@Helmet0987 A perfect shot, not a drop on the paper! I wish I’d counted over the last 40+ years all the times a dog or cat inside our house could have puked on the tile floor but managed to make it to the carpet for a proper job of it.
I am one of those heathens that drink cold coffee type drinks and I don’t like Coffee enough to want something like this. I don’t even think I should drink the amount of coffee that would justify owning this.
I love cold iced coffee in summer, but its not nitro brew so ill keep my hamilton for an IRK. Now that grinder is a really nice side deal. Have it and it does a nice professional grind.
We bought one of these years ago to take on trips to Disneyworld so we could brew our own cold brew since Disney’s Joffrey’s brand is awful.
I definitely concur that it takes longer than the directions say, but it does the job. It does work best if you can grind slightly coarser coffee than normal drip though.
At the price, if you don’t have another means if making cold coffee and you enjoy that, it’s a pretty easy choice. Its only potential downfall is that the capacity isn’t huge, but I don’t know that the process would work too well if it was much bigger.
Aeropress claims to do cold brew in 2 minutes, but ya gotta stir it yourself and you can only do about 8 ounces at a time since you need room to stir. I didn’t know, I make it hot. And unless you bought the gimmicky new clear one you cant make and watch a tornado.
Aeropress costs more than this, though, so if you only ever want cold brew or you are making coffee for stormchasers get this one.
@djslack AeroPress is awesome. It makes coffee relatively quickly, it’s easy to use and clean, and the coffee it makes is so much better, and less acidic, than coffee made conventionally. I’ve only made hot coffee with it, I don’t drink cold coffee or its concoctions (which rules out today’s deal) so I don’t know anything about the AeroPress’s ability to make cold brew.
I make cold brew regularly. Depending on the weather and my mood, I sometimes take a cup and heat it up. All the extra flavor and caffeine but none of the acid. A great cuppa joe.
I’m very fond of coffee & I’ve made cold brew, even tasty cold brew. But I couldn’t believe how much I missed the wonderful aroma of coffee being brewed. Yep, I’m old, & I realized that I just couldn’t see denying myself the rush of coffee scent in the morning. I was completely surprised to realize how much I loved the aroma when suddenly it wasn’t there
@gertiestn Good point. As with wine, a lot comes from the ‘nose’ before it passes your lips. I use cold brew from cans sometimes on road trips. Some are quite good but I’m really not used to the concept. Maybe I just don’t ‘get it.’ Also can have amazingly high caffeine numbers, which I try to avoid in a single serving, so I try space it out over time, or even 2 days.
@gertiestn@pmarin I also enjoy the “nose” of my morning [hot/pour-over] coffee. But there is something also satisfying and refreshing about a cold brew in the summer sitting at one of my kids’ morning baseball games in the sun.
I’ve got one of those large plastic funnel cold brewers. It makes a lot, maybe too much. Can be messy, disastrously messy if you spill it, and takes 24 hours plus. For $20 I’ll give this a shot!
/giphy everlasting-bountiful-skate
@Springbank roller derby for the win. Also your 24-hour one does it use a lot of coffee grinds to make because I have this one that I bought a while back and I feel like it uses a lot more coffee just to make a small amount of cold brew.
But I’ve never used one of the overnight ones.
@uvassassin
My brewer uses 12-16 oz of medium course grounds. The carafe holds about 40 oz, but I would pour another 20 through it. Drink it on lots of ice!
@JWhirly@uvassassin Finally gave this a try the other day, mostly just for functionality. I used some crappy coffee I had from Lidl that ended up being way too light a roast for my taste. I need to try it next with better coffee to really check it out. It functions fine, not too noisy, and cleanup is not too difficult. A bit better than a French press since the grounds mostly end up in the cup. The big difference is that my overnight maker uses a lot of coffee to make a concentrate that need to be diluted. This makes a brew drinkable as is. I’m happy.
@werehatrack I do love coffee (both hot and cold), but I’ll stick to my 24-hour cold brew. I am curious, though, for the mag-stir capabilities of such!
Sure, I’ll make coffee with it a couple times. But also, I’m going to tell my kids it’s a tornado maker, and they can do it with water, juice, or Gatorade.
@pakopako I think this thing will probably work about as well as your blender, which is to say it will produce something almost but not quite entirely unlike cold brew
@jbreedlove@Kyeh yeah, got home, did the 15 minutes of blending (on low) with the tea bag dangling above the blades (unexpected twist: while the bag was being spun by the water, the twisting of the twine attached to the bag caused it to go higher up the carafe; thankfully the whirlpool motion also meant the water was going up too)
So some takeaways:
(+) Blender does work in stirring the tea bag (or coffee filter wrapped coffee grounds)
(+) Easy to clean (just the bag dangling; as long as it doesn’t drop into the blades
(-) LOUD (high wattage blender; of course)
(-) If this was a hand/immersion blender, it would mean standing above for ten minutes
(-) A portable low power blender would also work (though you will need a tall/deep sink mesh/strain to prevent anything moving toward the blades) - you’d also need a coffee filter and sippy lid so that you could pour the tea/coffee while catching the sediments.
