I usually get my coffee from Costco or TJs, but to celebrate getting the Moccamaster, I ordered some French Roast from Intelligentsia.

Roasted on Thursday and I'm enjoying it on Saturday.

I saw that brand at the supermarket. How is it?

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
I saw that brand at the supermarket. How is it?

It's a little pricey, but I like it a lot. This French Roast is very tasty.

Okay - my first cup using (what are supposed to be) good beans and a (cheap but popular) burr grinder; pricey at least. Fresh, 100% kona.

TL;DR: Cutting to the chase: very nice, smooth, flavorful cup. I'm looking forward to some fine tuning and trying other beans (types, roasts, regions).

Details:

Being my first cup, I used 18gr of beans (to be paired with 1/4L of filtered water from the fridge) ground using about a medium setting.

I put a filter into the holder and ran some filtered water through it, wetting the entire paper. I put the ground coffee into the filter.

I put 1/4L of water + about 1 cup into the moccamaster (MM) reservoir. I ran the MM w/o coffee until the reservoir indicated 1/4L, catching the water into a cup - just to get the hot water flowing (YT video recommendation). Dumped the water.

I installed the filter w/ the coffee (w/ the outlet closed) and a mug. I then started the machine. Once the water covered the beans and I tapped down the grounds on the side, I opened the outlet to allow the coffee to flow to the mug.

I noticed that the water at then end was slow to drain completely - I think the grind was too fine; I'll adjust a couple of notches coarser next time.

Grinder seems okay but it's a bit messy - I'll be cleaning up the grinder outlet and the container area after each grind I think. Seems like an overhead port would work better rather than the side port of this machine.

Nice cuppa. Promising start. Likely to be better once I get tweaked in.

I went to the market and checked out whole beans. Most of the bags don't indicate (1) type of bean (ie - arabica or robusta). They also don't indicate (2) region (Costa Rica vs Brazil vs Columbia; at best, perhaps South America or Africa). They largely don't reflect (3) roasting either (light, medium, dark).

While almost all will indicate something general like Balanced or Breakfast and perhaps some flavor or aromatic notes, none of them really indicate all three, perhaps just one or two at the most.

How does one choose what to buy? Do you research each bag online first? Or just go by whatever notes they may indicate?

There are some bags that may describe (2) and/or (3) but never all three; in fact, I didn't find one bag that indicated bean type.

Is there just some assumption that very bag will be some mix of bean type, including single source? What's the primary criteria in choosing a bag? Flavor notes? Roast level? General quality (Balanced or something?)? I assume it's not bean type or even region unless the bag specifies (usually only for single source it seems, otherwise it's just a continent or even continents).

Or does one just try various bags (brands) and just stick w/ that brand?

Based on online reading, I was looking for light to medium roast of Costa Rica arabic. Nothing on the shelf.

Hmm, what is the benefit of wetting the filter before putting in the coffee?

What do the “coffee snobs” think of the reusable gold filters?

Online, they mention something about getting rid of the taste of paper. Paper does seem like a rather disgusting process. But I’m not sure I can taste any difference. I’m just trying to blindly adopt what sound like best practices for now.

I’ve read that the metal filters are discouraged. Not really sure why. May reconsider after I’ve used up my paper filters.

Posted this in the “increasing cups of coffee” thread, but though I would post it here as well…

Finally used up all of my “old” coffee (2 years+) and am really enjoying my Moccamaster.

I switched to a gold mesh filter and think it results in better tasting coffee. With the same coffee, there was a noticeable taste difference between the brown Melita paper filters I had, the white “oxygen bleached” sample filters that came with the Moccamaster, and the gold mesh.

Three different filters, same coffee, three different tastes. My understanding is the paper filters don’t let all the oils through and at the same time can impart unwanted flavor into the coffee. The gold mesh lets the oils through but adds nothing. To me, the gold mesh is definitely the best tasting of the three.

Yesterday was the end of my old coffee and this morning I just ground a fresh bag of beans. My preference is for stronger coffee, but sometimes the dark roast comes across as burnt to me. Never been a fan of Starbucks. When I was doing pods, I liked the Costco/Kirkland branded “Bold” ones, but needed to use 2-3 of them for a large commuter mug cup.

Amazon has pretty reasonable priced ($7.52/lb) house branded “AmazonFresh” coffee. I bought their light roast a couple weeks ago, but haven’t opened it yet as I’ve been going through my old stuff. As I was reaching the end of the old I also ordered their dark roast “bold”.

