286803 Wed Dec 27 17:43:51 -0800 2000 24 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1539383 I'm always disappointed with my efforts at home-brewed coffee. Starbucks' new vacuum brewer, its Barista Utopia" is supposed to be the last word...but is it? Has anyone tried it? I'd especially appreciate comments about ease of cleaning and coffee temperature, in addition to the obvious question...how does the coffee taste? Wed Dec 27 17:43:51 -0800 2000 0 Barry 1 1539388 Please, please folks, any real "Chowhound" should stay away from Starbucks products and their joints, including the franchises at Barnes and Noble. I visited Barnes and Noble, here in Augusta Maine and had a regular at the counter, for a Dollar seventy four the mug. I asked the attendent how long ago the coffee was brewed, "less than an hour and a half ago" was the answer, I asked what Starbuck policy is on holding made coffee, and was told that it should be kept up to 2 Hours!!!! I wrote an E-mail to Starbuck requesting info on the subject, and their reply was: 1. Starbucks at Barnes and Noble only lends their name and product, the place is run by B&N, and I should get in touch with them. That's an attitude!! (It's still their coffee). 2. Starbuck Co. policy for holding coffee is one Hour!!!!? I guess they never heard about good coffee making, what am I saying "heard", I know!! Anyone interested in having a very good coffee at home should stick to their regular drip coffee maker, but buy Melitta brand coffee at Shop & Save ($ 6.49 for 23 oz can), use 6 fairly heaping measures for a 10 cup (48 oz caraffe). Melitta Coffee , originally of Germany, produces a very close to German type roast and fine enough grind in their product. (This guy is German, plus lived for the last 15 years there - although "Dallmayer Prodomo" is the best) Thu Dec 28 11:37:16 -0800 2000 1539383 0 Peter B. Wolf 1 1539391 Basically all fancy coffee machines are a waste of money unless you are going to drink espresso, in which case espresso machines are TOTALLY different animals and I would stick with a manual pump. If you are going to make regular, european-style coffee, the only sure-fire way of not screwing up is with a french press, aka "bodum". You boil the water, you put the coffee in the press, you pour the water in the press, you let it brew, you push down the plunger, you pour. Thats it. I may be a high-tech kind of guy, but sometimes the low-tech solution is best. Especially if you are spending serious money on expensive coffee like kona or JBM. and wherever you buy your coffee... be it Starbucks or wherever, do not buy your coffee already ground. Get the roasted beans, pick up a decent spice grinder and use it to grind your own beans. Keep the beans in the freezer and you'll be happy. Thu Dec 28 11:55:08 -0800 2000 1539383 0 Jason "100 Percent Kona" Perlow 2 1539395 I just had a look at the thing and watched the video at the starbucks web site.... Intriguing. However, $169.00 is pretty dammned expensive for something that effectively a $20 french press can do just as well (if not better), and this thing isnt even a cappucino/espresso machine! The only difference is that watching coffee brew in a french press isnt as entertaining. Thu Dec 28 12:07:14 -0800 2000 1539391 0 Jason "K.I.S.S" Perlow 3 1539403 I have also seen the video and the machine is intriguing and yes, its pricey. However, I've been told that its foolproof and produces a superior cup of coffee...who knows? I agree with Yvonne that a french press just doesn't yield coffee that's warm enough for me. Out of desperation I keep searching for the perfect cup. I would spring for the "barista utopia" but have unanswered concerns about coffee temperature and what looks like a cumbersome machine to clean. Thu Dec 28 13:39:08 -0800 2000 1539395 0 Barry 4 1539405 I have just read Harrison's posts and see the error of my ways, name-tag wise. "Barry O", formerly known as "Barry". Thu Dec 28 13:55:35 -0800 2000 1539403 0 Barry O f/k/a "Barry" 3 1539449 A few months back there was a thread somewhere about the "best way to brew coffee." A few people reported that their french press makers exploded. Well, having had a stove-top espresso machine explode in my face about 15 years ago, I decided that one such accident was enough for this life time, and my french press went into the garbage. To this day, none of those fancy gizmo, expensive brew machines do the trick for me. A simple Melitta, hand poured, $10 pot is all I have ever really used or needed, and I believe this makes the best coffee, period. Sat Dec 30 07:49:47 -0800 2000 1539395 0 Pat 2 1539398 I'm not a big fan of the french press/plunger way of making coffee. One of the things I'm not so keen on is that the coffee becomes cold as it sits there waiting to settle. Also I find the taste one-dimensional compared to coffee made in other ways. I prefer an espresso or cappuccino (made using krups auto cappuccino system--tho one word of disappointment: the seal became looose soon after purchase, maybe just ours). My second choice is the krups (proaroma) drip