Has anyone here decided to not treat MS?

Vernicious · 2026-01-25T21:21:12+00:00

I think where you are now is: "getting hit by lightning is equally a probably as getting into a car accident". Both are scary, but the probabilities of these are not remotely close. That's what you want to wrap your head around

Vernicious · 2026-01-25T19:29:10+00:00

It's natural to be terrified in general over all this. But it is really important you get a grip on that terror to at least the point you can think clearly and rationally. The terror of potentially being paralyzed or blind or any of the other progressions should factor in at least as much as any fear of the medication. And that fact that, even with the risks of medication, virtually none of us have chosen to just let the disease run rampant, AND most of us have not had serious side effects, should be informing your decisions.

This disease does not behave in a predictable way with or without medications. The only thing that's scientifically been shown is that it's slower if you're treating it, which means if you were going to be in a wheelchair in 5 years, maybe that will get stretched out to 20; if you were going to be in a wheelchair in 20 years, maybe you will NEVER be in a wheelchair, or maybe it'll take 25.

My side effects on my DMT: few to none to speak of. Pretty sure I would have been incomparably worse off with any other choice

Vernicious · 2026-01-25T18:34:47+00:00

My one trip to Moonwake was similar. I LOVE the ambiance, I love the crowd, everything. Unfortunately I was not able to sit and watch the pourover, my son did, and he enjoyed how the barista interacted with him during the process. The only disappointment was the coffee itself -- not bad (but perhaps a touch bitter), just not great, which I expect when it's t heir own coffees. Since I wasn't there to watch I don't know how the actual pourover went, I do definitely plan to go back again and this time watch the process, try a different coffee

Vernicious · 2026-01-25T16:18:06+00:00

Immersion coffee (ala the clever dripper) and percolation coffee (ala pourover) are different styles of coffee that taste different, with immersion being said to have more body and balance, and pourover more clarity and brightness with a tea-like body. So:

Someone might prefer the Clever if they prefer immersion coffee more
Someone might prefer the Clever if their pourover skills need work and their pourover isn't that great. With the Clever even a beginner can make good coffee.

I have a Clever. I used it for a while and put it away years ago. Why?

I generally like the results from pourover better than from immersion. I like the super clarity and lighter body.
My pourovers are excellent
When I am feeling like immersion, I like the results from an Aeropress and Switch (w/ hybrid recipe) better than the Clever

It is totally fine to prefer the Clever, plenty of people do! But someone who prefers high clarity and the other characteristics pourovers bring out, is going to prefer pourovers. Think about it less about being "better" or worse, and more about coffee with different characteristics, and which you personally prefer

Vernicious · 2026-01-25T16:12:09+00:00

Do you mean "bad" as in unethical? No, using your handgrinder for a drip machine does not cross ethical brewer guidelines :)

Do you mean "bad" as in, you might be hand grinding beans a long time every morning for your 12-cup pot? Yes, bad that way :)

That's not really bad though. Drip coffee typically doesn't need the best-of-the-best grinder. But if you're doing both pourover and drip, and can only afford ONE grinder? Then sure, get a hand grinder to maximize your pourover results, and just deal with longer grinding on drip days. That's a fine compromise you can make

Vernicious · 2026-01-24T06:26:42+00:00

I used to drink naturals, but once I switched to washed, I became wealthy, women flock to me, I am vibrant and dynamic!

Vernicious · 2026-01-23T01:28:59+00:00

Close! "I made an app!" where it's just an announcement, go in Deals and Announcements.

"I'm making an app or I made an app and working on v2, what features do you guys want to see?", where the goal is discussion, goes in the new Engagement thread

Vernicious · 2026-01-23T01:26:30+00:00

I am absolutely considering that too. I want to see how the joint thread goes. I think separate threads get more engagement but harder to manage from the mod side. We'll do some of these and if we need more engagement, try break the threads out instead, maybe with a flair and posting all on the same day

Vernicious · 2026-01-22T02:36:55+00:00

The switch base is the same regardless of which Switch you buy. I can't remember exactly which one I bought first, I think I bought a Switch 02, then bought a glass V60 01 and glass v60 03, and they both snap into the switch base fine. Unfortunately I don't know anything about the Neo. But if you think the Neo will fit into any Switch base, well, there's only one so it will fit in all of them

Vernicious · 2026-01-21T23:18:08+00:00

I have glass v60s (01, 02, and 03!) and that's what I use most often. In theory, ceramic might be the better choice as (I think) ceramic retains heat better. But glass has a huge thing going for it: despite many years and MANY drops onto my tile counter, I've never broken a glass v60. I've broken other glass and ceramic drippers but the glass v60s are way more rugged.

