Episode 212: The Coffee Episode (Mug Club)

0:00Welcome to the Broken Arrow, a traditional bow hunting podcast with your host, Shaper Magnet and Chris Seacloth brought to you by Black Widow Bowers, Hossio Gear, a Dictivartery, Sepharito, Great Northern Quivers and Laurel Mountain Outfathers. Okay, so before we kick things off, I've got to make a couple quick announcements. First off, it's been a little bit, and this is kind of an interim episode, I guess. We do not have Shaper with us tonight, but we do have some special guests. We'll get to that in a second. But before we kick things off, we definitely want to say a very special thank you to our partners, Black Widow Bowers,

1:02Hossio Gear, Adictivartery, that being said, congrats on on your elk. Sepharito, Great Northern Quivers and of course Laurel Mountain Outfathers, the makers of the hang and hydrate. If you don't have one yet, you should really work on that. Also, just want to say this one, because this is going to probably drop on Monday. So that would be leading us into the next big shoot of the year here in Pennsylvania, which is at the Sullivan County Fairgrounds, and that's the Pennsylvania Bow Hunters Festival. It's a three day shoot. It's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, which is September 18th, 19th, and 20th. Great time. There's still some campgrounds that have camping, like primitive camping left. It's a killer time. So if you're in the area of Sullivan County, make sure you stop by and check it out. That being said, this brings us to our very special and different episode. Tonight, we are this morning, I guess, whatever you want to call this. We have Chris Page back there.

2:03Chris Page back joining us. Hello, Chris. Thanks for having me. Yeah. He's our subject matter expert for the night. I'm not expert, but I'll pretend. Right. And the very, very special guest taking Schafer's place, as he said, quote, as the wise ass for the night. I think that was it. Right. Greg Magnet, the legend of Vermont, Greg Magnet. Thank you. Yeah. Welcome back. Both of you guys should that be the hang in caffeinated. It's the hang in hydrate. No, because in the summer, when I'm shooting out of a tree, it's got beer in it. Oh, today it had some yuppie water. I had a sand pellagrino in it when I was shooting. Which is good. Yeah. I like that stuff. It's good with the lime. Good stuff. So, so we've been this is kind of a couple weeks in the making, but like Greg, as you kind of mentioned tonight in text, it's been a couple years in the making. So I think three years, three years ago, you want to, you want to kind of talk about the, the mug club real quick and give people like a background of that?

3:08Sure. I have a couple coffee every day and I was sick of drinking that out of my Harley Davidson mugs, because I was bitter with them. But anyways, I shaved her to pick me up a nice mug at Dent Hill one year when he went and he brought me back one of them Safari Tough Mugs, which are the bomb. And I don't know, I just tried to get it out in the public as much as I could the mug. It's a appreciation to Randy for fixing me up with a nice vocase for my bear trips Safari toughest. Yeah. So, so that that kind of started. So you got a mug that year and actually I did, I got a mug too. And it kind of escalated from there. I think Ed got one also that year possibly can. So everybody had these Safari Tough Mugs and so.

4:08When was that 2023? This was actually, it was actually Kalamazoo, I think. It was before bear hunt in 23. So yeah. So it was three years ago. So basically we were all out of Kalamazoo that year. We all got there so far. It's off mugs. And the next thing you know a text group started called the mug club. And it was basically, I think Eric's in it Greg somehow shafers in it. He doesn't drink coffee, which is odd. Randy's in it. He's in it. Obviously Greg, you're the the the the founder of it founder. I don't know who else is worth a look and see who else is in it. Because it's just just you two Chris's. Yeah, that's it. Okay. So. So basically what it is is randomly like not every morning, but like on a random morning you'll get a text at like 5.30. 6am. Just a shot of a coffee mug. And now that's expanded we have we now have great northern mugs. We have.

5:12Compton mugs. I have a great coffee mug. Joveman mug with the square mug, which is kind of a game changer. I really like that one. But anyway, it's just a morning fellas, you know, and usually it's Greg because he's up first. But that kind of escalated this last year when we went to Kalamazoo. And that was Chris. That was the first time I actually met you in person, wasn't it? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. We met through the podcast and texting and everything. Right. And that's when you met you in person. That's when you became grain scale. Yeah, that's when the nerd and me came out. Yeah. Everybody saw how particular I am with my coffee. Yeah. Yeah. We all and we all witnessed you one morning, the first morning that that Friday morning, weighing out. The confines of a more girl room. Yeah. Yeah. My Stanley toolbox rolling in. I brought that in before any of my bedding or clothes or anything. Stanley toolbox is the first thing to come out of the truck. Gotta have it loaded with cough implements for making coffee. Yeah.

