Camp coffee

[Loyalist Dave]

We had a fellow from Australia for a while in our area, doing black powder with us, and he made coffee in his "tea billy"...which included his briskly swinging it a few times over his head, the centrifugal force pushing the grounds to the bottom of the billy.... while at the same time, the first time he did it, we moved to a prudent distance away. :shocked2:

LD

 

[Silex]

I'm with you on that one - I don't mind grounds.
Sometimes when memories of my childhood strike me, I can see my Grandma standing in the kitchen and counting coffee beans. The exact number for the pot then grinding them in the hand grinder. She boiled water on the kitchen range and using a simple sieve like filter, sometimes with paper filter hand poured the water into the filter over a thermos.

I was to bring the thermos to my dad in the shop.
Sometimes I was allowed to take a sip or two. Boy those are fond memories. But anyway I was never turned away by a few grounds in coffee.

Actually we do something we call bush-coffee (similar to mocha) at the camp fire: just boil the water add the desired amount of ground coffee into your CUP, pour boiling water, stirr, wait, let settle and drink carefully. No problem at all. Just be careful when you reach the lower third of the cup - sip slowly. You leave the grounds with a little bit of coffee alone. I actually like to get a few grounds in my mouth. For cleaning the cup just pour out the rest of the coffee together with the grounds in one swing, little bit of water slush around pour out done.

One benefit of this method is:
using only one cup and one boiler/kettle, you can actually boil the water have a cup of coffee and then move on with the rest of the water in the pot to boil rice, soup or whatever while you are enjoying your coffee.


Silex

 

[Billnpatti]

We had a fellow from Australia for a while in our area, doing black powder with us, and he made coffee in his "tea billy"...which included his briskly swinging it a few times over his head, the centrifugal force pushing the grounds to the bottom of the billy.... while at the same time, the first time he did it, we moved to a prudent distance away. :shocked2:LD

Yes, with a bit of practice, that probably works just fine but like you, I'd want to make sure that the bail is well attached to his billy. :haha:

 

[crockett]

That brings up a good point as far as pc. I don't know when tea bags came into use but I assume post 1840. So....you either had to deal with coffee grinds or tea leaves.
Getting back to the pc aspect. Were green coffee beans the norm? Roasted and put into a leather bag and beaten between two rocks to break into a grind?

 

[omarick1948]

I've drank a lot of coffee boiled or steeped in a pot on a fire or stove. If is comes off the fire and sits for a while the grounds will usually settle to the bottom. Just don't pour fast or down to the bottom. Also one can pour a little cold water into the the pot and that will help settle the grounds. I've never messed with bags etc. when making camp coffee. Also, if grounds get into the cup, they usually settle to the bottom of the cup. Just toss the dregs.

:metoo: :metoo: :metoo:

 

[Gene L]

A dash of salt on the grounds before cooking will greatly improve the taste and eliminate acidity. Just a dash.

 

[graybeard]

WWII historian S.L.A. Marshall wrote that interviews get different answers depending on whether they took place immediately after the incident, or some time after. The later recounts, he said, have been sanitized by the interviewee to make him appear in the best light. graybeard

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I'd have to disagree with that statement. While the two interviews will be different, the information does not necessarily skew. There is A LOT MORE in HOW the interview is conducted.

Sometimes the event trauma interferes with recall, and sometimes the interviewer themselves mess with the witness's recall. I say this after 26 years of interviewing people after traumatic events. I've gotten better interviews, more details, after the first interview which was done right after the event...and I've gotten these results in many cases. In fact I am often tasked to conduct "second interviews" because I know how to draw out better recollections than simply having somebody write stuff down at a scene.

It's not absolute, though. In other cases, the first interview had very poor results, and additional interviews the results were worse. You can't predict individual memory capabilities.

LD

 

[graybeard]

How much coffee beans to a mug of water? graybeard

 

[Rifleman1776]

So unnecessarily complexcated. :shake:
I toss a handful of coffee into my pot, add water and bring to boil. Pour, drink, enjoy. Tastes like good coffee. I don't mind a few grounds. Camp visitors don't complain.

 

[Billnpatti]

So unnecessarily complexcated. :shake:
I toss a handful of coffee into my pot, add water and bring to boil. Pour, drink, enjoy. Tastes like good coffee. I don't mind a few grounds. Camp visitors don't complain.

