I ordered one of each, at $31.90 a pound, and shipping  was $13.00, so my total cost was $76.80.  Wow, that's a lot to pay for a couple pounds of coffee!  But up popped a window, that said I could knock 20% off a pound if I committed to buying an order a month for three months.  Hmmm, 20% off brings my per pound price down to $25.52, the shipping is still $6.50 a pound, so that works out to $32.02 a pound instead of $38.40 a pound.  Oh what the hell, might as well live a little.

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Part IV:  The Grind

So for the past two months I have been drinking much better coffee.  I'm using the French press exclusively, except for a week that I went back to the old Cuisinart when I broke my French press in the sink.  What a pain, these things look cool, they work great, but they're fragile as hell.  I just set it down in my sink, and it tipped over and shattered.  I can tell you something, though, not having the French press made me really miss it.  It just makes a far superior cup of coffee than any drip maker is going to ever be capable of.

But there's a problem (of course, there's a problem, I wouldn't be writing this if there wasn't).  I use a cheap, Braun blade coffee grinder that I picked up for $15 to do my grinding.  I've had one for a couple of years to grind spices, and went out and got another one to grind coffee.  And they work ok.  They're quick, easy to clean, although a little loud, and I do tend to scatter some ground coffee emptying it every morning when I make my daily brew.

But that's not the problem.  There are two problems.  First, deciding when your coffee is at the right grind - which for a French press is a "coarse" grind - is a complete judgment call.  Not exactly the kind of thing you want to do first thing in the morning, at least not until you've gotten a cup of joe in you.  

Hmmm.... wait a minute that's the whole point, lol.  I know it's hard to believe from reading this web page, but I'm not so anal that I'm going to pull out a stop watch to time an operation that takes less than ten seconds.  But I have tried a few things to get a consistent grind.  Counting to ten quickly while holding the button down.  Giving it 8 split-second pulses, followed by a 2 second finishing grind, etc, etc. 

And I've completely blown it, too.  I've gotten far too fine a grind for a French press, been barely able to push the plunger down and been rewarded with a bitter, way too strong cup of mud.  And when your coffee is costing you $30 a pound, you drink it anyway.  But it's not exactly the Coffee of the Gods.

The second problem is that even when you do get an acceptable grind with your whirly blades, it's completely inconsistent.  You'll have beans that look like at most, they've been cut in half, and you'll have a fair amount of powder.  And that powder is a problem.  The filter in the French press is not going push that powder to the bottom of the pot with the rest of the grounds.  So it's going to end up in your cup, where it keeps brewing and gets bitter.    And if you pour off the rest of the pot into a thermos or a thermal carafe, the problem get sworse.  Also the fact that the powder is made up of such small fragments of the coffee bean, means that it brews faster (and gets bitter faster) than the larger chunks of the grind.  So it's going to add bitterness anyway, even if you poured off your press pot through a paper filter (which is way more effort than I want to go through in the morning just to get a decent cup of joe, but I have to admit I thought about it).

It's odd, but this problem in some sense points out the elegance of the design of my $150 grind and brew with filtered water at a ridiculously low temperature Cusinart drip maker.  That thing uses a whirly blade style grinder, but as I mentioned before, it has the mesh screen in the side, which not only ensures that nothing that hasn't been ground small enough gets out of the hopper, but anything that has gets out before it's reduced to powder.  Pretty clever actually.  It would even be more clever if they created one of those as a standalone product for $20 or $30, maybe with interchangeable meshes depending on the grind you wanted.

Life is full of problems, a big part of going through life is coming up with the answers.  And fortunately there is an answer to the problem of inconsistent ground coffee out of the whirly blade grinders - and that answer is called a burr grinder.  Burr grinders work by running the coffee through basically a set of two ridged plates, the fineness or coarseness of the grind is controlled by the distance between the plates.