6:15That's why I got introduced to the arrow press and and it finally got one recently. But anyway, it was basically just you making your coffee in the morning weighing it, grinding it with a hand grinder. And we're all laughing at you, making fun of you. Greg was calling you grain scale. And then I think every single one of us had a cup of your coffee that weekend and we stopped making fun of you. Well, no, we still make fun of you. Yes, still make fun of me. Sorry. It's all right. But as long as you enjoy the coffee. We enjoy the coffee. And so that basically led us to. Now I guess we need to do a coffee episode and it's like, man, my mug collection, my traditional archery mug collection is like teetering on weighing higher or having more than my bow collection right now. And there's nothing like any any traditional archery book you read. Like any article out of TBM or walk in the woods of the PBS magazine mentions coffee.

7:17You're always reading about guys out on a hunting trip and coffee is always mentioned. It's a big part of our lives. And a crappy cup of coffee can ruin your day. It's kind of like a bad beer, you know. So I don't know where you want to take this Chris. How do you want to start off? But let's talk about coffee. What do you think? I mean, what's your favorite? What's your go to right now? Bean wise. I get a so there's a right up the road from my house. There's a little coffee shop and they sell beans from a local roaster. Here in Connecticut. And I just pick up usually whatever they have in the shop available. And I just like that because it's close. It's convenient. It's a really good roast. So yeah, it makes good coffee. I've experimented with a ton of stuff. So I have had while I still have my go to is the arrow press. That's what I make every day that I just did a YouTube video on that like my whole process.

8:19Make it in camp every morning when I'm like guide bears and moves up and main and that gets a lot of attention from the clients to because they're kind of like what the hell is this guy do? So that's my go to every morning is the arrow press. It's quick. It's easy fast clean up fast brood time from the time the water boils to the time I'm drinking my coffee is like under three minutes really quick. Yeah. But I also have done a harry of the 60 pour over cone. So that's like a little stainless steel cone. Now you've messed with that too Chris right? Yeah, the I have a plastic one and I actually have one of the not porcelain ceramic ones on. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, I've never messed with the ceramic one but those are nice because they hold heat a little better. Yeah. Uh, that and a new kettle. Um, that's kind of been like my go to and actually what what I got was a real crappy. And what that was all right was there's a plastic one that came with a set I got and I don't use the rest of the set anymore because it was a big picture.

9:25And by the time you got it done pouring over your coffee was cold. So I now just use it to make I use my jet boil and I use it to make like a single couple more camp and it's freaking good. I mean, despite like the crappy setup it's it's better than than drip and I don't know why because I'm pouring it not dripping it and it just it's I don't know what it is. I can't the drip, drip coffee sucks anymore. It's kind of ruined for me. Yeah. But it it all depends on a lot of variables and we'll get into that for sure. Yeah, I got a figure I'm doing wrong. I made it for me at all started with a drip coffee maker. I've always drank coffee, but it wasn't until I don't know probably 2018, 2019. Any type of my coffee I would go get it from Mike Duncan donuts and it was. It got super expensive, but I didn't drink it at home. So then we got a drip coffee maker. And I started messing around with just different roasts and different beans and all that.

10:29And then I took the next step and a grinder just like the blade grinder. When I was alright, it was a little bit better than ground with some roast but other roast it was like well that rather just have the pre ground stuff. And then I took the leap and bought a burgrinder like an electric burgrinder. It's a barata vario. Sorry, barata virtuoso grinder. So that they're not cheap. No, that was at the time it was like 200 bucks. Is it worth it? Is it like because that's one hell of an investment 200 bucks for a coffee. It is. That's the most expensive piece of the equipment. So coffee comes down to grind size and the consistency of your grind and how uniform you can get all those little granules and particles of coffee grounds. Yeah. And that's what's going to give you a nice cup of coffee.

11:30Great. We think. Take a note. Oh, I have no agree. Yeah. Yeah. So that makes a huge difference. So once I got the grinder, then it turned into oh, this changes the flavor a lot. So then I started the next thing I bought was the V60, the pour over cone. And then I got a French press, which if you're in a coffee at all, a V60 and a French press are to totally opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to grind size. So French press is much larger, right? Yes, very coarse ground. And then the pour over likes a very fine grind. And then when my wife and I got married back in 2016, we had somebody give us a. The bloody mocha pop. So that's like an espresso maker, the little stove top Italian espresso makers.