The 2 cups of filtered water to one tea bag was probably a little too much, but the tea that was made was very flavorful, not too bitter (strong).
@pakopako A magnetic stirrer has blunt arms not intended to crush, shred or pulverize the solids, which a blender would do. By just stirring, it leaves the grounds (or leaves, if you’re going for tea) pretty much unbroken, and easily sequestered at the bottom of the carafe by the press strainer. I should note that tea bags may get broken open when agitated, and the finely chopped teas inside them can go right through a typical strainer. YMMV.
@baqui63 Had a similar thought; could add to my armamentarium. But just not convinced it could replicate my 24-hour cold brew process. If I’m in a pinch (read also failed to plan), I’ll just run to the local coffee house and grab a nitro cold brew (which is an occasional treat). I’m curious about your experience with this though!
@brennyn Nearly all of the commercial instant tea I’ve tried is vile. It’s weird because I know from first-hand experience that truly excellent instant tea is possible, and yet almost none of it is even good enough to be merely mediocre.
We received our Presto Dorothy rapid cold brewer yesterday and my husband immediately brewed us a batch of Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condense milk, deeeelicious! The brewer is well made and of good quality. Thanks Meh!
@michellejordan Try again tomorrow; they’re off today for Memorial Day so you wouldn’t get an answer till tomorrow anyway. I just tried to get into it and couldn’t either. So something’s not working right now. But the customer support here is really very good.
Specs
Product: Presto Dorothy Rapid Cold Brewer
Model: 02937
Condition: New
What’s Included?
Price Comparison
$44.99 at Amazon
Warranty
1 year limited Presto
Estimated Delivery
Monday, May 13 - Tuesday, May 14
COLD COFFEE??
/giphy puke
@IndifferentDude Mmm creamer
@Helmet0987 A perfect shot, not a drop on the paper! I wish I’d counted over the last 40+ years all the times a dog or cat inside our house could have puked on the tile floor but managed to make it to the carpet for a proper job of it.
I like coffee, but not that much.
This thing is called Dorothy and it makes a tornado? There’s no WAY that’s not a reference to the movie.
@PooltoyWolf It must be made in Kansas.
@PooltoyWolf Twister (1996)!!!
@Atomizer Indeed! Had the movie poster on my wall as a kid. Fun fact: Twister was the first film to be released on DVD in the US.
@Atomizer @PooltoyWolf
Yeah I just put that together. I wondered who the hell Presto Dorothy was!
Meh, you are a little late on the Star Wars stuff. Thanks to not disappointing your regulars.
@hchavers You’re saying we found something trendy and brought it to you after the peak of its popularity died down? Feels on brand.
@hchavers This is clearly the Revenge of the 6th.
/showme a bunch of people who hate coffee drinking coffee.
I actually thought coffee drinkers preferred the charred bitterness.
@pakopako The coffee most people drink smells and tastes like burnt toast scrapings to me. And I don’t just mean the cheap stuff.
I predict today’s coffee-brewing gadget will outsell yesterday’s. Anyone want to take a bet on that?
@Odysseus1001 Considering this one’s already sold more units in 15 minutes than yesterday’s did in 6 hours, I’d say that’s a bad bet to take.
@Odysseus1001 The London bookies are not accepting your bets, only donations.
I am one of those heathens that drink cold coffee type drinks and I don’t like Coffee enough to want something like this. I don’t even think I should drink the amount of coffee that would justify owning this.
I love cold iced coffee in summer, but its not nitro brew so ill keep my hamilton for an IRK. Now that grinder is a really nice side deal. Have it and it does a nice professional grind.
@KSchweitz I understood some of what you said. Mostly the latter half.
@KSchweitz @mehvid1 Not the latte half?
@benjyhe
/giphy rimshot
/giphy flawless-lucrative-carpenter
We bought one of these years ago to take on trips to Disneyworld so we could brew our own cold brew since Disney’s Joffrey’s brand is awful.
I definitely concur that it takes longer than the directions say, but it does the job. It does work best if you can grind slightly coarser coffee than normal drip though.
At the price, if you don’t have another means if making cold coffee and you enjoy that, it’s a pretty easy choice. Its only potential downfall is that the capacity isn’t huge, but I don’t know that the process would work too well if it was much bigger.
