Coffee.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

there are no shortage of guys who think that Rachel Ray is attractive, FFS.

I don't think I know what she looks like.

You've read the "Nessie" thread, yes?

Imagine one of those, but with a whisk in one claw and a really annoying squeaky voice.

[AFK]

there are no shortage of guys who think that Rachel Ray is attractive, FFS.

I don't think I know what she looks like.

You've read the "Nessie" thread, yes?

Imagine one of those, but with a whisk in one claw and a really annoying squeaky voice.

She's built funny.  I mean, she looks like the sort of lady who would be coming over to snake your pipes, not bake you a pie. 

[Triple Zero]

Just image searched her. She's not unattractive, I believe the word is "cutesy". The somewhat hotter pics of her appear to be heavily retouched. I don't particularly feel any urge of augmenting my knowledge of her with any video or sound, though.



ANYWAY, /REJACK (not quite, cause I'll talk about ice cubes a lot)



I just made some cold brew coffee. The iced coffees we had in the USA were delicious, and I'm trying to recreate them here. It's funny, I have made "really cold coffee" before, but I didn't like it very much. It turns out that you really need a bunch of ice cubes in your iced coffee, regardless how chilled it already is from the fridge. Without ice cubes, even though it's nearly the same stuff, iced coffee becomes "cold coffee", which is not very good at all
Unfortunately I have a very small freezer (just 11x14x6 inches), so I can't make a lot of ice. I'm going to use EoC's brilliant idea of using coffee ice cubes instead of regular water ones, though. I don't even have an ice cube tray, so I'm going to have to improvise something. I might have a few of those compartmented plastic bags that you can fill to make ice cubes, but they are leaky and messy and I don't want coffee in my freezer Anyone got any good ideas on how to improvise an ice cube tray? (freezer is not very full right now, so space is not too much of an issue)

I had this really brilliant idea of a space-saving ice cube tray that would sort of look like a cube with 3x3x3 ice cube cells inside. The inner cell walls would be a kind of silicone "skeleton" shape, with small openings between the cells so the water can spread equally, but small enough so you can break the ice apart. The inner skeleton would probably consist of two parts so you can access the inner middle ice cube as well. The outside of the cube would just be a box, big enough to fit the skeleton and probably also made of silicon, but with reinforced edges and a separate cover so you can stack things on top of it. or maybe the reinforcement and cover could be one piece of hard plastic like a tiny square gazebo with four pillars you place over/around the floppy box. Am I confusing yet? Maybe I should draw some pictures.
The advantage over a regular 3x9 ice cube tray is that the regular one takes up a lot of space. You can't put anything on top of it cause it'll get in your ice cubes. But you can't really put it on top of something else either, because the water will probably spill before it's frozen enough (which is especially bad if you use coffee instead of water). The 3x3x3 cube produces 27 ice cubes, but uses the space much more efficiently, for both large and small freezers.

I should check this with my brother, he studies Industrial Design. Though he once told me--when I asked him whether it would be possible to design a better, less messy, garlic press--that there's not that big of a market for small "clever" kitchen tools. Because initially the quantities would be way too small to efficiently mass-produce, making the price too prohibitively high when compared to the utility the buyer would gain from it. Though maybe that's different from an ice cube tray that's actually really useful (IMO) versus a cleaner garlic press which would be nice, but I probably still wouldn't use it much.

ANYWAY ANYWAY

Back to the coffee. I prepared the cold brew coffee at about 20h yesterday, so it's been in the fridge for 17.5 hours. I shook it a couple of times. How long till it's done, do you think?

[Suu]

I usually only give my cold brew an overnight. Mind you, it will never be like Dunkin Donuts, but it will be a lot smoother than hot coffee, and I use the Cafe Bustelo (that crazy strong Spanish stuff in the yellow can) all the time.

Though if you want, I could ship you some Dunkin Donuts coffee beans, if you're longing for American coffee that bad.

[Triple Zero]

Ok then it should be done about now.

Our regular coffee is actually pretty good (more strong like the espresso stuff we bought you in the supermarket, than the cheaper grind you had before), so I think it'll be fine

I improvised a sort of ice cube tray, with a large low plastic fresh-keeping container and placed a few plastic bits in it from the cutlery-box in my dishwasher held apart by some clothing pegs, in order to make it less like an unbreakable block of ice when it's frozen solid ... Let's hope it works I tried it with water first, don't want to waste my cold brew coffee on this experimental design yet.

[East Coast Hustle]

I usually only give my cold brew an overnight. Mind you, it will never be like Dunkin Donuts, but it will be a lot smoother than hot coffee, and I use the Cafe Bustelo (that crazy strong Spanish stuff in the yellow can) all the time.

Though if you want, I could ship you some Dunkin Donuts coffee beans, if you're longing for American coffee that bad.

CAFE BUSTELO FTW!

I let that stuff cold-brew for 3 days before I leave on a road trip and rarely if ever regret not bringing any actual pharmaceutical-grade speed.

[Triple Zero]

I use the Cafe Bustelo (that crazy strong Spanish stuff in the yellow can) all the time.

Wait I missed that, now I'm confused. I think we had two kinds of coffee while we were at your place. The first one wasn't particularly strong, and then later on we got you some other coffee which said something about being espresso coffee or whatever. I can't remember what cans they were in though. Which was which?

[Suu]

The one you got me is the Bustelo, it's what I typically buy, but I've been using a big bag of coffee I have in the freezer which is a lot weaker and refilling the other can.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

DO YOU WANT ICE CUBE TRAYS?
THEY ARE A DOLLAR! I WILL GIVE YOU!

I will ship them. They make silicone ones. I think I have heart shaped ones I've never used, in fact.
Yup, there are two of them and they are pink.

Want em?

Squid- why don't you have ice cube trays?!?!

wait... your ice kinda falls out of the sky in Dutchspaglandia, doesn't it?

I LIEK COFFEE!!

[Triple Zero]

we have icecube trays, I just happen to have lost the one I owned and never bought a new one. I will do so soon, though, probably silicone indeed.

the improv icecube tray I made seems to have done its job, though I still needed to smash it apart with a hammer, so I might as well just have made a large block of ice without the clothes pegs and plastic bits in it

the cold brew coffee is horribly strong and awesome.

mixed with improv half-and-half (which we don't have but it appears you can mix whole milk and cream half and half! AMAZING) and chunks and shards of ice, our verdict is:

probably just as good as the Dunkin' Donuts stuff. also, buy longer straws.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT COFFEE bouncybouncybouncy

[Luna]

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT COFFEE bouncybouncybouncy

I've gotta get a smaller coffee pot...  I'm going through a whole pot every morning...

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

I HAS BEEN DRINKING COFFEE AT NIGHT!!



INSANITY!!!!

[trix]

I prefer the trix method for manly coffee:

I grab a bunch of big coffee beans, shove them in my mouth, chew on them for about 90 seconds, then wash it down with boiling water.

[East Coast Hustle]

You're such a badass.

Teach me. Please.

[Salty]

I really enjoy those little starbucks via packs.

They taste a helluvalot better than the coffee at banks/gas stations/etc. Though I may be biased as my need for caffeine supersedes my sense of good taste. Still, all the other folks I know who can't let go of the sweet sweet bean like them.

Trix: If you're not roasting them yourself you're doing yourself a disservice.