12:34My wife used that every day for years. And I liked it too, but I wanted more that only gave like. Maybe a double shot of espresso size wise, the one that we had. That's the problem with the press, the arrow press. I got to get the big one. I have the big one. Because the regular size one might give me like a third of a cup or something like that, but it's fantastic. But it's like, you know, especially with the safari tough mug. So for those of you that don't know the safari tough mugs are, I don't know, 16-inch mugs. So they're big mugs. And with coffee, like a cup of coffee is like industry standards, like five or six ounces or something like that. It's not like a normal eight ounce cup. Like when do you think of like a cup of water is eight ounces? So it's a little bit smaller. You're meant. Yeah, so. So that's where I went wrong. Thinking it was a eight ounce cup. Yeah, that's not enough. You got it. No, it's not enough for me.

13:34No. I'm talking about this. The standard you got about is five ounces. Yeah, that's a few people. So that's a lot of people. If you throw in your pinky out, Greg, then it's five ounces. If you're drinking your coffee with like a crumpet or something. Yeah, if you're out hunting, you better have 16 ounces at least typically 20. 24. Yeah, yeah, just go big. Yeah, I got a lot of questions because like I guess I guess we should probably start with grind size, but like. I think that you want to go over like what controls the outcome of coffee? Yeah, let's do it. So do you know well enough? Yeah, so like you just say grind. Grind size is one of the so there's three factors. It's kind of like I don't know, I equate it to photography. So if there's anybody listening that like no photography like your your magic three are ISO aperture and shutter speed.

14:37Though that gives you like the perfect exposure. So if you translate that to the coffee world, it's grind size, brew temperature and brew time. So those are like your magic three things. And as you start to dial in those and like tweak little things with those, your extraction or your coffee brew, your total. Like end product, you could call it that becomes or I should say those affect the outcome of your your final brew. So we'll start with grind size, we're already talking about it. That's why a grinder is important is because like I said before, if you have like it. We'll take a step back. Sorry, take a step back to like the blade grinders that you get like the cheap super loud like noisy ones that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Though when you look at that, if you dump that out like onto a paper towel, you'll have like super big chunks and you'll have tiny little powders or they call those fines. So if you brew a cup of coffee or a pot of coffee or whatever with big chunks and fines, you get.

15:45So almost a combination of really bitter taste and coffee and really sour taste and coffee. So what makes coffee bitter is when you over extract it, what makes coffee like have that sour taste is when you under extract it. So if you now will start to transition into brew time. So if you extract coffee longer, it will it will be more bitter. If you extract it not enough or you don't brew it long enough and this this really goes for like your pour over your arrow press, your French press. When you start messing with brew time, it gets bitter when you brew it longer, it gets tart or sour when you don't brew it enough. So now you have grind size and brew time grinds also give you those extraction flavors too.

16:46So a more fine grind will give you a more bitter grind. A bigger grind size will give you a weaker or more sour grind. You're tracking. Yeah, what gives the tart like that that that tart flavor? It's like, that's so sour I guess maybe like what? Yeah, like it. It's like kind of like over makes you yeah, that's under extracted. So if you could be grinding too big, or not brewing long enough if your coffee sour tasted. All right, so I really really really really want to like want to love black rifle, right? And the only way I found it to be decent is when I get beans. If I get if I get ground from the store, it's super tart, super like it gets in your like your your job bones, you know, I'm just. Yep, exactly. So that's under extracted. So how are you brewing that that typically like that what I would do in a drip.

17:48So I had a tactisquash air day and I had a bag of it the week before there was phenomenal in drip, right? And then the next week I bought a bag and it was like it's so gross. It was just a completely different flavor. And I kind of equated that flavor with most black rifle stuff that I have. And it's usually the pre ground. It's never beans because we do beans. It's really good. Yeah, so that all comes down to your grind size. So so their mass grinding is probably not turning out really good. Yeah, I'm not I'm not sure how they do it, but that's that's basically so the grind size has to match your method of cooking or your method of brewing. So like I think I mentioned it before when you have like a French press you grind really coarse. And when you have an arrow press you grind a lot finer. So that is how you kind of match your coffee to your method of brew. So with the drip coffee it's like medium. So that's like middle of the road.

