Okay, a lot of you know I am a serious coffee head. Following an insomniacs conference between morch, Spikey da Pikey and me back in August, here is my guide to the perfect cup of coffee. Now the roasting and grinding can be done before leaving home but if Base Camping there is nothing more guaranteed to occasion a good wake up than fresh roasting coffee!
Now I havent compromised making this Im after the PERFECT brew here. So we will start with roasting our own beans. This needs a lot of heat and movement. It takes about 10 minutes and needs 200 degrees plus C (500F). So, take your green beans of choice. Green beans keep much longer and fresher than roasted beans. You can buy online from a number of sources and then roast them as needed. They are much smaller than roasted beans as they pop like popcorn when roasted. Some people do this in a popcorn maker or specialist air roaster. But we are bushcrafters right? So well use a skillet. Put a good double handful (or more) of beans in your skillet. Heres what they look like in the pan
Now we need to get our pan hot. In camp, a good bed of coals is ideal, but Im doing these photos at home as I just had a load of beans delivered. A good excuse to try out my new MSR Dragonfly. A lid is useful here to get the heat up
Keep the beans moving in the pan. You can leave the lid on at this stage the idea is to stop them burning on one side (they will cook a little unevenly just try to minimise it so it evens out over time. After a few minutes they start to change colour
Soon you will hear faint popping (like popcorn). This is where the right pan is handy. You can do this in a billycan, but in a skillet, you can move and toss the beans. This lets the skin catch the breeze and blow away (like the fine skin you get making popcorn). See the stuff stuck to the sides of the pan? Thats the skin.
Now, you can roast darker or lighter at this stage. Not sure how dark? Well roast it a while, take some out, put in a bowl, roast some more to a darker roast. Youll soon find whats best for you. It varies with the type of bean too
When you are happy with the roast, ideally let it rest for 3 or 4 hours. If impatient, just let it cool and transfer the cooled beans to your hand grinder. If you have loads of chaff, toss the beans in the air with a bit of a breeze the chaff blows away (like winnowing wheat)
Crank your hand mill to grind the beans. You can adjust the coarse / fine nature of the grind. The one shown here was a little coarse so I tightened the mill and put it back through.
Grind enough coffee for the percolator basket. See below for the main parts of a percolator a pot with a glass lid (important that bit youll see why later). Fill the pot with cold water so that the basket, when put in the pot, is just clear of the water. Put the lid on the basket, put in the pot and close the lid. Put the pot on the stove or fire and raise the temperature
Raise the temperature of the put till blurbs of water force themselves up the pipe in the middle of the basket and filter back through the coffee into the water. Now regulate the temperature until you get a blurp of water every couple of seconds. The best coffee is not boiled hard but kept at a lowish even temperature. You can monitor the colour of the coffee and the speed of blurp through the glass lid
After five minutes or when the coffee looks right, remove from the heat and pour into favourite mug. I take mine with a dash of milk if available otherwise black. Purists say always black but hey this is MY perfect coffee
Hope thats interesting to someone
Red
Now I havent compromised making this Im after the PERFECT brew here. So we will start with roasting our own beans. This needs a lot of heat and movement. It takes about 10 minutes and needs 200 degrees plus C (500F). So, take your green beans of choice. Green beans keep much longer and fresher than roasted beans. You can buy online from a number of sources and then roast them as needed. They are much smaller than roasted beans as they pop like popcorn when roasted. Some people do this in a popcorn maker or specialist air roaster. But we are bushcrafters right? So well use a skillet. Put a good double handful (or more) of beans in your skillet. Heres what they look like in the pan
Now we need to get our pan hot. In camp, a good bed of coals is ideal, but Im doing these photos at home as I just had a load of beans delivered. A good excuse to try out my new MSR Dragonfly. A lid is useful here to get the heat up
Keep the beans moving in the pan. You can leave the lid on at this stage the idea is to stop them burning on one side (they will cook a little unevenly just try to minimise it so it evens out over time. After a few minutes they start to change colour
Soon you will hear faint popping (like popcorn). This is where the right pan is handy. You can do this in a billycan, but in a skillet, you can move and toss the beans. This lets the skin catch the breeze and blow away (like the fine skin you get making popcorn). See the stuff stuck to the sides of the pan? Thats the skin.
Now, you can roast darker or lighter at this stage. Not sure how dark? Well roast it a while, take some out, put in a bowl, roast some more to a darker roast. Youll soon find whats best for you. It varies with the type of bean too
When you are happy with the roast, ideally let it rest for 3 or 4 hours. If impatient, just let it cool and transfer the cooled beans to your hand grinder. If you have loads of chaff, toss the beans in the air with a bit of a breeze the chaff blows away (like winnowing wheat)
Crank your hand mill to grind the beans. You can adjust the coarse / fine nature of the grind. The one shown here was a little coarse so I tightened the mill and put it back through.
Grind enough coffee for the percolator basket. See below for the main parts of a percolator a pot with a glass lid (important that bit youll see why later). Fill the pot with cold water so that the basket, when put in the pot, is just clear of the water. Put the lid on the basket, put in the pot and close the lid. Put the pot on the stove or fire and raise the temperature
Raise the temperature of the put till blurbs of water force themselves up the pipe in the middle of the basket and filter back through the coffee into the water. Now regulate the temperature until you get a blurp of water every couple of seconds. The best coffee is not boiled hard but kept at a lowish even temperature. You can monitor the colour of the coffee and the speed of blurp through the glass lid
After five minutes or when the coffee looks right, remove from the heat and pour into favourite mug. I take mine with a dash of milk if available otherwise black. Purists say always black but hey this is MY perfect coffee
Hope thats interesting to someone
Red
