October 2021 - Wizard of Coffee

I love questions like “how many pots of coffee in a pound.” The reason I love questions like this is because they usually can be answered with, “It depends.”How many pots of coffee in a pound is a good example of one of these questions. The answer depends on the brewing method you’re using. If you’re just making drip coffee in an old-fashioned home coffee maker, you’ll get more cups out of a pound of coffee than you will using a French Press or making pour over coffee.Generally, though, you can get 12 pots of coffee from a pound of coffee beans. That’s reasonably strong coffee, though, and most households can probably get through a week with a pound of coffee.How Big Is a Pot of Coffee?It’s easy to get confused about how big a pot of coffee is. If you’re like me, you think of a cup of coffee as being 8 ounces of coffee.But standard drip coffee makers use a 5-ounce cup as their standard.So, when you buy that coffeemaker that makes “12 cups,” it’s really only making about 60 ounces of coffee. If you’re drinking 8-ounce cups, that’s less than 8 cups. If you have a large coffee mug that holds 12 ounces or 16 ounces, you’re looking at more like 5 cups — maybe even just 3 or 4.You can buy small coffee makers that make as little as a single cup at a time. Most of these machines are equipped to make coffee from pods, but you can buy your own at-home pod kit and put your own ground coffee into the machine.If you’re making a single cup at a time, even at twelve ounces each, your pound of coffee is going to last a lot longer than when you have to make 60 ounces at a time, particularly if you live alone and can limit your intake two one or two cups.How Much Does a Cup of Coffee Made at Home Cost?Even high-quality coffee is much more affordable when you brew it at home. Let’s use Death Wish Coffee as an example.A pound of Death Wish Coffee is $20.Let’s assume you’re drinking 12-ounce cups of coffee. You can get 12 pots of coffee out of your $20, so that’s $1.67 per pot. If you assume that you’re drinking 5 cups of coffee per pot, you’re looking at a cost per cup of 33 cents.How did I get those numbers?It’s just division. $20 per pound divided by 12 pots of coffee is $1.67 per pot.$1.67 per pot divided by 5 is 33 cents per cup.And that’s high-quality coffee — not Folgers.How Much Money Can You Save per Year Making Your Own Coffee?I’m a daily coffee drinker, and I drink a lot of coffee — I drink a whole pot of coffee by myself every day. At $1.67 per pot multiplied by 365 days a year, we’re talking about $600 or so per year.But that’s 5 cups a day.But I also know people who buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks on their way to work every day. Of course, I don’t begrudge anyone a cup of coffee on their way to the office, but let’s think about what that might cost.You’re not driving to work 365 days a year, though. Most people work 5 days a week, 50 weeks out of the year.Let’s assume that you’re not going to drink 5 cups of Starbucks a day — let’s just assume you get a cup in the morning and another cup around lunchtime.Courtney assures me that you’ll spend at least $3 on a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so that’s $6 per day, 250 days a year, or $1500 a year.So, you can save almost $1000 a year drinking coffee you’ve made at home, AND you get to drink twice as much coffee while doing it.How Long Will a Pound of Coffee Last?Courtney has covered how long coffee lasts in another post. Here are a couple of highlights, though.A pound of coffee will last longer if you only grind what you use that day. Ground coffee beans don’t last as long.Also, a pound of coffee will last longer if you keep it out of the light and in an airtight container.The more the surface of the coffee beans gets exposed to air and light, the faster it starts to lose its flavor.It doesn’t do you much good to buy coffee by the pound if you let it lose its flavor by storing it incorrectly. And it’s easy these days to find airtight, lightproof containers to store your coffee in.How Can I Make a Pound of Coffee Last Longer?If you want your pound of coffee to last longer, you’re going to have to take some extreme measures.The first and most obvious way to extend the life of your coffee is to drink less of it. Instead of drinking two cups in the morning, drink one. Skip that afternoon coffee on the weekend in favor of another day of morning brew.My wife gave up coffee before she got pregnant, in anticipation of not being able to have any during most of her pregnancy. She did that by cutting back little by little, eventually cutting down to having coffee just two days a week. That definitely made our coffee supply last longer.Not everybody wants to talk about cutting back on coffee consumption, and if it’s not an option for you that’s understandable.Plus, some other ways to make your coffee last longer exist.I don’t recommend it, but I suppose you could brew two pots instead of one with the same ground coffee. I know a lot of old-timers that do this on purpose, not just to save coffee, but because they’ve grown accustomed to the taste.My grandfather used to make his coffee last longer by adding scalding hot water to it. In a modern coffee shop, this is called an Americano and you’ll pay a few bucks for what my grandfather happily washed down from sunrise to sunset at a cost of a few pennies per cup.If you brew your coffee strong enough, you may not even notice the taste effect of adding hot water.Why not try some coffee drinks that cut the brew with warm milk or some other liquid? That will reduce the amount of coffee you drink per cup, saving you money and coffee in the long-term. Mixing your coffee with steamed milk in a 50/50 ratio makes it healthier and spreads your coffee out over more cups.What Can I Do with an Unwanted Pound of Coffee?Maybe you’ve been gifted a pound of coffee and you don’t know what to do with it.This happened to me recently after reviewing several Death Wish Coffee products (check out the review here). I didn’t love any of them enough to add them to my regular rotation, but I’d already opened them, so I couldn’t give them as a gift.What can you do with a pound of coffee if you don’t want to drink it?You can make a coffee syrup at home with very little effort and just two ingredients. All you need is a cup of white sugar for each cup of brewed coffee. Throw them together, bring it to a boil, and stir it steadily to dissolve the sugar into the reducing coffee liquid. Once the sugar’s dissolved, reduce the heat to a simmer and stir for three more minutes.Once it’s reduced to your liking, you’ve got a delicious coffee syrup that’s good over ice cream or baked into coffee cake. You can drizzle this stuff over just about any dessert an add a deep layer of coffee flavor.I’ve also heard of people adding their sweet coffee syrup concoction to cocktails, if that’s your thing.Recipes that call for coffee are plentiful. You don’t have to brew and drink a pound of coffee to enjoy it. Just get a little creative and hunt down coffee recipes online.My neighbor uses coffee grounds as fertilizer. I’m not sure if using unbrewed ground coffee works the same way, but I assume it does. If you have a pound of ground coffee hanging around and you aren’t sure what to do with it, look into using it as compost or fertilizer for your plants or garden.ConclusionAmericans are drinking more coffee than ever, with more than 6 in 10 Americans reporting daily coffee consumption.We’re also spending more on coffee, with 60% of respondents reporting a preference for premium beans and espresso-based premium coffee beverages. It makes sense that people want to buy and store coffee by the pound when most of us are leaning into more-expensive beans and costlier ready-to-drink coffee beverages.Understanding how to handle, store, and prepare coffee sold by the pound can help you save money while enjoying the modern coffee renaissance.

Month: October 2021

How Many Pots of Coffee in a Pound of Coffee Beans