18:50So most most coffee roasters that pre grind their coffee will do it for drip coffee because that's the most common. But being off just a little bit higher love for your your coffee method can really alter those flavors. It can also come down to your so the third thing that we were talking about is brew temperature. So if your coffee pot is getting hotter sometimes and getting cooler other times when it's colder water. You might not be extracting your coffee enough. So it might just like. If you heat up your coffee it kind of like pulls all those oils and flavors and everything in the solution and drips through the machine and into the pot. Yeah, when you if it's too cold it's not going to pull that same amount of oils and flavor and everything. So it's just going to kind of like pass through the coffee instead of like extracting those flavors and pull them through. So if you're starting off and I'm pulling water out of my well to fill up my my hopper or whatever should I be doing that like more room temperature rather than rather than 54 degree well water.

20:01I would try it out. I would definitely mess with it and see see what works for you. I know a lot of coffee machines they start with cold water. Yeah. But I mean I would try it try it like type of water like I don't know 100 degrees and see and then try it. Leave the faucet running on hot for 30 seconds so that you get I don't know whatever that temperature is 115 degrees and try that. Yeah, that might make it a little easier. Yeah, give that a world tomorrow. Yeah, I'm tasting. Yeah. Do you have a grinder? I do, but I have a hand grinder and then I have one of the blade grinders that sucks. Yeah. So I would I would put a bird grinder on my Christmas list if I were you. I don't think my wife's going to spend that kind of cash on me. It's worth it. Maybe if I tell her it benefits her too. You might have to sell a bow. That's crazy talk. All right, moving on.

21:01So grinds that is that cover grind size? Yeah, so that so there's your three we kind of hit on grind size is one. Temperature is another one and brew time. So those are your three things that control your outcome or your product. Let's talk about temperatures since we're kind of on that already. All right, so with a drip coffee maker or any automated coffee maker, you have the least control over brew time and temperature. So that to me is the draw of all these other really nerdy methods is I can I have more control. I can control how long I brew stuff. I can control how hot I brew stuff. And that's how I dial in the flavor that I like. So for instance, right now. I haven't really been making French press coffee, but Eric McKee texted me and asked how I would do that. So I'm working on that now trying to find two and everything.

22:01And I think I have it right about there. So I'll be a put another video out for Eric. But I was running into an issue and actually I was also having this issue. I have a percolator as well. Yeah. I've been really having the issue with the percolator. I bought it while we were camping a few weeks ago because my wife was interested in trying percolator coffee. So I'm going to go to the market and I'm going to go to the market and I'm going to go to the market. After that I'm going to go to the market and then I'll be going to have this wonderful coffee. So water percolator. And it has become like my biggest challenge to defeat right now. You said camping was amazing, right. Camping was amazing. I was cooking it on a gasto. And it came out really good. And I was really surprised because anytime I've had percolator coffee, it's not been good. It's been really terrible. Yeah. Terrible lots of grounds in your teeth. Yeah. I've been experimenting the last really month. When you get all the grounds in your coffee,

23:02it's ground too fine. So for whatever reason, when the grounds, I haven't figured that part out yet, but when it's ground fine, all the grounds like to bubble up out of that percolator basket, and they get all over the place, and it's not very good. The other issue I was having is it's super weak. So I have found that there's a lot of confusion between strong coffee and bitter coffee, and a lot of people don't know the difference. So they think they like bitter coffee, and they say, oh yeah, my coffee's really strong, and it's just like they're, like give her, go to somebody's house and have coffee with somebody and they make it, and it's like, oh, do you like a coffee strong? And they go, yeah, I like it strong, and they pour it, and it's just like straight up bitter. So that's a brewing issue, and that's over extracted. So strength and bitterness are two different things. So you can have coffee that's properly extracted,

24:04so it tastes kind of balanced, you call it, but it's very weak, and just tastes like hot water, kind of. Or you can have coffee that's balanced or way too strong, and just like kind of off-putting, or you can have like those flavors we talked about before. It's like super tart, super bitter, and they're not all the same. They might take a little while of like trial and error to kind of like finally dial those in. So to me, I like coffee that's sweet, without adding like sweeteners or flavors, like I don't like flavored coffee, but if you brew coffee properly, it's like sweet and not tart and smooth, I don't know, it's hard to explain, but it's like perfectly balanced. Yeah. You don't have any bitter flavors, you don't have any sour flavors. So that's like the golden cup for me. Well, anyway, so what's the ideal temperature?

25:04And it differs from method, right? It does, yep. So with the, I kind of do everything with my AeroPress, I have an electric kettle. Yeah, that I, that's what I use every day because it wants it's faster than the stove top, and two, I can dial in the exact temperature. So with my electric kettle, AeroPress, French press, and pour over all go to 210 degrees. So that's just under a boil, and that's what I do for all three of those. And that is kind of, that way I can just keep that constant 210 degrees. I don't mess with my temperature, I'll adjust my brew time and my grind size to work with a 200 degree kettle so that I don't have to think about the temperature, just boom. Interesting, yeah. I thought it was always like 180 or something, you had to be around. I've heard and read a lot that you can scorch coffee, and you can like, you can hurt the flavors of coffee with a higher temperature, but I've not been able to really replicate that.

