An Experience Experiment - Pt. 2

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 1

THE VARIABLES:

There are a few variables in this experiment which likely effects the outcome. These are how the coffee was actually brewed, the grounds used in each brewing method, and the very subjective nature of our testing group's (me and my wife) perspective.

While this subjectivity is not scientific it is the best that I could do.

BREWING PROCESSES:

1. Drip
2. French Press
3. Percolator
4. Turkish Boil

DRIP:

The drip coffee maker is the standard way that people make coffee in our country. My drip coffee maker is standard but it has a coned screen filter which allows the oils to be released with the brewed coffee.

An oversight in this experiment is that I did not include a drip coffee maker with a paper filter. Ah well, I will have to remedy this for another day and another post.

FRENCH PRESS:
The French Press is a very popular method for brewing coffee among coffee enthusiasts. I like mine simply because it will brew a single cup of coffee without leaving me with left overs to microwave for two days. I know that true coffee snobs will never, ever, drink microwaved coffee but this proves that I am more of a cheapskate than a real snob.

PERCOLATOR:
I bought this percolator just for this experiment. I have not had much experience with the Perk but I am looking forward to doing coffee for company with it. It looks quite elegant and it reminds me of my grandmother's from the 1970's. All I need is a lime green table cloth and people will call me Carrol Brady.

TURKISH BOIL:
Although I could not make a genuine Turkish coffee (because I could not find my Cezve) I did use a sauce pan to slow brew the coffee to make a Turkish style brew. It turned out pretty good and I think it accomplished the mission of the experiment.

When I re-run the experiment with the paper filters (in a drip coffee maker) I will also use a cezve for a genuine Turkish Coffee.

THE GRIND:
The grind was an unavoidable variable. Each brewing method requires a certain grind in order to make the coffee that it produces "good".

The Drip Method requires a moderate grind (not too fine and not too course) to make the optimum coffee. From 1 being the finest grind and 17 being the most coarse - the Drip was ground at a 6.
The Press Method does not require a very fine ground as it steeps the grounds in hot water for 4 minutes. I ground the beans for the Press at the coarsest 17 setting.
The Percolator Method washes the grounds continuously with hot water and does not need a fine ground. So I also ground this at a 17.
The Turkish Method uses a very fine ground as to get every last bit of goodness out of the bean. I used the finest grinding setting - #1.

I am sure that the different grinds effected the resultant brews but I felt that I had to use the grounds that the individual brewing methods methods required.

THE TESTERS:
Me and my wife are the last of the variables. It was our job to taste and evaluate each brew against all the rest. It was quite difficult at times to decide between a couple of them but in the end we did our best. The fact that my wife and I did not come to the same conclusions indicate that this whole experiment is really about our individual experiences rather than a scientific conclusion.

Please return as tomorrow I will detail the results of the experiment...