I. Love. Coffee.

Ask anyone who knows me, I love coffee. I love it a lot. I used to do all sorts of silly things that I thought were making my coffee taste better: putting the beans in the freezer, buying expensive pre-ground (Gasp!) beans. I’ve come a long way since then. (Mostly thanks to Alton Brown and Good Eats.) Here’s some stuff I’ve learned:

Contrary to popular belief, freezing your beans is not a good idea. This is for several reasons, the most obvious of which should be all the other crap you probably keep in your freezer. I can’t speak for you, but I prefer my Kona blend without the fishstick undertone.

Another important reason to keep your beans out of the deep freeze is that while the beans are considered a dry good, they are not completely dry. There are oils in the bean which help to give coffee its flavor. Oils are liquid, and liquids freeze.

The issue here is coffee beans (in so far as their flavor is concerned) are really very delicate. The person whose job it is to roast the beans is called a Master Roaster. It’s precision work. A few seconds shorter or longer in the roaster can make all the difference between a robust, smoky flavor and a dead, burnt flavor.

If a few seconds of roasting can destroy a bean, imagine the damage you can do by freezing it. Keep your beans at room temperature in an airtight container. Another thing to keep in mind: the beans release gas. Vent the container from time to time, or you might end up with a beansplosion on your counter.

When using an auto-drip coffee maker (which I avoid whenever I can), remember that cleanliness is key. When I was growing up, my parents didn’t always wash the water reservoir and carafe between uses. I came to think this was normal. When you think about it, though, by doing that you’re allowing all sorts of crap into your coffee that doesn’t need to be there. If you must use an auto-drip, try to get one with a removable water reservoir. Wash it, the carafe, and the grounds basket after every use. Use a coffee maker cleaning product to flush out the works every once in a while. The pump and tubes and stuff pick up mineral deposits from your water that affect the flavor of your coffee. (This is one of the principal reasons I avoid the auto-drip.)

All that said about getting the best use out of your auto-drip, try the manual drip method. It’s just like an auto-drip, but manual (amazing, I know.) Put a funnel with a filter of grounds in it atop a thermal carafe. Heat the water, pour through the grounds. Easy as pie. (A slice of which would go well with a good cup of coffee.)

The advantages of this are significant. Other than the fact that there are no works (tubes, pumps, reservoirs) to get gunked up by mineral deposits and other impurities, you have complete control over just about every aspect of your coffee. You control the water temperature (around 200 degrees for optimal brewing temperature), you control the beans (if you use fresh and grind them yourself), you control the brew time (four to five minutes is optimal.)

With an auto-drip pot, the carafe sits atop a burner to keep the coffee hot. Unfortunately, by heating the coffee, the pot is also destroying the flavor. Using a thermal carafe allows you to keep the coffee hot for a good long time without killing the delicious coffee goodness.

As I mentioned before, it’s best to use fresh beans and grind them yourself. If you buy a bulk can of pre-ground beans, you’re gambling on two important factors: the age of the beans and the age of the grind. Once a bean is roasted, it starts losing its flavor. Once it’s ground, it loses its flavor even faster.

In short, don’t gamble on your beans. Buy in relatively small amounts, and often. I buy mine from the grocery store. (I’m not sure of the rules about mentioning specific brands on a website. The name is synonymous with “really big bird which is the national bird of the United States.”) I buy their house brand whole bean, and have only been disappointed with the freshness once. Try to find out when the shipment comes in and buy accordingly to maximize freshness.

Another place that the freshness of the bean should be assured is from a local coffee house. Find the busiest local coffee house (if it’s busy, it’s probably because they have really good coffee) and buy your beans whole from there.

On the subject of grinding: Grinding your own coffee with any grinder is better than using pre-ground. However, if one had to choose between a blade and burr grinder, one should always go with the burr grinder. The reason for this is the consistency of the grind size. A burr grinder uses two grinding surfaces, one that spins and one that as stationary. The distance of the moving surface from the stationary surface controls the grind size. A blade grinder uses a blade (go figure) and there is no control over grind consistency.

I use a blade grinder, and it works just fine, but a more consistent the grind size makes for a tastier brew.

For something different, try brewing your coffee with a French press (which I’ve seen called an Italian press at least once. I’m not sure why.) Use a coarser grind, add the beans and water, allow to brew for four minutes, and press the plunger slowly all the way to the bottom.

I have a small French press which I use from time to time. It allows more of the oils and particulates (the stuff that gives coffee its flavor) from the bean into the final brew. I think of the French press method as being more faithful to the bean than the drip methods.

As I’ve mentioned, I am not an expert.  And while my friends would say that I take my brewing very seriously, I’m not without my bad habits.

For example: I love percolator coffee. (It’s a guilty pleasure of mine.) If you’re not familiar with how a percolator works, the grounds basket sits atop a large urn of water.  When the water boils, it runs through a central tube up to the grounds basket, trickles through the grounds, and then the process repeats. This violates two coffee rules. First, the temperature of the water is above 200 degrees (it’s boiling.)  Secondly, it continues to heat the coffee after the brewing stops.