26:09I used to brew it like 195, but I was getting a lot of underextract the flavors, and it was taking longer to get the flavor that I like. So with AeroPress, for example, I put my coffee in, I dump my water in, I like to brew my AeroPress set for a minute and 30 seconds. Yep, yeah. But when I was doing it at 195, it was still very sour, so I bumped up five degrees, five degrees, five degrees, landed at 210, and now that's a temperature I brew. So when I'm camping though, I just bring it to a boil, whether it's my jet boil or a camp stove, or even a fire, if I got the kettle directly in the fire, I'll just bring it to a boil, take it off the boil, let it sit for, I don't know, 10 seconds maybe, and then I'll pour it. So it's somewhere around 210, slightly less than 220. So those are the brood temperatures for that. Now with the percolator, as I was talking about,

27:13that's been giving me trouble because I've been trying to fine tune the amount of heat that I use in the stove, so the camp stove being an open flame. The percolator coffee was really good, but I brought it home, I have an electric stove top, and I would bring it to a boil, came to a boil, once it starts to do it, it's percolator thing, like it bubbles in that little glass top. I would turn the heat down to low, and it would maintain a percolator, it would continue to percolate, but I was just getting real weak coffee. So I was messing around with filters and grind size and having all these issues, and wasted a ton of good coffee, and then I, the last week or earlier, might have been last weekend, I was messing around with the percolator again, and I just let that thing rock on a higher boil, and it came out awesome, so, I think I figured that out. So that would be like an example of like, you're brewing at 212 degrees.

28:18But again, when you're having constants, like you're brewing at a constant temperature, you gotta alter other things like grind size, or grind size, or brew time to get it to taste right. So for example, I'll brew my percolator, the instructions on the, that came with the percolator, say, not to brew longer than three minutes. Well, with the grind size that I like, and doing it at that relatively high boil on boil and for about five and a half minutes, which is quite a bit longer than the instructions say. But if you're not getting the flavors that you like, or it's just not tasting right, you gotta kinda make those adjustments. So, you have the little glass knob on your camping, you're getting it? Yeah, that's why you go by the color. Yeah, and that's a good way to do it. Yeah, you gotta let it go longer than you think,

29:19because I had a lot of the week camp coffee before, and I just learned to go by the color. Yeah, you're pouring it out in your mug, and it looks like tea. Yeah. Yeah, that was the issue I had. And then matching the grind size to that is a tough thing to do too. It just takes trial and error. So, my advice to anybody that is gonna go out and start messing around with their coffee, and how they brew their coffee for the season, I would get a cheaper whole bean coffee until they really dial in what they're doing, because in the beginning, you're gonna throw away a lot of coffee. You're gonna... What's a good cheaper coffee? What do you recommend? Um... Oscar. Yeah, it depends, yeah. So, it also depends on what kind of coffee you like. So, a lot of people like dark roasts, like when they're first starting to get into coffee,

30:23I really liked dark roasts when I was like starting to make it on my own, but then I started picking up on the flavors, and as I was brewing different ways, I started tasting everything, was kind of like burned, like a burned food flavor in the coffee, and that just comes from the roasting process, because that dark roasts is literally the beans that are almost burned. So, I stay away from dark roasts, or you'll see them like French roasts or espresso roasts. Those are all very dark, and they get a lot of their flavors from that, like being essentially well done and long roasted. So, I like lighter roasts and medium to light roasts, and those tend to be a little bit sweeter. When you're buying coffee too, a lot of the times on the package, or if you order it online, or wherever you get it from, look at the tasting notes,

31:24and it'll say like dark chocolate, or caramel, or nectarine, or berries and herbs, and those notes, or those words they use, aren't like the flavors of the coffee. Like it's not flavored like those, but those are like, if you were to like really talk to like somebody who was like a coffee expert, those are like the tasting notes they get out of them. So, it's like wine, or whiskies, where like if you have like a really good bourbon, and you can taste like those caramel notes, or the vanilla notes, obviously there's not caramel, or vanilla in the whiskey, but that's a stilling process. Yeah, that aging process, or when they sit in the casks and take on those flavors of the cask over time, the same kind of thing happens with coffee too, like different regions tend to have different types of coffees, some are more acidic, so more acidic coffees have those more tart flavors,

