Keurig Without Shore Power

I put this on my wish list. The red one on Amazon is listed at $39 from other sellers. Will keep an eye on it to see if it goes down. Thanks for the link.
 
Like a French press, but no mess!

And we've got the reusable cups for guilt-free coffee brewing. Well, low guilt, I guess we have to be guilty about something...
 
Coffee is one of my passions in life. For the past several years I have been roasting at home. In fact, I'm expecting a 20 pound shipment of assorted green beans (Kenyan, Sumatran, Papua New Guinea and Guatemalan) today actually. I approach both roasting and brewing with a fairly high degree of precision - 34 grams per serving, ground finely immediately before brewing at 205 degrees for 4 minutes. The best method that I've come up with to brew coffee is the clever coffee brewer. We have 2 (one for my wife and one for me). It combines all the flavor benefits of a French press without the sludge nor cleanup of a French press. With this method, one places the ground coffee then pours over the hot water and lets it steep for 4 minutes. Once finished steeping, by placing it on the coffee cup, the stopper at the bottom is pushed up and the coffee filters through to the cup. This method works great when camping. However, I do bend the rules and grind the coffee beforehand to simplify things (I'll take the slight slight sacrifice in freshness). The burr grinder is big and noisy - not too amenable to camping. However, on longer trips, I'll bring a hand cranked burr grinder. Here is a link to the clever coffee maker. I hope this is useful for other coffee lovers out there:

Amazon.com: Clever Coffee Dripper With Bonus Filters Included (Clear): Drip Coffeemakers: Kitchen & Dining
 
Hi Randy, I also use the Behmoor 1600 but it is about 3-4 years old. I don't have the ability to fine tune the roast profile as with the new "plus" model. When the old one bites the dust, I'll upgrade to this. I've been really happy with the device. I usually source my beans from Sweet Maria's and have been happy with the accuracy of their taste descriptors of the different coffees. I'm sure you use a good burr grinder as well. I'd recommend you try the clever. You'll be surprised at the difference in terms of subtle notes that you will detect when extracting the coffee through submersion for a few minutes versus pouring over. It's kind of like going from mono to stereo with music. My brother who is also very much into his food and coffee abandoned his very expensive coffee maker after tasting the results of the clever coffee. It uses #4 filters and a quick water rinse is all that is needed after brewing to clean it up.

Jenn, I'm not sure that you'll necessarily save coffee by changing to this though you might. I like a really strong cup so my ratio (by weight) is about 13:1 water to coffee though the industry standard is about 18:1. I've found that size of the grind makes a huge difference as well with the taste - I like it quite fine but not powdery fine. A course grind will taste entirely different than a fine grind. The only way to get that consistency though is with a decent burr grinder. There are hand grinders but it takes a good while to grind each cup this way. The other variable is water. I use filtered tap water to get out the chlorine taste and heat to 205 degrees with an electric kettle. In the teardrop, I have a small digital probe thermometer to check the temperature.
 
I like a guy who uses a probe to get his water exactly at 205! :) I'll check out the Clever.

I also order from Sweet Maria's along with Captains Coffeee. Sulawesi is my personal favorite. One bad thing about the plus is that is has a new safety (i.e., lawyer) "feature." About 3/4 into the roast the display starts blinking. If you don't hit Enter within 30 seconds it kicks into the cool cycle. I've lost more than one pound missing it. Do you use a variac to control the voltage? If not, highly recommended. I roast just a bit into second crack, there is a sweet spot for me, trying to hit it every time is part of the fun!
 
I'm not familiar with the variac. I do wonder if there is variation though in my voltage. I sometimes see a fairly big difference in roast times (3 or more minutes) with the same green coffee. It must be due to voltage differences.

I also go right for the second crack and then start cooling. The last few minutes usually takes some hands-on attention. I set my timer for about 13 minutes and just sit by the roaster the last 3-4 minutes to add time or stop it on time. Have you found the ability to adjust temperature/time between first and second crack to be useful? I will confess that I just run full bore (as hot as the machine will allow) till I get to the end and then cool.
 
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