☕ Coffee ☕: Ingredients, Roasting, Grinding, Brewing, and Tasting

[Minky]

Roasted up a lb of the Kenyan today. Took it just a shade darker than last time and tightened up the roast, clocked this one at 12:45. I need to build a proper cooling tray next. The roast is more even than the picture tells, and boy this one smells heavenly. I do miss roasting indoors. View attachment 564919

Here's what I use for cooling. It's just a cigar box with an old mouse pad I glued onto it and a sink tailpiece attached to the end. A flour sifter with the crank removed sits on top. The sifter is held in place in a hole in the mouse pad cut in the diameter of the sifter.

A 1 gallon ShopVac is hooked to the tailpiece. Dump the hot beans in and turn on the vac. Cools real quick.

It works well for my ~3 oz. popcorn popper batches and the sifter would probably hold three times that amount. The idea could easily be adapted to other amounts.

 

[applescrap]

Haha, laughing a little thinking of macgyver. Thats pretty clever anyways.

 

[jammin]

I made a box out of plywood for the Quest‘s cooling tray. Similarly I cut a hole in the side for a shop vac. The cooling power was intense.

Homeroasters.org had a sub forum for home made cooling systems. Here is a link for anyone looking for ideas:
https://forum.homeroasters.org/forum/viewforum.php?forum_id=67&rowstart=0

 

[applescrap]

I use two collanders with beans sandwiched inbetween. Battery operated blower, cools beans in under 30 seconds and then cleans mess. Hold collanders with left and blower with right. I think a quick chill has saved a couple roasts. It locks in flavor, i wonder. Have heard cooling to quick is bad. When its freezing out the blower cold air chills near instantly.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I used my time home sick to roast some coffee, doing three batches the last few days. Man it's good to have good coffee in the house again!

I finished off a bag of Nicaragua. I don't think I really nailed the roast until this last batch of the bag, and it came out pretty great. The beans were huge, a good 2x, say, a Guat. When I eventually got the roast nailed down it was loaded with cocoa powder and nut flavors.

I don't have my notes handy but I think I just hit it with a lot of heat. Had a solid pre-heat and kept heavy on the heat until first crack, pulling back a little once they started to brown.

 

[psubrewer]

http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php?topic=21031.0 <- this looks good.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I wonder if this is the same, slightly cheaper. http://happymugcoffee.com/green-offerings-h-n/444-ethiopia-yirgacheffe-halo-bariti.html

 

[jammin]

Ill never get over that nitwit saying: “you want to spoil yourself, add some cream to this coffee”. Furthermore his “cupping roasts” sound darker than what I do for espresso

Who TF adds cream to a coffee that’s actually good?

He sounds like that guy at the office who proudly believes he knows way more than he does but nobody wants to hurt his ego

 

[TallDan]

Who TF adds cream to a coffee that’s actually good?

I do. For a cappuccino. (steamed milk, not cream, but close enough.)

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Ill never get over that nitwit saying: “you want to spoil yourself, add some cream to this coffee”. Furthermore his “cupping roasts” sound darker than what I do for espresso

Who TF adds cream to a coffee that’s actually good?

He sounds like that guy at the office who proudly believes he knows way more than he does but nobody wants to hurt his ego

Hahaha, I think maybe I'm the guy in the office who thinks he knows more than he actually knows, so I bit my tongue about him pointing out the cream! Was afraid I was missing out on some insider barista tip lol.

Speaking of the office, I've sold two behmor Brazen in the last two weeks to coworkers. (actually referred them to bed bath beyond). I should seek commission from Joe B.

 

[jammin]

^i really think it's great how well you're carving out a small market for your coffee & how you're creating it at your own leisure. For myself I've been considering ordering more beans @ leisure and giving away samples/bags as frequently as possible. At a minimum it would be a great learning experience & at best I could start developing a customer base. I'm all ears for any stories/anecdotes y'all have to share!