Aeropress claims to do cold brew in 2 minutes, but ya gotta stir it yourself and you can only do about 8 ounces at a time since you need room to stir. I didn’t know, I make it hot. And unless you bought the gimmicky new clear one you cant make and watch a tornado.
Aeropress costs more than this, though, so if you only ever want cold brew or you are making coffee for stormchasers get this one.
@djslack AeroPress is awesome. It makes coffee relatively quickly, it’s easy to use and clean, and the coffee it makes is so much better, and less acidic, than coffee made conventionally. I’ve only made hot coffee with it, I don’t drink cold coffee or its concoctions (which rules out today’s deal) so I don’t know anything about the AeroPress’s ability to make cold brew.
MEALS! DEALS! EELS! AWESOME!
Doesn’t coffee get cold all on its own?
@katbyter Probably gets lonely as well. Heh.
Man, if only this thing also had a toaster oven and a griddle built-in, I’d totally buy one.
@Avxyvei
Sick burn… I like it!
I make cold brew regularly. Depending on the weather and my mood, I sometimes take a cup and heat it up. All the extra flavor and caffeine but none of the acid. A great cuppa joe.
@ehorwitz1 All of that. I can’t imagine the use case for this. If I’m too impatient to wait 24hrs, I’m gonna brew strong hot coffee and put on ice.
@ehorwitz1 Also https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B071WXSCSC?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title + large mason jars means i perpetually have 1 for brewing and one for drinking in the summer.
@highonpez This is my machine: https://a.co/d/1pyo0jo
A present from my favorite daughter. Makes 3 cup in 20 minutes. I drink one and put the rest in the fridge overnight. That’s nice strong.
@ehorwitz1 Flashextract tech? What witchcraft is this?
@ehorwitz1 @highonpez
It’s a fancy way of saying, “briefly stir while soaking, and then lightly squeeze”
So it’s basically a French press with a magnetic stirrer, then. Meh.
@werehatrack if only cold brew would’ve been more of a thing 20+ years ago in Chem Lab!
@JWhirly @werehatrack Yes I too had flashbacks of Chem 1A night labs.
But can it make ice cream?
I’m very fond of coffee & I’ve made cold brew, even tasty cold brew. But I couldn’t believe how much I missed the wonderful aroma of coffee being brewed. Yep, I’m old, & I realized that I just couldn’t see denying myself the rush of coffee scent in the morning. I was completely surprised to realize how much I loved the aroma when suddenly it wasn’t there
@gertiestn Good point. As with wine, a lot comes from the ‘nose’ before it passes your lips. I use cold brew from cans sometimes on road trips. Some are quite good but I’m really not used to the concept. Maybe I just don’t ‘get it.’ Also can have amazingly high caffeine numbers, which I try to avoid in a single serving, so I try space it out over time, or even 2 days.
@gertiestn @pmarin I also enjoy the “nose” of my morning [hot/pour-over] coffee. But there is something also satisfying and refreshing about a cold brew in the summer sitting at one of my kids’ morning baseball games in the sun.
I’ve got one of those large plastic funnel cold brewers. It makes a lot, maybe too much. Can be messy, disastrously messy if you spill it, and takes 24 hours plus. For $20 I’ll give this a shot!
/giphy everlasting-bountiful-skate
@Springbank Haha I’m pretty sure I know that guy. Man, I miss roller derby…
@Springbank roller derby for the win. Also your 24-hour one does it use a lot of coffee grinds to make because I have this one that I bought a while back and I feel like it uses a lot more coffee just to make a small amount of cold brew.
But I’ve never used one of the overnight ones.
@uvassassin
My brewer uses 12-16 oz of medium course grounds. The carafe holds about 40 oz, but I would pour another 20 through it. Drink it on lots of ice!
@Springbank @uvassassin I’m curious as to how the 24-hour will compare to this rapid device. Please report back!
@JWhirly @uvassassin Finally gave this a try the other day, mostly just for functionality. I used some crappy coffee I had from Lidl that ended up being way too light a roast for my taste. I need to try it next with better coffee to really check it out. It functions fine, not too noisy, and cleanup is not too difficult. A bit better than a French press since the grounds mostly end up in the cup. The big difference is that my overnight maker uses a lot of coffee to make a concentrate that need to be diluted. This makes a brew drinkable as is. I’m happy.
/youtube airplane it’s a twister auntie em!
I hate coffee, but I have a use for a mag stir setup. I might grab one of these and ignore its marketed purpose.
@werehatrack
Breaking Bad?
@chienfou Nah. DIY caffeinated beverages of another variety. I also have to wonder whether this thing really is restricted to cold beverages only.
@werehatrack
This one on Morningsave is more pricey though it definitely swirls and heats, if you’re interested…
@werehatrack I do love coffee (both hot and cold), but I’ll stick to my 24-hour cold brew. I am curious, though, for the mag-stir capabilities of such!