Because of this burr grinders produce a much more consistent grind than whirly blade grinders do.  They are also almost infinitely adjustable.  Most burr grinders have 30 or more settings, or can be adjusted by a simple screw.  And they are more common than you think.  Virtually every pepper grinder out there is a burr grinder.  Manual coffee burr grinders are obviously larger than pepper grinders, but it's the same idea.  They usually have a crank or a wheel to turn the plate.  They've also been around forever.  You can find antique burr grinders over 100 years old on eBay.  The whirly blade grinder is a modern thing, and like a lot of modern things, it sacrifices some things in the name of cheapness and convenience that aren't always apparent on first glance.

Manual burr coffee grinders are hard to find and relatively expensive.  There's an outfit in Washington State that makes a handcrafted version for about $50, another company in Germany makes replicas of old coffee grinders starting at $70.   These grinders are hand-crafted out of cast-iron and wood and really look pretty cool.  There's another company that makes cheaper plastic-bodied grinders suitable for camping and backpaking for about $20.  Manual burr grinders have the advantage of quiet operation.  Kind of a nice thing if you are an earl riser and others in your household like to sleep in.

However, most commercially available burr grinders are electric and cost anywhere from $60 to $300.  I picked up a "cheap" Cuisinart burr grinder at Bed, Bath and Beyond High Prices today for $60.  It's mostly plastic, except for the stainless steel conical burrs, electric motor and wiring.  It doesn't look as cool as a manual burr grinder does, and it makes as much racket for a longer period of time than a whirly blade grinder does.  But I picked it up to test the concept.  Does it really make a more consistent grind than a whirly blade grinder?  Does that make a difference in the quality of coffee you brew?

The answer to both of those questions is an unqualified YES.  Yes, it's a much more consistent grind, and yes, you not only taste the difference in the result, you see it.

With the burr grinder, the coffee poured out of the French press no less dark, but far clearer.  I drink my coffee with cream, and with whirly blade grinder, when I pour in the half and half, I see a fine powder floating on the surface of the coffee.  That, admittedly, does add some body to the cup, but it also brings along some bitterness.  

Don't get me wrong, you need some some dissolved solids in the cup, it's not coffee without them.  But powder and French presses don't mix.  Espresso?  Sure, you want a grind that's almost completely powder.  But think about how you make espresso, you are passing steam through powdered coffee in 20 to 30 seconds.  Not the 4 minute steep you do with a French press.

The burr grind was a much more homogeneous grind, what's more, it's completely repeatable.  No more counting to 10, no more counting pulses, no more concern about over-grinding.  Just set it and forget it.  Plus you can load up the hopper with beans, and there is a setting to control the amount it grinds, if you have the guts to use it.

I'd rather measure the beans I grind before I grind, rather than rely on a machine to guess how much coffee to grind based on the number of cups I want to brew.  I know how much coffee to grind for my French press, or at least I did.  I'll need to experiment with the burr grinder to see if what I think holds true.  But I think it will.  

I used my regular 5 scoops of beans for a pot in my 48 ounce French press, ground it in the burr grinder, and got a solid cup of coffee out of it.  And more importantly, it was much smoother, less bitter, and much clearer out of the pot.

So I'd rather grind what I need, than rely on the grinder to guess what I need based on what setting I put it on.  Also, if you fill up the hopper, that's what you're drinking until the hopper is emptied.  Some mornings, I crave the strong, bold, overtones of the Mountain Thunder French Roast, some mornings I like the subtlety of the Purple Mountain Full City Roast, and other mornings, I go with a sublime Mountain Thiunder Vienna Roast.

So yes, if you are serious about coffee, get a burr grinder.  Especially if you are an espresso nut.  If you are trying to get espresso grinds in a whirly blade grinder you are insane.  While a blade grinder makes powder from the second you turn the thing on, the very randomness of its operation means that if you want the entire payload ground to a fine grind, you are going to have to run the thing for a while.  And the longer you run it, the more likely you are to heat up the coffee and burn it before you brew it.  And no matter how long you run it, you are still going to have some non-espresso compatible chunks in your final grind.  So if you want espresso, get a burr grinder.  If' you want to use a French press, get a burr grinder.  If you're happy with a tepid cup of swill out of your 1970's era Mr. Coffee brewing pre-ground Folger's, you're completely silly for having read this far.