Here is another fun espresso melange from tonight. Four beans total: Burundi, Brazil, Panama & Sumatra

^I'll be happier when I learn to produce a smoother/softly declining [RoR]curve to the development. I'm very excited to finally avoid "the crash" which allegedly produces "baked coffee"

Here's the 4 beans - nothing special(25% each). Just burning up some stuff that I have:

Followed w/another round of RM's Yrg Z. Dig'n the stuff so far. Really nice change in pace from slab dried naturals

 

[TANSTAAFB]

This seems like a great place to post this since y'all obviously know your coffee! I wandered in to a local coffee roaster just looking for a cuppa and immediately noticed the 2 Balcones Bourbon barrels on the counter and the beans nicely packaged in whiskey bottles. I let him know I'm a homebrewer and am intrigued. He tells me he ages his Sumatran beans green in the barrel for a couple of months, then roasts and packages. One thing leads to another, we get talking about brewing, and I tell the guy if he'll hook me up with beans I'll bring him beer. He happily hooks me up with some Balcones Bourbon barrel aged coffee! Initially I consider the obvious. Porter, stout, etc. And then I recall a delicious and delicate coffee infused pale ale from New Belgium that only came in mix packs a couple of years ago and was delicious. New plan. 7.5 gal batch Pale ale base with...
12# Colorado Malting Co Belgian Base Pale
3# CMC malted white wheat
6oz crystal 80
2oz crystal 120
.75oz Warrior FWH
1oz Centennial whirlpool

Thinking about aging on an oak spiral that I'll soak in bourbon then dry hopping in the keg with Brewers Gold.
Cold brew the coffee and add half what I think I'll need at kegging, carbonate, and taste. Add more coffee to taste once carbed and dry hopped.

Thoughts?

 

[BrewinHooligan]

This seems like a great place to post this since y'all obviously know your coffee! I wandered in to a local coffee roaster just looking for a cuppa and immediately noticed the 2 Balcones Bourbon barrels on the counter and the beans nicely packaged in whiskey bottles. I let him know I'm a homebrewer and am intrigued. He tells me he ages his Sumatran beans green in the barrel for a couple of months, then roasts and packages. One thing leads to another, we get talking about brewing, and I tell the guy if he'll hook me up with beans I'll bring him beer. He happily hooks me up with some Balcones Bourbon barrel aged coffee! Initially I consider the obvious. Porter, stout, etc. And then I recall a delicious and delicate coffee infused pale ale from New Belgium that only came in mix packs a couple of years ago and was delicious. New plan. 7.5 gal batch Pale ale base with...
12# Colorado Malting Co Belgian Base Pale
3# CMC malted white wheat
6oz crystal 80
2oz crystal 120
.75oz Warrior FWH
1oz Centennial whirlpool

Thinking about aging on an oak spiral that I'll soak in bourbon then dry hopping in the keg with Brewers Gold.
Cold brew the coffee and add half what I think I'll need at kegging, carbonate, and taste. Add more coffee to taste once carbed and dry hopped.

Thoughts?

I don't like adding cold brew to a beer, it waters it down. I add coarse cracked beans to secondary at fridge temps for about a week checking small flavor samples starting day 3 to make sure I get the extraction level I want. You could do at room temp, extraction happens faster and isn't as easy to control.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

^i really think it's great how well you're carving out a small market for your coffee & how you're creating it at your own leisure. For myself I've been considering ordering more beans @ leisure and giving away samples/bags as frequently as possible. At a minimum it would be a great learning experience & at best I could start developing a customer base. I'm all ears for any stories/anecdotes y'all have to share!

Well, thanks for mentioning this, I appreciate it. Here's a couple things I've found; maybe it would help some of you out a bit:

1) My biggest struggle has been anticipating what people want, and how many bags people will buy. Outside of simply mentioning it to people here and there, I send out emails usually every 3 -4 weeks with 2 different coffees I'm focusing on. I will sell 2 bags off some emails, and will sell 10 bags off other emails. I can't find any reason why some weeks no one wants coffee, and other weeks lots of people want coffee. I just can't find a correlation.

2) In these emails I try to always offer a fruitier option (Ethiopia, Kenya, Burundi...mostly Africans) and a chocolaty option (Colombia, Brazil...anything Central American really). For the most part I sell more of the Centrals, but the people who buy consistently and are really into coffee tend to buy the Africans.

