Make Cold-Brewed Coffee in Your Hotel Room

Most hotel rooms these days come equipped with a cheap coffee maker, but let's face it, that's not going to do the trick for everyone. If cold-brewed coffee is more to your liking, you can make it yourself right in the room.

Kent Brewster shares this clever idea on Medium. The only extra material you'll need is a tumbler of some kind, but you could probably get one from room service, or pack your own for a long trip. Just put one of your room-provided coffee filter packs in the bottom of the cup, and fill the rest with water. Then (carefully) place a coffee pot over the cup, and turn it upside down overnight.

Come morning, you'll have a highly concentrated batch of coffee waiting for you. If you want it hot, just run some water through the coffee maker and directly into the pot. Be sure to check out the source link for more details.

Cold-Brewed Coffee in Your Hotel Room | Medium via The Kitchn

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Roast Your Own Coffee on the Grill

If you're the type who loves to use their grill for just about everything, and you've wanted to try your hand at roasting your own coffee beans, the folks at The Art of Manliness have a great guide to roasting your own beans on a gas grill, using nothing but a little time, some heat, and a hand-cranked popcorn popper.

Granted, you'll need the green, unroasted beans for this, a hand-cranked popcorn popper, and a gas grill. They note that you have to use a gas grill for this since charcoal has trouble getting hot enough to really roast the beans. They also note you could use the same method on a stove inside, but going outdoors to the grill gives you a bit more ventilation so you don't smell up the house with roasting beans. Preheat the burner, add the beans to the popcorn popper, and start cranking them. The whole process will take about 15 minutes or so (longer if you want a darker roast), and you'll want to stir them every few seconds the whole time. They'll start to turn yellow and get smoky as water released turns to steam.

You'll want to listen for the beans to start "cracking," or making a popcorn-popping like sound that indicates they're roasting up nicely. Wait long enough and you'll hear a second set of cracks: They're softer, and the Art of Manliness describes them like the sound of bubbles popping in the air—that's when you'll want to bring them off the heat. There's some trial and error involved, but leaving them on much longer and you'll burn the beans. They get into the whole thing at the link below. They also note you can get even more precise control by using a thermometer instead of going by sound.

It's not totally a DIY method—after all, we've shown you how to roast coffee beans in a skillet, with a drill and a soup can, with a heat gun, and in a popcorn popper—but this is the method the folks at Tested used, just with a stove, so moving the method to the grill makes perfect sense. Check out the full article for a walkthrough of the method if you want to give it a try yourself.

How to Roast Coffee at Home on the Grill | The Art of Manliness

Related We've covered a few methods of roasting coffee beans at home over the years using a popcorn popper, a soup can and a drill, or a hand-crank… Read…

When you're looking to roast your own coffee, a popcorn popper or heat gun can be called up for the job. Then again, as one intrepid DIY-er… Read…

Roasting your own coffee might seem like an arcane craft, but it's surprisingly easy. With some basic tools and a little practice, you'll… Read…

Although there are advanced home coffee roasters that cost a hundred to several hundred dollars and give you great control over the coffee roasting… Read…

The writers at gadget blog Tested love a good cup of coffee; today, Tested's Will Smith walks through how to roast your own coffee beans at home. Read…

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HANG .10 coffee table - version II

Well, here is version II of my original HANG .10 surfboard coffee table.  This time around I used pennies, with copper/chrome maple leafs on a white background.

Which one do you like better?

1st thing to do is make a jig...
*Take your paper template and trace its shape onto the wood that you will use for your jig. I used 1/2" MDF but you can use 1/4"  
MDF, Masonite or plywood.           
*Use your jigsaw now to cut out that shape from the MDF. Once cut out, I took a belt sander and cleaned up and smoothed all the edges around the jig. This will be your main jig now. This jig is what the router bit follows to cut out your perfect ellipse.
*Select your wood to make your table from. I chose pre-finished birch.
*Put the wood template onto the wood you've selected and clamp it down.
*Route around the jig with the router bit riding against the jig. I used a 1" pattern bit with a ball bearing. This is what rides against the edges that I smoothed out earlier on the jig.
*Once the main shape was routed out, I switched to a 22.5 router bit and routed around the edges once again. This gives me the 22.5  bevel on the edges just like the Eames table has. (actually its a 20 bevel - but who can tell;~)
*Now the table top is ready for your design.
*I masked off the edges and painted the top white. I left the edges exposed to show the different plywood layers similar to the  
Herman Miller/Eames surfboard table.
*Lay out the location of the stripes with painters tape.
*Now start adding your pennies!
*I used white glue and Q-Tips. Type of glue doesn't really matter because the whole table will be getting covered with epoxy resin   later.        
*When you are done, remove the painters tape and now you can lay out your copper/chrome maple leaf decals or whichever   
design you prefer.

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How to Create the Ultimate Tech-Infused Retro Arcade Coffee Table

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Upcycle your own stenciled coffee table on the cheap!

Ever see an image on the internet and think,"Hey, that would look cool on a coffee table, or end table, or even a wall"?  Well after paying $50 for a high quality laser cut stencil, I figured there must be a way to make one for a lot cheaper.  And this is what I did:Pencil
Screw driver (or paint can opener)
Paintbrush
Paint
Wood stain
Polyurethane
Spray adhesive 
Scotch tape
Boxcutter or knife
Sharp scissors

Not pictured

Sheet of plastic or vinyl  (thick plastic page covers or plastic file folders can be cut open and used)
Printer
Printer paper
Patience

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