A note on freshness

Like I may have stated in the past I am anything but a coffee snob, I think, much like anything here in America, we can drink whatever type of coffee in whatever format or manifestation we please. Taste is just like everything else, subjective. How can I tell you that what you like is garbage, I am sure some one out there thinks the things I like or do or see or listen to is crap, oh well, I like it and dang it you only live once. The big however though is that I can expose others to what I think is good and why I think it is good and let them make a decision. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, I'll still listen to Lee Morgan, drive the speed limit and continue not to shave my soul patch. With that said, I saw an advertisement last night for Folgers flavor seal can, it pictured an average middle aged work-a-day business man who is stopped on the street to taste coffee for flavor, he is blind folded and begins drinking the coffee just opened from a flavor seal can. To sum it up he ends up getting to the bottom of the can, after what I would image would be about 50 cups of coffee, I mean first of all wouldn't your judgment be a little skewed after 50 cups, well maybe not, not sure who I'm talking to here. Anyways, the moral is that the first cup tasted the same as the last cup over what was a simulated length of one can ownership, supposedly a week or something. The idea? That the coffee tastes the same "freshness" from the first time you open it to the last. My point, yes it does taste the same, the ad is not false advertising. Why you ask? Because it was flat, lifeless and stale from the beginning. Coffee is a living entity, from the moment you roast it, the clock is ticking, its best consumed 24-48 hours after roasting, the flavor holds pretty good in whole bean form, sealed in a degassing valve bag for about 3 months or a little more. Once a bag is opened and the beans are still whole bean and stored in an air tight container you've got a few weeks. But start grinding the beans and storing them and the volatile flavor components escape faster than Michael Shumacher at Monaco. Granted this description is a bit bleak and its not like the coffee immediately becomes unconsumable, like "this bean will self-destruct in 25 seconds..." What happens is the flavor degrades, over time most of the flavor compounds are gone and the cup will taste flat and lifeless. My point then is to think about the manufacturing, stocking and sitting that happens in a large retail situation. Simply, its a long time, for canned ground coffee, even if its sealed, it means it most likely arrives at the store already stale. I hope I didn't anger anyone who really loves those brands, I didn't mean for it to be a anti-canned coffee rant, because like my Mom who really knows coffee only as tasting like that wouldn't have it any other way, even when I brew her something I just pulled from the roaster, she politely says "Wow this is great" and ultimately I find it on the window sill later with just a few sips gone. So drink on, anything you want. But know that it might not be as fresh as the can boasts.

for more info on choosing grocery store coffee's check out this fabulous review of Grocery Brands:
http://www.coffeereview.com/article.cfm?ID=128

The Grind

I thought I would write about the Grind today, and not the MTV show hosted by the Real World season one NYC star Eric Neise, rather the act of grinding coffee. It struck me today as I was, ironic enough, grinding coffee this morning that there is a lot to know about grinding. Also, I was reading the other night about calibrating my BUNN airpot brewer that the act of grinding is a great way to improve your home brewed coffee. BUNN explains that there is a correlation between the degree of grind and the amount of solubles in the end cup, this is important because it is a balance, to few solubles or not enough time the water is in contact with the grounds and its weak, thin and bitter, too much and its to strong and bitter. Where the balance comes is the matching the degree of grind with the length of time your drip brewer takes to brew a pot. As I have read and found from brewing countless pots of coffee is that the best flavor solubles are extracted at the beginning of the cycle, more importantly, the longer the water is in contact with the coffee grounds, the more it picks up unfavorable elements in those grounds. So the object is to have the water roll through the coffee in a short enough time to not over brew and the coffee needs to be ground fine enough that the relatively rapid moving water flow absorbs as much of the good flavor solubles that it can to provide the perfect cup. Make sense?

A good brew cycle is around 3 minutes, you can time your machine if you want but you can do it by taste as well, if it seems like your not getting the flavor you want and want to start adjusting variables, start with the grind, knowing what we just discussed try grinding finer and see if it lowers your brew time and makes your cup taste better.

I'll talk more on grind methods next time, same bat time, same bat blog.