Reason I mention this is because it's really tough to forecast what to buy and what people will like. I usually buy in 5 or 10 lb increments; sometimes 5 lbs goes REALLY fast. Especially with the Centrals. At the same time, sometimes people just aren't into some of these and I'm stuck with 5 or 10 lbs of a coffee that I don't necessarily want to drink 5 lbs of.

3) Last thing I'll mention is acquisition. I always start by giving people samples, but I've found that if they are going to buy, they're going to do it right after they try the sample. There's certain people I've given a lot of samples to because I truly think they are an ideal customer...but they never convert. So, I've gotten to the point where if someone doesn't convert to a customer right after I've given them a sample, I don't give them any other free beans.

About 50% of the people I give samples to convert to customers, which is pretty good I think. If I had a bigger roaster I'd be giving out more samples, but I'm kind of content with my base right now given the Behmor and my time restrictions.

It can be tough with time though. When I have the time to roast, I don't feel like I'm selling enough. When I have no time to roast, I can't keep up.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I don't like adding cold brew to a beer, it waters it down. I add coarse cracked beans to secondary at fridge temps for about a week checking small flavor samples starting day 3 to make sure I get the extraction level I want. You could do at room temp, extraction happens faster and isn't as easy to control.

Interesting, so basically just cold brew it in the beer!

 

[jammin]

Sounds kinda good. Might order some
http://www.greencoffeebuyingclub.com/index.php/topic,21034.0.html

 

[applescrap]

I had a plan in my head how to make money selling coffee. I don't know if it would work but basically the idea is to work hard. I did the math and I can't remember how many pounds I needed to sell a day to equal a $60,000 a year salary. But if you worked hard enough I think you could get it done before noon. My plan was to have a website and to heavily advertise it. From there send emails, carry around samples, go door-to-door, do whatever it takes. Absolutely invest in a large quantity roaster. And just pound the pavement and get it done. I know I could make money doing that but the reality is that I don't want to work that hard. Get the wife, family and friends to help me. And just flat sell it. Every 10 no's is one yes. Building the business up slowly like you're doing isn't a bad idea. Hopefully it can go from being a side business to a full-time job.

It's my understanding that 10 Barrel systems have been sold 50 different times from this pro vendor I looked at. People just cant survive with the 10bl machine. To make money you need the coffee or the beer. I'm always surprised how I can't buy a keg or anything from a lot of the breweries around here. It's weird that somebody doesn't have enough to sell to somebody that wants it. My father-in-law thinks way bigger than me. His idea would be put a coffee roaster on every corner in every city in America and manage them. I told him I wanted a food truck once and he told me the way to go was to make the menu and have 20 trucks that I managed.

I'm reminded of a story, I was working for this guy who is pretty well to do from selling insurance. He told me a story about this guy who made Millions selling insurance. He knew the guy and saw him driving down the street one day. The guy looked at him and waved and got all excited. The guy i worked for smiled back and the other guy was waving and smiling and waved him to pull over to chat. They pull into a parking lot and the guy pulls up next to him and says "you want a 10 plan or a 20 plan." At the time I guess they sold $10 and $20 savings plans. I love that story, hey you want a 10 plan.

Woah, sorry lost a little in the weeds there. Went back to full steam ahead, was freezing out. Took 1130 to fc which is weird. Pulled less than minute afterwards. Not light enough but bright, sweet, cup fo sure. Havent tasted blueberry in konga last few pounds. Maybe i am going to dark.

 

[jschm19]

Question for anyone out there. I started roasting recently (a few batches in the house before my wife put her foot down and it is too cold to roast outside). Anyway, we have a ninja coffee bar and it makes alright coffee, but we are looking for something better. I would like to keep it around $150 or so but could spend more if needed since the cups of coffee at local places adds up quickly. Thanks!

 

[user 125772]

I roasted up a half pound of new guinnea beans recently with my rig, it turned out well, and I was enjoying it .....have a look.
I have to say, I was expecting better, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with it
.

