My go to is usually club soda when I’m out and SodaStream at home. I don’t like mock tails because I don’t want the sugar and could care less what other people think of me being sober. Most bartenders don’t even charge you, but I tip as if I was drinking.

This is just my personal experience, but drinking less was worse for me than drinking more. It can take 10 days for alcohol to leave your system so if your going to have drinks more frequently than that you’re just punishing yourself with constant withdrawal and anxiety cycles. After reading This Naked Mind it really changed my views on alcohol and I realized I was way better quitting entirely. I’m over five years sober and don’t regret a single day.

Moka is definitely a very robust brew. If you find you’re getting bitterness, try tweaking your extraction with a larger grind size, higher temp (thus faster brew time), or both.

This. I switched to stainless. No aluminum or rancid oil, both of which I think negatively affect flavor. I even pour my La Croix into a glass because I don’t like the taste of the can. Maybe I’m just sensitive but I love a clean moka pot. I have at least one moka everyday.

If you’re new to jazz and have Spotify, there is a Spotify-curated playlist called, “Jazz Classics.” If you’re doing it the old fashioned way, you could do worse than starting with these albums: Kind of Blue, Love Supreme, Mingus Ah Um, Red Garland’s Piano, Time Out and almost any good Charlie Parker compilation of which there seem to be dozens.

Never thought of air fryer fresh roast… 😀

Good for you! I’m with you, I can afford even more guitars if I’m not spending thousands on alcohol.

I love my Flair because each pull is unique and when the pull is great it’s some of the best ever. If you prefer consistency, may not be for you.

My personality gives me a lot of pleasure in tinkering and control so I love being completely hands on with the Flair. You will pull some of the best shots you’ve ever had when you get it dialed in. You will also have many fails. Although once you get the basic techniques down the fails are not undrinkable.

But because I enjoy this totally hand-crafted approach I even enjoy my fails. It’s like jazz improvisation.

I’m a Flair user and a little unfamiliar with the Robot. How is the preheating better? Is it in some method of temperature control or a way you don’t have to handle a detached brew chamber?

Excellent! I found that This Naked Mind really help me uncover all the lies that our culture tells about alcohol and not feel as tempted by the “fun” things or FOMO.

I mean, I wouldn’t take part in some “heroin tasting,” either and would be quite convinced I wouldn’t be missing out.

(I’m not connected to Annie Grace in any way, just felt like that book helped a lot).

Yeah! Congratulations!

Thank you! I stumbled on this once and couldn’t find it again.

Awesome, congratulations. A friend of mine who would binge described it this way: you can choose whether you want to dance with the gorilla or not, but the gorilla chooses when you stop. Except he didn’t say, “dance with.”

Great set up. Curious why the Bambino doesn’t work for light roasts. Water temp? I struggle a little with lighter roast extractions because of my altitude.

Health agencies and journalists are finally coming around in most places to admitting there are only downsides to drinking. Most of the studies that showed benefits were flawed in some way, including not screening for people who already ruined their health and then abstained. It’s sometimes referred to as the sick quitter effect.

But drugs are great at making you rationalize almost anything to take more drugs and this particular drug has big money and some very talented marketing behind it.

That is amazing. I noticed pretty quickly on quitting that weight loss was easier, my blood pressure stayed normal, I slept better and I rarely got sick.

Parkinson’s runs in my family so I actually try to drink at least 3-4 servings a day. Totally black and at least two are espresso pulls so the caffeine per serving is less. It seems like every other week there are conflicting studies. This week, coffee is good. 😀 And not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but I tend to be a little bit skeptical about how most of the studies regarding dietary cholesterol are designed anyway. It is famously difficult to accurately track and control nutritional studies. I’m fortunate to have low cholesterol anyway, but if it’s a concern, the compounds thought to raise cholesterol are in the extracted oils so a paper filter takes most of them out. Only about 10% of my coffee is paper filtered, so if I stop posting here, you know what happened…

You are giving your opponents the chance to develop their pieces with tempo by making theats against your queen

This.

If you can find ways to safely kick their queen around you will get a middlegame advantage. And look for ways to trap their queen. I’ve found that people who start out with their queen also make some hasty moves.

It’s really just more my own person way of thinking about it after watching Hoffmanns’s method. It certainly is drip. But Hoffmann swirls the grounds so that you get a kind of best of both worlds of drip and immersion. I prefer to think of it as immersion when I’m trying to dial in the extraction because using Hoffmann’s method the grounds float around in the cone.

Edit to add another thought I had: I think Hoffmann has a video where he shows his swirling technique. The idea is that suspending the grains exposes them more equally to the water for a more balanced extraction. That said, many people do not do this with their pour over so it would have some other similarity to drip and percolator methods. If memory serves, Hoffmann also has a percolation vs immersion video that is worth watching.

I absolutely love my Flair even more than a more expensive machines because you can totally geek out on different pressure profiles. But, I was describing it to a friend and he thought it was way more trouble than it’s worth. He wanted something more convenient.

I use pour over when I want a clean, paper-filtered cup of coffee that is richer than your typical drip brew. All of the other methods I prefer to use — mostly Flair espresso and moka pot, but occasionally cafetière—are unfiltered. That leaves more body (oils and solubles) which I prefer. But sometimes you want that clean brew from the paper filter.

I think of a pour over as an immersion style of brewing. So in some ways it is similar to the cafetière. But because of the filter method, a French press is going to require larger grind size which results in a slightly different (in your case “woody”) extraction.

I also like that the pour over gives me more room to experiment with grind size and volumes. This is oversimplified but extraction comes down to basically three things: grind size, water volume/contact time, and temperature. The grind size on a cafetière can result in a hollow extraction sometimes where you’re not getting the full range of what the bean has to offer.

Of course, the main downside to a paper filter is the removal of oils, which also affects the flavor. Especially if you prefer an oily style in which the cafetière, espresso and moka excel.