Getting Started in Home Roasting

I remember the day a good friend of mine told me that I could roast coffee at home, my thoughts initially were, "wow that's cool, for people who either are insomniacs or who have plenty of time on their hands." I have always been in to coffee, mostly in trying to make the perfect cup at home, I was interested in the art of brewing and of tasting but always thought that roasting was done in factories by technicians, after all I have never seen or heard of anyone toiling in home roasting. Who knows what to do let alone where to get raw coffee, it all just seemed way too esoteric and I didn't have time.
After a few weeks of enduring a little whisper in the back of my mind, like a little devil on my shoulder saying roast, roast, roast....I gave in and consulted my local library to find out more. Well in this modern day I consulted the Internet, I mean I love the library but what can't you find on the web. A search for "home coffee roasting" turned up everything I ever wanted to know, including getting hipped to a little book by Kenneth Davids called "Home Roasting, Romance and Revival" or better known as the bible of home roasting. I went out the next day and bought it at Borders, I couldn't believe they had it, right there in the cooking section, nestled between One Pot Creations and the New Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade masterpiece. Anyways, that was my first start and a necessity for anyone interested in burning some beans. The book has everything, from a concise breakdown of single origin coffees, a great history of roasting and a thorough survey of all the methods spanning the most rudimentary to the wildly elaborate.

Where did I start:

I started out buying a iRoast because I found a store online that had a set-up to purchase the machine and they included 3 pounds of greenies with it. I figured what the heck, the research I found on the iRoast was that it was a foolproof way of getting started in the whole operation. I admit I went the easy way, machines are nice but in retrospect I maybe should have started with one of the more hands on method, I quickly became bored with the fact that I didn't really want automation, the machine was loud and I could see the transformation and do a smidge of programing but for someone who was totally new to the process the iRoast method of roasting was hard to understand, I needed something more linear that could teach me about the actual process. With that said, the iRoast was great, the pre-programed modes produced great coffee and you do have some control, but I wanted to really learn about the process. So I say with that, the iRoast or i believe the iRoast2 now is great for an automated roasting machine, it produces great roasts but less control. I have seen modifications of the machine with a thermo-probe to chart chamber temperatures which could prove to be really cool, so if you go the iRoast route don't hesitate to research that.
I kept that machine for about six months when I traded up to the HotTop drum roaster, more capacity, more linear roasting, a better learning tool I thought. And I loved it, used it for a long long time, still use it for sampling sometimes.
I have since moved on to a Deidrich IR-12 and to a full fledged roasting operation ( a bit extreme I know, but once I get on to something, I'm crazy, I love doing it and am so glad I found this) but I have been researching the whirly-pop set up for stove top home roasting, I love the idea and plan to, in the next few weeks, purchase and modify my own of which I will document and share with everyone. The whirly-pop is the popcorn popper that is a pan with a rudder on the inside that is turned via a crank on the handle, it's main function is to constantly move the popcorn kernels as the heat up and pop, its the same principle as roasting, keep the beans moving in a closed chamber as they are slowly heated. You can modify it with a thermometer as to chart the roast. It all sounds very cool and a great grass roots way to roast at home.

Hip Drip in Prime TIme

I have been sucked into the television show Grey's Anatomy lately, mainly because Iron Chef isn't broadcast 24 hours a day but more so because my wife checked the entire first and second season out of the library and since you only get a week or so to view 40 episodes it has been on all the time. It really is quite good, a little whine-y at times but the stories do suck you in. And let me tell you what, they drink buckets of coffee. Every episode at least two people can be spotted with a cup in their hands. I happened to catch one specific episode that I paused and zoomed in only to find that the cup that was being passed from Dr. Burk to intern O'Malley was in fact a steaming cup of Hip Drip...it's a little fuzzy but you can make it out. I have finally made it prime-time.

P.S. my photoshop work really needs work.

Mexican Oaxaca Pluma Tres Oros Reviewed

I just received this coffee in the hopes of using it as a great base for blending, especially as an alternative to Brazilian in espresso. So I gave it a shot, boy oh boy, this is a great origin. Pluma Tres Oros is a collection of small producers who band together from the Oaxaca region, high grown ( Pluma ) and use a common mill ( Tres Oros ). The operation is very well run and the end result is a meticulously prepped ( wet processed) high grown Mexican coffee. You can even find out more on their website... www.tresoros.com.mx.

Now for the cup...it is wicked clean, due mainly from the well run wet processing milling operation ( never been there but you can find out a lot from the internet and your importer :) ) I roasted it first to thermo-probed 445 degrees. I wanted to test it a little darker into an espresso or Vienna style since I would be using it as a base. I let it rest 24 hours and the thing I like the most about it is that the aftertaste is so lingering that 20 minutes later I still crave it. Taking the beans this far into the roast eliminates any nutty notes that may be there in lighter roasts but the natural sweetness and chocolaty richness really takes center stage. Nothing is overpowering, its just a balanced sweet cup with a hint of vanilla and an enduring aftertaste. It takes a light roast just fine and is clean and a bit nutty, you really can't go wrong. I like this coffee. Its a keeper.