32:25so I don't like very acidic coffee. So I tend to look for tasting notes that aren't like super fruity or citrusy. I like the ones that are like nuttier, or caramel or toffee flavors. Yeah, that sounds more my speed. Yeah, gregging out the sweet ones. Yeah, I will say. I'm not into the sweet anymore. I'm a sucker for pumpkin spice. Pumpkin spice. Oh, come on. Oh yeah, I am a sucker for pumpkin spice. I think you just lost Greg's respect. I know, probably did. I wore my green mountain traditional bow hundreds to buy back. Is that to make up for it? Yeah. Oh man. So I don't remember how we got here. I just got our ambulance. We took care of grinds. We took care of temperature. Yeah, what was the last one? Perurtime. And we did that. So with, like I was saying,

33:27with your machines, your carigs, we also have a... Nespresso machine. We have one of those. Spresso machine. That's pretty sweet. My wife's go to every day, a quick, super fast. Yeah. I haven't found a pod that I'm super crazy about. I just do, I'm just do espresso. Yeah, because that's what my wife does too. Yeah, Jen, my wife, she does coffee, actual like cups of coffee, but it's weird because it's got that weird foamy. It's just, there's something about it. But if you do like an espresso, like just a shot of espresso, it is... It's like a shot of espresso. It's great. It's freaking, it's awesome. Like if you went to a cafe. So that's what I usually use in the winter. I don't really use it so much in the summer. Yeah. What about like, you ever get nice coffee? So I... What's your process to make up for too? Do you use it at French press? Uh, I have the...

34:28And if you cold-booted or have you... I've, yeah, I've cold-booted. If I do iced coffee, I do it during turkey season a lot. Yeah. That's when I'll use the pour over cone. So there are brew methods for a pour over cone. I would have to look, I don't know them offhand, but you basically... Is it hot water or cold water? Yeah. You change your ratio of coffee to water. And you brew, you do the pour over and you put ice in the bottom of the glass, or there are a carafe or whatever you're pouring into. And then you use less hot water, but a stronger concentration of coffee so that it kind of delutes in the carafe. So what do you think of that? And the double end, your amount of coffee in there as you know of that? Yeah, essentially. And the ice makes up for that too, right? Yep. And then I mean, you'd have to look at a recipe for that online.

35:28I mean, I learned all this on YouTube. I have a... Which is crazy. If you go on YouTube and look up coffee videos... Oh, yeah. That's a freaking warm hole. That's out of hand. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you, like I said, mess with the coffee and figure out what you like. Like, I can't sit here and tell you, like, oh, you should like this kind of coffee because everybody's different. If you like flavored coffee with hazelnut and 12 Splenda and 8 Cream and go for it, that's your thing, you know? Yeah, I don't think that's stunk and don't. So you can only drink Dunkin' Donuts if there's a boat of sugar in it. And I'm like, I'm a black coffee, nothing else in it. And but I mean, Dunkin' Donuts has to have cream and sugar or else it tastes like crap. Yeah. You're on the road. What's your go-to place to stop and get a cup of coffee? I'll find a coffee shop, small mom and pop coffee shop. I don't really care for Dunkin' Donuts. No Timmy Hortons. Or we don't have Timmy Hortons around here. We used to.

36:29They've got a... We have one Ray the Border of New York and PA in a little town called Ray Bend. Yeah. Yeah. I work with some Timmy. I work with some Canadians and every time we're on like teams meetings and they have their cameras on, they all have Timmy Hortons. The Timmy Horses? Yeah. No Starbucks, huh? No, I can't get into Starbucks. Even the Beans. I've tried really hard to like their Beans. For no reason, other than you can get it anywhere. You can get it anywhere, yeah. Even their light roasts are very heavily roasted, very dark. So you get a lot of those like, I guess burned kinda ashy flavors in it. So I'll stay away from that. One, a cheaper bean that I like is like, if you, I don't know if you have stop and shop or whatever around you, that's our local grocery store. But they have the Nature's Promise brand and it's an organic coffee, which I don't really care if it's organic or not.

37:31I just, I mean, I'm not really one for marketing. Yeah. Very much so. But the Beans are good. You can find the light roast whole bean. It actually is lighter roasted or even the medium roast. So like a true medium roast. And they're not overly done up and over roasted. Sometimes you just find a roaster that classifies their Beans a little bit differently and you think you're getting a medium roast and they're dark roast. So there's one that we have of Wegmans, Wegmans grocery stores. And they sell a brand of coffee. There's actually a cafe here in the next town over that's kinda, they got their noises. Their noises are up in the air but it's still, it's good to go there. But they sell specifically this brand.

