Dave observes that pre-ground Chock full o’ Nuts coffee is fantastic. I don’t doubt it. Closet foodie that I am, I wonder how how he’s preparing it. For a long time I was convinced that there was no match for coffee made at a coffeeshop. But then I figured out that I wasn’t using enough grounds. The magic proportion is two tablespoons of grounds per six ounces of water. Sounds like too much doesn’t it? Many coffees direct you to go with one tablespoon per “cup” which usually means eight ounces. That’s less than half. Using so much less, you’d think that the worst you could do is wind up with a watered down taste. But the stuff I made was always bitter, a taste usually associated with “strong” coffee. Must be using too much grounds, I thought. Counter-intuitively, you can get a bad bitter taste from not enough grounds according to this book. My experience bears that out.

2 thoughts on “”

  1. “that book” is definitely the cooking-geek (and geek-cooking) bible. My favorite bit was where he uses a spectrophotometer to confirm that copper-bound ovo-transferrin really does exist in egg whites (after an experimental path showing metal ions changing stiffness.) Doesn’t *everbody* have a spectrophotometer in their kitchen? 🙂

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  2. You’ll do no wrong if you just always follow Peet’s guidance (http://peets.com/learn/perfect_cup.asp). They are truly the best of coffee. In fact, I have them mail me nitrogen sealed bags of fresh beans direct to Singapore. The quality is well worth the effort.

    I’ve been advised that roasting my own beans would be better, but you try installing a coffee roaster in an 1800 sq ft condo filled with the contents of a 4000 sq ft house….

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