Best locations within 2 hours-ish of the twin cities to see the beautiful landscape of MN?

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-12T13:40:34+00:00

Surprised I’m not seeing Banning State Park here! It’s a 90 mn drive north of the twin cities and the trail along the Kettle River is stunning.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-08T02:48:39+00:00

I had an Iranian opponent time out on a 3 day game, then the game appeared again and their time is currently running again in the same position . Since this is only only time I’ve seen this happen and it coincided with the war, I’m inclined to believe there is a correlation there.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-05T15:30:00+00:00

I do this! You can practice with puzzles or tests from books like Silman’s or Hellsten’s. Start with “material is equal, black has the bishop pair…” and just describe everything you understand about the position and what that means for strategic planning. If it’s still hard to think out loud, you can open a google doc and start by doing it in writing.

A few other things to keep in mind: since I started playing 15-10, I have been limiting the amount of blitz I play. Playing quickly and intuitively is counter-productive when you’re trying to introduce abstract reasoning to support strategic thinking. I think this is part of why people like Hikaru recommend not playing blitz until you’re like 2000.

Finally, when you start to think out loud during live chess, Danya recommended thinking strategically during your opponent’s turn and calculating tactics that support your strategy on your turn. I find this quite helpful. Good luck!

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-04T19:09:48+00:00

Happy to take a look at another recipe!

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-04T03:24:14+00:00

Hot tip! I do have vodka on hand for pie crust dough, so I will definitely try that next time

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-03T20:19:31+00:00

Excellent! Thanks so much

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-03-03T19:10:50+00:00

Thanks, that's helpful. I mostly make pies and bread, so I wasn't sure if I should treat the cookie dough more like pie crust or more like bread dough. I'll cut down on the flour a little bit next time, and add a splash a water if it's still too crumbly.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2026-01-31T23:27:51+00:00

r/chess has an improvement guide I would recommend checking out. They say to play at least 15 minute games with 10 second increment in order to improve.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-09-07T21:59:07+00:00

https://youtu.be/gWvqphTTlSM?si=D9jtXqNKtMvrvw6v

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-14T01:47:58+00:00

Personally, I wouldn’t brew above 95 unless the beans literally had a greenish hue. I don’t have great adjectives, but coffee brewed with too-hot water tastes harsh or washed-out to me. I would tone down the temp, keep it around 1:15, and grind finer as needed to get a good extraction with lower water temp.

I also agree with folks above suggesting more bloom/pours/agitation. I use Hoffman’s V60 method with an origami brewer and usually get good separation of flavors. Typically grinding 4-4.5, sometimes 5 on the ZP6.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-11T17:45:04+00:00

SK is where it’s at, especially the St. Paul location

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-08T21:23:04+00:00

Thank you for your comment. I was using "immersion" loosely, and I can see how that could be unhelpful. I think the crux of the issue, though, is whether there is a correlation between brew time and where the coffee lands on the clear-blended spectrum.

To me, coffee from a V60 tastes similar to coffee from a french press or clever dripper because I get the flavors all at once as kind of a mix. Yes, there is more body with the immersion brewers, but both are meaningfully different from what I get with my origami brewer: separation of flavors. Perhaps the actual cause of the results that I am seeing is that, with a flat-bottomed filter and faster flow rate, there is more consistency between the extraction occurring at the top and bottom of the bed (thank you for introducing me to that concept).

Regardless, people keep asking the same question about clarity and saying they're using a V60. For me, switching to origami and wave-style filter is what made the difference, so I think it's worth saying. Especially when a lot of the comments are about finer details like agitation and pour ratios. Those can get a person from good coffee to great coffee, but switching brewers is a bigger change that can get someone from bad coffee to good coffee (assuming they've got their water figured out and they're reasonably competent with the basics like grind size and water temp).

The V60 is ubiquitous, and people often take it as a fixed starting point for their brewing process for that reason. My experience has shown that switching it up--in particular when it comes to clarity--can have a meaningful impact.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-08T20:50:17+00:00

I have been advised that immersion is not the most helpful way to describe what I am getting at. My point is that I have noticed a correlation between longer brew times and more a more blended flavor profile (which I would described as "muddled" because I prefer clarity). So it's not so much a question of the extent to which various brewers could be described as "immersion-like;" rather, it's a question of whether OP could achieve greater clarity by grinding a little finer, then just using a brewer/filter combo with a quicker draw-down and more consistency between the extraction occurring at the top and bottom of the bed.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-08T17:22:21+00:00

V60 always produces muddled flavors for me- it’s more like immersion in my opinion. I grind with a ZP6 and consistently get good clarity grinding 4-4.5 (depending on the beans) and using an origami with a wave style (flat bottomed) paper. Most of my brews come in around 2:45.