Trying to Understand Roast Styles...

When roasting coffee, the moment you stop your roast defines what kind of flavors you'll experience from those beans. In actuality it's a little more complicated than that but for the most part what defines the characteristics of a given coffee is by what temperature or how far into the roasting process you choose to take the beans. You'll notice, when roasting at home that coffee progresses through stages during roasting, The first part is rather uneventful, moisture exits as the beans warm up, further in, the beans are changing colors from greenish gray to yellow and spotty maybe beige, then as they approach the early tan and brown stages ( looking a little more like roasted coffee) strange events occur, popping starts, the beans sound like pencils breaking, it swells and the popping gets crazy. After you hear the "first crack" coffee is actually drinkable, it may not be very desirable but its drinkable. Every moment and every degree that the roast progress's presents the roast with different qualities. After roasting for a while you get to know certain coffee's and when they taste the best and you get to know our own tastes and how you like your coffee to taste. With that knowledge you stop the roast at that very second and you have your perfect cup of coffee. That's the beauty of home roasting, your in control.
So now, a little about what all this means. The nomenclature for roast degree's exist a few different ways, there is some older and regional ways of naming roasts, there are some more traditional ways and there are also the roasting communities very scientific color naming system that relies on a machine that measures the color density of beans and assigns it a number, its extremely accurate and consistent, ensuring that a light brown roast from Brooklyn is the same as a light brown roast from Poughkeepsie.
Anyways here is a pretty standard description that you'll find out there:

Cinnamon this is right after first crack begins, if your reading a thermometer the bean mass would read around 400 degree's. The taste is probably grassy, bread-like. The bean surface is dry and light brown maybe spotted depending on the origin.

City Roast is next, this roast starts around 410 degrees to 415. Here is where the origin flavor of the coffee is at its peak. The acidity is usually high, the body is developed and the aroma is peaking. The bean surface is almost completely uniform in its light brown-ness and the surface is dry. If your tasting for origin, this is where you'd stop.

Full City is a very nice place to stop because at 425-430, even 435 degree's, the coffee still retains a good bit of its origin distinction but starts to take on some of the sweetness from caramelizing sugars. Aroma and body are well developed. The beans are dark brown, smooth with perhaps a spot or two of oil.

Vienna and Espresso roasts are next, around 445 to 455 degree. Espresso really depends on region but if you want an espresso roast anywhere in this window would be good, origin flavor is diminishing and being replaced by heavy sugar caramelization. This is where roast flavor is starting to take center stage. The surface is shinny more oil and dark brown in color.

French roast is around 460-470 degree's F. We are talking pungent dark dark bean color, oily surface, all origin flavor is gone, sugars are developed and the coffee tastes bitter sweet. the body thins at this point in the roast and the aroma is very distinctive.

Dark French/Spanish 470 degree's and above, if your at this point, you probably can't see the beans in your kitchen from all the smoke and it doesn't matter cause you'll be reaching for the fire extinguisher. Fire is close. Even if you did choose to roast to this degree, the coffee would taste burnt and industrial, thin body, oily. It can be done right and many people will drink their coffee in this style however as a home roaster, it could be dangerous.

"Give me the high test" the dark roast myth

How many times have I heard people say to me "give the high test" I want it strong! Generally what a customer means is give me the darkest stuff you got because I need some serious caffeine and some high powered coffee! Granted a french roast or any dark roast has the stigma of power because of its dark surface and oily bean surface and the sensation that the bittersweet or burnt flavor gives however the chemistry is quite the contrary. A dark roast has less caffeine in it than a light roast. The reason is simple, when coffee is roasted there is a serious of complex chemical reactions that take place in stages throughout the roast duration. As coffee is brought along methodically through these stages and the heat is raised certain chemicals are burned off. Caffeine is one of them. Just as the sugar caramelizes during longer roasts, hence the sweetness increase in a dark roast, the caffeine is also burned out. So if you want to really get a "buzz" and if caffeine is what you look for, then try a lighter roast. The lighter the roast the more caffeine.

