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

[TrickyDick]

I can drink all I like without jitters "thanks" to the new meds I'm taking (beta blockers). I generally don't drink coffee after 5PM but occasionally on vacations have an after dinner espresso. I'd love to find a decaf coffee I love that I could drink in the evenings.

In other news, I cleaned the backside of my hottop today. Wow! Lots of build-up on the fan. A compressed air can (or air compressor if you have one) works wonders. Then I roasted the Costa Rica La Pastora Terrazu from GCC and an Ethiopian bean (I forget which at the moment).

Anybody here using Artisan? I love it! I can't get it working with my roaster on my new Black Friday notebook PC running Win 10. It installed and instructions say that windows find the right drivers, but it doesn't work. Then I did the third party FTDI USB serial driver but it gave me an error message installing it, yet with a reboot, it shows up in the Artisan program. I understand that they now make you right click the LCD display before you left click the Control button to assume control of the roaster. Well, that isn't working for me. Maybe its a sign to dig out the TC4/Arduino and use the full PID abilities. Only thing is, though I haven't done much looking, is that I don't know if anyone who has the 2k+ model with native USB would bother to go the TC4 route (besides myself who wants to use PID and curve tracing). Does the PID control JUST the heat element or does it also operate the fan? Any Artisan gurus out there please advise! I posted to the artisan user mailing list but only one relevant response and it didn't help.

TD

 

[jammin]

heads up on an exceptional offering over at RoastMasters.

It's an El Salv from Aida Battle. Her coffee is often held as highly regarded as Panamas Geisha coffee from Esmeralda's plantation.


This is a high grown, washed coffee so it should be quite forgiving in the roaster. It is indeed spendy but sometimes you gotta live a little. To buy this roasted you'd probably be looking @ $50/lb

http://www.roastmasters.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=rm&Product_Code=kilitrad


I picked up some of their latest Kenyan as well since i was placing an order.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Hmmm that's interesting; Thanks for sharing jammin.

I had a marathon roasting session today: 6 roasts in 4.5 hrs on the Behmor for christmas presents for a friend. Now I've got to grind it all for him

 

[TrickyDick]

Also some good offerings from the sounds of it over at GCBC..

Cut and paste below.... I'm picking up 20#...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Origin: Ethiopia

Ethiopia Derar Ela
Distributor: Joe
Quick Flavors: Blueberry, Banana, Orange, Chocolate
Base Price: $5.54 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
Cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ethiopia Hambela Gr. 1
Distributor: Slim
Quick Flavors: citrus, wine
Base Price: $4.91 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
Cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Ethiopia Sun Dried Guji Hambela gr.2
Distributor: Joe
Quick Flavors: Sweet, wild rustic, Chocolate, Fruit- berry
Base Price: $4.67 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
Cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Origin: Columbia

Columbia organic Tolima ASOPEP
Distributor: Slim
Quick Flavors: Orange, Lemon, Apple, honey
Base Price: $3.08 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Origin: Guatemala


Guatemala Huehuetenango, La' Bolsa- Nogales "ACE"
Distributor - Slim
Quick Flavors: Green grapes, citrus (mango/orange), creamy mouthful with a sugary after taste
Base Price: $4.79 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase


* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Origin: Rwanda

Rwanda Dukunde Kawa Musasa
Distributor - Peter
Quick Flavors: pear, toffee, vanilla, melon
Base Price: $3.91 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Rwanda Flores Org RFA Bajada Ngura
Distributor - Peter
Quick Flavors: savory, Indo notes of earth/slight musk/stone fruit, slight butterscotch
Base Price: $3.45 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Origin: Kenya

Kenya AA Kieni
Distributor: JSpain
Quick Flavors: Sweet juice (mango and cumquat) toffee and cocoa
Base Price: $6.48 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kenya AA Kagunyu -Auction Lot
Distributor: Slim
Quick Flavors: Sweet, citrus, floral
Base Price: $4.34 / Lb

