jpender Senior Member Joined: 11 Jul 2011 Posts: 394 Location: California Expertise: I like coffee
Grinder: Kyocera CM-50 Vac Pot: S/S Moka Pot Drip: Aeropress
Posted Fri Mar 8, 2013, 10:42am Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
Excerpt from the 2011 review "Reducing Sodium in Foods: The Effect on Flavor" in the journal Nutrients:
When two compounds with different taste qualities are mixed, a number of interactions may occur, including non-monotonic (both enhancement and suppression) and asymmetrical intensity shifts . In food matrices, sodium salts may influence other taste qualities independent of intensity/concentration. For example, it has been suggested that saltiness is suppressed at high concentrations of of NaCl and KCL, but enhanced at low concentrations of NaCl and KCl saltiness . Salt and sour taste mixtures symmetrically affect each other’s intensity with enhancement at low intensities/concentrations and suppression or no effect at high intensities/concentrations . Bitterness is suppressed by sodium at all intensities/concentrations, while salt taste is less affected by bitterness. Sodium enhances sweetness at low intensities/concentrations, has variable effects through the moderate intensity/concentration range, and is suppressive or has no effect on sweetness at higher intensity/concentration. Sweetness suppresses salty taste at moderate intensities . Figure 3 shows a schematic overview of binary interactions of taste qualities at different levels of concentrations. These schematic reviews are just indications of what happens to taste qualities when two are mixed. Variations, depending on the food matrix, may occur.
Interactions between tastes get more complex when three taste qualities interact, or when more complex food matrices are involved . Breslin et al. investigated the interaction between sodium (salt), sucrose (sweet) and urea (bitter) in a mixture. They found that perceived bitterness is suppressed when sodium is added to a bitter-sweet mixture. Due to the decreased perceived bitterness, perceived sweetness increased. The latter was a result of the bitterness being less able to reduce perceived sweetness. This interaction takes place at a cognitive level. These findings are in line with Gillette et al. , who suggested that addition of NaCl to three soups decreased bitterness and increased sweetness. Similarly, Fuke and Konosu reported that addition of umami tasting sodium salts of 5'-ribonucleotides reduced bitterness and increased sweetness in an artificial prawn extract. Pangborn, who has been recognized as one of the most influential researchers in the area of taste interaction , performed a series of experiments in the early 1960s investigating sucrose, citric acid and NaCl taste interrelationships. Several different food matrixes were used, e.g., pear nectar tomato juice and lima bean puree . The results from the food matrix mirrored those in simple aqueous media , and from other studies .
So, in a quick glance, Salty supresses bitter at low, medium and high concentrations. It enhances low concetration sweet but supresses higher concentration sweet.
...One understood mechanism by which sodium-containing compounds may improve overall flavor is by the suppression of bitter tastes. Various sodium-containing ingredients have been known to reduce the bitterness of certain compounds found in foods, including quinine hydrochloride, caffeine, magnesium sulfate, and potassium chloride (Breslin and Beauchamp, 1995). Further, the suppression of bitter compounds may enhance the taste attributes of other food components. For example, the addition of sodium acetate (which is only mildly salty itself) to mixtures of sugar and the bitter compound urea enhanced the perceived sweetness of this mixture as a consequence of sodium suppressing bitterness and thereby releasing sweetness, as illustrated in Figure 3-3. No change in sweetness was found when sodium acetate was added to sugar solutions without urea, indicating that it is the suppression of bitterness by sodium acetate that is responsible for the improved taste of those solutions (Breslin and Beauchamp, 1997)....
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
It's not a bad grinder, it is much better than the Cuisinart piece of crap burr grinder that makes a buttload of static infused dust. (Honestly, I can do better with a whirlyblade...)
jaupro Said:
... I buy my beans fresh at a local roaster (muggswigz). They said via a contest they are currently ranked in the top 14 in the country. But I digress. When I taste their brewed samples they are perfect. Mine are still good but not fantastic. I'm no expert in describing the flavors I taste yet, but the best I can say is a hard sour bitterness usually at or near the bottom of the cup. Here is my process. ...
Agreed, the discussion on taste became tangential, but was in response to members helping the OP by giving them the suggestion to add salt to their coffee, when they simply observed that they couldn't duplicate a Press Pot or a good brew from their local shop with the same beans.
You don't need a Malkohnig or a Swiss Ditting to make decent press pot coffee. You just need a reasonable grinder, an adjustment in and consistency in technique, and water that doesn't have off tastes and is NOT distilled.
I do just fine with a $35 hand grinder and Caribou Coffee or Millstone (yes, Millstone Breakfast Blend, the stuff you can get in a Kroger's, Fry's, or Meijer) whole beans (roasted 8 weeks or more ago - oh the horror!) and a Press Pot. Others can too.