Now you know my terrible secret. Please don’t judge me.

Thanks to Alton Brown for teaching me just about everything I know about coffee, and to to about.com for information regarding burr grinders.

Rice is proof that God loves us.

Originally posted July 4, 2007

Seriously. Delicious.

I recently bought a rice cooker, because I’m really bad at making rice. (Go ahead, get your scoffs in now. “Ha ha ha!!” you might say, “Silly man and his know-it-all blogs, and he can’t even make rice without some new-fangled hoity-toity rice cooking contraption!!” Are you done now? Good, let’s move on.)

Not only does it make perfect rice every time, but it will also reheat rice (and I’m pretty sure it’s the only appliance that can truly deliver on that claim), steam vegetables, and apparently it makes soup, too.

Oh, and it MAKES PERFECT RICE EVERY TIME.

Besides, it’s an appliance made specifically for cooking rice. Who am I to rob it of it’s purpose, in favor of some run-of-the-mill saucepan?

I knew you’d see it my way.

As for rice itself, I can’t adequately describe just how much I love it. Next time you have rice, try this little formula I’ve been working on: Rice + bowl + butter + pepper + parmesan cheese (trust me) = DELICIOUS.

Got some gravy? It goes over rice. Got some chili? It mixes with rice.

I’ve recently discovered my love of Basmati. I like white rice just fine, but it has very little flavor of its own. Not like Basmati. Next time you have Basmati, try this: Add some sugar to the rice cooker (or if you’re stuck in the stone age, add it to the pot) — Again, trust me.

So yeah. Rice is teh awesome.

Mmmm. Bread.

Originally posted August 17, 2007

I didn’t work today or yesterday, so I guess I have to blog about food. (Seeing as how work and food are the only things I really blog about.)

A few months ago, I ran across a recipe on the internet for an extremely simple no-knead bread. The recipe said that with about fifty cents’ worth of ingredients and an oven, any person without any prior breadmaking experience could easily make delicious restaurant-quality bread.

My initial reaction was that it was too good to be true. I’ve never been under the impression that breadmaking was impossibly difficult, but I know that there’s a knack to it. Proper dough mixing and handling, not over-kneading, rising and proofing conditions, and a handful of other factors can conspire to turn the amateur breadmaker’s loaf into an inedible rock.

Anyway, at the time I didn’t have a proper oven or baking vessel (dense, lidded,) to try it out for myself. So I read the thread in which I found the recipe, in which everyone who tried the recipe themselves (even the culinarily challenged) experienced excellent results every time.

Then, a month or two later, joy!! We got a bigger toaster oven. The other day I went out and bought a suitable baking vessel, went home and mixed up some dough.

I’ve just finished my third batch. The first one came out really well, and each successive batch has been better and better. Oh, here it is:

3C all purpose flour
1/4t rapid rise yeast
1 1/4t salt
1 5/8 C water (weird, I know, just trust me.)
wheat bran (or whatever. It’s just to coat the outside of the loaf to keep it
from sticking, so you could use flour or cornmeal or oats or whatever suits
your fancy.)

Mix the dry ingredients (except the wheat bran) thoroughly. Add the water. Mix until it’s dough. Cover with plastic wrap. Leave it for 12-18 hours. Resist the urge to knead. It’s not necessary. He he. There’s no need to knead.

Dump the dough onto a floured surface. Flour your hands and pat the dough down and fold it in thirds, then in thirds the other way. Coat with wheat bran and put seam side down in a towel. Cover with towel for one and a half to two hours.

Preheat oven and dense lidded baking vessel (cast iron, pyrex, ceramic, whatever) to 500 degrees. After the dough has proofed, dump it seam side up into the vessel. Bake covered for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Remove from vessel. Consume.

Pictures below:

It’s every bit as delicious as it looks. (Not bragging here, the recipe is so simple that I’m confident my ten year old brother could make it just as well.) It’s really versatile, too. Tomorrow I’m doing wheat, but one could do rye, sourdough, and I’ve even heard of it being adapted to make biscuits. Multigrain, cinnamon raisin, oat nut, the world is our loaf pan.

So yeah, I don’t think I’m going to buy bread anymore.

No, I will not call my first post “Hello World!” That’s ridiculous.

Hello there. World.

I’m not actually new to this blogging thing, I’ve had a moderately well-recieved blog over at myspace for a while, and I’ve really enjoyed writing in it. As you can see if you’ve looked through it, though, it’s pretty unfocused. Just random musings about life and things I’ve noticed. Work. Tech. And food. I sure did blog a lot about food.

I’ve decided to attempt a semi-serious, regularly-updated, much more focused blog. Which brings me here. I don’t claim to be a professional chef, or any kind of expert on food, but I do love it, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes me qualified enough.

I’ve decided to take a couple of food-related blogs from my myspace blog and repost them here to get myself started. So here we go. Check it out. If you like it, please tell your friends. If you don’t like it, please keep it to yourself for goodness’ sake. (Just kidding.)

Really though, enjoy.