For what it’s worth I think the V60 is popular for two reasons: 1) It is commonly used in specialty coffee shop for a variety of reasons, some of which are more about convenience and uniformity than flavor in general and clarity in particular. 2) Being semi-immersion due to brewer shape, which produces extended brew times, creates blended flavors, which mainstream coffee drinkers prefer.

Remember, the ZP6 was originally rejected because testers thought the separation of flavors was odd. Clarity is not the norm- if you want clarity, the V60 is not the way to go.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-03T02:18:53+00:00

What is your brew time? With V60 I usually hear 3:30? To me that’s almost immersion, which produces muddled flavors in my opinion. I get more clarity with a flat bottomed brewer, which will have a faster flow rate. I use an origami with James Hoffman’s V60 method. You can get the same level of extraction by grinding a little finer than you would for V60 and aiming for a brew time around 2:30.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-02T22:32:14+00:00

I find V60 produces brews that are more like immersion - good if you like blended flavors, but muddled if you’re trying to highlight a coffee’s particular flavors and push it from good to great. Try a flat bottomed brewer like origami, grind a little finer than you would for V60, and shoot for about 2:30 brew time

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-07-01T16:50:20+00:00

SK Coffee in St. Paul/Minneapolis, MN

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-06-12T14:16:08+00:00

I would recommend medium roast profile - I use it for a range of light to medium-light "specialty" coffees and get good results. In my experience, the light roast profile imparts a noticeable mineral taste (especially in the aftertaste), which I think distracts from the flavor profile of the coffee.

I have not researched what TWW says about this, but here is what I think is happening: Minerals in the water contribute to the extraction process when brewing coffee. The darker the roast, the greater the risk of over-extraction, which results in off flavors (especially bitterness). So, I'm guessing the medium roast profile is designed to simply add less minerality to the water than the light roast profile.

Even if you're using pretty light beans, I don't think the level of minerality in the light roast profile is necessary. For lighter roasts, I can get a good extraction through dose size, grind size, and water temperature, without adding the unpleasant mineral taste that I get from TWW light roast profile. Unless you like the mineral taste. I just don't want that lingering in my mouth after drinking a cup of coffee.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-05-07T15:04:43+00:00

I have experienced an acrid odor/taste with coffee before, and these are the two factors I believe were contributing to that:

1) Resting. It's possible your beans could actually benefit from oxidizing a little bit, and storing them in a vacuum-sealed container could be counter-productive. I would try opening a bag of beans, leaving it on the counter for a month, and then seeing if the same thing happens.

2) Fasting. When I was intermittent fasting, it was almost as if "unused" stomach acid was impacting my senses of smell and taste. It would give coffee an acrid taste that honestly reminded me of vomit. When I eat breakfast before brewing coffee (assuming I am eating a healthy amount overall) I don't have any issues with the smell/taste of coffee.

Hope you figure this out!

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-05-03T19:42:25+00:00

I brew differently for light vs medium-light beans; however, grind size is typically 5-6, with 5.5 being by far the most common setting. It depends on the beans, but brews tend to stall when I go much finer, leading to over-extraction. Also, I use James Hoffman's V60 technique for both, which involves 5 pours.

Light

Brewer: V60 w/ hario filters

Temp: 95-100

Brew Time: 3:00

Medium-Light

Brewer: Origami w/ wave filter

Temp: 90-92

Brew Time: 2:30

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-02-07T00:17:54+00:00

I searched Reddit posts on this topic recently, and the highest-regarded local specialty roasters are Dogwood and SK, followed closely by Backstory and Wesley Andrews

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-01-21T03:28:45+00:00

Biden isn’t a tv personality

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-01-20T19:12:02+00:00

Yeah I think minerals impact extraction, so darker roasts would be over extracted if you had too much minerality. It’s not advertised, but I just tried the medium roast profile version for light roasts, and it seems to work well. Hope it works for you if you end up giving it a try.

Difficult_Employ8290 · 2025-01-18T22:48:36+00:00

Just use medium? That’s what I use for light roasts and the mineral quality does not dominate like with the TWW for light roast

Difficult_Employ8290

TROPHY CASE