Coffee to go.

The label "nerd" is relative like most anything in this world. There's relative nerdiness within fields, but also some fields of interest are more likely to induce the label "nerd" than others. Instances: I would easily call Sheldon Cooper a nerd, while others would call me a nerd for the same reasons. Also, you're much more likely to be called a nerd if you spend 40 hours a week on Age of Conan (I would have written World of Warcraft, but I'm using the opportunity to do some advertising) than if you watch reruns of "The Bold and the Beautiful" for the same amount of time.

Coffee is a field were nerds (or, of course "geeks") abound. I'll allow myself to be a little nerdy on coffee right here. I'm into this to be able to make a good cup of coffee, within the limits and time of someone who has a day job. Some will find this kind of activity insanely nerdy, and some not at all…

I visited Tim Wendelboe today, or rather, some of his followers at the Tim Wendelboe coffee nerd hive. Tim is now selling the Solis 166, which is sold under various names. I bought a Bodum Antigua coffee grinder in Copenhagen at the Bodum store together with jrc* this Christmas, and it's been serving me well so far, but it's nice to see that Tim is selling grinders too, considering that they are much harder to come across for sale in Oslo than most common illegal substances. Since I showed some interest in the grinder, they asked me if I needed any help and I started talking about the Antigua, and how it has a ton of grind settings, but that the indicated targets for espresso, filter and French press seem to be way off. So they (IK, CK) gave me a sample of what they think is the right filter grind, so I could compare that with the result from the Bodum Antigua.

So allow me a moment of nerddom.

I bought this Kenyan Mununga, and I got a sample of espresso roasted someting or other, ground for filter for comparison.

Tim Wendelboe's Kenyan Mununga

Filter grind from Tim Wendelboe

The Antigua has quite a lot of settings, and the filter setting is a little more coarse than I'd like, so I tried comparing 1 and 2 steps finer than filter (Filter -1 and Filter -2).

My filter -1 looks like this (see the album for close-ups):

Fra Kaffe

And filter -2 is like this:

Fra Kaffe

Even though there is unevenness in the ground TW coffee, the most striking part is how much more variation there is in the Antigua grind. That is of course to be expected by an entry-level burr grinder. However, it seems to me, that despite the wider bell curve of sizes on the Antigua vs. whatever they have at TW, the grind setting Filter -1 is a closer match than Filter -2. Filter -2 produces quite a lot more small particles, so that it seems like the median is shifted more than you'd expect towards smaller particles and dust.

I think filter -1 (that is one step closer to espresso grind) is more resemblant to the TW coffee than filter -2. This is based only on looks, and not on taste, since I changed other parameters. Also I have not tried any more since I made two rather large cups, and I didn't want to get a caffeine induced heart attack.

However, I did devise a better method for adding a more correct amount of water. jrc* of course shuns me for not adhering to the weighing of water, but I think that method has two disadvantages. Basically it goes like this: weighing the beans, putting them in the filter; putting the cup with filter and coffee on the reset scale, and pouring water over until the weight-equals-desired-volume (given water weight to volume is SI 1 to 1). First, I don't have a scale with any reasonable accuracy, and second, I like to have a premeasured amount of water to put in, since I can't think about two things at the same time.

I've been looking for a glass volume container (since I'd rather have glass than plastic) that doesn't have too much heat capacity. I have a Pyrex 1L one, but if I pour 3 dL into that, the temperature quickly dropped to around 80 degrees before I could do anything about it.

So I decided to put a 3 dL mark on the French press container (since that's what I often use if I wanna make a large morning cup of coffee, giving a little more than 2.5 dL of brewed coffee), thinking it wouldn't cool down the coffee as fast as the big and heavy Pyrex (which is also unhandy, because it's so big). But as it turns out, the temperature drops pretty quickly too (88.5 degrees when I get a steady metering), if the French press glass is unheated.

Fra Kaffe

But with slight preheating of the French press glass, I can make coffee with a pre-measured 3 dL volume for 1 cup of Kenyan Mununga, and grind setting "filter -1".

Good morning.