Coffee Gear August 27 2013, 0 Comments
The most frequent question I get regarding the coffee outside routine is "what gear are your using?". While getting my kit ready for tomorrow I took a few minutes to make some pictures and prepare some notes.
The contents of the kit reflect my preference for pour over style of brewing. I have tried everything from cowboy coffee to a small french press, and for me, the best results have been pour over. My usual stove and cook pot for boiling water has been the
Caldera Keg Kit. The kit is super light, compact and has everything I need to boil water quickly. I brew the coffee into a 600ml titanium mug that replaces one end of the keg kit's container. I support the paper coffee filters with a William Bounds Sili coffee cone. after testing out a few options I find it hits a sweet spot for function, weight and portability. The kit is rounded out with a
bandanna, lighter, grinder and occasional breakfast snack
The latest addition to my kit has been the Porlex portable grinder. It adds a bit of weight to the whole package, but the quality of the brew jumps way up with beans ground at the time of brew.
This was an awesome birthday gift this year from my wife and her parents, and has seen daily use for a few weeks now. The bur grinding mechanism is robust, easily adjustable, and provides an incredibly uniform grind. It holds the perfect amount of beans for my large mug. Thus the increase in brew quality and ability to carry the fresh beans justify the added load.
All spread out it looks like a bunch of gear
but most of the components nest into the stove caddy and it is travels quite compact in the handlebar bag. I was pleasantly suppressed to even fit the grinder on the inside of the kit.
Over all weight is still respectable as well considering how much utility is crammed into that little space.
It is that simple, under two pounds and you have all the tools needed to brew a better cup of coffee than most people will at home, and you can do it just about any where you would like. True coffee/bike nerd stuff.
I recently picked up a new
stove to lighten my outdoor cooking load a bit. I have been wanting a Trail Designs Ti-Tri Caldera cone for years now, but prefer a wider pot, and it is primarily meant to work with mugs. In the last year or so, the TD guys came out with the sidewinder and a was back to dreaming. With a bit of extra cash I splurged and bought myself the Sidewinder kit.
The kit comes with the alcohol stove, windscreen / cone, tent stake / pot supports, fuel bottle, fuel measuring cup, pot lifter and a basic aluminum 2qt pot. The whole package fits neatly into the pot.
The cone acts as both a windscreen and pot support with the ventilation optimized to get the most from their stove. It is in credibly simple to use. load the measured amount of denatured alcohol into the stove, light with a match, set the cone over and then set the pot on top.
I headed out early this morning to start putting it to good use. I was able to bring about 1qt of water to boil with 35ml of alcohol in a little over 15 minutes. This was with the sea breeze just starting to pick up.
I brewed up a bottle of tea for the road and enough left over to enjoy while things cooled off. I am impressed with what is really their most basic stove kit designed to boil at least a quart of water. Simple to use, quiet, clean, light weight and efficient with the fuel. The stove will also work well with Esbit fuel tabs. For a bit of a bump in price their titanium kits can burn wood as well.
The only down side to this kit is the size. While quite clearly described on their website, it is bigger than I envisioned. That is not really a problem, just what it is. I am sure that this stove is going to see a ton of use.
I am putting together the bits and pieces needed for a customer who wants to dip their toe in the 650b waters before diving in with a propose built frame set.
As always these projects require a bit of measuring and test fitting to get things just right. In this case we were able to meet so that I could pull the required measurements myself from the bike to be converted.
The biggest part of the investment, the wheel set, is directly transferable to a Rambler he finds the waters to his liking. The 32mm tires would work fine, but I am sure that he would want to go fatter as the Rambler would allow. The only thing that would end up in the parts bin is the Tektro brakes.
The knowledge and components needed to pull off a successful 650b conversion are scattered throughout the web. What would you think of having that information in one place, as well as the needed components to pull it all off? Rivendell used to have something like this, but does not appear to be a focus of theirs as much any more. How about a kit price on a package like the one above?
The contents of the kit reflect my preference for pour over style of brewing. I have tried everything from cowboy coffee to a small french press, and for me, the best results have been pour over. My usual stove and cook pot for boiling water has been the Caldera Keg Kit. The kit is super light, compact and has everything I need to boil water quickly. I brew the coffee into a 600ml titanium mug that replaces one end of the keg kit's container. I support the paper coffee filters with a William Bounds Sili coffee cone. after testing out a few options I find it hits a sweet spot for function, weight and portability. The kit is rounded out with a bandanna, lighter, grinder and occasional breakfast snack
The latest addition to my kit has been the Porlex portable grinder. It adds a bit of weight to the whole package, but the quality of the brew jumps way up with beans ground at the time of brew.
This was an awesome birthday gift this year from my wife and her parents, and has seen daily use for a few weeks now. The bur grinding mechanism is robust, easily adjustable, and provides an incredibly uniform grind. It holds the perfect amount of beans for my large mug. Thus the increase in brew quality and ability to carry the fresh beans justify the added load.
All spread out it looks like a bunch of gear
but most of the components nest into the stove caddy and it is travels quite compact in the handlebar bag. I was pleasantly suppressed to even fit the grinder on the inside of the kit.
Over all weight is still respectable as well considering how much utility is crammed into that little space.
It is that simple, under two pounds and you have all the tools needed to brew a better cup of coffee than most people will at home, and you can do it just about any where you would like. True coffee/bike nerd stuff.
