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

[HarborTownBrewing]

Well I got my plumbing issue fixed. It took two visits from the plumber and a lot of foul language (this time not from me though!).

I must say, @jammin you will be disappointed with me. Once the walls were all opened we replaced the water line which is right behind my coffee cart, so all I would have had to do is ask the plumber to take 5 extra minutes to install a T so I could run a water line for an espresso machine. I decided not to. Figured if I did that, I'd be all too tempted to drop a few thousand on an espresso machine that I don't really need. It was the best opportunity for it though! Ugh.

 

[applescrap]

Haha, call him back

Maybe t at the cart? At the outlet? And then get amazeballs espresso machine. Funny what a t in a line costs.

 

[jammin]

the catch with plumbing in a water line is, you need to plumb out a drain. it's a bit of effort if you're not locating it next to a sink. it's a nice luxury though. lots of good tank model machines these days though, especially levers

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

the catch with plumbing in a water line is, you need to plumb out a drain. it's a bit of effort if you're not locating it next to a sink. it's a nice luxury though. lots of good tank model machines these days though, especially levers

Good catch. You'd be equally disappointed to hear that the drain line runs right next to the cart haha. The house is over a hundred years old though, and has a mix of cast iron and galvanized (and now copper).

HOWEVER, in coffee related news I roasted up some Peru the other day and tried it this morning. WOW! This is what good coffee tastes like. My interest in coffee has gone down recently just because I haven't been roasting and haven't tried anything fresh and good in a long time but today was a great wake-up call. Have a nice level of excitement again.

 

[TallDan]

Day (mostly) off today, and ran myself out of coffee yesterday. Have some guests this weekend, so started roasting some this morning. Botched my first roast, got distracted because a package was delivered and walked away. When i came back, the behmor was at an overtemp error and i could hear some beans cracking even though it hadn't even been enough time to get to 1c, seems like a bad failure mode. Anyway, brewing some of that coffee right now to see how bad it might be. Going to roast another batch right away as well, but ugh.

 

[TallDan]

Doesn’t look too bad, maybe it has hope.

 

[applescrap]

^^Looks right how I like the Ethiopians. Looks like a nice bean too. What is that?

I agree harbortown, I have been feeling that way too, well sice the konga ran out. The nitsu ruz was is very much enjoyable but its not a show stopper. Hope roastmaster konga is coming soon!

 

[TallDan]

^^Looks right how I like the Ethiopians. Looks like a nice bean too. What is that?

I agree harbortown, I have been feeling that way too, well sice the konga ran out. The nitsu ruz was is very much enjoyable but its not a show stopper. Hope roastmaster konga is coming soon!

It was the last of the "Ethiopia Natural Yirgacheffe Halo Bariti" that i got from GCBC. Took a few batches to nail down what I was doing with it, but have been happy with the last few batches. Cup i had right after i posted actually tasted pretty good for a coffee that was roasted less than an hour before brewing.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Sweet Marias just posted new coffees, including one from Yemen. I haven't seen them carry Yemen for as long as I can remember. The price isn't too bad, under $10/lb.

I'm not in a position to buy any right now, but I might do it anyways. There is a good looking Kenyan as well I might dip my toes in.

 

[jammin]

^that washed Guji sounds like the best of them. I keep waiting for a monster Kenyan to post up and it’s been awful this year. A major let down so far compared to last year’s offerings.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I know. I also kept waiting for the "elite" Ethiopians to show up that everyone was touting in June, but I feel like they never quite made it other than a couple here and there.

 

[ong]

Just roasted 20 oz of the Sweet Maria’s Hambela Hassan (final weight 17.09 oz). I’ve been taking it to the edge of second crack while my girlfriend is in town (she hates the light roasts), but there’s still a lot of nice blueberry and some acid. Enjoying these beans.

 

[applescrap]

I think bodhileafs sale this week was 30 percent off two kenyans.

 

[shelly_belly]

@HarborTownBrewing I recently purchased some Peru El Palto and it roasted really well. Very smooth and lots of chocolate. I'm going to get more.

 

[pshankstar]

@HarborTownBrewing I recently purchased some Peru El Palto and it roasted really well. Very smooth and lots of chocolate. I'm going to get more.

Do you mind sharing the link? My wife loves the chocolate heavy beans.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

The Peru I roasted (I think you were replying to Shelly though) was a 1lb sample that SM's included with my roaster a while back. Peru San Ignacio. I checked SMs website and they don't have anything from Peru listed.

 

[shelly_belly]

I got it from Williams Brewing. They had a sale and coffee was like 50% off or so. I ended up getting 8 or 9 varieties for around $3 per pound shipped. Most were disappointing except the Peru and the Rwanda Fully Washed which are excellent. The heavy chocolate comes right around second crack.
https://www.williamsbrewing.com/2-Lbs-Peru-El-Palto-P4048.aspx

 

[jammin]

Just roasted 20 oz of the Sweet Maria’s Hambela Hassan (final weight 17.09 oz). I’ve been taking it to the edge of second crack while my girlfriend is in town (she hates the light roasts), but there’s still a lot of nice blueberry and some acid. Enjoying these beans.

