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

[pshankstar]

Man, I wish. I cut myself down to weekend drinking. Except tonight, that is. I’ll be celebrating being one year older with some beers from NY.

Happy Birthday bud! Cheers!!

 

[jammin]

@jimyson - those seals were SHOT! Have you checked in the boiler for scale yet? Citric acid can work wonders if needed.

FWIW - DOW 111 is the defacto "go-to" grease for lubricating lever espresso machines.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Man, that looks like fun in a sick and twisted sort of way, Jimmy.

Sometimes I enjoy tinkering with old stuff and cleaning it up. Lucky for me (!?) I have to do that because I screwed up my Gaggia a few weeks ago and the portafilter won't twist on anymore. I'm guessing I have some grinds in the holder, but I've been too busy with the kitchen remodel to actually take it apart and fix it.

Speaking of kitchen remodel...I should give you guys another update. After two years of planning I installed the new cabinets this weekend. This was a big deal for us because the current setup has been challenging to work around. The downside is, we will have no running water in the kitchen for probably another couple weeks, which really sucks. I'm not really able to do any pour over or anything, so I'm stuck to the coffee pot.

I was able to roast last night for the first time in about 2.5 weeks, so that was pretty fun. Hoping to get caught up because I'm really tired of the store bought stuff. On the bright side, the store bought stuff is much darker roast and my grinder seems to go through it much easier than my lighter-home roast.

 

[jimyson]

@jimyson - those seals were SHOT! Have you checked in the boiler for scale yet? Citric acid can work wonders if needed.

FWIW - DOW 111 is the defacto "go-to" grease for lubricating lever espresso machines.

Damnit! I just put in an order to OE and held off on that since I had some NSF Petrol Lube. Would this not be good to use?

 

[jammin]

I’m not familiar with that product but 111 is used because it’s food safe & stands up to temperature.

 

[applescrap]

Snoochie boochie, bl just offered 30 percent off all Guatemalans. They claim 20 on stock. Need something to offset the kenyan.

Nice work jimmyson. I agree love doing stuff like that. The kitchen sounds like its coming along great harbortown. Pics?

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Ehhh...I'll save the pics for once the counter is in and I have the visqueen down. It's still a mess considering I have a hole in the wall where I opened up an exterior wall. But it's coming!

 

[TallDan]

Snoochie boochie, bl just offered 30 percent off all Guatemalans. They claim 20 on stock. Need something to offset the kenyan.

Is that a promo code or something? I have plenty of coffee, but no guats and not much in their typical flavor profile.

 

[applescrap]

Guat30 is code! I got 4 pounds of the most expensive 3. I remember now though that i had trouble roasting guats and i dont recall liking them. Hope these are better.

 

[jammin]

Harbor - given any thought to leaving options open to plumbing an espresso machine down the road?

 

[jimyson]

Guat30 is code! I got 4 pounds of the most expensive 3. I remember now though that i had trouble roasting guats and i dont recall liking them. Hope these are better.

I can’t find a way to remove the cardboard aroma and flavor from the Santa Felisa Red Typica. Not sure if it’s my roasting or the product.

 

[jammin]

Cardboard usually = baked. Have you tried speeding up the roast?

 

[jimyson]

Cardboard usually = baked. Have you tried speeding up the roast?

That’s something that I should check.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Harbor - given any thought to leaving options open to plumbing an espresso machine down the road?

I did think about it but ultimately decided against it. We have a decent amount of counter space, but my wife (and I) are both pretty content with my coffee equipment being in a separate counter just outside the kitchen. I've got it set up with my grinder, espresso machine, and kettle all right next to each other, which I like a lot. I would have to move all of that to the kitchen to justify plumbing it, and it would take up too much space.

I'll do it in the next house though

 

[applescrap]

My dad had a ro or some kind of expensive filter plumbed in. That would be awesome to have for brewing, cooking, and coffee. I thought about plumbing in my soda stream but dont have 20 g co2 tank space.

These are the guats i got. One is sold out now but it was 6.50. The colina i got 2 pounds of. Just picked by price. Hope they arent too bad or i will cry saving 15 dollars over konga.