Full cupping notes can be found here:
cupping notes

To purchase please click here:
Purchase

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Origin: Brazil

Brazil Natural "Fazenda Sertao" Carmo De' Minas
Distributor: JSpain
Quick Flavors: Sugary tropical fruit, winey acidity, finishing with a soft mouthful!
Base Price: $3.24 / Lb

To purchase please click here:
Purchase


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
GCBC Official Tie Dye shirts made by Buttwhiskers- We now have limited amounts left of Women's shirts!
Distributor: Joe
Order them here: GCBC Shirts

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

[TallDan]

So, I've roasted this Brazil Conquista from GCC four times now, and while it's not offensive in any way, it's been a very boring coffee. Has anyone had good results with this coffee? If so, any roasting tips? I bought 10lb of it, so I'll keep experimenting.

 

[jammin]

^nobody has good results with Brazilian coffee. It's low grown mush. Best used in an espresso blend to amp up chocolate and bass tones and dumb down acidity. Same goes for Hawaiian and Jamaican coffee.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Td I feel the same way. I got it to use in a xmas blend with a beautiful kenyan, but I'm honestly loving the so kenyan all by itself. Can I call it an xmas blend if it's just the Kenyan? Haha.

My best blend with those two beans has been 25 percent Brazil and 75 percent Kenyan. It gave a tad bit of chocolate and body to go along with peaches and apricot from the Kenyan.

 

[TallDan]

Td I feel the same way. I got it to use in a xmas blend with a beautiful kenyan, but I'm honestly loving the so kenyan all by itself. Can I call it an xmas blend if it's just the Kenyan? Haha.

My best blend with those two beans has been 25 percent Brazil and 75 percent Kenyan. It gave a tad bit of chocolate and body to go along with peaches and apricot from the Kenyan.

Christmas blend: 95% Kenyan, 5% Brazilian?

Well, i have a couple pounds of Kenyan coffee from another GCC buy, maybe I'll try some blending. Good thought on blending with a brighter coffee for espresso, jammin. Some of those fruit/berry forward coffees are a bit much in my cappuccinos.

Actually, I'm just now finishing off my pot of coffee for the morning, and there's some nice chocolate coming out of the Brazilian now. I normally keep the coffee in the thermal carafe and only put maybe 4-6oz in my mug at a time, so that I'm always drinking hot coffee. Maybe I need to let this one cool some when I'm drinking it.

 

[TrickyDick]

The only Brazilian I want to see for Christmas would be something my wife had done at the spa. I agree that those GCC Brazil beans are meh.

Picked up Ethiopian derar ela & guji hambela, Guatemala la balsa, and a Kenya AA from the GCBC in addition to the Salvador from roastmaster. Merry Christmas to myself!

I have been really liking my roasts now that I am changing how I operate the fan. Dialing down speed from beginning to end rather than the opposite. I found when I ramp up fan I get spikes in bean temp plot.

Hopefully I get figure out how to run my hottop via artisan on new notebook. So far can't get it work. Ideally I want to run the tc4/uno interface if possible, in order to get PID capability. Figuring that out isn't exactly easy-multiple pages worth of posts on home roasters.org over the Christmas break maybe I'll have time enough to figure it out. Nice little rabbit hole I've picked to dive into with this whole home roasting thing.

How many other guys are running a hottop here? They need to come up with a better filter for the rear exhaust. Replaceable material would be better than having to buy the whole plastic cartridge every time. What a waste. I must've had 30-40 roasts on one filter and had significant cleaning to do on the fan because of my laziness. Those compressed air cans work great to cleanup by the way.

TD

 

[jammin]

^tricky - some folks use SS scrubby material for the filter and have great results. It passes more air so the system is a bit more powerful

 

[TrickyDick]

^tricky - some folks use SS scrubby material for the filter and have great results. It passes more air so the system is a bit more powerful

Like this...

http://www.amazon.com/New-Star-Foodservice-54460-Stainless/dp/B00B1FZEW2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450206332&sr=8-1&keywords=SS+scrubber

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Christmas blend: 95% Kenyan, 5% Brazilian?