.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Question for anyone out there. I started roasting recently (a few batches in the house before my wife put her foot down and it is too cold to roast outside). Anyway, we have a ninja coffee bar and it makes alright coffee, but we are looking for something better. I would like to keep it around $150 or so but could spend more if needed since the cups of coffee at local places adds up quickly. Thanks!

Take a look at the Behmor Brazen: https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/st...3-temperature-control-coffee-maker/1045637636

It allows you to set a bloom time as well as a brew temperature, which are two key parts of any successful brew. If you get it through BBB you can use the 20% off and get it for around $105.

 

[Inkleg]

I have a Behmor Brazen that I bought to leave at work. I like it enough that I'll probably get one for the house too.

 

[Sbe2]

Take a look at the Behmor Brazen: https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/st...3-temperature-control-coffee-maker/1045637636

It allows you to set a bloom time as well as a brew temperature, which are two key parts of any successful brew. If you get it through BBB you can use the 20% off and get it for around $105.

I know what’s going on my want list now!

 

[applescrap]

My research has led me to the bonavita, and technivorm. I am still using the gevalia brewer from goodwill. I think they gave them free with orders. I remain suspect that in a blind taste test done perfectly well that any brewer other than the technivorm mochamaster would really stand out all that much, but admit I could be totally wrong. Features, usage, and convenience might play a role. If you have time it seems pour over is the way to go. Dang it, forgot to try again this weekend.

 

[jimyson]

I have a Moccamaster. If you set it and forget it, you won’t achieve even extraction. Here is a picture to show you why.

If you don’t mind closing the output of the basket to collect a bit of water and giving the grounds a slight stir, you will be good. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Here it is after a small stir.

I wish they would do a redesign on the spray head to give the drip a wider spread. This would be such an easy thing to do as the spray head is a removable piece.

View attachment 566559

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I've heard that complaint on the Moccamaster from a ton of people as well. That's not a cheap unit either, which is really quite unfortunate.

 

[TallDan]

I've heard that complaint on the Moccamaster from a ton of people as well. That's not a cheap unit either, which is really quite unfortunate.

It's also a very old design. Technivorm has been making essentially the same coffee maker for 50+ years. When I bought one ~15 years ago there wasn't a lot else that compared (that I was able to find at the time, anyway). I think a lot of the praise for it is pretty dated, personally. Bonavita and Brazen look like much better bang to the buck to me now.

 

[applescrap]

Thinking that might be true of most coffee makers, a little stir could go a long way for better brew. I have always wondered of stirring was a good idea and cant see why not.

@jimyson really appreciate your honesty. I get annoyed by people who buy something and then even though they know something is wrong with it they can't admit or have to tell everyone how great it is.

I feel pretty good about getting a bonavita when the time is right. But there are other reasons to buy a coffee pot. It would be nice to have one with a carafe to get rid of the hot plate, and easy functionality, and also hot water on quick dispense.

My buddy gave me some Bodhi leaf coffee that they roasted and it is really fruity and good. I think they charge 18 or 19 a pound but with their every weeken sale it comes down to twelve a pound. This coffee green i think is 6.87 a pound. I think it is the finca santa teresa natural. Wow, its really really good.

 

[passedpawn]

Well, I know nobody takes it seriously, but my OXO 9-cup maker checks all the boxes I think. Only complaint is that I get a few drips from the filter basket after I remove the carafe. I've tested temps at the grounds (~200F), time to finish, proper blooming in the basket, everything. It's a great pot. One of the coolest features is that it pumps the water in stages, allowing the water to bloom in the grounds before it continues pumping. Pretty sweet.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I take you seriously and trust your input!

I do think the OXO and Technivorn are expensive options now, though. Behmor kind of shattered the brew-market when they rolled out their brewer for ~$120 which has adjustable water temp and pre-soak (bloom) settings. They introduced a product for half the price which has more customization than all the previous options.

 

[jammin]

Another great option often overlooked is a used BUNN. The spray head works well & you can plumb most of them in. Tapping off the fridge & putting in an inline softener/filter combo is a piece of cake. No more filling the resevoir. They are easy to score on Craig’slist for dirt cheap too.