The cracked idea: set up your dripper as usual with a prewetted filter as you may choose - but - don't brew the coffee in it! No! Instead, how bout this notion - set a common small stainless sauce pot on your stove (in case you wish to pre-heat it), toss in the appropriate amount of coffee, then pour the also appropriate amount of hot water over it. Give it a quick swirl, wait say 4 minutes and...

Simply pour it through your dripper which is now just a handy and effective filtering mechanism. The result: timed and sediment free coffee, ass and elbow proof method, no additional expensive new equipment needed, and you get some use out of your dripper.

Howzat?
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Post by Hassouni »

Yeah I've been thinking of something similar
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Post by Hassouni »

Currently drinking coffee (from my new Baratza grinder!!!!!!) that I set to steep in a pyrex measuring cup, sort of like an über-ghetto French press. I then poured that through my Hario brewer and filter, and the result is pretty damn nice.

I may try out this cold brew thing too, to make it even easier.
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Post by NCyankee »

I think when talking about weighing the water, they are referring to after brewing - to allow for the amount of water absorbed by the grounds, and stop extraction before hitting the "tails" (to borrow a distilling term). I watched a pourover video one time and the guy had his carafe on a postal scale, and pulled it when it hit 700 g.

I've done the stir-steep-filter method before, only problem is I've been accustomed to making 24 oz of coffee at a time and it doesn't fit in the filter basket of my coffee maker.

If I am in the mood for one cup, I use this method and pour it through my Vietnamese coffee maker - this gives unfiltered French-press like results without the grounds, as the Viet filter keeps out coarse grinds better than the French press filter - but takes a little more time to drip through.
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Post by Capn Jimbo »

NCyankee wrote:I think when talking about weighing the water, they are referring to after brewing - to allow for the amount of water absorbed by the grounds, and stop extraction before hitting the "tails" (to borrow a distilling term). I watched a pourover video one time and the guy had his carafe on a postal scale, and pulled it when it hit 700 g
Maybe it's just my synapses, but after multiple re-reads I can't seem to come to any interpretation other than Maria is recommending weighing the coffee and water separately before brewing - particularly noting both their video and written instructions. In any case there is negligible difference between measuring volume and weight. If this were a true science wouldn't we see a range expressed, eg 700g of water +/- 5 grams, nicht vahr?

http://www.sweetmarias.com/brewinstr/br ... t.drip.php

Although I certainly agree there are some valid issues (for example rinsing the paper filter) methinks the cheese is being cut a bit too thinly (pun intended), lol - but hey, if the operator believes a clockwise pour from the center out (rather than the opposite) brings deeper meaning to his/her existence, who am I to disagree?

If it floats yer boat...
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