Actually, I'm just now finishing off my pot of coffee for the morning, and there's some nice chocolate coming out of the Brazilian now. I normally keep the coffee in the thermal carafe and only put maybe 4-6oz in my mug at a time, so that I'm always drinking hot coffee. Maybe I need to let this one cool some when I'm drinking it.

When I roasted the 3lbs of beans the other day I didn't take the Brazil from GCC quite as far into the roast as I did the other day, stopping at City+ rather than FC/FC+. I tried a 50/50 blend this morning of this lighter Brazil along with the Kenyan and *ding ding ding* we have a winner. Very nice acidity from the Kenyan and lots of very very subtle flavors going on. And you are absolutely right, as the cup cooled I got a really nice cocoa flavor from the Brazil.

I'm not sure how dark you are roasting the Brazil but I like it much lighter.

My other blend I'm selling to this guy is called "Santa's Morning Wood", which is a blend of the GCC Brazil and this super funky/woody Sumatra I have. I'm going to try that later this morning and will report!

 

[TallDan]

Here is a pic of the Brazil I roasted this morning. I think I'd say it's city+. Previous roasts have been pretty similar.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1450284506.876791.jpg

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Here is a pic of the Brazil I roasted this morning. I think I'd say it's city+. Previous roasts have been pretty similar.

Do you mind sharing what your technique is for the roast? Historically I had been very careful with how much heat I give Brazils, but my most recent batch I only turned back heat at browning (and at 1st crack) and it seems to have worked favorably.

 

[TallDan]

Do you mind sharing what your technique is for the roast? Historically I had been very careful with how much heat I give Brazils, but my most recent batch I only turned back heat at browning (and at 1st crack) and it seems to have worked favorably.

I've done mostly the same process as other coffees. Preheat* while measuring out 8oz of beans, start the roast on automatic mode for 1lb, at browning, hit P4 to switch to manual mode at 75% power, at the start of 1c, hit p3 for 50% power. Hit cool somewhere between 15 and 45s after the end of 1c.

*I've been trying some varying preheat, but if they made any difference, I haven't noticed it. I used to do 90 seconds, then started preheating until the temperature sensor moved off of it's lowpoint, then i tried preheating until it shows 200F.

On the last few roasts I've also tried opening the door and putting the vacuum's hose just inside the opening. This works nicely to start cooling faster and the vacuum caught all of the chaff that was flying around. However, this morning, i must have had the hose a little farther in than the last few times; it got too warm, got soft, and collapsed. So now i have to fix a vacuum hose later today and i'm not sure if i'll be doing that again.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

I've done mostly the same process as other coffees. Preheat* while measuring out 8oz of beans, start the roast on automatic mode for 1lb, at browning, hit P4 to switch to manual mode at 75% power, at the start of 1c, hit p3 for 50% power. Hit cool somewhere between 15 and 45s after the end of 1c.

That's pretty similar to what I've been doing. I hit P2 rather than P3, but that's about the exact same as my routine. I usually stop about 15 - 25 seconds after 1C ends as well.

Regarding the preheat times/temps: I get more acidity if I preheat to 175 vs. 150 F for instance, so I usually do a 175 preheat for Kenyans, but Brazils I would only do 150-160. Depends on the voltage I'm getting at the wall though too - if it's real low I'll bump up the preheat temp about 10 degrees.

 

[jammin]

Like this...

http://www.amazon.com/New-Star-Foodservice-54460-Stainless/dp/B00B1FZEW2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450206332&sr=8-1&keywords=SS+scrubber

sorry for the delayed response, but you want something a little more like this. its a stainless computer fan screen. if you snoop around the web, there are several options. i bet you can find something really to your liking withing a few minutes but here is a link to help get you started:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LO5NHP0/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20


when employed you'll want it to look similar to this:

 

[jammin]

drinking a blend of hambela and amaro gayo this morning brewing in the bodum columbia. strawberries/blueberries dipped in milk chocolate. i left a couple ounces in my mug in my work truck yesterday before going into a meeting. when i came back a couple hours later the whole truck was totally perfumed - amazing!

 

[TrickyDick]

Sounds really good!

