Beside flavor, I suspect a big reason for using a darkly roasted coffee bean is that they are a lot more brittle and thus easier to chew.
Coffee grounds over ice cream?
- Thread starter Shakey-and-twitchy
- Start date
Do you have a reference source for that?
Repeat after me: Espresso is a BREW METHOD, not a bean.
Some roasters (none that I can recommend) use a dark roast on what they call their espresso blend. The question is, however, "why?"
My espresso blend is a blend of coffees roasted at their individual single origin roast profiles that I feel pulls a very well balanced and delicious shot of espresso. It can also be used to brew coffee normally, and it is still quite enjoyable. If it's bitter, they did it wrong. If your steak were served burned, would you not send it back? Why is coffee held to a different standard?
Ok. What I should have said is that when most people refer to 'espresso roast' or 'espresso beans' they mean a very dark roast. It may not be correct, but it is what a good deal of Americans think when they hear it. It's kind of like how people hear "cappuccino", they think of the hot chocolate stuff that you can get at most gas stations. It's wrong, but it's a point of reference.
Again, yes, my previous post was incorrect & I apologize for any confusion.
Again, yes, my previous post was incorrect & I apologize for any confusion.
@Jasonian, appreciate you chiming in here with your expertise. You are no doubt correct, though as you acknowledge some roasters do make liberal use of the espresso term and apply it to the level of roast as well, which is what I believe @zethreal was getting at with the chocolate covered espresso beans question.
To add to the confusion, not only is the espresso term incorrectly applied to roast level, I have seen pre-ground "espresso" coffee sold in many mass market stores, when it is clearly ground for auto-drip coffee machines. Ignoring for just a moment that an espresso aficionado would never buy pre-ground coffee, imagine a newbie that has just bought a new espresso machine walking into their local grocery and seeing pre-ground and whole beans labeled as espresso, neither of which is meant for their machine. Lots of mislabeling going on.
I have to frequently explain this to people as well.
this forum is making me fat and broke!
on a seriuos note though, is there any drawback to using finely ground beans for an auto-drip brewer? I've always tried to grind mine up pretty fine.
on a seriuos note though, is there any drawback to using finely ground beans for an auto-drip brewer? I've always tried to grind mine up pretty fine.
Very fine grounds can float on top of the water in a drip brewer. If you have always done it & haven't had a problem, you're OK... if you go too fine, you can run into a problem where the filter binds up and grounds float over the top of the filter ( or even worse, the basket ). Then you'll either have grounds in your coffee or all over the place. Other than that possibility, it shouldn't do anything negatively ( that I've noticed ).
The risk is overextraction. Too many soluble solids extracted into the cup will lead to bitterness.
It really depends on what you mean by "pretty fine." What type of grinder are you using?
I've got this one at home and one similar to it at work
http://www.amazon.com/203-42-Electric-Coffee-Grinder-Stainless/dp/B00004SPEU/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header
http://www.amazon.com/203-42-Electric-Coffee-Grinder-Stainless/dp/B00004SPEU/ref=cm_cmu_pg__header
I have one of those, they generate less uniformly sized particles than the typical burr grinder, but can make a good pot of auto-drip. If you like the taste, sounds like you are doing it right, though you may want to grind a little less finely sometimes to see if it is any better or worse. As you know, you can spin the whirly blade around for too long, until there is no load on the motor and it makes a high pitched sound. At which point it has produced coffee dust which cakes together under the blade and corners of the grinder. You obviously don't want to grind anywhere near that fine.
just to get this straight then:
coffee bean is coffee bean.
espresso/coffee beans are roasted longer/darker. darker roasts make for brittle, more chewable beans.
this being the case, whatever i ate was a coffee bean, with an unknown roast,, covered in chocolate.
and since they are edible, putting fine grounds on ice cream is a fairly reasonable topping...????
sounds good to me.
coffee bean is coffee bean.
espresso/coffee beans are roasted longer/darker. darker roasts make for brittle, more chewable beans.
this being the case, whatever i ate was a coffee bean, with an unknown roast,, covered in chocolate.
and since they are edible, putting fine grounds on ice cream is a fairly reasonable topping...????
sounds good to me.
While we are on the topic I have a some input that might be worth while.
At one time I used to bake my Bran Muffins (from scratch with buttermilk!!!). I would eat one every day for breakfast, warmed up and with butter on time! It only made sense to me that putting my coffee beans into the bran muffin would save time in my morning routine (aka I could skip brewing coffee and just get a jump from my muffin). My method was to make a normal batch of muffin mix and I took a 1/8 a cup of coffee beans and cut them in half and added it directly to the muffin batter.
Well hot out of the oven the night before they tasted amazing! The next day they were even decent, but soon after the coffee beans had absorbed moisture from the muffin and become tooth shatteringly hard. Maybe if one was to used ground coffee they would have success.
Lesson to learn: coffee beans in contact with moist desserts for extended periods can be detrimental to your teeth.
At one time I used to bake my Bran Muffins (from scratch with buttermilk!!!). I would eat one every day for breakfast, warmed up and with butter on time! It only made sense to me that putting my coffee beans into the bran muffin would save time in my morning routine (aka I could skip brewing coffee and just get a jump from my muffin). My method was to make a normal batch of muffin mix and I took a 1/8 a cup of coffee beans and cut them in half and added it directly to the muffin batter.
Well hot out of the oven the night before they tasted amazing! The next day they were even decent, but soon after the coffee beans had absorbed moisture from the muffin and become tooth shatteringly hard. Maybe if one was to used ground coffee they would have success.
Lesson to learn: coffee beans in contact with moist desserts for extended periods can be detrimental to your teeth.
Yikes, sounds painful. Aren't coffee beans pretty hard whether they've absorbed moisture or not? I could understand right out of the oven maybe, but I've chewed on a coffee bean before and had to be pretty careful.
