Cooking & Baking
In reply to the discussion: had a silly thought about making coffee-- mix the sugar and powdered milk in the... [View all]Starseer
(72 posts)I ran across the "adding sugar to the brew basket" method when I still utilized my Mr. Coffee brewer as my mainstay. It was one of those 8-cup white ones with the "New!" brew-and-pause feature, and a cute little red LED clock in the bottom right. I still have it in my office and continue to utilize the sugar-in-basket method.
Before I did it the first time, I was pretty skeptical. But I did have half a thought about the sugar balancing out some of the acidity that tended to run rampant in single-temperature extractions.
So, I used one level teaspoon of granulated sugar, spread evenly over the coffee in the basket. That way, the water hit the thin sugar layer before it hit the coffee. (NB: In later times, I used powdered and even confectioners' -- I was curious about the surface area effect, as well as the effect of the added starch in the confectioners' -- but granulated seems to work best.)
In a word, I was elated with the results! The change was dramatic. The acids were still there, but they had been balanced nicely by the faintest hint of sweetness. IIRC, it was straight-up Folger's ground coffee. Interestingly, I found that if I attempted to homogeneously mix the coffee and the sugar together, the smoothing effect was greatly diminished.
Anyway, just my $0.02. It surprised me. Oh, and remember to deal with the basket and grounds *promptly*. Sugary environments tend to promote mold growth in short order. Ack!