38:31It's called Counterculture. And I think it's from California. But they have, they have like a real good, let me find them. Okay, so they're, they're like, is it called? I can't see the, I can't see the word, the name of it. But they have another one called Slow Motion. And it's their Decaf. And it's probably the best Decaf coffee I've ever had. Yeah, but I like Decaf too in the afternoon because when I want coffee, I'll just make a pot of that or a cup of that. Otherwise, I'll be up all night. I'm pretty caffeine sensitive. 46, that's what it's called. That's, that's their regular and they're all beans. But it's, it's hard. Like if you go to a wally world or if you go to like a normal grocery store, most I'd say like 99% of the bags of coffee are pre ground. Yeah, it's hard to find beans. Like I typically get black rifles just black. That's usually a bean. And that's good because you can control the size. I haven't tried black rifles since, kind of since like,

39:32I knew what I was doing with coffee. Yeah. When I first tried it, it was, I was not brewing it right. Right. So I was doing it. It was like very strong. And then I thought I liked dark roasts. And it turned out that I wasn't really a huge dark roast fan. So I got to give them another shot. Their one that has a lot of light medium roasts too. Yeah. Like a lot to me that's where like medium. Yeah, that's where your true coffee flavors are going to come out as in those better medium roasts. Again, it kind of goes with that whole like, like strong coffee. So dark roast must be strong because coffee's dark. But it's like, it doesn't a cup of light roast is not like all that much lighter color than a dark roast. You know, it's like, it's kind of harder to explain. Greg, what are you getting out of this so far? We're confused, isn't it? I feel like Chris does when you do the tooting episode. Oh, yeah.

40:33Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, my eyes are crossed. I'm kind of getting some ideas though. How about you? Me? Yeah. Yeah. What do you want to try? Like, if you want to try the light roasts in the black rifle. Are you? I'm not too impressed with this just black that I got. What don't you like about it? I don't know if it's bitter or strong, but. Mess with your ratios. We just dig. We just do drip here. Yeah. So you said you have a grinder though? No. Oh, you don't have a grinder. We work on that clearly. So it's a ground. Try doing a little bit less coffee in your filter or your coffee, whatever the cone filter screen thing. So do a little bit less than you normally do and see if that's any better. Interesting.

41:34Well, I like my wife usually makes the coffee and I like it better when she put she added more to it than the first few times. Oh, there you go. So maybe it was weak. Your palatose opposite way. Um, I want to try French press again now. Yeah, French press is, uh, that's pretty good too. I'm not a lot of what you'll read though is a four minute brew time with that also. We bumped that up. Yeah, I bumped that up. I haven't written down. I take notes. I'm like you said, like I weigh my beans. I weigh my water, which a lot of people don't necessarily do, but that for me, that's just how I get repeatable results. It's like when I wake up in the morning, I don't want to. Like, uh, maybe this scoop was a little bit more than I did yesterday. Maybe that's why it was off. It's like, no, it was off because of this or I want to be able to point my finger at something and say I got to change that. So, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah, I understand with that.

42:34Yeah. So I weigh everything, water, temperature, beans. So I do. So my arrow press, for example, is 32 grams of coffee beans to 500 grams of water. And that makes right about 60 ounces of coffee. I like when I make my arrow press, I have the arrow press XL. When I make the arrow press in my safari tough mug, I have to lift the arrow press up off of the mug to get like that last little half a centimeter, press their because it'll overflow the mug of the arrow press. I'm going to get the big kids one now. And then I like walk it like super slow, like try not to spill it all the way back to the couch or out of the deck or wherever I'm going. Oh, yeah. All right. Do we cover the coffee episode? I think so. I mean, I'm open to questions too. If, uh, if people have questions, feel free to reach out. I mean, I like nerd out over the stuff.

43:34I do it every day. I mean, we already nerd out about arrows and other things. Why not coffee? Yeah, I do that too. So if you want to talk about it. Next, it is. Yeah. We're going to do the beer episode next. All right. And then we'll do the bourbon episode. We got to get Eric on for the bourbon episode. Oh, yeah, for sure. It's a campfire mugs, the barrel mugs. And Randy, because he's a, he's a bourbon kind of sewer now that we learned that after Eta. I'm sure that you're sure. Yeah. Um, so how's the, how's the preseason prep? How you guys? I'm there. Are you there? I'm, I'm good to go. Yeah. Greg. I'm feeling pretty good. It is all over me. You've been out already. Have any, didn't you go out once for bear? No, I went squirrel hunting. Oh, okay. All right. Just kidding. Not in see a squirrel. All right. Um, cool. And see that things either.

