Jerry Avins wrote:

John McGaw wrote:

If you want good coffee and are willing to do a minimum of work for
it
then you would be better off with a cone-type maker with a
gold-metal
filter (rather than the disposable paper) or a French-press which is
my
personal favorite. And for a step up you could start buying
top-quality
beans and grinding them fresh before each use, make sure that your
water
is perfect, using a fixed brewing time of 4 minutes and adjust the
amount of grounds to get the proper strength, and controlling the
temperature at which the water makes contact with the grounds
(204-208F
is optimum).

And yes, before you ask, I _am_ something of a coffee snob...

That's as may be, but I think I out-snob you. First, I hope those
tablespoons were at least heaping. I use an ounce by weight for five
coffee cups. (A cup is eight ounces, but the "cup" marks on coffee
brewers are about six. If my coffee were ground coarsely enough to use

with fine mesh filters, I would need more yet. Paper filters let me
get
more flavor grim the same beans by grinding them finer.

Jerry
--

I always toss in an extra heaping tablespoon 'for the pot', if making 4
cups of coffee i use 4 cups of water and 5 tbs. of coffee.

I suppose i have become what ever the opposite of a coffee snob is.
About a year ago i broke another french press and wanting a cup of
coffee before i went out and bought another press i decided to make
'camp fire' coffee, just boiling the coffee grounds in a cooking pot
with water, after it comes to a boil and simmers for a minute i take it
off the heat and let it sit for a couple of minutes and then pour.
Works fine for me. To the point i have felt no need to buy another
coffee pot, French press or otherwise. For guests i will make the
coffee the same way but serve it in a decorative coffee pot i have first
warmed up with boiling water.

The loose grounds sink to the bottom of the cooking pot and a careful
decanting of the coffee leaves it with no residual grounds in the actual
coffee to be drank.
---
JL