Episode: 2440
Title: HPR2440: How to save bad beans or the French press
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2440/hpr2440.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:06:44

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This is HPR episode 2,440 entitled How to Save Bad Beans on a French Press and in part
on the series Coffee, it is hosted by Cobra II and is about one minute long and carries
an exquisite flag.
The summary is How to Hush and Coffee.
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Before we get to the day show, I'd like to play you this memorial sent in yesterday
on December 7th by Claudio M.
Hey Hacker Public Radio, this is Claudio M. Claudio Miranda.
I just want to record a little episode here.
I'm not sure if many of you remember, but well a good old friend of many people here on
HPR, Matthew Williams, Lord Drachem Bluth, passed away last year and as I recorded this
December 7th, 2017, this marks one year since his passing.
So I've just been thinking about him today and thinking about how quickly time passes
by when those that we love and those that we care about pass away and you look back and
you just can't believe how fast the time has gone by.
And interestingly enough, I went through another situation recently when my mother passed
away on September 28th, so it's been, was difficult for us, especially for my dad still
is a little bit, but you know we're healing, we've grieved, we're moving on, but we just
can't, can't believe how quickly the time passes by, it's already been two months and soon
enough it'll be three months and before we know it, it's going to be a year.
This is it is today marking Lord Drachem Bluth's death.
Just want to make a call to everyone out there, please remember him, think about him, think
about the memories you've had with him, all the things that you've done with him if you've
met him in person or if you've interacted with him in any way, just take a time out just
to think about him and honor his memory.
Thanks, bye bye.
Now it's my table, I'm able to get out of here.
Hello HBR, this is Cobra 2, you'll have to excuse the audio quality as I'm not sure
how well this recording is going to go, it's just kind of a test, I'm driving around
in the middle of nowhere, heading back from picking up some lobster, anyways I figured
I'd talk a little bit about some coffee as I'm driving and just kind of wanted to go
over, you know, how you get good coffee from bad coffee beans.
So if you just out and around and in just your everyday grocery store and you're a hanker
and person coffee but the beans selection is pretty slim to none so you go and get one
of those cans of already cream ground vacuum sealed for consumption, you're just your
everyday average drip coffee pot maker so you've got some grounds that are coarse ground
but they're ground for, I believe it's extra fine, you see they're fine or extra fine and
that's typically what you'll find in most modern day drip coffee makers that's just kind
of grounds to use, anyways, so you pick up just all say the national brand, I'm not
going to list off any brands, void Maxwell House in the U.S. it tastes like shit, anyways
so you pick up the national brand at coffee or whatever it is, and you go run along
and you're just kind of wondering how do I make this coffee taste good, it's going to be,
it's going to have most of its flavor already gone because it's already been ground before
I go to make my coffee, so what, how can I salvage this, well my friends the answer is the
French press, you go get yourself just a cheap French press, you get ones they have glass
beakers they have plastic beakers, and buddy let me tell you what French press, you can
make almost any coffee taste decent, you might have to use three times as much as you normally
would and with a freshly ground coffee bean, but hey what the heck, you're still saving
a little bit of money by buying the name brand, you know, three package bullshit, right?
Well anyways, I kind of need to go into how French press actually works, so what a French
press does is the idea is to get a take water that is almost boiling, I think it's 205
degrees Fahrenheit, and my Celsius is horrible, so that's roughly 93, 95, some of you folks
that are more familiar with Celsius will have to correct me in the comments, or help,
just send me an email, but you take your almost boiling water but not boiling water, you
get that on the stove, get it all heated up and ready to go, how do you heat your water,
you measure out your coffee grounds, and you're going to have to try this five or six times
to get your measurement right for the strength of coffee that you like.
I have a 21 ounce French, excuse me, I have a 32 ounce French press, I fill it up with
about 30 ounces of water to make a coffee cup for me for the day, I don't drink as much
as I used to, and I use five, I think I use five tablespoons of coffee for my 30 ounce
coffee of the cheapo, run of the mail, whatever it is, if I'm using fresh ground, I only use
three and a half tablespoons, so that's kind of the difference for the, get the strength
of the coffee flavor that I like, we're in between fresh and, you know, already ground
vacuum seal, PS, so anyways, you get back to how the French press works, I kind of talk
in circles around myself, so you take your water, you pour it, you get your water
heating, then you take your coffee, you put your coffee into the bottom of your French press,
and then you take your almost boiling water and you slowly pour it into the coffee grounds,
as your reason you want to slowly pour it in is because you want to gradually immerse
the coffee grounds with water, and then after you pour it in all the water, you'll just
get a spoon or something, have a fork works, a straw, whatever you can grab, some sort
of stirring utensils, and just stir the coffee grounds around in the French press for about
15 to 30 seconds or so, what you're looking for is you're looking for a nice thick head
to form, on the top of the, on the top of the water, you get coffee head, man, it's awesome.
When you see the coffee head starting to form, you should just get a solid layer in the
thicker your coffee head, the better your coffee is going to be in my experience, so after
you get your coffee poured, after you got it all stirred, after you've watched your coffee
head, sticky nose down there, it just deeply inhale and savor all the aromas of that fresh,
fresh coffee smell, it is absolutely delicious, you'll amount this water and just sit in
here thinking about it, and think if you're going to have to go home and make me a golf
deal my way down, so after you've stirred it, you take your lid to your French press, which
has plunger with a filter on the end of it, and you just put the lid on top of the
beaker and set a timer for four minutes to four minutes and 30 seconds somewhere around
there, and that's your brew time for your coffee, after your timer goes off, you take the plunger
and slowly push the plunger all the way down, if you take the lid off before you do this,
you'll see that all the coffee grounds have risen to the top and have started to kind
of just get completely saturated with water, well not completely saturated, but the boils
have leached out of the coffee grounds, and water has gone into replace them, so what
you're going to try and do is basically use that filter that's on top, that's on the
end of the plunger there, and you're going to force the coffee grounds that are floating
below the surface of the water, and that's going to force out any remaining coffee boils,
anything that's left in the bean, that's going to force it out into the coffee, into
the water, and it's going to make your coffee more delicious, and if you were to just
pour it straight out, my mistake was, I thought it was originally there to just filter the
coffee as you're pouring it in, so the first couple of times you use a French press
in it or push the plunger all the way down, by loss, so when you force it down, you are
pushing the coffee grounds into the water, you're forcing water to run in between all
of the coffee grounds, you're forcing water into the coffee grounds, and at the same time
you're forcing it out, just kind of basically like a, it's almost like taking the coffee
grounds, throwing them in a towel, and just kind of bringing them out into the house under
water, that's basically what you're doing, you are bringing the coffee out of the beans,
with this stuff, so after you do that, you just pour it into your favorite mug, serve
yourself a nice hot piping cup, a joke, and that's pretty much all I get for today,
a half dollar hack of public radio listeners, enjoy yourselves, go home, make yourself a nice
hot piping cup of coffee, and a nice new French press, go out again, go find one at a
cup, pick a thrift store, because it's a whole lot cheaper than trying to pile on new,
you should talk to your class too as to whether you want to get a class or a plastic one,
I think he prefers a plastic model, so I've had my glass French press for, oh jeez, probably
eight years in, and I've used it every day, so it's worth every single penny that you
have lost and spend into it, all right, have a good day folks, we'll talk to you next
time, this is Hack or Public Radio, cover to signing off.
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