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Part IV:  Jumping Into the Fire

Ok, so far what we've talked about is pretty straightforward, and actually fairly reasonable.  Afterall, you can pick up a French press cheaper than most drip coffee makers.  Yes, it takes a little bit of attention and a modicum of skill to make a good cup of joe from a French press, but it's worth it in the end result.  

And yes, like everything buying good ingredients has it's benefits.  Yeah, $30+ a pound for Kona coffee from Hawaii is expensive, but I guarantee you it's the single biggest thing you can do to improve the quality of coffee you are making.  It's stupid to pay that kind of money if you are going to waste it in a crappy drip coffee maker though.

And in that light a burr grinder that costs $60 as opposed to a blade grinder that costs $15 is a worthwhile investment if the results are improved enough.  And in my book, they are.  The grind is much more consistent, less powder, and much more repeatable in the bleary hours of early morning.

But now, I'm edging to the cliff, getting ready to jump the shark, go off the deep end, lose it completely.  Because I'm thinking about roasting my own.

Why would I even think of such a thing?  Roasting coffee is complex.  The equipment ranges from the ludicrous to the ludicrously expensive.  I had problems grinding consistently with a blade grinder.  Roasting coffee is an art form that requires constant attention to detail.  Plus it's done at around 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  It's dangerous.  It creates smoke.  If you do it wrong, it's as good a way to screw up an expensive batch of beans and clear (or set fire to) your house out that I can think of.

What could possibly be the advantages of roasting your own coffee?

Well, I suppose if you were trying to impress a woman with your all-around mate-ability level, "I roast my own coffee" probably rates up there with "I brew mead," "I grow my own weed," "I make an awesome Crepe Suzette," above, "I live with my Mom," "What's a vacuum cleaner?" "Hygiene, nah, them I got on are Wranglers" and below, "Why yes, I am a major rock star," "I only drive my Ferrari on Wednesdays" and "I'll send my Limo around to collect you for tea on Sunday."

But if you think about it, there are two huge advantages to roasting your own coffee.

The first is freshness.  Green beans can be stored for weeks, even months without deteriorating.  But once roasted even dark roasts, even stored as whole beans and not ground, start aging badly.  That's why the bulk beans at your local megamart suck.  Roasted beans are old and losing some of their flavor within a few days.  They hold their flavor much better than ground coffee does, but they still age much faster than green beans do.  

That's partly why I am so impressed with Mountain Thunder.  They do a roast, give the beans some time to cool, package them, and have them on a Fed Ex truck heading to their customers within 24 hours.  Forty-eight hours later, they are showing up on your doorstep.

Does it make a difference?  Yeah, it does.  When I get a fresh shipment, I always brew a pot right away.  Even if I already have some of their coffee around from the last shipment, that fresh one tastes better.

Now you could say this is all a bunch of hooey, beans are beans, it can't really make that much of a difference.  And you may be right, but you'd have to explain reason number two for roasting your own coffee.

Green beans generally run at half the price for the same variety of roasted beans.  I can buy 5 lbs of Mountain Thunder green at the same grade as the roasted Mountain Thunder I buy now, for $95.  That's $19 a pound, the roasted beans cost $35 a pound.  And yes, that's not what I really pay, because that doesn't include the shipping cost, nor does it include the coffee club discount.  And there are some other variables as well.

And they sell a vast, ever changing selection of green beans for as little as $4 a pound.  These guys are serious about coffee.  They specialize in single origin coffees and they have coffees from all over the world.  You could spend hours on their site, and I did.

There's a lot of different ways to roast coffee, starting as cheap as using a cast iron skillet and a wooden spoon and working up to an $17,000 Pribat commercial roaster that can do 45 kilograms at a time.  And Sweet Maria's has a section on about all of them.  