machine. Also, for many years I bought beans amd diligently kept them in the freezer as Jason suggests. But I've been converted to illy and lavazza espresso ground roasted coffees in tins and I use them no matter the method. I find their taste very balanced and rich and more reliable than beans. Thu Dec 28 12:52:55 -0800 2000 1539391 0 yvonne johnson 3 1539409 I use the French press every morning and pour the coffee into a pre-warmed thermos for heat-keeping. Maybe someone out there will tell me the pouring into the thermos eliminates some crucial coffee nuance, but hey, works for me. Thu Dec 28 17:10:09 -0800 2000 1539398 0 Heidi 4 1539410 How do you pre-warm a thermos? The one at home is stainless steel... cant microwave it.. hmmm... Thu Dec 28 17:12:00 -0800 2000 1539409 0 Jason Perlow 5 1539411 You pour very hot water (not boiling--don't want to crack the glass liner) into it and let it warm up, just as you would with a china teapot. Thu Dec 28 17:24:05 -0800 2000 1539410 0 Caitlin 6 1539413 Yes, precisely. I have an insta-hot on my sink deck which is perfect for this. Thu Dec 28 20:39:01 -0800 2000 1539411 0 Heidi 7 1539427 a while back I thought i'd take wonderful home-made coffee to work in a themos. I bought a nice looking and i hope technogically sound nissan stainless. Off to work, pour (just 45 mins after making), taste and throw away. Instead, off to local deli for coffee. It don't work in my opinion. Same goes for keeping tea hot in them. It doesn't matter if you put milk in before or after, there's an awful metalic or something taste. So my nissan flask sits in my kitch cupboard gathering dust. If anyone wants it, it's theirs! Fri Dec 29 17:01:24 -0800 2000 1539413 0 yvonne johnson 8 1539502 I have a Stanley brand stainless steel Thermos that I purchased when my daughter was an infant (she's now a college freshman)and I still use it today. I'd suggest using your Nissana few more times before giving up on it. If it's a true stainless steel thermos (meaning it has a stainless steel and not a glass liner) you can pre-heat it by filling it with BOILING water and allowing to sit for 5 minutes while the coffee is brewing. Pour the coffee in immediately after pouring the water off and when the coffee is at its hottest. I strongly sugest that if you use cream, it should be added when you drink the coffee. Temperature seems to have a profound effect on the taste. I took coffee to work for years using this method and it stayed hot for several hours, even when I commuted thirty minutes in a cold car. Critical factor is keeping the thermos clean on an ongoing basis. It should be rinsed when you return home in the evening and once again filled with boiling or very hot water. Once every few weeks use urn cleaner to remove the residue that builds up on the inside. The residue has a very negative effect on the flavor of the coffee and no other method I've tried (including boiling water with baking soda or boiling vinegar) works as well as urn cleaner. if grocery stores don't have it try a restaurant supply. Tue Jan 02 17:07:08 -0800 2001 1539427 0 Owen O'Neill 4 1539412 More power to you if the french press + thermos combination works for you. But, in my experience, heat is lost while the coffee is brewing in the french press. The thermos does not recapture the lost temperature, it merely helps to reduce further heat loss. I confess that I have a "thing" about hot coffee and hot soup (another pet peeve of mine). Thu Dec 28 18:11:07 -0800 2000 1539409 0 Barry O 4 1539416 http://www.tavolo.com/docs/shop/catalog/product.jhtml?PRODID=138944&CATID=101329&SH=false I gotta get me one of these. Stainless steel construction, no glass so theres little or no thermal displacement. You can put boiling hot water in there without fear of cracking glass, plus it has an integrated vacuum bottle. Link: http://www.tavolo.com/docs/shop/catalog/product.jhtml?PRODID=138944&CATID=101329&SH=false Image: http://www.tavolo.com/imagecache/182586.jpg Fri Dec 29 00:12:23 -0800 2000 1539409 0 Jason Perlow 5 1539423 Ooh, this looks like a very good find. Next time my beaker breaks I'm getting one of these. What's the pricetag? Fri Dec 29 16:28:34 -0800 2000 1539416 0 Heidi 6 1539432 A whole 29 bucks if you buy it online through that link if you can beleive it... I think I'm gonna dump the Bodum. Fri Dec 29 18:25:47 -0800 2000 1539423 0 Jason Perlow 2 1539414 Cost, temperature, and one-yupsmanship aside, there may be health reasons to use coffee machines that employ paper filters. Quoting from an MSNBC article linked below, "There are chemicals in coffee — cafestol and kahweol — that can raise cholesterol levels, but a paper filter in the coffee-making process removes those chemicals. So the way you brew your coffee is important. Be warned: these compounds cannot be filtered out in French press, Greek and Turkish coffee also in boiled and Scandinavian coffee." Link: http://www.msnbc.com/news/356617.asp?cp1=1 Thu Dec 28 22:04:13 -0800 2000 1539391 0 AHR 3 1539458 Not to be cavalier about health but those paper filters also remove FLAVOR. Sat