If it makes it in 15 minutes isn’t that just regular cold coffee, not cold brew?
@brennyn …and/or French press?
This is definitely in the "Meh. I doubt it’s any good. Would be nice to have cold brew whenever I want it…wait. $20?
Click."
zone.
Sure, I’ll make coffee with it a couple times. But also, I’m going to tell my kids it’s a tornado maker, and they can do it with water, juice, or Gatorade.
/giphy skinny-vivid-voyage
Seems like this… stirs?
Well, I have a laboratory stir/hot plate… Seems like it just got more useful.
I roast my own beans and could really dork out on this whole conversation, but I’m going to excuse myself before things go sideways.
@capnjb But if you feel a need to dork out on topics like this, we are here for you, friend.
Dumb question, but how is this different then putting coffee in your blender?
I’m now curious if I can make cold brew tea this way: dangle the bag at the blender cap so it doesn’t drop into the blades.
@pakopako I think this thing will probably work about as well as your blender, which is to say it will produce something almost but not quite entirely unlike cold brew
https://www.seriouseats.com/instant-cold-brewer-review-6889680#:~:text=Instant or rapid cold brew,and tasted thin and unbalanced.
@jbreedlove @pakopako Thanks for that link - it’s very informative.
@jbreedlove @Kyeh yeah, got home, did the 15 minutes of blending (on low) with the tea bag dangling above the blades (unexpected twist: while the bag was being spun by the water, the twisting of the twine attached to the bag caused it to go higher up the carafe; thankfully the whirlpool motion also meant the water was going up too)
So some takeaways:
(+) Blender does work in stirring the tea bag (or coffee filter wrapped coffee grounds)
(+) Easy to clean (just the bag dangling; as long as it doesn’t drop into the blades
(-) LOUD (high wattage blender; of course)
(-) If this was a hand/immersion blender, it would mean standing above for ten minutes
(-) A portable low power blender would also work (though you will need a tall/deep sink mesh/strain to prevent anything moving toward the blades) - you’d also need a coffee filter and sippy lid so that you could pour the tea/coffee while catching the sediments.
The 2 cups of filtered water to one tea bag was probably a little too much, but the tea that was made was very flavorful, not too bitter (strong).
@pakopako Suggestion from the write-up in the description of the machine recommended above: Just use loose tea leaves.
https://meh.com/forum/topics/presto-dorothy-rapid-cold-brewer#66397ab477a491526a65a04a
@pakopako Oh, and I just saw that @ehorwitz1 said the same thing
@Kyeh yeah, I just heard “sure you can use a blender”
I remember when tea infusers were popular
Another bonus of using a standing blender:
Add ice to have instant crushed-iced tea.
@pakopako A magnetic stirrer has blunt arms not intended to crush, shred or pulverize the solids, which a blender would do. By just stirring, it leaves the grounds (or leaves, if you’re going for tea) pretty much unbroken, and easily sequestered at the bottom of the carafe by the press strainer. I should note that tea bags may get broken open when agitated, and the finely chopped teas inside them can go right through a typical strainer. YMMV.
A kind of coffee maker not yet in my collection…
/giphy rude-versatile-quail
@baqui63 Had a similar thought; could add to my armamentarium. But just not convinced it could replicate my 24-hour cold brew process. If I’m in a pinch (read also failed to plan), I’ll just run to the local coffee house and grab a nitro cold brew (which is an occasional treat). I’m curious about your experience with this though!
Will it work with tea? I have lots of loose leaf tea and getting a fast glass of ice tea would be nice. I hate instant!
@ripper69 My machine actually has instructions for making tea as well as coffee. So it should work just fine.
@ripper69 TIL instant tea is a real thing that exists.
@brennyn Nearly all of the commercial instant tea I’ve tried is vile. It’s weird because I know from first-hand experience that truly excellent instant tea is possible, and yet almost none of it is even good enough to be merely mediocre.
/giphy imaginary-deafening-thought
I think I don’t want to know what those off-white lumps in the glass of “cold coffee” might be. They sure don’t look like ice.
We received our Presto Dorothy rapid cold brewer yesterday and my husband immediately brewed us a batch of Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condense milk, deeeelicious! The brewer is well made and of good quality. Thanks Meh!
Came broken and trying to start a return and no option to start a return.
@michellejordan Report the issue at meh.com/support and they will take care of it from their end.
I tried, the link doesn’t go anywhere, just times out. Never buying anything from meh again.
@michellejordan Try again tomorrow; they’re off today for Memorial Day so you wouldn’t get an answer till tomorrow anyway. I just tried to get into it and couldn’t either. So something’s not working right now. But the customer support here is really very good.
Oh wow, this sold out fast on Morning Save (at a 10$ price point, not surprising)