Hip Drip Night French Roast Blend

I just roasted a small batch of my french roast blend, I call it Night, I know very clever, what can I say. After many tries and a bundle of cuppings I had a revelation about the blend, I have been getting some great caramel or butterscotch notes out of the Organic Sumatra Gayoland when I roasted to a dark Viennese, roughly 445-450 degrees on the thermo-probe. So I thought that since the Night blend is made up of a percentage of the Sumatran that if I did a post roast blend and used the slightly lighter caramel-y Sumatran that the blend would benefit. So as I sit here with the cup, I am pleasantly surprised. We have all the normal French roast characteristics, deep rich and bittersweet, however there is a hint of caramel sweetness coming through that really compliments the chocolaty french Peruvian roast ( still roasted to about 460-465 degree's on the thermo-probe). It works well together, I feel like it is the Whitman's Sampler of a blend, I find a very fruity aroma and even hints of fruit in the cup but it turns to a sweet caramel and bittersweet chocolate classic french taste in the finish. Not bad.

Ethiopian Yirgacheffe

I got some new coffees yesterday and I with the exception of a short visit with the tax man, spent most of the day roasting. The delivery man hadn't yet pulled the pallet jack from the fresh drop and I was already slicing open the top of the bags to get a whiff of my new babies. I think I told the driver to just write himself a check from my book to cover shipping, I was too busy weighing out my greenies and watching the temperature creep up on the roaster. The first bag I cracked open was the Yirgacheffe. I admit I have been out of the washed Ethiopian game for a while since I have been carrying exclusively Harrar's. Something told me to go for the Yirg, I needed a change and I wanted to expand my offerings. Plus I have been doing a lot of reading about the crazy bright complexity of washed Ethiopians and I wanted to get my hands on some. I sourced a really great lot from some samples I tried and I couldn't be more pleased. When I opened the bag even the green's were overly aromatic, I mean like I opened a bag of stargazer lily's. I chose to roast to a full city, 430 degree's on the thermo-probe. With a Yirgacheffe, the lighter the better is what I find. This coffee is meant to be bright, citrus-y, even floral. I only hope I could pull a roast to do this fine bean justice. I feel like it roasted faster than I expected, Ethiopians I suppose are less dense than high grown south or central American coffee.

Now for the cup, Wow....this is amazing, after a few months with my winter coffee offerings this was a delight. Really this lot lived up to its reputation. Unlike anything I have in my bins right now...Flowers, citrus, bright, bright, refreshing full bodied complex coffee. Even as it cools the flavor changes, funny the wet aroma is almost like smarties! I really recommend it, www.hipdrip.com....try some of it, roasted by me or green and try it yourself. Get it quick or i might just drink it all up.

Brewing Great Coffee at the Office

Everyone wants to be promoted, right? I think the sure fire way to do so is to accentuate your refined taste in coffee at the office. To hell with all those dirty lime deposited 10 dollar plastic drip brewers that so many use at their desks or communal work areas. You can create drama and intrigue at work by brewing a fresh cup of coffee like many at those really fancy dimly lit stainless steel table topped minimal techno music playing restaurants. Yes, press pot coffee at work is possible and with only a few simple tools.

Press pot coffee is known for its purity in brewing and producing a great cup of coffee. Mainly due to its simplicity of direct water to coffee steeping and complete control over length of brew and water temperature. The principle of press-pot is simple and traditional, coffee grounds mixed with water and instead of straining or drinking "cowboy" style with the grounds still swirling around in the cup, there is a strainer like plunger that is pushed down through the pot after the proper steeping time is achieved that separates the grounds from the coffee. French press tends to retain more of the coffee ground residue than filter methods so for some that sensation is not well received, however it can be a great way to maximize the flavor potential in coffee, so try it at least once. Here's what you'll need:

12 ounce coffee cup filled with water
small personal press pot (10-12 ounce capacity)
1 level tablespoon of coarse ground coffee per 4 ounces of water
for this exercise that would be three scoops to 12 ounces
a microwave
and an optional thermal mug to put the coffee into once steeped. (or you can use the mug used to portion out and heat the water.

The process is simple, put the grounds in the bottom of the french press, heat the water in the mug for around one minute or until boiling. Wait a few seconds for the water to cool slightly. Add water to the press pot, the coffee will "bloom" a bit and a crust will form at the top. Sit and do some work now for about 4 minutes. Now push the plunger down through the coffee. Push straight down, if there is a ton of resistance, adjust the plunger and try again, too much pressure can force the coffee through the top and you'll have coffee explosion(trust me I just did it last week, I had coffee and grounds everywhere, I achieved the drama of the brew but no one was really impressed). At this point, your done, just pour into what ever vessel you have and enjoy one of the best cups of coffee you've ever had at work. If the boss seems to be put off by this show, make him/her a cup...let the coffee speak for itself.

enjoy.