Okay. Doing a LOT better with the aeropress making big adjustments on the grind size.
Had a light roast Burundi coffee this morning. Both cups were probably UE and a little sour, but had loads of fruity notes. Pretty awesome. Looking forward to dialling it in further tomorrow.
One thing that has been really highlighted for me lately is how much coffee dose impacts the rest of the recipe for pour over.
Basically give up any thoughts you have on scaling recipes up or down to your preferred serving size using water:coffee ratio. Once you change how much coffee and water youāre using every other bit of the recipe might change too.
I suspect using an aeropress might be slightly less sensitive to scaling up or down as long as you keep the ratios the same, but this has obvious limits since you can only get so much water into the cylinder. And itās probably not perfectly scalable, either.
Yeah itās definitely not easy. Thatās why I made the dosing spreadsheet. And while itās not totally realistic, I think the general takeaway that going from, say, 20g to 15g has a very significant size adjustment holds.
Picked up a gesha from Mexico. Not sure Iāve ever seen that before. You boys like Mexico?
Iāve put together a good parts list (I think) to emulate one of the best drip machines on the market. However, the shipping cost from these CoffeePartsDepot type places is stupid. So once I figure out how to get around that and then test if this actually works, I should be able to give you all a build sheet for this low agitation shower rig. Shouldnāt cost more than $35.
I have had pretty decent results overall from mexico, but no mexican gesha. I did just have a columbian gesha from B&W and it was amazing.
yes plz
Is gesha worth trying? Before Iāve figured out how to brew my normal coffee properly?
Okay. I think Iāve made good enough progress on my light roasts so that I can make coffee that I like.
My next task is finding coffee that Mrs Rugby will enjoy.
She definitely likes darker roasts, mellow, rich, chocolate type flavors.
Iāve been googling and watching some hoffman. For a darker roast I think I need to go more coffee, less time, cooler water, andā¦ coarser roast?
Is that right? Especially the last one? I thought darker roast was finer grind?
Also. He talks about doing a hot bloom first (boiling temp) then cooler after. This is in the context of pour over, and I havenāt seen this hot start technique suggested anywhere else for aeropress.
Thoughts?
Iām going to try and get a solid base recipe for dark roast first and then try a hot start after that.
Their Vita blend is my favorite, but a lot of the single origin blends sound like something Mrs R would like. Maybe you could find one of these a bit closer to home.
Well itās definitely worth it and something you have to try, but get your brew game figured out first and also develop some expectation of what ānormalā light coffees are supposed to taste like. Then when you try a gesha youāll have a solid basis for comparison and wonāt be adjusting your way through a $40 bag.
I canāt recommend this to anyone in the same way that I canāt recommend a steak past medium. Try a medium roast Brazil single origin and get the profile you described without the bitter carbonized / charcoal taste. These arenāt hard rules though: learn how to read the tasting notes and descriptions and try to pick ones that only say stuff like caramel, cacao nib, milk chocolate, almond, baking spices, caramelized sugar, cinnamon and whatever else fits the category. If you see any fruits listed thereās going to be acidity.
Those coffees could be from anywhere, but theyāll most likely be from Brazil, other countries of the Americas to a lesser extent, and the Asian Pacific island producers (Sumatra, Bali, etc.). You should also be looking at blends because they tend to be milder āeverydayā coffees for people who enjoy the profile you described, and theyāre also cheaper.
Quickly searching I found these:
(I know nothing about this roaster.)
(Reputable roaster. Strangely they donāt give a roast level, but Iām almost positive this is a medium despite saying espresso.)
We have a coffee subscription. We get different single origins every fortnight.
One bag is labelled āfilterā, one is labelled āespressoā.
I think that means light-medium and medium-dark.
Iāll take some pictures when I do a side by side.
Itās the same beans roasted differently, which may not be ideal.
A few initial impressions. This thing is 10 weeks off roast, and while I would have been scared away by that in the past, I saw it as a good opportunity to trust the science and test this offgassing theory. Didnāt see a reason to do anything other than my default method:
Grinder: Vario (aligned) 9A with 1M chirp
Water: 1 part Evian:6 parts distilled (50 PPM TDS / 40 PPM alkalinity)
Dose: 22g RDT,
Recipe: V60 15:1 ratio, 3:1 bloom, pour to 3/4 cone height
Filter: Hario MIJ tabbed (drained quickly in pre-pre-wet)
Temp: 210 F (off boil)
Notes: No spinning / shaking
Coffee really sponged the bloom water, soaking it and expanding upward like a bubbling mushroom. The 3:1 ratio wasnāt even close to saturating but I just left it instead of pouring more. As I got into the main pour, it quickly became apparent that this was going to drain ultra fast. At that point, I decided to switch it up to multiple aggressive pours, swirling after each pour, and then also pouring a 17:1 ratio. Didnāt time but just based on experience Iād say it drained in 1:45 or less, and thus I have seriously miscalculated the grind size I could get away with here. Practically no fines or mud in the cone at all. Baffling.
So this was awful, right? Nope. It was head and shoulders better than anything Iāve made in weeks or maybe months LMAO. Sugared orange against floral tea, a classic gesha profile. Acidity was almost perfect but started to drift sour as it cooled, probably slightly UE due to operator error. The aftertaste was somewhat vegetal bitter which is the only knock against but also probably my fault.
What differences do you notice between brewing with beans at peak flavor that have never been frozen, versus beans that were frozen at peak flavor?
Nolan Hirte: I think the biggest impact can be the extraction itself. The frozen beans will shatter into a far more even particle size, so the potential to get a higher extraction is actually easier. Iāve noticed with one of our high-end Brazilian lights we actually got much more clarity and character and flavor from the frozen sample then we did room tempā¦ Thereās a reason that the WBC competitors are freezing their coffee. If youāre looking for a little edge, thereās a little edge there.
Nice!
Regarding allignment. Why are you chirping at 1M? And how would that translate to 2Q Chirp?
1M is the factory zero point for the steel Vario and Forte. I think it comes to around 2C on the overlap. The 2Q calibration is factory for the ceramic burrs. Thatās because you can actually grind finer than 2Q for espresso and donāt need the grind range on the high end. For a brew setup, itās nice to have that extra range on the high side.
So. These are some of the beans Iāve been roasting.
I cracked one open with my thumb above each.
Left to right.
Roaster 1. Supposedly at the lightest of their 3 medium roast scales.
Roaster 2. āEspressoā roast
Roaster 2. āFilterā roast.
Seems roaster 2 definitely lighter than 1 at both roasts. And tastes that way too. Roaster 1 seems way too dark right? For a supposedly medium roast?
Also. They all seem quite close in color. Iām guessing even the lightest wouldnt be considered a ālightā roast by most here?
Depends. I think just looking at roast color is tricky, but since this is the same bean we can probably compare. Agree that #1 looks darker. Between #2 and #3, it looks like #2 is more roasted due to the oily surface. I wouldnāt call any of these exceedingly dark or light. They all seem to be dancing around second crack.
Maybe City+, Full City, and Full City+. I dunno, they look really close but visually it can be deceiving just as grind size can be deceiving to the naked eye. Your lightest looks nothing like a truly light roast though.
Is this a natural?
