BWCA Camp Coffee.... Boundary Waters BWCA Food and Recipes
Chat Rooms (0 Chatting)  |  Search  |   Login/Join
* For the benefit of the community, commercial posting is not allowed.
Boundary Waters Quetico Forum
   BWCA Food and Recipes
      Camp Coffee....     

Author

Text

DrBobDg
distinguished member(850)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
07/14/2012 07:25PM   (Thread Older Than 3 Years)
Our planning meeting concerning the coffee drinkers among us reminded me of a story by Jerry Dennis is From a Wooden Canoe.

Guy is a fun author to read and has several books out.

From and Wooden Canoe by Jerry Dennis

MORNING SIMPLY ISN'T MORNING WITHOUT A CUP of coffee, but not just any cup will do. I want mine freshly brewed with clean cold water and served in a ceramic mug of substance-not a plastic cup and, please, not one of Styrofoam and I want it black and strong enough to kick -start me into wakefulness.
It's no accident, T think, that a cup of coffee is approximately the size and temperature of a human heart. Though it does not beat with life, it steams and radiates and arouses the senses with its aroma, its flavor, its warmth. We hunch over it seeking comfort and affirmation, our hands clasping it to absorb the heat. It's a poor substitute for love, grace, talent, and good looks, but a hot cup of coffee is a satisfying thing to hold on to early in the morning, while the chill of night remains in your bones and you're not yet ready to face the responsibilities of daytime.
Coffee is such a common ingredient of our daily routines that it's hard to imagine life without it. Yet until the seventeenth century it was unknown in Europe and confined only to northern Africa and the Arab world. The coffee plant was found originally only in Ethiopia, and am word for it comes from the Turkish, kahve, and the Arabic, qahfllah. When traders brought the brew to Europe, Christians were wary of its stimulatory qualities and declared it an invention of the devil. Then Pope Clement VIII tried a cup and liked the brew so
much that he baptized it, and the Western world has been on a caffeine jag ever since.
No doubt coffee was brewed outside over open fires for centuries before it found its way into the posh coffeehouses of Vienna and Paris. Indoors or out, it can be percolated, drip brewed, steamed, slow filtered-there are many ways to make it, and you're wise to remain open to procedures ancient and new. Years ago I learned one method for brewing from an
ancient, shrunken man who had spent most of his life working as a timber cutter in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. One morning I stopped by to visit and watched him fill a fire-blackened pot with water and set it on a grill over an open fire in the yard. The moment the water reached the boiling point, he scooped a generous handful of Maxwell House from a can, threw it in the pot, and slammed the lid over it. In a few moments the pot trembled, the lid rattled loose, and liquid and grounds spilled over the sides into the fire, giving off steaming clouds of aroma. Using his slouch hat for a pot holder, he lifted the pot off the fire and dropped a broken eggshell inside to settle the grounds. I accepted a cup with doubts. It was as thick and dark as silt at the bottom of a pond. I took a tentative sip, expecting my stomach to clench against the bitterness. But it was good. Delicious, in fact. I had several cups.
The experts say bitter flavor is usually the result of too much boiling, which releases tannin and makes the coffee acidic. To avoid bitterness in a percolator, remove it from the
fire a minute or two after it starts to boil, then pour a tablespoon of cold water down the spout to clear the grounds. Better yet, use the below-boiling method: Bring water to the boiling point, remove it from the fire to cool for a few moments, then pour it over ground coffee in a filtered drip pot.
Connoisseurs might choose to bring along a portable coffee grinder (on the market now is a backpacker's model that weighs just five ounces and fits in a shirt pocket) and an espresso maker for use on a camp stove. The one I've seen weighs seven ounces and can make a three-ounce cuplet of espresso in ninety seconds. With a bag of roasted Kona Kai beans and a pint of cream you can whip up a brew that makes you think you're back home in your neighborhood Starbucks.
But you don't need to be that fussy. Outdoors, on a cold morning, even a pretty bad cup of coffee tastes pretty good. Tom Carney and I once spent two days riding horses through the North Dakota badlands in the company of a pair of cowboys. They were the genuine article, bow legged and tobacco chewing, raised on cattle ranches as big as counties, where they had learned the cowboy skills of horsemanship, fence mending, cattle branding, and, of course, coffee making. At night we slept on the ground beneath the stars, and in the morning woke to the scent of frying bacon and eggs. Tom and I got out of our sleeping bags, groaning with aching muscles, and went looking for coffee. One of the cowboys handed us styrofoam cups, plastic spoons, and a small jar of instant Folgers, then pointed at a pot of water simmering on the camp stove. When we hesitated, the cowboy took a noisy slurp from his own styrofoam cup, squinted at us through the steam, and said, in a voice that sounded as if it had been dragged all night behind a horse, "Now that, mister, is a damned good cup of coffee."
I stirred up a cup and tried a sip. It wasn't Jamaica Blue Mountain, but it wasn't bad. Not bad at all.

