Morning Cup Of Coffee And Weather

On my way to Seattle to pick up my van. Taking Amtrak because it’s cheap. Currently in Minot, ND. Film at eleven.

 

Enjoy your trip!
The last time we took the train to Seattle we also traveled the glorious flatland's of ND, and eastern MT during the day, and got to the mountains in western MT just about dusk. Woke up in the Cascades early the next morning, but would have preferred traveling across ND, and eastern MT at night and the mountains during the day. I was a little confused by Amtrak's scheduling in that respect, but there probably is a good reason in someones eyes.

 

I just watched a video from a youtuber who did that -- took a sleeper car with a SMALL sleeping room from Socal to Chicago. Seems like a cool way to travel were it not for all the travel mandates that exist(ed?) Kind of reminded me of tear-drop camping --- even had to get out into the cold hallways to use a common bathroom/shower

Does Amtrak have TSA checks like airports? The cattle calls, x rays, body cavity searches? I won't fly any more - I refuse to be treated the way they do in so many airports. I swear I had a TSA guy in Chicago nearly de-pant me as I was standing with my shoes in one hand and my belt in the other with my hands outstretched either side of me.

The irony of that experience is that I was returning (through Chicago) from Amsterdam. In Amsterdam, I am certain the secruity check was far more thorough (the polite 'banter' with their gate agent was clearly a screening technique) and to be sure I was called "Sir" and the phrase "Please" and acompanying "Thank you" were frequent. Even randomly having my luggage checked the agent apologized for the inconvenience.

I know its always over romanticized in old movies --- but taking a train cross country has always appealed to me. Most RV'ers hate travel days - Me, I look forward to them more than the R&R days. I always loved looking out the huge pane of glass and watching the miles roll past, seeing subtle variations are you pass through regions --- the flats of the mid west, to rolling hills and mountain passes...the gradual change from winter like cold to summer wamth, then back. Its amazing how beautiful Gods creation is.

 

No screening of any kind. It would actually be easy to just hop on without a ticket and say you lost it. My ticket from the Twin Cities to Everette was $148.
There is a group of about 50 Amish in the vista car. I played crazy eights with them for a couple hours this morning.

 

The mountains of Montana were sure a welcome sight after seeing the flatlands of South Dakota. This picture was taken near the Continental Divide from the train above the high line.

D7178161-1BD6-44C9-BE1D-9FF31330A88C by Tour 931 posted May 17, 2022 at 11:53 PM

I’m not sure of the exact peak however it is part of the Lewis Range.

 

Enjoyed my coffee this morning in a campground. Adding a few nights, not a 'fun' trip --- although I hope to find a few enjoyable hours. I really hpe the rain blows thorugh quickly - a grilled steak sounds so much better than pizza and a binge watching Better Call Saul. Although come to think of it that doesn't sound bad either

I have to say, the Aeropress is easy to clean and produces a half way decent cup of coffee. Now I'm out of coffee Folgers is starting to sound good....

 

The weekend has started. It will include a bike ride or two, some paddling & starting to get ready to head to Necedah in a few weeks.

 

I need to make an appointment with the mother ship too. I want to add the solar panels.

 

Adding a few things & just wanting it checked over. Ours was built 7 years ago. I don’t think there is anything wrong with it, but we figured 7 years was a good time for a checkup.

 

I think I'll be taking ours in this fall to put on some roof racks and autowbrake, since I don't want a brake controller in my tow vehicle.

 

Nothing too big for us. I know we are getting the diffuser for AC and most of the rest is just replacing some things that have some wear and tear them like the hatch dust seal on the galley hatch. Screens on the doors were a casualty of our cat. He wants in if we sleep in there in the backyard and we did that some at the beginning of the pandemic when everything was closed. Like I said, mostly a checkup for it and we'll get to camp in the Midwest coming and going.

 

No coffee here today. I'm on my "last day" of a trip 'home'. The weather is not cooperating. 7:15 am we had a frontal passage and a moderate thunderstorm. I got here Wednesday through Sunurday. Thursday and Friday were beautiful --- 80 and sunny. But, I had to work (pay bills) or attend to tasks that were needed. I got to enjoy Thurday evening at least...it was amazing.

Now tha that is all done, today was supposed to be a recuperation day after a 300 mile drive yesterday. But a full day of rain after the afore mentioned storm --- I'll be leaving after I do 1 more family task.

BUT, the good news....

I did get to try out my Aeropress anew. I had used it in the past and was not satisifed with it. I think I was using too fine of a grind the plunger action was basically an effortless push...no extraction. I used a courser grind, longer sit time, and used a pour over technique. The corser grind and 2 fitlers seemed to be the magic combination. Definately not as good as my machine at home....but a GREAT working alternative.

On the power conversation, I'm still not sold on LION batteries...and I think SOLAR will be my upgrade. In hindsight I wish I had added it and not gotten the heater. With my power demands, the group 24 is not enough for a full 24 hours, the laptop chargers and onboard media server and refrigerator suck it dry faster than I thought it would. The Media server is just a raspberry pi 4 -- I assumed the draw would be lower than it is --- I THINK its the "sucker" I'll be doing some testing at home this week.

Right now, most of our travles are state parks where power is availble...so none of this is a big problem -- but incoming times, I want to visit places out west were power isn't as available...I'd like to still have my lights, fan, fridges and films.

 

Aeropress is like any other coffee maker; one starts to develop confidence after lots of use! If you’re buying ground coffee, or grinding a pound at the store it may take a while to get there. I don’t know if that’s an obstacle for you.

