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

[jammin]

moving is one of life's most stressful events.. lots of work & surely a few unexpected's along the way. count me in for a coffee care package too.


in other news - my kitchen scale got fried by water after a few years of faithful service. i picked this one up on Amazon for $18. It's geared for pour over coffee with a timer & a backlit display. It reads quickly & seems to be fairly accurate. Comes with a rubber/silicone cover & runs on 2 AAA's. After a week of use I'm happy with it, esp. considering the price.

 

[Ruint]

That looks like an awesome score @jammin! I have 2 scales that I have gotten, and not happy with either truth be told. One for weighing/timing espresso shots, and the other for just overall weighing purposes. It is drifting often, and is temperamental...

 

[applescrap]

Wow, 18 dollars has kept me from a digital scale all these years. Smh.

moving is one of life's most stressful events.. lots of work & surely a few unexpected's along the way. count me in for a coffee care package too.


in other news - my kitchen scale got fried by water after a few years of faithful service. i picked this one up on Amazon for $18. It's geared for pour over coffee with a timer & a backlit display. It reads quickly & seems to be fairly accurate. Comes with a rubber/silicone cover & runs on 2 AAA's. After a week of use I'm happy with it, esp. considering the price.

View attachment 667360

 

[applescrap]

Speaking of deals how is that less expensive burr grinder working for everyone. I was going to reccomend it to my friend a casual coffee drinker

 

[shelly_belly]

I'm game for sending @HarborTownBrewing some beans too. No need to buy when you have friends in a roasting thread!

On a side note I picked up a canned brew on a half priced sale just to try it out and actually liked it. I'm not sure that I would buy it often or even at all at full price. Do you guys have any canned or bottled brew favorites that are better than average? I had this...

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Whoa, you all are super generous! Needed to hear some of these good vibes tonight all, I appreciate everyone here more than you might know.

Moving away from the city to be closer to family and get closer to the things I care more about. Ive been here over a decade now and it was fun but it's not my scene anymore and it's not worth the stress and anxiety I get here. These days I'm more into fishing, relaxing in the quiet, working on my truck, and all that. Tough to do that in one of the biggest cities in the country,that's for sure!

If I need a coffee favor in the not so distant future I'll be sure to let you guys know and repay it in due time. Thanks everyone!

Why you moving HTB? May be none of my business but, moves are stressful enough, without having to futz around trying to get good coffee. If I can alleviate that for you, I'd be happy to hook you up a care package, just would need a ship to location.

 

[ba-brewer]

Good Luck on your upcoming move HBT and hope you find what you seek.

 

[applescrap]

Im about to do the same. Same reasons almost a mirror image. The helicopters and shootings arent encouraging me to stay. If I could make what I do now in fl I would probably be there in a second. On the coast, beachfront. Only problem is how do you explain your 250w amp and b and ws to the neighbor. Come to think of it, I am sure my neighbors are going to love the coffee roasting. Brewing....I might need the house across the street. Anyways looking just a pinch more out of city, community pool and open space etc.

I cant wait to get some aricha

Whoa, you all are super generous! Needed to hear some of these good vibes tonight all, I appreciate everyone here more than you might know.

Moving away from the city to be closer to family and get closer to the things I care more about. Ive been here over a decade now and it was fun but it's not my scene anymore and it's not worth the stress and anxiety I get here. These days I'm more into fishing, relaxing in the quiet, working on my truck, and all that. Tough to do that in one of the biggest cities in the country,that's for sure!

If I need a coffee favor in the not so distant future I'll be sure to let you guys know and repay it in due time. Thanks everyone!

 

[Ruint]

HTB, those sound like the best reasons ever! Nothing bad about city living, I would rather be rural though! A certain freedom being out and away from the bustle of any city. I'm not concerned with the payback my friend. Life is too short for suffering bad coffee!!! LoL!

 

[applescrap]

So was about to buy the aricha and this popped up on roastmasters. This story sounds fantastic. Man read this, 85 farmers each with small acre lots bring their coffee to this private station. They hand sort then float in water taking only the ripest beans. The water float reveals density iirc. Then they dry over 20 days or whatever only when conditions are optimal. Money goes right back to them I think. Not sure hiw right this all is just recalling but, dang. I will let you know when I get it. They also had the aricha.

 

[applescrap]

Oops, doh

 

[Ruint]

Hey @applescrap….you have the wrong button pushed!!! It should be highlighted on the bottom choice! lmao!!! You'll save money!!!

 

[Ruint]

I don't know if it is going to taste as good as it smelled, but I did a dry processed Rwanda today that, in it's descriptor from Sweet Maria's, says blueberry jam and maraschino cherry. While roasting it, I would say you could definitely smell the maraschino cherries all around. Looking more for the blueberry aspect, but didn't detect any in the aroma.....

 

[Ruint]

This morning I was awoken by the wife, who was rather excited about the coffee. My wife's cup was tainted with Italian sweet cream. She won't break from that, no matter how much I try!!!! LoL!!! It pretty much tasted like someone did a 50/50 mix of cream and sugared coffee with maraschino cherry juice. My cup, unbelievable maraschino cherry mixed with a slight roasted coffee flavor. On the very backside a light tease of blueberry. Hoping it comes forward a bit with maturing...

 

[applescrap]

Sounds amazing will have to give dry process a try from other countries!

This morning I was awoken by the wife, who was rather excited about the coffee. My wife's cup was tainted with Italian sweet cream. She won't break from that, no matter how much I try!!!! LoL!!! It pretty much tasted like someone did a 50/50 mix of cream and sugared coffee with maraschino cherry juice. My cup, unbelievable maraschino cherry mixed with a slight roasted coffee flavor. On the very backside a light tease of blueberry. Hoping it comes forward a bit with maturing...

