Dr. Rubino's Mean Bean Machine: Volume 5, Ready Set Joe
[This blog series was created in the summer of 2008, after my brother gave me a steam-powered home espresso machine, the DeLonghi Caffe Parma BAR6, for my birthday. Since that time, my experiments with the espresso maker have been sporadic and with varying degrees of success. This blog series chronicles my experiments, failures, and successes as a home-kitchen-barista.]
It's been almost a year since my last installment in the Mean Bean series. A friend, and valued reader, once asked me why I had stopped right when the series was picking up steam. Excruciatingly clever pun aside, the answer is really twofold. The failure of my first latte arrived at the tail end of my Starbucks Espresso Roast coffee supply. Suddenly I was sick and tired of the Starbucks Espresso blend, which seems to have such a distinct taste to it that it can haunt a man's dreams. I basically decided that going out and getting more of it wasn't really worth my time. Before I could get my hands on better espresso coffee, the kitchen was cleaned. I don't really recall why, but I think it had something to do with the holidays. Either way, the DeLonghi was promptly dismantled and returned to the basement, like the Ark at the end of Indiana Jones.
Someday the espresso machine will return; I was getting far too good at those Americanos to just give up, and the machine itself worked quite well. But in the meantime, I have obtained a new tool in my home-kitchen-barista arsenal: the Melitta "Ready Set Joe" Single Cup Coffee Brewer.
The Melitta is a manual drip coffee maker that brews a strong, single cup of coffee directly into whatever mug I combine it with. It's essentially a plastic cone that holds a filter. The first time I had ever seen anything like it was when I visited the barista competition last February. Local coffee roasters were using the manual drip method to brew individual cups of coffee for people. I was amazed at how quickly it worked, and how simple it all was. When I came across the Melitta perched unassumingly on the top shelf of the coffee aisle in Giant Eagle, I immediately recognized it. The best part about it was that it only cost $2.99. I was sold.
This evening I experimented with the manual drip method for the first time. I read some instructions online—because the side of the box is deceivingly vague—and felt confident that something would probably happen. I decided to crack open my bag of "Black and Gold" blend whole beans from the Gristmill at St. Vincent College; the blend is comprised of light and dark beans, which looks pretty cool until, you know, everything's ground up.
The first thing I did, per instructions from a couple of different sources online, was to moisten the #2 cone filter placed into the Melitta. I'm not completely certain as to why you'd go about doing this; perhaps it's so that the water flows a little better through the filter, or that everything sit more snugly in the cone. While the water was starting to boil, I ground the beans, and scooped in three table spoons (since I was only making one mug).
This is the part of the process where the Melitta's "Ready, Set, Joe-structions" are vague to the point of coffee-danger. They just want you to pour the water into the cone and be done with it; however, it's not that simple. When you first introduce the hot water to the fresh ground coffee, blooming occurs. That means that CO2 is escaping from the coffee, and that my little caffeine treat turned into a science experiment that looks like the La Brea tar pits. I stirred the coffee up a bit before adding in more water, so that all the grounds got moist. After I did that, I added more water, a little bit at a time, and stirred the whole way. It was a little tricky, given that the cone started sliding around on my mug's wide top (note to self, use a different mug next time).
After a while, the water flowed through the coffee pretty well. Things were going smoothly, and I could see through the Melitta's "cone window" (they actually tout that thing on the side of the box) that the mug was getting full. The first manual drip was finished. No coffee explosions, no broken glass, and no tipped cone spewing scalding hot tar all over my feet.
I was a little worried that the coffee would be too watery, given that I didn't really measure how much water I was going to run through those three tablespoons of grounds. I was also worried that my first impression wasn't going to be as definitive because we were out of half & half. I added a touch of 2% milk (desperation move), and found that I didn't even really need that. The coffee was as smooth and rich as can be, without as much acidity as the french press. Even better, there was no trace of grounds escaping from the filter into the cup. I love my french press, especially for making coffee that would wake Lazarus, but sometimes I don't have time for the cleaning process. The clean-up for the Melitta was a piece of cake: just dump out the filter, and stick the cone in the dishwasher.
The success of this first manual drip experiment is unparalleled. No disasters, just a delicious, single cup of coffee. If you've wanted to brew good coffee at home, but don't want to spend the money on a french press, then this is certainly the way to go... especially for $3. I'll gladly add this little piece of plastic to my array of coffee-making devices. Who knows, maybe this success will inspire me to get the DeLonghi out of the basement once again...
You can read my previous entries in the series here:
Volume 1: The Introduction
Volume 2: The First Run
Volume 3: The Blow-Up
Volume 4: The Failed Latte