Coffee
 

Before, after, during a ride?
Your favorite brand and prep method?

The drip maker croaked a few days ago in a spurt of electrical self-immolation, so we're hobbling along with the French press while I track down a torx T8 to take apart a thrift shop donor to swap parts out.
Why is it Torx sets don't have a T8?

Question 1. For me always before a ride, during a ride something with electrolytes and then after a beverage of choice. :beer:
Question 2. It makes us have to ride our bike to the hardware store in order to buy one.
A win win for all.
Best, Ben

I don't have a brand so to speak. I get my coffee from a distributor, Burman Coffees. They sell green bean bulk rate, in quantities as low as I want. I'll buy 4 different coffees of various origins, and I roast at home to the level of roast I prefer. The green beans can be stored for about year before taste gets "old".

If you are buying the roasted bean there's not many places where you can get fresh roasted coffees.

I roast with a stovetop popcorn popper, outside. It takes about 12 minutes to do a pound. It has to done outside due to the amount of smoke burn from the process.

As long as it's black and piping hot...

I never tried roasting my own beans, but got into hand grinders a little. I had a Zassenhaus that was just awesome.

My interest in coffee comes & goes, lately I've been drinking that International Delight from a carton, lol. The mocha is too sweet, but tolerable. 😉

Before.
Joshua Tree Coffee Company Espresso, Niche grinder, Expobar Office Lever (nearly vintage in its 19th year).

My club has a Sunday social ride which, at the mid-point, stops at one of several area coffee houses in rotation. A cup o' Joe goes great with a Cliff bar...

Blackoak coffee...am on subscription great value for quality of coffee https://blackoakcoffee.com/

Clever drip system https://smile.amazon.com/Clever-Coff...dDbGljaz10cnVl

tend to a 1 to 14 ratio by grams or so 30 grams coffee to 400 grams water

use not super fance mueller grinder https://www.amazon.com/Mueller-Ultra.../dp/B0833F31MS

also in the house for coffee: Aeropress, Mellita Cone, and French Press

and hydroflask mug is a game changer keeps coffe warm for hours (if you leave the top on) https://smile.amazon.com/Hydro-Flask...s%2C119&sr=8-5

Usually half way and a Peet's dark roast.

I use a 10 cup stove top percolator with local Cambodian coffee from a local roaster. Mix 50/50 arabica and robusto.
hot and black anytime before 1pm.

Thats an origin that have not tried.

Whenever possible. @gugie might say that I ride in order to make coffee stops.

Current setup is a Ninja drip brewer with insulated carafe. Beans are by mail from Vermont Artisan Coffee, ground with a Virtuoso+ electric grinder. For afternoon coffee, I’ve been into a Moka pot that @TimmyT gifted me.

While bikepacking is another story, but I’ve been really happy with the pour-over single-serve system from Kuju Coffee.

Before - every morning a hand ground mocha pot. Small Japanese SS grinder. Takes a long time but I do my extended hamstring and Achilles stretches while grinding. Makes for a better ride later. I go Starbucks dark, 1/2 decaf. Currently a big pot; makes 2 coffee cups worth. Lifetime high.

On ride - stop at 3 or 6 mile point for a double shot of espresso. Currently both shots caffeinated, again a lifetime high. I'm picky about espresso places I"ll stop at regularly. Those two pass. Both as nice places to be / quality ownership and improving the locale and good espresso from well maintained machines.

My journey with Italian style coffees started when a mentor and for a month, my boss, took me to coffee break at the original Peet's in Berkeley. Cappuccino. Around that time, I visited my cousin in Seattle and she took me to the original Starbucks. Served my Starbucks at breakfast. And my sis gave me a Bioletti mocha maker and some Italian coffee. (She was staying in Italy that summer, dating an Italian who became my bro-in-law.) Didn't take me long to figure out that Starbucks had much fresher coffee roast than any package I could get from Italy and that the Starbucks worked great in that mocha pot! (A few years later, when I lived in Seattle and Starbucks was the local brew, a friend of my sis stayed a night with me on her way to a conference. Made her a mocha for breakfast. She thanked me, saying it was her first cup of good coffee in the States.)

I know preferring Starbucks beans puts me outside of what's hip. But that first cup of dark roast in Seattle many years ago simply tasted just right. And it still does. In Portland, many brewers go out of their way to roast coffee to be as different as possible from Starbucks. My taste buds don't like it. A few locals that I know of do dark roasts I like but aren't available in most of my usual stores. Peet's is good and they are making inroads here. And Peet's is both a (small) part of my journey and the inspiration for Starbucks' founder. (And in defense of Starbucks - without them, we would still be drinking the crap coffee we called mud. I drank urns of that stuff as a college student and the next 10 years of work, not knowing there was far better.)