When I occasionally grind at the store, I grind at the drip setting, or one step finer.

Finer = more extraction in a given time, but harder to press.
Coarser = less extraction, but easier to press.

Aero makes the most sense for me in a couple ways:
Shorter brewing time (1 minute-ish) means I can put in more beans for more flavor that is less volatile oils.
More beans for more flavor means one can get a lot of flavor out of medium and light roasts.
I’ve come to avoid all dark roasts, though Nossa Familia has a beautiful Italian roast that seems more medium than dark (no oil on the beans).

I feel we’ve been sold a bill of goods with dark roast (burnt) coffee flavors predominating in coffee shops. Give me a strong medium-light roast please…

It’s possible I’m a little bit of an Aeropress fanboy and coffee snob. There’s nothing quite like stumbling out of the camper in the morning and making a tall Aeropress cup in the great outdoors!

 

I like an aero press but don’t love it. Tried a dozen things and keep coming back to my tried and true - same method I use at home, same method I use on deployment/in the field, same method I use on the office: manual drip pour over.

My real secret is home roasting beans … at a light roast … and a nifty hand grinder that has a USB rechargeable cordless motor attachment.

edit1: grammar, and an apology because I realized after posting I already said most of this earlier in this long thread. Age. It smarts and makes my smarts less smart.

edit2: adjusted the images to appear in-line (i think)

 

Cleaned the galley today getting rid of stuff we don’t use. I wonder why we had 4 cans of waterproofing spray that included 3 different brands. That was a lot of matches too & quite a few trash bags. Our gas mileage should be better after getting rid of this plus stuff some pots/pans and few other things. Next we have to tackle the cabin which should have too much extra stuff.

 

Frost last night so I had to bring all my hanging flower pots inside. Out of cream for coffee. Life is tough out here on the homestead.

 

1.) I source green beans from a few online spots. I’ve also bought them from time to time from local coffee roaster willing to sell their green beans from stock, but generally they haven’t been willing. Burman Coffee Traders and Sweet Maria’s are two good online storefronts.
2.) I roast once a week, making about a pound and a half total yield. That’s enough for myself (2-7 cups of coffee per day, depending on how “monday” it is), my spouse (2 cups per day, steady), and my high schooler (1 cup per day, regulated) for 5-7 days. I store them in Airscape cans. We use the metal version of the Airscape product. They work really well to keep the beans fresh during the week. When we go camping, I use the same Airscape tin. One benefit of the metal version is that it is durable so it works well in the camper or on the road (we used to have a ceramic Airscape container … it lasted about 3 weeks with my rough and tumble clumsy family).
3.) I’ve been home roasting more than a dozen years now. I’ve used a variety of DIY methods and even once had a dedicated appliance. The difference between fresh coffee (less than 14 days since roasting) and what is generally commercially available is remarkable.
4.) I don’t roast while on the road. It’s a home thing. My roasting method would work in a campsite, but it would require hauling the stuff along and we try to keep our camper load down. Generally, I’ll roast just before a trip and bring plenty along for the time we are camping. If we run out, or if we didn’t even start with enough, I’ll try to source some freshly roasted coffee from a boutique roaster along the route. That gets expensive, though. The kind of coffee that I look for usually retails for 18-28 dollars per 12 ounce bag (I generally pay 4-7 dollars a pound for green beans). Roasting in a cast iron is possible, but it usually doesn’t yield a great product. It requires a significant amount of agitation (and can burn up a wooden spoon along the way), and even then the beans can get pretty scorched.

 

Thanks, dirty.

 

My family uses coffee as the 6th love language. 2 nieces are baristas and real coffee shops (not to be confused with bigbux coffee.) Though I personally rely heavily on automation in my kitchen, it is becuase....well, I am just lazy. But am quite familiar with the nectar of life. LOL Taking it with me on the road has never been truly satisfactory though.

When I attempted use with Aero (when I first got it 2013 or so) with a fine grind I found 'the push' to be far too easy --- no extraction just light brown water. The one thing I did differently this time was I used a courser grind and I poured over without additional agitation. I THINK the fine gind was still in suspension and didn't settle out to build preasure. Last week, I did a pour over and it was much better.

Personally, I hate dark roast. To me it tastes like burnt popcorn. The burnt taste becomes dominant and destroys the subtle flavors....taste is personal here, others in my family disagree with me. I prefer a medium to medium dark roast.

At home, I do grind my own -- normally I use a "spice" grinder --- spinning blade variety. I want to get my hands on a manually operated burr grinder. If you have experiene with these, I'd love your input....so much cheap poorly made stuff out there. With the exception of a few very high priced poorly made ones scattered in

 

Them's some fancy coffee rigs We've talked about home roasting before --- I really want to try it. Probably use the popcorn popper appraoch for a small batch testing. I'll bet the house smells wonderful for a few hours after that

What grinder did you get -- do you have a name or amazon link to it? I'm looking for a burr hand operated right now. I don't want to spend a kings randsom, but I don't want something made of the cheapest possible materials....last thing I need is a mid-campground melt-down over a stripped crank assembly

"light and small" are our key requirements. Whatever we get has to share space wiht the aero press and our kettle. -- both are small, hollow and waste a lot of space...I am trying to think more like a backpacker here than an RV'er. What hurts we we are downsizing from a class a which had a full kitchen equivalent to a typical "first apartment" size ... we have to leave a lot of stuff at home....