You can also do americano style with the AP. If I’m brewing to 3 people at once, I make the coffee very strong, and then dilute it with milk or water to make it just right.

About 75 €/month at most, but that would require drinking only specialty coffee. Normally I also have a bag of cheap supermarket coffee, which I use for experiments and training. Really good specially coffee costs about 80…100 €/kg, while good light roasted fresh supermarket coffee costs about 14 €/kg, so that can easily bring that monthly expense down.

Since I drink a little bit of both, I think the overall cost is somewhere around 30…40 €/month.

AP filers are really cheap, so they contribute only cents to the monthly sum. Can you really taste the difference between two filter types? If so, can Chemex really justify the higher cost?

In addition to what everyone else has already mentioned, I would like to point out that tasting is a skill you can develop. It’s possible to taste the difference between two methods or recipes, but if you haven’t developed that skill, it’s very hard to tell if a particular change or consistency even matters. Without this skill, you won’t really appreciate the time and effort you put into making coffee in a particular way.

I drink about two cups a day (400 ml in total), and I definitely get a headache if I drop my caffeine intake too suddenly. If I was adapted to drinking much less, then I might be able to go an entire day without noticing anything, but at the current level, it’s just not going to happen. Did James mention how much coffee do the participants normally drink every day? If they are all in the 1 cup club, these results are only exploring one extreme of the scale.

And you would need to include exteme cases to make the effects visible. Having two cups a day might not be enough, and 4 might just approach the limit. People who drink like 10 cups a day should stand out in a study like this.

That was a great video! James takes these things rather seriously when compared to other coffee people. For example, there are lots of people who say you should rinse the aeropress filter or stop pushing once you hear the hiss, but James said those things don’t matter, so why bother with extra steps like that. The same idea applies here. There are lots of strange but appealing ideas floating around, but many of them are not worth your time.

Last time I had a sore throat, I drank a lot of hibiscus (sort of like tea, but not even close). Obviously, I still had to fuel my caffeine addiction so I did have my usual coffee too, but most of the time I had a warm cup of hibiscus with me. Whatever you end up drinking, make sure it isn’t too hot, because that’s going to make everything worse. Hibiscus appeared to work just fine for me.

Can confirm. If you wish to listen to something while in the train/subway or in some other noisy environments, such as a bus stop right next to a busy road, ANC really helps a lot. Obviously, it’s no replacement for proper hearing protection, but instead of cranking up the volume through the roof, you can listen to things at a very reasonable volume despite the noisy environment.

And Siri will immediately call the local exterminator…

Better call my local roach doctor then…

Those are pretty familiar experiences. Especially the thing about sharing files and having access to specific applications.

A few years ago, I used to travel with my actual laptop (Lenovo Yoga) and it was great in many ways, even though there were drawbacks too. It’s a linux computer, so it runs all the apps I really need and the rest works through a website. The battery life isn’t great, and the computer is big and heavy, but at least it’s an actual computer and it’s able to do all the things I want from a computer. Gnome is nice in many ways, and it’s also pretty cool with a touch screen. Unfortunately, Firefox can’t handle touch screens that well and Gnome Web can’t handle websites that well. That’s why I rarely use that laptop in the tablet mode, so the yoga feature ends up being little more than eye candy.

A few years ago, I tried to use an older iPad, and it worked out surprisingly well while traveling. A few months later I upgraded to another used iPad, but this time it was the pro model and I even got a keyboard for it. Now, this is my first 12” iPad pro, and it really feels a lot like a computer.

Obviously, you can’t do all the real computer stuff with it, but while traveling I rarely need to. Mostly, I’m just browsing Lemmy, watching videos, typing messages, and doing simple calculations on Apple Numbers. Moderately complex calculations still require LibreOffice Calc, because Apple Numbers is pretty feeble.

I’m using my moka pot on an induction stove that goes from 1 to 9, and there’s also a P setting for max power. Normally, I just use P or 9 to make the water boiling hot. Then I leave it at zero and assmble the whole pot. After that, I set it to 2, and wait. Letting the water cool down just a little at zero heat is important. If you keep the stove at 2 while assembling the moka pot, you’ll get the water flowing way too fast, and you’ll get under extracted weak coffee.