As a moonless night?

My coffee gear is like my stable. Always expanding and contracting, mostly used, and a little too large.

I have a Baratza Vario-W grinder that I use with either a (in order of frequency, most to least used):

Technivorm
French Press
Aeropress
Regular Moka Pot
Flair Classic
Funky spouted Bialetti Miniexpress Moka pot that I picked up in Italy and can't get to work right

I usually am using coffee from Herkimer (either their espresso blend since my SO likes a darker blend or their Ethiopia Yirgacheffe) since my local coffee shop carries it and it's usually been roasted within the last week.

Our coffee maker committed hara-kiri this morning. There were a few tense moments as we performed small surgery to resurrect it enough to finish up a few cups. Got's to have mah coffee (fee).

I spent a bit of time this afternoon breaking it in order to fix it. Doing some testing now. Aside from the bolts in its neck and fear of fire it may work out well enough until its young and virile replacement gets here.....kinda like being one of Madonna's BF, just a waiting game.

I can vouch for Neal. He probably has a coffee shop app on his phone. I do know that he annotates his ridewithgps routes carefully. Here's one example from a visit not too long ago:
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...e997890dc8.jpg

@BoltBreaker must have an app for pastry shops, his bike seems to be magnetically attracted to them.
@Andy_K has the iToilet app. His vast database has come in handy more than once.
If I were ever to go on a ride with all three of them, we'd never get more than a mile down the road before stopping.

2 small cups (6 oz ea) a day is usually enough for me. I RARELY buy from a coffee shop since their 12 oz cups have me pinging like tuning fork.

I prefer Peets Major Dickinson hand ground in my old Italian Tre Spade grinder. I use one of those things that sits on the cup with a cone filter/grounds and you pour water over it. Kind of fussy but delicious!

Guatemala Huehuetenango
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...50bbc11336.jpg

And now
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a535dbceaa.jpg

Sounds like the big Diode right next to the Hot Plate. Solder the new one a little farther away from the hot plate. I think placing it there was a method of intentionally limiting its life span for those who do not solder, or have a Torx 8 screw driver... Ha

My coffee fix is a Strong Brew of Drip made regular coffee with a tsp of sugar, heavy dash of cinnamon, scoop of unflavored whey protein, and frothed in a two cup mug.

28 grams protein at 168 calories

I usually have coffee before a ride and rarely after. I don't often stop while on a ride, but I should probably plan better routes!

Coffee press is my go to. I'll give the Kalita pour over or moka pot a go on weekends.


https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...1c53206e87.jpg
Bodum coffee press, Kalita wave, Bialetti moka pot, Hario hand grinder (with wooden scoop)

As far a beans, Up Coffee Roasters and the original Dunn Bros. are my preferred shops.

Cold Brew, always Cold Brew most often from Corner Coffee in Uptown Minneapolis.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5323e7a01.jpeg
I find Cold Brew is best enjoyed in conjunction with a ride on this Holdsworth.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...88b627039.jpeg

time for a hijack, but it's timely: I usually don't go in for complicated espresso machinery (have a huge collection of stovetop Moka type pots of all shapes and sizes) but a friend gifted me a Saeco "barista" that is rebadged as "Starbucks" (NOT my brand!).

He told me the thing would work like a champ (again) if I replaced the (available online) pump, but in removing the burnt out old one I had to pull loose a plastic tube connected to it with brass compression fittings. No biggie except broke the old plastic tube in yanking on it and can't find a replacement part online plus cannot substitute either:

A. polyethylene plastic tubing found easy and cheap in any hardware shop BUT is 1/4" so just a hair bigger than the 6mm OD tube this requires.

B. 6mm PTFE (AKA Teflon) which I bought online but is just too inflexible for the brass fittings and the one tight bend tube this must make.

Anybody have a helpful suggestion? I just HAVE to fix broken stuff, cannot let it go... ;)

Nice... picked up a bag of those beans from JT Coffee Company last year. Was very good...

Luckily, in Los Angeles we have several excellent coffee shops (Intelligentsia, Maru, Go Get Em Tiger, Dinosaur or Blue Bottle). I'll usually stop and get an espresso before a ride... Otherwise, it's an Aeropress and good beans at home.