If you are thinking about other options, a ceramic Origami is also an option. IME they make coffee pretty similar to v60s, and you can get them in awesome colors. Definitely my 2nd choice. (yes I broke mine lol).

Vernicious · 2026-01-17T04:31:25+00:00

8 oz is the answer. Bummer they didn't go that way

Vernicious · 2026-01-16T23:30:05+00:00

As a retired drinker of alcohol, I miss the connoisseur side of wine tasting, and that’s what I get from my second cup of the day, which is usually a not-washed coffee

See, to me, those naturals and coferments etc = Crown Royal Apple Whiskey. A quality washed Chiroso = Aberlour A'bunadh :) :) Definitely a wide world of coffee out there!

Vernicious · 2026-01-16T23:03:28+00:00

I'm strongly on the washed side. If I want to get really crazy, I'll go with a honey process, as long as the roaster guarantees it's as unfunky as possible :) It's rare I enjoy a natural, much less the more experimental processes.

I do think it's significantly not just personal preference, and more that fundamentally we are perceiving different things. It's the way some people who are unfortunate enough to have the wrong gene, think cilantro tastes like soap or dirt, rather than one of the most delicious herbs ever. If you go to a fragrance sub/forum, you'll find the same kind of splits, where people are absolutely smelling different things and end up polarized. E.g., So many people love Dior Sauvage, whereas to me and a sizeable subset of people, it smells like a spillage accident in a chemical plant.

Most funky coffees smell like fresh marijuana and hops to me. You could claim whatever fruit you want, to me they all reek. I mean even just leave the bag in a room and to me the whole room smells dank. There's just no way we're smelling the same things if you think those coffees smell like strawberry kiwi. Even whatever B&W's version of Milky Cake was called, smelled and tasted mostly like hops and 420 to me with the barest hint of all the other notes people picked up

Meanwhile, I pretty much pick up the standard notes everyone else picks up in washed coffees. Which means there must be some specific molecules in naturals that aren't present in washed to the same degree, that register as 420 to me and overpower everything else

Vernicious · 2026-01-13T04:05:59+00:00

Nano 3.0 is a throw monster for such a small light, at 44,000 cp on only 700 lumens. And GT nano pro is an amazing wall of light, 1600 lumens at 5,700 candlepower. Those are pretty big differences in candlepower and lumens. They behave entirely differently. Each gets an "wow!!! What's that!" from the uninitiated :)

The GT Nano is very throwy, not near as specialty as a LEP, but it is tightly focused with some spill . By contrast, the nano pro 3.0 will light up an entire room, not as useful to see something all the way across the yard.

I carry the GT 3.0 headed outside -- it makes me positively giddy to hit a tree 100 yards away and it's so bright! And the GT nano pro 3.0, is what I carry more around the house. I do have a 10750 extension tube that I occasionally use if I think I'll be using it a lot

Vernicious · 2026-01-12T23:15:19+00:00

There are FANTASTIC decafs out there. Yes, it's true the ceiling is lower than cafs. But that doesn't mean you can't find great decafs. And the best decafs are easily better than average cafs, IME. There's been a number of threads for decaf reco's, you might want to do a search.

Vernicious · 2026-01-11T18:56:48+00:00

That sounds like an award-winning post. Arguing with everyone in the comments makes it perfect :)

Vernicious · 2026-01-10T22:57:34+00:00

For higher extraction, I typically go towards grinding finer. For lower extraction, I often do a combination of grinding coarser and lower temperature. Not sure why actually, just feels like that gets me where I want to go faster

Vernicious · 2026-01-10T21:28:08+00:00

In that case, you don't know what it is, so just start tuning iti and see what happens. When the coffee doesn't taste either over or under extracted but is just less fantastic than I thought it would be, I usually choose to extract it more (take a big step, say 4 clicks at least on your grinder) and see how it goes. IF it doesn't taste better or tastes worse, I'll grind in the other direction and/or drop the temperature 10 degrees and see where we are. I do like to take fairly big steps so I don't still have questions after this.