The problem with roasting coffee is that it can create smoke, in fact it will certainly create smoke if you want a dark French roast.  And the idea of standing over a stove stirring coffee beans with a wooden spoon in a cast iron skillet as my home filled with clouds of smoke didn't really appeal to me.  But you can get air roasters for $150 or so, and drum roasters for $300 an up. 

After reviewing everything I could learn about different methods of home roasting, I decided to shell out $300 for a Behmor 1600 drum roaster.  And I decided to buy it from Sweet Maria's because not only was the cost there as cheap as anywhere else, but they throw in a selection of 8 pounds of different kinds of green beans to get you started roasting.

The reason I went with the Behmor is that it can roast up to a pound of coffee at a time, it has a smoke suppression system, and it has a set of pre-programmed roasting profiles that seemed like a good idea for a novice roaster like me.

So out came the credit card and I placed my order.  A few days later my new Behmor showed up.  It's about the size of a small microwave and seems pretty sturdily built.  It didn't take my long to get it unwrapped and try my hand at homeroasting.

What did take awhile was figuring out how the hell to actually roast acceptable coffee with the thing.  And it's a very good thing that Sweet Maria's included 8 free pounds of green beans with this thing or I might have given up.  I'm not going to go into intense detail here on how actually to use the Behmor, if you are really interested in how to work this thing, I'd suggest you go out to Sweet Maria's and read their section on the Behmor.

But roasting coffee takes a little experience, I ruined several roasts and filled my place with a cloud of acrid smoke once on a roast that got away from me before I figured out how to hit the sweet spots.

As and aside, it's kind of funny the way the reactions of roasting coffee are described.  At first you the reactions in the bean are endothermic, ie you have to keep adding heat to keep the roasting reactions going.  But as the bean pass first crack and approach second crack the reaction turns exothermic, ie, it produces more heat than you are putting into it.

Which is a fancy way of saying you've started a fire.

A French roast is where the beans have been roasted just to the verge of actually catching on fire.  And in fact, a French roast is definitely overkill with high quality beans.  French roasts are use to disguise the flavor of inferior beans, and most commercial coffee blends, like Folgers, Maxwell House, etc, are French roasts solely for that reason.

At some point in the roasting process, the flavor of the beans due to the natural characteristics of their origin and type are overwhelmed by the smokiness that comes from the roast.  I noticed this with the Mountain Thunder coffee.  At first, I liked the French roast better, because it's what I was expecting.  That strong, dark, almost acrid flavor that comes from a French roast.  But I soon started liking Vienna roast better, because the flavor was more subtle, more complex.

Roasting beans is almost a magical process.  Taking green beans and releasing the amazing complex oils stored within to make fresh roasted beans.  And when you brew coffee from those beans, it's amazing the kinds of flavors that beans from different places on the globe have.  One of the things that attracted me to Kona coffee originally was the intense floral flavors in the cup.  

But the single origin beans from Sweet Maria's have been a real eye opener for me. And what's even better is they run from $4 to $7 a pound!

In fact, I've stopped ordering Kona coffee.  I can get a pound of green Kona from Sweet Maria's for $17 if I want it, and sometimes I do get a pound.  But I like trying different coffees, and since I roast them myself, they are always fresh and they are usually spectacular.  I fact, I have found that the freshness of the roast is the MOST important factor in the taste of the final product.

It amazes me that even Starbucks considers the shelf life of whole roasted beans to be one full year!  If I've learned anything from roasting my own, it's that beans start to go stale about ten days after roasting, and if you want peak flavor you need to brew them before that.  

I brewed up some Mountain Thunder Kona the other day that had been sitting around for a couple of months and I could barely drink it.  I guess I've been spoiled by roasting my own beans, there's just nothing like fresh roasted coffee regardless of where it comes from.  And in roasting your own, half the fun is experimenting with single origin beans from all over the world.  Some of my favorites so far.