44:34See what are your horns? No. We don't, I don't have any acorns this year. We've got a few dropping from my one red oak that I have. But I got, yeah, yeah, that's the log there property and they took all the oaks. Oh, well. And there's one that's probably about 12 inches in diameter now. And last year it was, it's, it's probably like 50 yards from my one tree stand. And last year it was dumping acorns in this year. There's nothing. But it's still it's, there's more, I'm seeing more, I'm seeing traffic Washington, say more because I didn't use cell, I didn't use cameras last year in this year. I have two out. Yeah. I'm seeing a lot of traffic past my one stand. So I'm pretty excited. Actually, both stands are seeing traffic, but the one seeing a lot of do's. If you listen to the podcast that I have issues getting those on our property and it's nice to see a bunch out there now. So that's kind of cool. I'm not sure what changed why they're back, but they're back and it's awesome.

45:38That's good. I'm having the opposite issue this year. So I've got almost 15 trail cameras out. And last year I was thick in shooter bucks. And this year they're around, but not nearly as frequent as last year. So I might have to adjust some stuff once the season opens. I do a lot of in season scouting. I mean, I've been out in the woods a lot this year. So far already like scouting in that, but when the season hits is really when I start kind of moving around and bouncing around. Yeah, that's it. I don't know. I mean, I'm on a small enough piece of property. I know where I want to sit. So it's not too bad. But my big thing is I've been shooting a bunch out of my saddle this year. Like a like a lot. Like I did to ice shop for like an hour tonight. I have a bucket on a on a tether full of arrows that pull up. And it was fun and I'm shooting really, really well. But probably the best I have it out from an elevated spot. So I'm really happy about that.

46:39Yeah. I'm going to do that enough last year. And I have a. I never did enough. Somebody gave me last. Last winter somebody gave it to me. So I got extra stand. I'm going to put up in the backyard and start shooting out of that. Yeah. I used to never do it. I did a little bit like last like three or four years. And this year I've been. I've been doing it a ton. And I love it. When does your season open? October. Whatever that first Saturday is in October. So this Saturday. I think. Yes. How about you Greg? First. First. Yeah. September 15th. Yeah. September 15th. I'm shooting you only got five days left. I know. Massachusetts bear. Opened on Monday. The seventh. Massachusetts bear. Opened. And I got a good bear hitting one of my cell cams. Somewhat regularly that I've been trying to get up there. But I got stuck at work today. I've got a bunch of house projects going on. I'm trying to wrap up before White Hills. I'm here in Connecticut. So. I don't know that I will make it out for this bear.

47:41Exclusive. I got a really good four corn on camera. He might be my target this year. About seven and a half inch spread on him. Looking good. Are. Sounds like. I think that wraps up our. This is kind of like I said, this is kind of an intermediate. Episode. I might even drop this Friday. Just for that. Maybe. Cool. Sounds good. Yeah. But we are coming back. We did go on a little hiatus again mainly because we just got distracted. But we have a really good episode lined up next week. So stay tuned. That'll be fun. Like I said, the PA bow hundred fest shoot is in Sullivan County. The Southern County Fairgrounds. Check that out. What else is going on? One of my missing. I'm going to go back to the center. I'm going to go back to the center. I'm going to go back to the center. I'm going to go back to the center. What else is going on? One of my missing. I feel like I'm missing something. I guess it's hunting season. That's about it. Oh, congrats to Colton. He sent me a good picture of a cow he got the other day.

48:43So very awesome. Awesome. Yeah. And again, thanks to Black Widow, Osso Gear, addictive archery, Safari Tough, great Northern Quivers, and lower mountain alphiders. Thanks for standing by. So you guys. Make sure you guys all go check them out and let them know we sent you. Guys, thanks for doing an episode tonight. This is awesome. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. All right. I could be of help to everyone out there. Always, always great. Hey guys, before we close out the episode, just wanted to thank our partners again. Black Widow bows, Osso Gear, Safari Tough, addictive archery, great Northern Quivers, and lower mountain alphiders. Without them, the podcast wouldn't be possible. Make sure to check out the description below for links and discounted codes. And finally, if you have a moment, feel free to leave a review. It really helps us out and it lets us know how we can improve for you guys. With that said, thank you for listening.