 

[juggabrew]

Looking for a really good coffee review site. Let me know your favs

 

[Ruint]

@juggabrew...sorry friend, I do not know of a good coffee review site. Over on home barista they have a topic for coffees and give reviews there more often than we do on this thread. We talk about coffees here on this thread, and maybe recommend some once in a while. Usually after we have tasted them, after we roast them. Do you home roast your coffee? Maybe some of the other folks that frequent here can chime in more positively. We also do group coffee buys on rare occasions....

 

[applescrap]

Thats a great question. Because of the way coffee comes and goes I wonder if that would make it hard to have a site dedicated to reviewing coffee that may or may not be available. That said I fancy myself as my own reviewer and many of the others here I would trust their reviews this well. Most the places we buy coffee from review the coffee as well and that is the source of much information about quality.



This week bodhi leaf has all El Salvador Coffey's on sale at 25% off

 

[TallDan]

There's so much variability in specialty coffee that it's not easy to provide a useful review. You could provide some general impressions, but what a reviewer tastes may not be anything like what you taste if you get the same coffee from the same batch and the same roaster. Different roaster? All bets are off. Different water? Different brewing equipment?

Wait! Are we talking about reviews for green coffee? roasted coffee? drinks prepared at a coffee shop? prepared and prepackaged cold brew in bottles and cans? AAAHHH!

It's more like providing tasting notes for hops than a review for a finished beer. And we see this in how the coffee sellers provide tasting notes. But, we understand that the hops can be used different ways, are only part of the finished product, and the tasting notes are subjective.

 

[Ruint]

Speaking of tasting notes.... @ba-brewer, any change on that Nicaragua bean? Has it been another week yet??? I roasted some for myself on the 22nd, as I am getting to the bottom of my bag. I hooked a friend up with some of that bean, told him to try it fresh and then sit on it without touching for 3 weeks. He is able to get back in that bag on the 1st of March. He did tell me that it was a fantastic BlackBerry coffee when he first sampled it....so we'll see what he gets in few days more time.

 

[ba-brewer]

I think I am over 3 weeks now, still no berries, slight herbal flavor and some chocolate. I have a little left from that roast yet to try. Still have some of the green beans too to try a different roast of two.

 

[shelly_belly]

I got to have my first taste of that Nicaraguan this morning - 10 days since roasting it to city+. Lots of berry aroma and spice during the grind. First I brewed an espresso. It was fruit forward, I'll agree with blackberry. Black pepper spiciness and sweet like maybe a hint of molasses. As it cooled to lukewarm I got blueberry which transitioned to grape, then raisin-prune. Slight chocolate flavor throughout and in the finish. Pretty good for a single origin espresso, to me. I then tried it in a cappuccino which I did not like at all.

 

[Ruint]

I think maybe you got the bottom of the barrel @ba-brewer!. Sorry my friend. Blackberry should have been very noticeable....enjoyable!! I'll trade you a 1/2 pound of mine for a 1/2 of yours??? Are you game?

 

[Ruint]

@shelly_belly, dang it!!!! You make me want to try it as an espresso now! LoL!!! That sounds delicious!

 

[applescrap]

Tiny beans! So excited to drink this, the yemen was good but srsly missing these.

 

[ba-brewer]

I think maybe you got the bottom of the barrel @ba-brewer!. Sorry my friend. Blackberry should have been very noticeable....enjoyable!! I'll trade you a 1/2 pound of mine for a 1/2 of yours??? Are you game?

That is a very generous offer, but it is mostly likely a personal problem and not the beans. You did have me think about it so thank you for the kind offer.

I had another cup today and even though I did not get any fruit in the cup I did notice a light amount of dry process fruitiness in the roasted beans. Rereading the descriptions it mentions chocolate in the darker roasts and also various nuts which I also picked up the first roast. Even though I did not roast the beans to far into FC from a time perspective the smooth exterior of the beans suggested a roast close to Full City maybe Full City+.

I have been roasting mostly by the seat of my pants(sight, sound and smell) and this coffee has me rethinking my roasting practice. I updated my artisan and have probes and phidget modules in the mail so I can make better observation of the roasts. Will see if a more technical approach will help improve the flavor of this coffee and others.

 

[applescrap]

I am curious as to what not long into 1c. means to everyone. For me that would be somewhere between 30 and 45 seconds. If there is fruit that will find it. Generally once chocolate takes over I have sometimes gone past fruit flavors and sometimes not. But when there is solid fruit keytones and compounds they seem to remain.

I always thought fruit keytones and flavor compounds dissipated first. They are delicate, but I think sometimes I have seen time draw them out, but moreso some cups pour better than others. A lesson from Jammin no doubt. The other day was thinking or theorizing that it makes sense. Its dry processed, varied as a result. The roast then is varied somewhat and that translates to cups.

 

[HarborTownBrewing]

Ahh yes, Tic Tacs. I like to add orange Tic Tacs to my roast when I want to give my Kenyan beans a nice little burst of citrus

 

[applescrap]

Unfortunately I will not be adding the tic tacs to the roast. Or should I? Give them a minty burst to help with morning breath

That other picture I think is cool. Maybe just me?

Ahh yes, Tic Tacs. I like to add orange Tic Tacs to my roast when I want to give my Kenyan beans a nice little burst of citrus

 

[Ruint]

Ahh yes, Tic Tacs. I like to add orange Tic Tacs to my roast when I want to give my Kenyan beans a nice little burst of citrus

I want to know if they swell up like coffee beans do, and what 1st crack sounds like??? Bwaaahaaahaaa!!