r00t writes:
"Taking a page out of Lexmark playbook, the Keurig company, famous for it's one-cup coffee making system, now comes with new and improved 100% DRM. Apparently, Keurig is upset over re-usable third-party 'coffee pods' which allow the consumer to escape the Keurig throw-away models which carry a retail price 5% to 25% more. Keurig's CEO, Brian Kelly referred to the move as 'game-changing performance.' Perhaps this will finally be the year of Linux on the Coffe Maker?"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anthem on Monday March 03 2014, @11:22PM
First essential tool to coffee at home is a good grinder. Once you have that the rest can be had cheaply - from cold brewing to hot brew methods. I've tried some of these machines and I'm just not very impressed. Now if I could ssh into a coffee maker then I'm interested :)
(Score: 1) by efitton on Monday March 03 2014, @11:49PM
I've done French Press, Mocha Pot, Drip Machine, Drip from the Kettle over my cup. However, while I know cold brew exists I've never cold brewed. Thoughts? Would like to know more about cold brew.
(Score: 2, Informative) by anthem on Tuesday March 04 2014, @12:51AM
Cold brew is awesome. I never actually done it myself but I buy it from natural foods stores. You can boil up water, put the cold brew into the cup then add boiling water. It mixes and balances out to perfect drinking temperature unless you want it stronger. If you do it yourself you can always have it ready just mix water brought to a boil (or however warm).
I don't like cold brewed at a cold temp. A company by me also recently started offering cold brew nitro tap - Different but kinda weird. I also am lucky to live by a coffee place that has a clover before they got bought out by starbucks :)
Also if ppl are bothered by coffee being acidic apparently cold brewed is not as harsh - but Im not really in the know about all that never had any problems myself.
(Score: 5, Informative) by gottabeme on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:36AM
I've done it and I like it. You can google up many different howtos and info. All I do is dump the same amount of coffee grounds and water into a jar, seal the lid, and put it in the fridge overnight. Then I pour it through my coffee maker's filter, into the carafe, and then pour the coffee into an empty jar, and put that in the fridge.
It's a bit more concentrated than regular coffee, but it's also much less bitter. It really tastes different. You may or may not prefer it. Personally, I don't like bitter coffee, so this can turn a bitter hot brew into a smoother cold brew.
One of the best things about it is that, unlike hot brewed coffee, it doesn't taste bad after being heated in the microwave. So if you make some and put it in your fridge, you can have hot coffee in a matter of seconds, and it still tastes good.
I guess the downside is you miss out on the smell of coffee brewing, which can often be better than the coffee itself.
A fun thing is watching how the coffee grounds absorb water and sink to the bottom of the jar. As the hours go by, you see more and more at the bottom. If you shake the jar gently, grounds start to "rain" down, but not all of them are saturated, so some grounds will stop mid-fall and "rain" back up to the top. Almost like a coffee ground snowglobe.
(Score: 4, Informative) by el_oscuro on Monday March 03 2014, @11:53PM
A good burr grinder can be had for about $50. For another $50 you can get a good Thermos type drip coffee machine, like my Hamilton Beach. These make better coffee then the regular hot plate type machines. You will also save a ton of energy too, as they turn off as soon as the coffee is brewed. On a regular one, the burners consume about 800 watts, so if you leave it on a typical 2 hours a day, it will consume about 1/2 megawatt hours over a year. That is a lot of juice for a fricking coffee machine.
TI haven't tried SSHing into it yet. :)
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday March 04 2014, @12:54AM
I'm sure this could be an interesting Arduino type project. It would be cool to control parameters with a cron job to make your coffee, and a simple API could let you control your coffee maker from a tablet or smartphone remotely. Only interesting to me though, since you would be in complete control and it *wouldn't* send a Twat out every time you made coffee to gush about how good your coffee maker is...
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by anthem on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:04AM
I believe this was done with a raspberry pi at some company before and it was posted on dicedot - or i vaguely remember something of the sort.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:03PM
In fall of 93 or spring of 94 I was looking at a coffee pot in .uk on this newfangeled "world wide web" thing. Its an old idea.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 04 2014, @04:33AM
Forget ssh, get a percolator. The kind that sits on a stove, that would only know "ssh" if you stamped it into the metal.
Really, percolated coffee is excellent, and when you pour a cup right after turning the stove off, hot as a lawsuit. Plus, they last for just about ever and you don't even need a filter, though disc filters do make the last cup less chunky. I bought this exact pot 22 years ago: http://www.amazon.com/Copco-Polished-Stainless-Sto vetop-Percolator/dp/B0009U5NEY/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t [amazon.com]
Or just make up some espresso, add a bit of hot water for an Americano -- they come with stainless steel baskets, so no plastic waste and no paper waste. They're more complicated than stove top percolators so they do break down.
Alternatively, there's always the stove top espresso makers (Brazilian coffee pots) -- no paper, no waste, and a strong strong brew. I had a prof from S. America in college who said something like this: coffee should be hot as hell, black as sin, and sweet as sex. One of these makes coffee just like that, if you add a lot of sugar: http://www.amazon.com/Primula-Aluminum-Stovetop-Es presso-Coffee/dp/B001J1L59E/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-gard en&ie=UTF8&qid=1393907323&sr=1-1&keywords=coffee+m aker+aluminum [amazon.com]
As for drip. Blech -- tepid brown water. French press isn't much better and what a pain to clean up.
(Score: 2) by Khyber on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:13AM
" French press isn't much better and what a pain to clean up."
Which shitty french press are you getting? My decades-old Bonjour works like a damned charm and comes apart in three easily-cleanable pieces with a simple twist.
Destroying Semiconductors With Style Since 2008, and scaring you ill-educated fools since 2013.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:30AM
Bon Jour. Purchased around 1996. I even have three of the four glass cups it came with and all the cork coasters. None of the plastic stirrers though.
My complaints:
1) grounds get stuck between metal disk and the mesh. To clean requires unscrewing.
2) grounds lodged at the bottom and I need to scoop them out, rather than merely dump, to get them into my compost bin.
3) the coffee is OK, but not awesome.
(Score: 1) by amicotoni on Tuesday March 04 2014, @08:33AM
The stove top coffee maker are not from Brazil. They were invented in Italy by Bialetti, in 1933: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moka_pot [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by cykros on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:40PM
SSH into the coffee machine would be fantastic. Even better would be a full cron daemon. The timers that exist on some machines are pretty nifty, but nothing compared to the full versatility of cron.
I worry about the trend in this direction. God forbid my coffeepot gets malware that results in it only making decaf...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday March 04 2014, @07:33PM
I've come to make my coffee one of two ways, depending on time constraints. A few years ago I bought a Cabela's stove top percolator for camping. In trying it out at home I discovered it made hotter, stronger, better coffee than any drip coffee maker. I get up to feed the cats at 6:30. I put the burner for the coffee pot on low, toss three scoops of coffee in the basket and go back to bed. By the time an hour passes it has been perking a while and is ready. You can let it go longer if you like stronger coffee. Old school coffee but better by a long shot than driving somewhere for some mediocre chain coffee.
Even more old school, I make a form of cowboy coffee if I'm in a hurry. I've saved the drip baskets from the coffee makers I've tossed over the years (for backpacking). If I'm in a hurry I boil water in the coffee pot, toss in a couple scoops of coffee and let it boil for about three minutes. I stack two baskets and the one from the percolator on top of a cup and pour the boiled coffee through them to filter out the worst of the grinds. Makes good, strong coffee. Just don't drink the last bit in the cup unless you want a mouthful of grinds...