 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next
07/15/2012 09:41AM  
A nice read. Thanks, Dr Bob!
 
09/04/2012 08:47PM  
This reminds me of a time when I was just a tad... My Grandma, a very "upright", somewhat stern German Gal loved her coffee even better than her VERY dry martinis. She drank it black, black, black -She would give me sips occasionally when I was visiting her and Grandpa at their lake house (along with the "every great once-in-awhile" olive from her martini). I will swear on a stack of Bibles to this day that I once saw her stand her spoon upright in the cup. I only have one explanation...

Andy
 
09/06/2012 09:39PM  
Camp coffee is like sex. It's all good just that some is better them others.
 
09/11/2012 11:42PM  
+1 for speaking the truth!
 
09/16/2012 08:20AM  
There is something to said about camp coffee....Don't think that I have ever had a bad cup. Thanks for posting.
 
10/13/2012 02:34PM  
We brought some French Market Coffee w/chicory back from a recent trip to New Orleans. It makes a strong pot of coffee but the chicory takes out the bitterness. You can buy it on line too.
 
dentondoc
distinguished member(1097)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
10/19/2012 01:33AM  
Its not that I'm into coffee ... not really. But reading this thread reminded me that I need to place another order for green coffee beans. Oh yes. I roast my own. Mostly I prefer those from Guatemala. But I'm not really into coffee that much. Never mind that I like my beans roasted to at least city+ to full city. Never mind that I prefer my beans to be freshly ground in the 24-72 hour window after roasting. But then, I'm not really into coffee that much. Never mind that I take freshly ground coffee with me on canoe trips. Never mind that I'm usually the only coffee drinker and have to stoop to using unbleached t-sac pouches to "steep" my brew in my 20 ounce insulated mug because I just can't bring myself to take along my backpacking version of a french press. But I'm really not into coffee that much.

But scotch is another story!

dd
 
cinna
distinguished member (344)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
10/22/2012 10:39AM  
Starbucks dehydrated:

They pack super, super small and light.

They are fast

They are good

They are not cheap

However, if you're looking to reduce pack weight and volume...

 
ppine
distinguished member (213)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
12/30/2012 12:56PM  
DrBob,
Thanks for reminding much how much I like Jerry Dennis and his writing. It is very worthwhile to stay connected to the origins of paddling and the traditional way of doing things.

Take coffee for example. Carry some quality arabica beans in your shirt pocket. Wrap them in a bandana and crush with a rock. Heat some water in any vessel and add the coffee. After it has reached boiling remove from heat and add a small amount of cold water to settle the grounds. That is it. Worked for thousands of years. Everything else is just ritual.

 
9th Bearded Infantry
distinguished member (387)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
01/10/2013 08:24AM  
Question about coffee. I have one of those green Stanley thermoses. It keeps coffee pretty hot overnight at home (if I'm going on a road trip the next morning, I'll fill it up the night before and take along). Being left outside, I'm sure it'll be less hot by morning but I'm going to give it a whirl.

Already bringing my GSI Dualist cook set so my plan is to boil up a pot of water every night, put in 15 or so instant Folgers coffee bags and let steep. Then pour into the thermos and let sit overnight.

Couple questions about this:
1. Does anyone actually do this and does the coffee stay hot for morning? I'm sure we'll need to boil another pot in the morning because everyone in our group likes to have a couple cups. I know the thermos is unnecessary weight in the pack but it would be nice to have that first cup ready to go right when you wake up. It will also be nice to bring along in the canoe when we're fishing.
2. Will the smell of coffee attract bears? Thinking of just leaving the thermos in camp but I guess it's just as easy to throw in the barrel away from camp. Was more just curious about that.
 
TuscaroraBorealis
distinguished member(5665)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberpower member
  
01/10/2013 08:51AM  
 
9th Bearded Infantry
distinguished member (387)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
01/10/2013 10:08AM  
OK, so I just realized I'm not too bright. No need to steep the dang coffee the night before. Just boil up a pot of water before bed, dump it in the thermos and leave it in camp overnight. Then use coffee single bags in the morning.

Yeah, I'm finding excuses to bring a heavy piece of luxury but whatever. We're base camping and won't be single portaging to get there anyway. I am looking forward to using in the canoe thought. Plain water is boring after a while and I don't like using flavor packs in my water bottle.
 
DRBOBDERRIG
distinguished member(688)distinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished memberdistinguished member
  
01/11/2013 10:12PM  
It is hard to shake those coffee bags out of your thermos....I have been that route.

I have left instant coffee jar out on the table at all sorts of campouts....nothing has ever shown the slightest interest in it....at least mice and racoons are not coffee drinkers.
 
      Print Top Bottom Previous Next