This morning I opened the bold version, ground it up and fired up the Moccamaster. Again, I am no coffee snob or connoisseur, but this is fantastic coffee compared to what I have been drinking! Nice bold flavor, but smooth. Not burnt or bitter at all. Brewed it at 45g coffee for 24 oz water.

Can’t say if the coffee is that much better or if being that much fresher makes more difference than I expected. I do know that my pods were never as old as my beans, but the pods never tasted as good. Either way, as of this morning I am even happier getting off the pods and using the Moccamaster daily.

For those interested, here are the links to the Amazon coffee and gold mesh filter basket ($12 for two):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072K58BTR

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074KJ955H

nice writeup.

I might look into the gold filter. How hard is it to clean? Just rinse or do you have actually wash it? The one aspect I like w/ the paper filters is the easy cleanup - just dump the filter and rinse the cone.

I'm still trying to pick out what coffee to buy from Costco. I'm still using up my 2 year old bin of Folgers. And honestly, after some tweaking with amount and bloom/steep time, it's coming out very nicely. I am happy to be satisfied with such a lowly cup.

Rinse your paper filter with your filtered water first before using your filtered water to make your coffee. It gets rid of the paper taste.

I have used the gold mesh filters in the past and they are just a pain in the ass to clean plus they will leave sediment in your cup. Some people like that. I don't.

fyi: Moccamaster recommends not using gold mesh or other reusable filters. Their "best practices" notes says "they can cause inconsistent extraction times and are difficult to clean properly".

I tried the “rinse the paper filter before using” but it was an extra step and didn’t seem to make any difference.

I have no problem cleaning the filter, really can’t imagine it being any easier. Dump the grounds, then just rinse with hot water using my faucet sprayer. I was raised in the school of “never wash” the coffee pot, just rinse it out and apply the same principle to the filter.

Haven’t had any issue with sediment, if you used too fine of a grind I could see it being a problem but my grinder at med-coarse is a nice consistent grind without fine particles.

I’m sure Technivorm’s recommendation has nothing to do with their being in the filter business as well

Any idea what the flow rate is through moccamaster paper filter vs gold filter?

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:

I’m sure Technivorm’s recommendation has nothing to do with their being in the filter business as well

Good point.

I texted my two coffee snob sons and will report back what their take is.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Any idea what the flow rate is through moccamaster paper filter vs gold filter?

Never timed it, I still have a paper filter or two - will do a timed comparison between the two methods with all else being equal and report back in a few days.

quote:

Originally posted by CoolRich59:

quote:

Originally posted by 911Boss:

I’m sure Technivorm’s recommendation has nothing to do with their being in the filter business as well

Good point.

I texted my two coffee snob sons and will report back what their take is.

I heard back from both my sons. They both use paper filters because they prefer the taste over the gold mesh filter. Neither had an opinion on whether or not to use the gold filter.

Waiting for the results of the timed flow rate test. Someone should let Project Farm in on the experiment..

OK, timed the difference between paper and gold mesh filter.

My “method”…

16 oz cold filtered water from fridge pitcher
30 grams coffee grounds
Turn machine on with basket closed
Let basket fill 1/2 way and then stir grounds for 30 second “bloom”
Cover basket and open valve
Considered “done” when final single drips from basket are 3 seconds apart.


Paper Filter (Melitta non-bleached (brown) paper filter - wetted and placed in basket):

Time from switch on to 1/2 basket fill for bloom 1 minute 19 seconds

Time from machine start to final drips - 3 minutes 46 seconds

No noticeable sediment in bottom of cup


Gold mesh filter:

Time from switch on to 1/2 basket for bloom 1 minute 22 seconds

Time from machine start to final drips - 3 minutes 31 seconds

Small amount of very fine sediment in bottom of cup



I definitely notice taste difference and prefer the Gold mesh filtered coffee taste over the paper filter. Paper filter not bad, just not as good.


As for sediment, yes the mesh does let some through - I don’t find it objectionable though and since I rarely drink to the final drop, pretty sure it mostly stays in the carafe and cup.


Cost/quality/convenience - win for the mesh in my opinion

Nice! Thanks, good data. The key for me is that the flow rates seem about the same - proxy for similar extraction post-steep.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but I think the reason some prefer the mesh filters over paper, is because paper traps more of the oils that add flavor. I've noticed a big difference with my Aeropress when using the stainless mesh filter.