Rodd, French Presses are extremely easy to clean. Just turn the water on and rinse. It takes a whole 30 seconds to clean it out. I would strongly recommend one. And you only get muddy coffee if you're grinding too small or using a cheap whirly grinder. Otherwise this is completely minimized. Theres a reason people have been using then for the last 100 years.
An expensive or inexpensive grinder? I would recommend any of the baratza line. The Masetro is $99, the Maestro plus is $149, and the next one up is $199. Since youre not grinding for espresso you'll just need a burr grinder that grindes pretty consistantly and doesnt produce too much dust. For $200 I would recommend the kitchenaid proline grinder. Above that it gets tricky because most of the grinders with dosers are very hard to adjust between espresso and french press and doslerless, stepless grinders for the $500 plus tend to be dedicated grinders and are also hard to adjust between two different settings. Absolutely stay away from whirly blade grinders.
oops, inexpensive. Yeah, that is outside of my budget. I will continue to grind at the grocery store for now.
this ought to peeve the coffee snobs off rodd I have a whirly blade grinder that i grind my coffee for the drip o lator with. if you do not over do it the thing works well. it was like $10 from Wally mart.. If you are more the expensive coffee type then ignore this one. Fuzzy
From my experience, whirly grinders produce too much coffee dust and produce muddy cups. This wont matter much with a drip machine and a paper filter. If you aren't drinking extremely fresh roasted beans and brewing it with any of the other non drip methods, you wont notice a difference. Its when you have fresh beans and an extremely precise brewing device that you will notice the difference of a nice even grind.
I think I am going to get an aeropress, so the paper filter should take care of most of the dust. Would I be better off with a whirly blade grinder or grinding it in the store?
I like the home one.. it looks kinda silly for a fat white boy to be grinding his morning coffee in the walmart in his jammies. Fuzzy
Of course you'd be better off! Ground coffee loses most of its flavor in about 2 hours after grinding. Unless you grind it in the store and drive straight home to brew the entire package you need to buy a grinder
You're always better off grinding it at home IMHO. The "coffee guys" say that coffee begins to lose flavor and go back about a week after roasting. But after roasting coffee needs to sit generally from 24-72 hours depending on the coffee and the roasting method and de-gas. This leaves you about 3 or so days at peak flavor. After grinding they say it begins losing flavor in as little as 15 minutes.
Rodd: just get a whirly grinder and dont fret the "dust".........it just adds more flavor to the coffee. Dont drink the last sip of the cup and youll be fine. This was you can get an Aeropress AND a French Press. Check your local Marshalls / TJ MAxx / Ross for French Presses. Mine always seem to have some for sale.
Thank you all for your advice, and allowing me to hijack the thread. My wife ordered an aeropress for my birthday about an hour ago. I will have to look for a grinder. I have just been using Folgers French Vanilla.
I did another 1lb roast today. I couldnt hear first crack and hit 2nd crack around 16 minutes. I'm hoping it turned out okay. Its my first peaberry roast. I used a slightly lower temp than usual to see what kind of difference it makes. Fingers crossed. I hate how you cant tell if your coffee sucks or not for 24-48hrs.
The guys here talking about avoiding coffee mud, have obviously never had Yugoslavian coffee...YUMMY!!! I think it's pretty much the same as Turkish coffee: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=291931