Kibkom North Cyprus Forum

Bought a cheap pack of coffee grounds to keep the flies away. I put a teaspoon into an egg cup and tried lighting, didn't really smolder all the way through and kept going out. Didn't even smell like coffee. I'm sure it was though - mind you it did say Columbian on the pack Am i doing something wrong? Do they need drying out if they're straight out the pack perhaps?

Was it used wet coffee grounds or a packet of ground coffee? If the former, they need to be dried first.
I put a few tablespoons of ground coffee in a metal bowl on top of some tiles and light them, and they smoulder away. It gets very hot, so you need to protect table underneath.
If using used dried used coffee grounds, I find you need some kind of accelerant.
It doesn't smell like coffee when it's burning.

Use a few drops of Saf Ispirto as an aid to lighting of well dried used coffee grounds, using unused coffee is madness!

Saf Ispirto is methanol/wood alcohol available from all supermarkets - it is poisonous to ingest as it's not ethanol, in the UK it's known as 'rubbing alcohol' and is use for cleaning.

It's the smoke that fools insects' innate self-preservation instincts to flee the evidence of fire, it's a cheap way to re-purpose old grounds... if you don't drink ground coffee it's not a process you should indulge unless you can persuade one of the coffee shops to supply you, I certainly would be shocked that anyone bought ground coffee merely to burn it!

Cheers guys. I do make Turkish coffee in a Cesve on the BBQ but this was just to try it out with the ground coffee i'd normally use in a filter coffee maker. I'll get some rubbing alcohol and try again.

Groucho you are right to say to be using used coffee grinds, but if you've got stale coffee that you've had since last year/year before and forgot about it.

MnM wrote: ↑

Tue 19 Jul 2022 11:56 am

Cheers guys. I do make Turkish coffee in a Cesve on the BBQ but this was just to try it out with the ground coffee i'd normally use in a filter coffee maker. I'll get some rubbing alcohol and try again.

I want a filter coffee maker of capacity - 4 cups - say 900ml plus degassing amount
In the past, I have used 20 mg of coarse ground coffee, degassed it with about 80 ml of water for about a minute then let the coffee maker do its job.
I have a Haden device (as a backup) - like the ones you can find in hotel rooms, but it is messy, the degassing has to be done either very messily or not very precisely.
There are many options on different pages but which maker do you use and recommend? My old and faithful John Lewis Filter Coffee maker has broken, so I need to get a replacement one.