I really nailed my last roast on Nyeri Hill AA from SM's Need to save that profile and try to match for the next roast. (Here is where the PID would be nice)

As far as the SS mesh screen, so you can wash those then I assume and use indefinitely? Certainly cheaper than the $10-12 ish for the paper filters every 15 roasts or what not! So I'll need two (or three) then one for each filter, and a spare to pop in while I clean the other (and let dry)? The upper screen can probably be cut I imagine.

Thanks for the tip!
TD

 

[jammin]

^washable for sure. Many advocate for blocking the upper filter entirely in order to mitigate heat loss/increase system efficiency.

 

[TrickyDick]

Hmm. Need to read up on that. Got any good links or at least which forum all the HotTop users are on? I had signed up to several earlier in the year, but honestly haven't had the time to be very active. Now with wanting to tinker with the TC4 concept and modifying the filters, maybe its time to do so. It seems that the homeroasters site is pretty active.

TD

 

[jammin]

Hmm. Need to read up on that. Got any good links or at least which forum all the HotTop users are on? I had signed up to several earlier in the year, but honestly haven't had the time to be very active. Now with wanting to tinker with the TC4 concept and modifying the filters, maybe its time to do so. It seems that the homeroasters site is pretty active.

TD

I'm friends with a guy in CT who is an avid (understatement of the year) user. He frequents the HT facility and provides feedback for their machines. His modification process for a HT is quite remarkable. I've had other friends send their machines to him for mods.

I'd the most prolific mods he relies on are the addition of larger fins in the drum and a slightly more powerful heating element.

He does block the top filter and at one point in time insulated part of the drum/shell to maximize efficiency and increase heating power. By using the SS screen in the rear he gets more effectiveness and greater airflow through the drum


You can catch him posting over at Homebarista with the username JohnB

 

[TrickyDick]

Thanks #jammin !

 

[Firewalker11]

Anybody with any Organic Colombian Tolima-ASOPEP beans yet? I want to drop the hammer on #10 but want some feedback o them first. Cupping scored 87.9, solid day to day drinker?

 

[jammin]

^columbian beans in general are very mild mannered and would be a great daily cup. They do really well in a light roast imho.

I personally don't buy them unless they are a very highly rated micro-lot. At sweet Maria's, you usually get limited to 1 or 2lbs as these lots always seem to be very small and quite rare. In always sure to grab a limit when one pops up. They can be extraordinary

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Roasted 20 lbs in the last week, over the course of 4 very labor-intensive days - 8oz at a time.

Made some money selling some, but most were for gifts. Next year I'm going to be a little more selective with how many gifts I give out, because this was way too much work!

 

[TallDan]

Roasted 20 lbs in the last week, over the course of 4 very labor-intensive days - 8oz at a time.

Made some money selling some, but most were for gifts. Next year I'm going to be a little more selective with how many gifts I give out, because this was way too much work!

How long do you let the behmor rest between roasts? I need to do a few batches today...

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

How long do you let the behmor rest between roasts? I need to do a few batches today...

Only long enough to finish the cooling cycle and clean out the chaff. So from the time I drop the roast until I begin the next one is probably 17 mins.

 

[TallDan]

Only long enough to finish the cooling cycle and clean out the chaff. So from the time I drop the roast until I begin the next one is probably 17 mins.

Only one done so far, cleaning run is cooling right now.

Kinda seemed like the cooling cycle would mostly take care of the cooldown, but I seem to remember something in the manual saying that you should wait 1hr between roasts with it.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Only one done so far, cleaning run is cooling right now.

Kinda seemed like the cooling cycle would mostly take care of the cooldown, but I seem to remember something in the manual saying that you should wait 1hr between roasts with it.

I couldnt imagine actually waiting an hour but yeah I remember that in the manual.

I'll say though that as I got into roasts 3-8 in a row, I had to reduce my preheat times/temps as I went because I think the interior Chamber was still retaining heat. For example, I try to get my B temp to be around 307 or so for a Kenyan, but I was (without looking) hitting 322 which I had never been able to do before.