Huh!!! Come on, you're pulling my leg....right? Bring the water to a boil, add the coffee, let it steep a bit and then pour and drink. "Complexcated"?? I think not. Grandma just added the cold water or egg shells to finish settling the grounds but it wasn't absolutely necessary. Boil, steep, drink....ain't nothin' complexcated there. Only difference between grandma's method and yours is that she boiled only the water, never the coffee. Makes a difference! But it ain't complicated. :grin:

 

[Black Hand]

Boil, steep, drink....ain't nothin' complexcated there. Only difference between grandma's method and yours is that she boiled only the water, never the coffee. Makes a difference! But it ain't complicated. :grin:

Boiling the coffee extracts bitter compounds, so should be avoided. Putting grounds into boiling water, allowing to steep then dribbling a little cold water on the surface to settle the grounds will make a good cup of coffee...

While roasting green coffee beans in the field is fun, I prefer to bring ground coffee. I also tend to grind my coffee for this form of brewing a little more coarse than usual.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Try 1 teaspoon per cup and adjust to personal taste....

 

[KingofDerby]

Try 1 teaspoon per cup and adjust to personal taste....

*looks at the tablespoon measure I've been using at home*

Opps.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

There are two ways of making good coffee in an ordinary pot. (1) Put coffee in pot with cold water (one heaping tablespoonful freshly ground to one pint, or more coffee if canned ground) and hang over the fire. Watch it, and when water first begins to bubble, remove pot from fire and let it stand five minutes. Settle grounds with a tablespoonful of cold water poured down the spout. Do not let the coffee boil. Boiling extracts the tannin, and drives off the volatile aroma which is the most precious gift of superior berries. (2) Bring water to hard boil, remove from fire, and quickly put coffee in. Cover tightly and let steep ten minutes.

Horace Kephart, Camping and Woodcraft.

LD

 

[coloradoclyde]

and adjust to personal taste....

Come 'on guys.....give me some lee-way... :wink:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Funny thing about coffee...., it's very much personal taste.

My best friend growing up went to Wyoming for college..., and found in South Dakota, at a little diner, that they served coffee that looked like tea, and no cream nor sugar. :shocked2: They thought this perfectly normal, and I believe this was to a long tradition of coffee having been hard to get...though this was the 1980's.

I have a co-worker who thinks that coffee should dissolve poorly made fillings in your teeth. I prefer it when in a genteel setting to be dark enough that I don't see the bottom of the mug when the mug is 1/2 full, but camp coffee I like a little darker. Especially if I'm roasting my own beans.

LD

 

[George]

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The weak:
Eighteenth Century America: A Hessian Report On the People, the Land, the War, As Noted in the Diary of Chaplain Philipp Waldeck (1776-1780)

"It is not only the ladies who are so addicted to tea, but also the men, who break from work at three o'clock in order to sit down to a cup of tea. We [the German officers] drink it, however, as a courtesy to the society in which we find ourselves, or for fear that we will be served coffee, which the American make in a strange way. They only color the water brown."

The strong:
Valuable Secrets in Arts, Trades, &c, 1816 :
Directions for preparing true coffee

4. The liquor is made by putting an ounce of that powder to three quarters of a pint of boiling water to make three full dishes. And, after an infusion of ten minutes, during which it is kept boiling, the coffee is fit for drinking.” [That's 4 tablespoons to the cup, bolled 10 minutes.]

Spence

 

[Billnpatti]

4. The liquor is made by putting an ounce of that powder to three quarters of a pint of boiling water to make three full dishes. And, after an infusion of ten minutes, during which it is kept boiling, the coffee is fit for drinking.” [That's 4 tablespoons to the cup, bolled 10 minutes.]
Spence

I love a good cup of rich coffee but that recipe sounds like the resultant coffee might be a bit chewy. It might appeal more to my Cajun uncle. Lots of reading about something as simple as making a cup of good coffee....think I'll run up to Starbucks for a vente Pike Place while I read my latest copy of Muzzle Blasts.

 

[crockett]

Well some of this is to reproduce what was done in the day. I just finished a short book written by Washington Irving, "A Tour On the Prairies 1832". The old time hunters and trappers roasted the beans and then put them in a leather bag and pounded the beans into bits and then boiled the grinds in water. So...the pc way.
If you "drink slow" the grinds seem to stay in the bottom of the cup.