The $3K Lesson That Changed My Coffee Game

In this episode, I dive deep into the gear obsession that plagues many coffee enthusiasts, drawing parallels between my experiences with offset smokers and coffee brewing equipment. I share my personal journey of spending over $3,000 on a smoker, only to realize that most equipment essentially does the same fundamental job - just like coffee brewers. I challenge listeners to step back and ask themselves what they're really trying to achieve with their coffee setup.

I emphasize the importance of mastering your craft with the tools you already have rather than constantly chasing the next piece of gear. I discuss how variables like water chemistry and filters can make more significant differences than buying another brewer, sharing my own breakthrough moment with third wave water that transformed my coffee experience as a roaster. By listening to this episode, you'll gain perspective on prioritizing technique and fundamentals over gear acquisition, and learn practical approaches to getting the most out of your current coffee setup without falling into the endless cycle of buying more equipment.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:35 The Offset Smoker Rabbit Hole Journey
• 2:25 Parallels Between Smokers and Coffee Brewers
• 4:00 The Real Question: What's Our Objective?
• 5:52 Taking Stock of All Our Coffee Gear
• 7:18 Focus on Exploring Coffee, Not Collecting Gear
• 8:46 Water Chemistry: My Biggest Coffee Breakthrough
• 10:23 Mastering Your Craft with What You Have
• 11:46 Back to Basics: Just Making Great Coffee

Transcript

[00:00:00] We live right now. Today is Monday the 26th of May. We're doing pretty good right now. I hope that you're doing pretty good right now. This was a little interesting. Let's go ahead and get into it.

[00:00:15] Yes, this is a coffee talk podcast. Whatever you want to call it, it is what it is. But I want to let you in on something. I have other interests. So the things that I do that play a part in what I do with coffee. And one of them is grilling, smoking meat. I love doing it from time to time. It's summertime. So I'll be doing that quite a bit.

[00:00:45] But the reason why I bring that up is because there's some parallels here. There's parallels in a lot of things. We have our vices. We like things that we care about, things that we like, things that we go into the rabbit hole in. And when we do that, we start to get an idea of what we like, what we don't like, trends. And one of the things that I've noticed quite a bit as I relate this to coffee is gear. Because we're always talking about gear. And we'll talk about more so the knowledge of understanding our gear. But in this case, what I'm talking about right now is just gear in general.

[00:01:35] Well, not in general, but what I mean by that is that I'm talking about offset smokers. A couple years ago, I went down this rabbit hole of sourcing out an offset smoker. If you don't know, it's a way to where you can prepare meat. Sometimes it takes 8, 10, 12 hours if you're on it. Sometimes you can do a quick cook, like chicken.

[00:02:11] But when I was in this rabbit hole of actually researching and understanding different smokers, what they're good for, what they're not, the pricing, the things that you can do with them. I kept going back and forth, okay, should I get this one or this one. I read different reviews on YouTube. And I finally came to the conclusion that this is the one I'm going to get. It's like a workhorse pit. It works out pretty well. It's been doing me right. I've been enjoying the whole experience. Still big learning curve. That's besides the point, that's probably going to be a discussion for another day.

[00:02:53] But the reason why I bring that up is because as I was racking my head thinking about spending more than $3,000 on an offset smoker, I was like, man, don't they kind of just do the same thing? Yeah, they do. They smoke meat. Some are easier than others. Some a little bit more efficient than others. Some will allow you to have the full experience to where you have all the controls that you want to in order to mimic whatever style that you're trying to go for, or you're trying to develop your own style. But at the end of the day, they smoke meat. Essentially, that's what they do.

[00:03:23] So the reason why I bring that up is because we go down that rabbit hole so much with coffee. The only good thing parallel that's a little different with coffee, especially when it comes to brewers is that brewers compared to a smoker are relatively cheap. So even though you may feel that you can just get away with one device, which you can, you really can. If I'm truly being honest, same coffee, the coffees have different variations of taste and flavor and what you actually taste.

[00:04:01] It is a difference, a little difference if you're using the exact same coffee, but we're not saying like mind blown type of like this brewer is better than this because of this. But we're able to buy as many brewers as we want to.

[00:04:16] But again, the reason why I bring that up is that we have to go back into the whole idea or logic. It's like, okay, why are we doing this? What is the objective here? What are these brewers really doing for us? Is it easier to brew coffee? Is it a way that we know that we can get more out of things? Are we buying this brewer just because we can brew a smaller batch of coffee just for ourselves, or just we were just testing out different coffees? Those are some of the things that we go down this rabbit hole with.