I roasted 2 batches this morning as well. Looking forward to drinking some tomorrow! Kind of wish I bought more of this coffee as it's the fruitiest I've picked up this year.

 

[ong]

I roasted 2 batches this morning as well. Looking forward to drinking some tomorrow! Kind of wish I bought more of this coffee as it's the fruitiest I've picked up this year.

Yes, I think I picked some up after you originally posted about it! Really nice aroma, and a great pourover bean.

 

[jammin]

terrible lighting, but i took a video pulling a shot of the Hambela. i've found that I can grind very fine & use an extraordinarily long pre-infusion to extract the maximum sweetness out of light roasted coffee. with a normal 25 second shot these coffees would produce shots too sour & mouth puckering to enjoy. by letting the puck fully bloom/infuse at line pressure (~2.5bar) I can get a fairly even extraction without much channeling. the shots also run a bit long and get the last 20% or so extracted back at line pressure. with 18g in, ~40g out makes for shots that are really interesting to drink. i grabbed some of the Panama Elida out of my filter coffee grinder for a shot and found it tasted REALLY similar to my pour over but in espresso form. normally that shot would be undrinkable because it would be so sour.

tl;dr - video of pulling an espresso shot with light roasted coffee. long pre & post infusion to tame acidity:

 

[Kealia]

I'm not a big espresso drinker but man that looks tasty!

 

[applescrap]

Anyone ever try that new dry process sweet maria moka, I think its called. I have one pound of tej left. Thats it. Thinking aboit getting the bl el salvador sale this week. 28 for 5 pounds delivered just as a back up for a time like this. This Nicaraguan roasted well and smells good but wow, pretty spoiled right now with the ethiopians. Pic w and w out flash.

 

[jammin]

^nice looking roast. i can see you got some good development but NO scorching/tipping at all!


edit: anyone else catch this update from Tom @ Sweet Marias? good (but disheartening) insight into the disappoint Kenyan offerings this year

 

[applescrap]

Ahh man, thats a bummer to hear. All the way around.

I try to order 5 lb or whatever the number is for the basic shipping, but in this case decided to just get a few pounds to keep holding me over until something that really interests me comes in. That special grade Ethiopian from burmans sounded so good. I'm realizing the good ones go quick. I got some burmans Ethiopian natural koke yirgacheffe gr 1 and 4 types of tea. A Jasmine green tea, and a Wu lan green tea. And also two herbal teas. One is chamomile and orange peel and the other is peppermint, ginger root and lemon peel.

 

[jammin]

Ahh man, thats a bummer to hear. All the way around

yeah its got me a little down in the dumps for sure. i've been looking forward to some great Kenyan coffee for a few months now. i went through my stock last night & found 2lbs left of some killer Kenyan AB from last year. one of (perhaps THEEE?) best kenyans ive ever had. got a birthday coming up & im thinking ill have to roast a pound of it up to treat myself a bit

 

[applescrap]

A good coffee deal seems to be the burmans bct sampler. A pound each of a kenyan, that ethiopian i got and a nice looking Guatemalan. At 17. 80 or whatever its just under 6 a pound for three coffees listed at around 8. Ill update on the koke. Jon Burman emailed me back saying they would have a washed coffee soon that is similar to konga.

 

[pshankstar]

Picked up two pounds of each of these beans from a local coffee roaster. Well a 30 minute drive from home. The Ethiopian and decaf was $7/lbs and the Brazilian was $6/lbs. no tax too. So for an even $40 I couldn’t beat it! The price tags on the bags were the roasted price, not what I paid. I’m not sure why he printed those out and put them on the bags.

 

[jammin]

Not sure how I missed it, but SM's has their Moka Kadir blend in stock. I've enjoyed this coffee since I started roasting. Although it's designed to be an espresso blend and roasted to Full City it makes a powerful filter cup. Since it has been a very long time since ive had it I ordered 10lbs tonight so I don't run out anytime soon. Can't wait to roast this old timer up and pull some espresso shots. Gonna have to creep up on 2nd crack even maybe!

 

[NeilMac]

View attachment 595674

Picked up two pounds of each of these beans from a local coffee roaster. Well a 30 minute drive from home. The Ethiopian and decaf was $7/lbs and the Brazilian was $6/lbs. no tax too. So for an even $40 I couldn’t beat it! The price tags on the bags were the roasted price, not what I paid. I’m not sure why he printed those out and put them on the bags.

The Columbian Supremo Decaf Swiss water is awesome, buy it at 5lb at a time.

 

[pshankstar]

The Columbian Supremo Decaf Swiss water is awesome, buy it at 5lb at a time.

My father in-law switched to decaf coffee recently. Since they had some decaf green beans, I figured I would get some for him to enjoy. I never drink decaf coffee but I will have to try it.