There’s a reason for doing it this way. If you heat the water with number 2 power, it’s going to take way too long. If you give it more heat, it will obviously heat up faster, but it will also increase the flow way too much. On top of that, you’ll also get steam running through the grinds, and that tends to bring out all the bitter notes very quickly. Therefore, doing the extraction at the lowest heat possible is the way to go. Since the moka pot doesn’t have a pressure gauge, it’s very difficult to tell when would be the ideal time to reduce the power. In order to avoid that problem, I recommend boiling the water before assembly.

I’ve only used a steel moka pot. How is it easier than one made of aluminium?

Haven’t done a lot of pour over coffee, so my ideas might be inaccurate in that regard. I still use a moka pot from time to time, and have experimented with that enough to compare these methods to some extent. However, the AeroPress is my main method of choice.

control

Based on what I’ve observed, I think the key feature of an AeroPress is control. You can use any grind size, any extraction time, and any temperature below boiling. None of these variables are tied to one another in any way. With other methods, they are tied, so you will find yourself using one variable to control another, which isn’t ideal.

grind size and extraction time

With a pour over, you have to make the grind size big enough, or your paper will clog up. Clogged up paper will result in a long extraction time, which might not be what you want, so in a pour over you are essentially using grind size to put some limits to the extraction time. You can use coarse grind and pour very slowly to have more control over the result, but you can’t use fine grind and expect to have the same amount of control. Besides, pouring extremely slowly isn’t for everyone. With the AP, fine grind isn’t a problem, because you’ll be using the piston to push the water through the paper. Even if the paper is totally clogged up, because you used super fine Turkish grind, you can just push the water through anyway.

yield

Pour over method is still worth considering, because it allows you to irrigate the grinds with fresh water all the time, which maintains a high rate of extraction. However, you can also push that too far, which will result in bitter coffee. With the AP, it’s harder to screw up like that, because the grinds are constantly in contact with the water. Once enough has been extracted to the water, extraction rate will naturally slow down. That makes AP a more forgiving method. However, if you really want to maximize yield, pour over might be better for you.

temperature

Pour over and AP allow you to use whatever temperature you prefer, but the moka pot doesn’t. When the water is hot enough to produce steam, the pressure will begin to push the water through the grinds. High temperatures like that are good for efficient extraction, but they are also dangerously close to producing bitter coffee. It’s very easy to screw it up with the moka pot, whereas pour over and AP are far more forgiving in this regard.

strong coffee

I have never tried to make extra strong coffee with the pour over method, so I don’t really know how well that would work out. The moka pot and AP are really good at making strong coffee, although they can also be used for making normal strength as well. In this regard, they are quite flexible.

number of drinkers

The AP and moka pot have volume limitations, whereas a pour over allows you to just pour more and continue extracting. The AP is also ideal for making one normal cup at a time, but it can also be used for making 3-4 cups of strong coffee. The same philosophy also applies to the moka pot. Ideally, you would load the basket full and fill the water reservoir to make several cups of strong coffee - that’s what it’s designed to do. However, you can use less grinds to make normal coffee for a smaller number of people. The AP also allows you to make tiny experimental batches. This is really good if you want to compare different types of coffee, but you don’t want to drink too many cups. With the inverted method, you can easily make 100 ml batches instead and compare those with each other.

It seems that the older models had a problem that was fixed. So, the tip needs to be tweakws a bit.

If you have an older model, store the pieces separately in order to prevent the rubber from being under constant compression. If you have a newer model, push the piston all the way in until the end of the piston pops out the other end. Oh, and that is only possible if the cap isn’t screwed on. That piece needs to be stored separately anyway.

Interesting. I’m using the AP Go, so maybe the normal one doesn’t extend all the way through.

Edit: just checked how my normal AP works. It’s basically the same as the AP Go, but I guess this is a fairly new model, so there may have been some changes.

Are you using an older version?

Pretty much the same with an AeroPress.

Just push the piston all the way in, and the rubber clicks when it comes out the other end of the cylinder. This way you can store it in a compact package.

When I’m docking my space ship in 3rd person view I really wish I had a better idea of how close I really am. A 2D display just doesn’t do a good job no matter how many pixels and fps I have. It’s not a 3 k€ problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Once I saw a bag of over roasted beans from a small roaster. They screwed up the process and ended up with a batch that tasted like smoke, ash and charcoal. Instead of throwing it away, they decided to sell it instead.