[00:05:00] And I don't think, especially since things are much cheaper compared to other vices that we have, even within the whole specialty thing. We can buy 400, 500 X amount of dollars for our coffee grinder. We can buy however much it is for an espresso machine. We can even do that with special pour overs if we want to go down that room.

[00:05:34] I guess what I'm saying here really is that I think it's best that we just kind of just take a pause. I need to do it too. I know I keep saying that I just get these gadgets, mainly for these YouTube videos, so you can get an idea and make an objective decision. But really, truly ask yourself what is, let's get down to the core here. What are we really trying to do here?

[00:05:52] What's the point of us figuring this stuff out? Are we really just making coffee? We're just making coffee that's perfectly fine. Yeah, we're just making coffee that's perfectly fine. But as we keep getting more and getting more and getting more, what are we doing here?

[00:06:22] Because look at this, I'll paint it out this way. If you want to look at it that way, look at that. Look at the spray right there. You'll see my board from time to time. This is where all the coffee gear is. And there's more on the actual coffee bar. And I think I have two or three more somewhere else. It's just literally coffee gear. And they essentially do the same thing. They do.

[00:06:57] And those are some of the things that we have to realize or think about quite a bit, because it's fun to get something new. But after a couple of years, you're done with it. You're tired of it. You want to do something else. You want to figure out, you're just onto the next thing. You're just onto the next thing and let's just see if we can just play around with that coffee.

[00:07:33] Let's see if we can explore what it is that we can get out of this coffee. Let's see how we can push this coffee. Let's see if we can conquer it or to get it to be as tasty as it can for our own palates and style and everything. That's what we should do.

[00:07:49] That's what we should do. Because gear is great. Gear is fun, especially when you get it initially. But when you're like done with it, for the most part, you get bored again. Let's just see if we can explore that coffee. And in my other case, explore this meat. Let's play around with doing it differently.

[00:08:17] Let's kind of see what we can figure out when we are actually more objective with the way that we actually brew coffee. Those are some of the things that I'm thinking about more than anything. Now that I am at this level of really, truly understanding this whole thing. And I think we can get more creative with the way we actually brew coffee with one or two devices.

[00:08:46] I think that's going to be our biggest joy in all of this. Like, for instance, my biggest awakening has been finding like third wave water or water chemistry, just because of what coffees are actually tasting like. And it's funny because I'm a roaster. And as I roast my beans, I'm very objective. And when I taste them in the past, it didn't really gel or come out the way that I would have wanted it to. But changing that particular variable in the whole scheme of things has probably made one of the biggest jumps for me than anything.

[00:09:31] Not another V60 Mugen brewer, or I do like the Oxo. Oxo is pretty cool. We'll talk about that more as we go on into this. But I guess what I'm saying here is that trust yourself, but take your time, relax, and just really try to master that craft that you have.

[00:09:56] You have a big toolbox, but you don't necessarily have to use the whole toolbox, if that makes sense. If you want to be a one trick pony on this particular coffee, go ahead and do that. If you want to try to explore a different recipe that you've seen online or something that you just thought about magically, try that.

[00:10:23] I guess that's really what I'm saying here. Because as much as I love to look and talk at smokers and espresso machines and all that good stuff, at the end of the day, we're just making coffee. We're just making coffee. That's all we're doing.

[00:10:48] If we already have the things that we need in order to make the coffees, probably the thing that we need to look at more is the filters. Probably water chemistry. Things that we don't necessarily think about will make a big difference.

[00:11:10] Those are the places that we really do need to go. Probably we need to change our technique and the way we grind our coffee. Probably we do need to get another grinder because the grinder that we're having doesn't really gel or work anymore. It could be a blade grinder. It could be like an old school type of hand grinder. It doesn't really matter. You kind of have to look at your whole spectrum and figure out that at the end of the day, all you're really trying to do is make a tasty cup of coffee all the time.

[00:11:46] When we get back to the basics and understanding it from that point of view, I think the path that's going to be a little bit more vivid, we will understand it a little bit more and we won't be confused with the whole situation. Because if you're confused right now with this gadget, that gadget, this person doing this, that person doing that, it doesn't matter. It matters about what you're doing on your craft or your journey so you can go about it your way.

[00:12:20] So that's what I got for you. Something quick and easy. Something that I believe that's important and critical in our whole spectrum of understanding things. And I hope that you get something from this. So this is Okid Everyday Beans signing off. Talk to you later. Bye.