 

[applescrap]

Dang it

 

[Kealia]

Snoochie boochie, bl just offered 30 percent off all Guatemalans. They claim 20 on stock. Need something to offset the kenyan.

 

[pshankstar]

Sweet Maria's released some new beans and the Ethiopia Dry Process Guji Gigesa sounds awesome! I guess it's time for me to buy some more beans... haha

 

[jammin]

^Guji region coffees are often very fruity. Sounds like a good one.

Apple - you see any Bourbon varieties in all those Guats?

 

[applescrap]

^^didnt notice, just bought the 3 most expensive.

 

[jimyson]

@jimyson

FWIW - DOW 111 is the defacto "go-to" grease for lubricating lever espresso machines.

Looks like what I have can handle up to 302F. Am I reading that correctly with the flash point data?

http://www.petrolgel.com/wp-content/themes/theme petrolgel/images/petrolgel-sds.pdf

 

[jimyson]

Finished the rebuild tonight. I decided, even though it’s my bedtime, to test it. I have a leak coming from the group head. When heating up, and the piston is down, the water drips when the pressure hits around .5 bar.

The shot that I pulled was 15g of coffee. It definitely didn’t create crema like I’ve seen. This is possibly because my Handground grinder doesn’t grind fine enough or the gasket leak didnt give the pressure required. It still tasted good! It didn’t seem underextracred like I’ve tasted before.

The machine is clean and has some kinks to work out.

 

[jimyson]

I tore the group head apart. It seems like the inner head was bent a little and I likely allowed the piston to push out a c hair too far and the pressure took advantage of the weak spot. I tried to get the inner group into more of a perfect circle and put everything back together. No more leaks.

Now, on to getting a finer grind. [emoji16]

 

[jimyson]

Here’s some Finca Santa Felisa Geisha roasted on Cinco De Mayo.

 

[BrewinHooligan]

Well, went to roast some coffee the night before last and my heat gun was dead. That's what happens when you buy cheap tools... Bought a new one yesterday that I can fine tune the temps on better and knocked out a pound of Kenyan. Still learning the new gun and didn't realize I had the fan setting too low for the first half of the roast so this one went out about 13.5mins but the sample cup this am shows promise

 

[jammin]

Pretty nice sounding Costa Rican posted @ the Crown today. I haven't had a coffee from there in quite a while.


COSTA RICA ROBERTO MONTERO ZELEDON FULLY WASHED CROWN JEWEL

 

[applescrap]

Their coffee always looks impreasive. Brazils 30 percent off this week at bl.

Anyone know what bonavita model to get. There is like 10 different ones. The 1900 is on sale for 117, but the glass carafe one is only 86. If its the same its a no brainer for me, but i dont like hot plates.

 

[jimyson]

So I pick up this hunk of steel tomorrow. [emoji15]

Needs a lot of love. Doserless mod in the near term?

 

[jammin]

A Mazzer Super Jolly was the 1st espresso grinder I ever had. A classic for sure that is impossible to wear out.

I think you’d be better off modding the doser rather replacing it with a funnel. Even though I have a Monolith Flat I still single dose on my K10PB. A quick google search on single dosing your grinder will be an eye opener.

If it turns out your grinder needs new burrs, I’d consider that a great excuse to upgrade to some Red Speeds from SSP. They can resharpen & add the coating if I’m not mistaken.

 

[jimyson]

A Mazzer Super Jolly was the 1st espresso grinder I ever had. A classic for sure that is impossible to wear out.

I think you’d be better off modding the doser rather replacing it with a funnel. Even though I have a Monolith Flat I still single dose on my K10PB. A quick google search on single dosing your grinder will be an eye opener.

If it turns out your grinder needs new burrs, I’d consider that a great excuse to upgrade to some Red Speeds from SSP. They can resharpen & add the coating if I’m not mistaken.

He said that he replaced the burrs last year. I’ll see how they are when I pick it up and tear it down for a good cleaning.

I’ll check out more about the mod. I was thinking of purchasing manufactured components specifically for it from espressoparts.com. They have a plate, spout, and spout holder. It’s around $160 I think. I am paying $140 for the grinder so combined, I think it would be solid. Hopefully the bearings and other components are ok.

I noticed many taking the hopper off and using a tamper on top of a single serving of beans. What size is that?