Coffee Gear
I put this up on my wiki a bit ago when a friend asked for coffee recommendations. Hopefully you can enjoy it and learn about some coffee machines you don't know yet.
What I drink
Woke Living Coffee
My favorite coffee is from Pamela and Marcus at https://wokelivingcoffee.com/. They are a couple of local to me roasters in Wake Forest, NC who have connections to a farm in La Dalia, Nicaragua. Not only do they sell great coffee, they are extremely nice and we visit them any chance we get at our local Black Farmers Market.
Gear
Grinders
I prefer burr grinders, there's documented evidence that they are better, I won't get into that here.
Baratza
I use a Baratza Virtuoso that I picked up refurbished. It works great! For drip coffee I will grind at step 28, for aeropress I will grind at 20, and for french press I will set to 30.
Hario
For travel I will bring my Hario Skerton, works great, super easy to clean. I usually don't change the grind setting while traveling so I don't complain about the annoying screw post to set it.
Brewing Machines
Technivorm
For my daily coffee, I have a Moccamaster Technivorm. My friend Andrey recommended it. It works extremely well and very consistent pours.
Chemex
When I'm feeling fancy - or I'm trying a new coffee - I will break out my Chemex. I do a 1:16 ratio of beans to water. I use the Brown Paper Chemex Filters. I appreciate the bleached papers, but prefer unbleached.
Aeropress
For camping, I will bring my Aeropress. It's plastic, lightweight, and to my experience it is indestructible for travel.
French Press
When I roast my own coffee, I like to experience it in multiple brewing methods. I have a Bodum Bean French Press I got over a decade ago as a gift that has worked great. This one has an o-ring to seal the pouring spout, so the temperature chamber inside doesn't leak - a feature I like.
Roasting Machines & Software
FreshRoast SR700
I have a glorified popcorn maker SR700 as a roaster. I'm not the biggest fan of it, the built in software is a mess, the manual buttons on it are a nightmare to use. It works, I can only get consistent coffee out of it if I use OpenRoast. It has a USB port so you can control it with software.
OpenRoast
The OpenRoast software is okay, but I don't have a temperature probe on my SR700, so I can only see "what is set" for temperature, and not get an accurate reading if I were using something like Artisan. I could set up a PID server on an arduino and plug into the usb port, but I feel at that rate I'd rather just buy a new roaster that works with better software. I do like OpenRoast is in Python so I can read and write the code.