I just think that maybe we do a disservice to new members by telling them they immediately have to spend $150 or more on a grinder and buy $1/oz coffee that was roasted THIS WEEK (and toss it immediately when it becomes 15 days old), or buy a $400 home roaster and start roasting their own coffee just to enjoy a decent press pot at home.
When I was new here, (which actually ain't that long ago) that seemed to be the advice I always got, and over the last couple years I've found that there are many more ways to do this that don't involve more than $1000 on
-a super wazoo PID controlled drip machine, ($200-300) -a coffee refractometer, ($600) -a $200 grinder that I can look for a bargain refurbished version for "only" $125...
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Mon Mar 11, 2013, 9:41am Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
Netphilosopher Said:
So:
Apparently not good enough?
I just think that maybe we do a disservice to new members by telling them they immediately have to spend $150 or more on a grinder and buy $1/oz coffee that was roasted THIS WEEK (and toss it immediately when it becomes 15 days old), or buy a $400 home roaster and start roasting their own coffee just to enjoy a decent press pot at home.
While you are,. of course entitled to your opinion I totally disagree. The Mr Coffee is NOT an adequate grinder, it IS important to make the grinder the centerpiece of your brew system, and freshly roasted coffee is MILES better than supermarket coffee (emanating from green beans that wouldn't even be roasted by a reputable roaster)
Press pot is especially susceptible to bitter brew results when a grinder produces too many fines. There are several $125 grinders that would produce a grind uniform enough for Press Pot coffee. No one here is saying spend $400 for drip and press pot grinding.
Posted Mon Mar 11, 2013, 5:42pm Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
IMAWriter Said:
While you are,. of course entitled to your opinion I totally disagree. The Mr Coffee is NOT an adequate grinder, it IS important to make the grinder the centerpiece of your brew system, and freshly roasted coffee is MILES better than supermarket coffee (emanating from green beans that wouldn't even be roasted by a reputable roaster)
Press pot is especially susceptible to bitter brew results when a grinder produces too many fines. There are several $125 grinders that would produce a grind uniform enough for Press Pot coffee. No one here is saying spend $400 for drip and press pot grinding.
It is also very likely that the OP could upgrade his grinder, get decent coffee (which he's already sampled and said he was just trying to match), and still end up bitter. As an easy alternative, he could just go to a local craft coffee house (like his coffee source) and have them grind a 1/4lb of coffee on their (presumed) Ditting or Bunn commercial grinder at true French Press setting. This would be the answer for him whether a grinder upgrade would be significant. (that's both grinder and fresh coffee)
If a person is patient, and doesn't disturb the press pot once the grounds are initially brought in contact, the fines will get collected in the bottom of the press pot and there will be less will be in the cup.
I've found that it takes a lot of fines/dust to create bitterness. Those fines extract VERY quickly and are done extracting in a minute - and the don't keep on dissolving in cooling coffee. If it did, then Turkish/Greek coffee just simply wouldn't work - every single cup would come out to maximum extraction every time (which it doesn't).
Interesting thing to try - set up a brew with Turkish grind, then check the end strength and calculate the immersion extraction after allowing it to contact for 12 hours. Keep in mind the maximum extraction for most coffees is in the range of 27%.
Sorry if I came off grumpy on my last post - didn't get much sleep last nite.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
msboo Senior Member Joined: 10 Nov 2012 Posts: 105 Location: Kentucky Expertise: I love coffee
Grinder: Baratza Virtuoso Drip: Bonavita
Posted Sat Mar 23, 2013, 2:19pm Subject: Re: help me refine my process.
Ran across video of Mr. Coffee Burr grinder on YouTube so watched.... sure enough it was very inconsistent and produced tons of fines.
So much is to be considered when trying to make good coffee and the grinder IS the centerpiece IMHO.
HOWEVER I ran into a lady from Louisiana who LOVED her FP coffee..... grinding 'not so fresh' dark roasted beans in a Cuisinart blade grinder. I was familiar w/brand of beans she gets and this roaster does a limited selection----all dark to very dark roasts. Said she stocks up, pours 1 bag into a canister on her counter, throws the rest into her freezer in original bags. Obviously she was happy with her coffee results in her cup BUT I have to consider it was from very dark roasted beans.
IMAWriter and Netphilosopher..... I see where both you guys are coming from BUT I'll side with GRINDER importance. Wish the OP had researched, put that $50 into an Encore.
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
![jpender: taste_interactions.jpg](javascript:ImagePopup("/images/60620/taste_interactions.jpg", 666, 573, "jpender: taste_interactions.jpg");)
= No New Posts since last visit 