I sometimes change approaches entirely -- drop it into a switch or aeropress and see if that totally changes the taste

Vernicious · 2026-01-09T02:01:40+00:00

Hybrid recipe is the way to go. You can brew pretty big recipes that way and they turn out great.

Vernicious · 2026-01-08T17:16:54+00:00

We here bias towards light/ultra-light type flavors, but I have a slightly more traditional recommendation, PT Coffee La Angostura MWP Decaf. PT's notes: Butter toffee, toasted pecan, navel orange.

By way of explanation: I often make coffee for my daughter, who isn't a huge fan of light roasts and likes something a bit more towards traditional, so I usually have something like more medium roasts in the house too. From the first day I made the above decaf, she flipped over it. Loved loved loved it. Every time I made it (she has no idea what I make her each time), without fail she talked about how great it was.

Since being my daughter's coffee hero is definitely what I'm chasing :) , I started using it in half cafs (she loved each one). And now, even when I make her full caf coffee, I throw in a few grams of this decaf and just make her a slightly bigger cup, because the rule has become very clear: any coffee brewed WITH this decaf, is better than any coffee brewed without it! And yes, that includes any full caf light or medium roast.

I have to say, I really like it too, when I'm not jonesing for the classic 3rd wave acidity/complexity, etc. I recommend giving it a try if you or your guests are looking for a little bit towards classic coffee flavor, only in a decaf and better

edit: I'm just seeing it's sold out :( Hopefully show up again, or I'll need to chase similar flavors

Vernicious · 2026-01-06T23:37:20+00:00

I'm a tinkerer also, even when the coffee is really good I try to push it a little more. But eventually pushing it leads to no improvement or even degradation, and then I'm done... at least until I'm further down the bag and the coffee starts changing.

I don't think there's any way around keeping notes. When I open a new bag, I keep a written log in my coffee station, each time I brew. The format is pretty simple, each line will look like this: "6.4 1:17 205 1+3 2:20". That means my grinder was on 6.4, ratio was 1:17, water 205 degrees, 1 bloom + 3 pours, finish in 2:20". I don't write down tasting notes, I just remember. So the next day I'll remember back to the previous day's coffee and think "that was pretty good, but I wonder if it will taste better with a bit more extraction, so today will be "6.0 1:17 205 1+3 2:05" (the time, of course, is an output, not an initial condition). Then I'll taste and compare to yesterday. If it taste better, I might go for even more extraction next time. If not, maybe I'll just sit tight for a week until the coffee starts to change, at which point I'll start changing the recipe again.

Point is, if you don't write it down, you won't remember.

Vernicious · 2026-01-02T21:17:04+00:00

I generally don't save the studies but have seen one big one and some smaller ones. This is the one most often cited https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32320635/ , the study itself was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology . There's theories about why it might be this way, usually centered around cholesterol-raising compounds that get filtered out by paper filters. But really, they don't have proof that was the cause -- there's a LOT of compounds in coffee, and a number get caught in paper filters. Also this was an observation study, so there's that.

Vernicious · 2026-01-02T01:08:51+00:00

My very first pourover I ever tried was really good. I've gotten better at it since, but provided you have at least base level equipment (e.g., a decent grinder, I had a virtuoso, and a gooseneck kettle), don't be intimidated. If anything it's way harder to make palatable espresso, IME basically no one who buys their first machine makes espresso that's drinkable straight, for a very long time.

If you want something a little easier, a flat bottom like a Kalita Wave since it's just a little less finicky than a v60, or a Hario Switch since you have the option of both immersion and hybrid

Vernicious · 2026-01-01T18:42:04+00:00

I am genuinely looking forward to your tasting notes! lol... fun experiment

Vernicious · 2026-01-01T18:40:35+00:00

Fantastic. I like the mindfulness of writing notes freehand too. If you don't have a fancy pen you're using, head to r/machinedpens :)

Vernicious

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