Dec 30 16:47:06 -0800 2000 1539414 0 Chris 2 1539415 Ok, so I think I will eat my words on the vacuum brewing concept. Maybe it is a good idea after all. Here is this cool page on the Silex, which was the vaccum coffee brewer from the 1940's. http://209.132.34.220/silex.htm However as you can see there are much less expensive vaccum brewers than the Starbucks Barista -- since these can be used on your stove, much like the old Silex units of the 1940's. http://www.sweetmarias.com/prod.brewers.vacuum.shtml Something about giving money to Starbucks really gets under my skin. Thu Dec 28 23:50:06 -0800 2000 1539391 0 Jason Perlow 2 1539460 It seems lots and lots of people like the french press (I've had this discussion I don't know how many times with various people and it seems to always be the same), but I've got to say I just don't get it. I don't have the temperature problem others on this thread seem to have had, but I do have the unidimensional taste issues. I use two different systems, depending on what I want and how much time I have--an Italian stove-top espresso pot for everyday morning coffee and a Chemex for those times I'm willing to invest the time. I am a firm believer that the Chemex makes a better cup of drip coffee than any other system (though to be honest I haven't tried this new Barista system--it looks forbidding.) And talk about low tech. A glass carafe and a paper filter (I don't know about the "filtering out taste" mentioned elsewhere. I've always found Chemex-made coffee far more robust than anything I've made or others have made for me in a french press.) I don't intend this to sound like an aspersion on anyone who has posted here thus far, but I've always felt that the press is all hype, no action. They just leave me mystified. I should say, I've asked and asked and gotten lots of hints as to what I might be doing wrong with the french press, but none of the various suggestions have borne fruit. By the by, I also can't chalk this up to the beans. I generally buy Peets, but have tried a variety of beans in the french press, all to no avail. That said, I'm with Jason Perlow on this one--this is one of those things where low tech wins out. Even if the Barista thing makes good coffee, I just can't imagine throwing good money after it, when I can make coffee I like with things I already have for a whole lot less money. (I should amend that to say that I would, if I had it to spare, spend a few hundred on one of those chrome Italian hand pumped espresso machines, one because it makes really delicious coffee, but also two, because it looks fantastic on a kitchen counter.) Gabriel Sat Dec 30 22:25:30 -0800 2000 1539391 0 gabriel Solis 3 1539461 "That said, I'm with Jason Perlow on this one--this is one of those things where low tech wins out. Even if the Barista thing makes good coffee, I just can't imagine throwing good money after it, when I can make coffee I like with things I already have for a whole lot less money." Precisely. " (I should amend that to say that I would, if I had it to spare, spend a few hundred on one of those chrome Italian hand pumped espresso machines, one because it makes really delicious coffee, but also two, because it looks fantastic on a kitchen counter.)" Yeah, the one I really like is the $600-$700 Il Pavoni, who's basic design hasnt changed since the 1920's. I bet that sucker makes a hell of an espresso. However from what I've read on USENET about it, its a bitch to clean. BTW, The ultimate way I like to drink coffee is -the- ne plus ultra low tech way, turkish-arabic style. Its just such a pain in the ass to do, so I only do it at greek/turkish restaurants and at kosher pizza/felafel places that will indulge me. I drink it down to the sludgy grains and all. I spent a lot of my free time in Israel during Gulf War in Tel Aviv playing shesh besh (similar to backgammon) and smoking unfiltered Camels with arabs in the old part of the city, and man do they drink it strong. So for me a french press is the closest thing to that because of the amount of grains and oils it does let in. You probably just like your coffee filtered, and theres nothing wrong with that. Jason Sat Dec 30 22:41:59 -0800 2000 1539460 0 Jason "I have absolutely nothing of value to say" Perlow 3 1539487 This is very unscientific, but for what it's worth, the best cup of coffee I ever had in my life came from a French press. That's pretty much made up my mind. Mon Jan 01 11:24:20 -0800 2001 1539460 0 fladd 1 1541060 Best, quickest brew and easist machine to clean I have ever used. The coffee taste is excellent and never tastes brunt after sitting for 2 hours. Wash the brew bowl with warm water and soft sponge by hand. The plastic brew bowl is soft and tends to scratch easily due to turbulance when washed in a dish washer. I have a problem and its due to my goofing around with the electronic buttons. Seems the machine is locked into program state where the full power for brewing will not click on. Does anyone know how to clear the setting? Sat Sep 04 08:16:34 -0700 2004 1539383 0 Richard Medlin