Coffee: we drink it or we get angry.

That was just tongue in check really, Jesus. Chill with your coffee dude.

 

Coffee is serious

I haven't been using my expobar lately, really need to fire him up again. I think he feels neglected.
I can get good espresso here in LA but am too cheap to buy at the places around here.
For beans, I've been buying a 5lb bag from redbird as the price with shipping is good. I vacuum pack and freeze most of it, stays pretty fresh that way.

I've been doing pour over in the mornings and aeropress on weekends, but that changes periodically.

 

I can relate to this. Yesterday I roasted my first batch in about 3 months, more for my wife than me. It's a lot of work to roast a couple of times a week, and I haven't found that it's always worth it. Every time I order from Sweet Marias I try something different, but I'm getting to be less sure of what I like, but more of what I don't like or think is just ok.

So for now we just buy the mondo sized bags of Caribou at Sams, and occasionally something local if we happen to be near a decent shop. At work I tend to drink more green tea varieties. I find tea more enjoyable from a non-snob perspective, but coffee is usually a disappointment because I am so picky, yet haven't quite pinpointed what it is that I really like.

 

You mean "decafe"...

 

mmmmmmmm, chilled coffee

 

My very early roasts were with a popcorm maker, the Pumper, which shares the same guts as the more famous Poppery

I "upgraded" that setup, with a commercial PID, to be more consistent.
This is how I built my first roaster.
http://randytsuchroasterpid.blogspot.com/2009/11/roaster-pid-part-1.html

I didn't make any blogs for my later roasters.

I moved to an arduino for the controller. I wrote a bunch of code that included PID control. There was also a PC interface software too, which would graph the temps. The last version had bluetooth interface, pc graphing of temps, and could save as many roast profiles as you could use. But I stopped, and the roaster was retired.

 

My thermocouple interface was the early version of this:
http://www.mlgp-llc.com/arduino/public/arduino-pcb.html
I only used 2 channels, one for bean temp and one for heater temp. The bean temp should be as close as possible to the middle of the bean mass, and heater temp should be next to your heating element.

Since I had PID functionality, and because I made different profiles based on bean type, was able to get repeatable, and I think good results.
But in the end, it's really hard to compete with the better artisan roasters. Especially if you're trying to roast for a good shot of espresso, its hard to do.

I also used to hang out at homeroasters.org.

I'd post pics but I'm not sure how to post pics here lol

 

Since this thread is recently active I thought I'd share a video that I just checked out. It corresponds with this blog post, but really helps give a visual idea of what Rao is talking about.



I've been doing this technique for a few days now and it's been absolutely great for V60 brews. I'm seriously impressed. Even though I've been brewing manually for years, I've never tried anything quite like his technique.

 

Prob a long shot here but anyone know any good roasters/shops in Hattiesburg, MS? I’m on the road and my local roasters we’re all out of bags of coffee when I went by.

 

I love RedBird, been buying that way for years. I used to be extremely into espresso (Alex Duetto, compak pro barista, etc) and I'd adjust for temperature, pressure, etc etc but honestly it just go to be too much and my Duetto hasn't been used for 5 years.

These days I use your same method from RedBird and make two gallons of cold brew at a time (grind with Baratza Vario at the highest coarseness). It's a fairly simple process (grind, immediately mix with water, let sit out for 24 hours, filter, chill) that makes consistently awesome coffee that I can mix with anything, but mostly drink straight (diluted of course). That makes about 2 weeks worth of coffee, so it's convenient too.

I haven't drank hot coffee (that I've made) in years, I just love the cold brew so much - every cup is a chocolate shot!

 

Sorry, can only offer sympathy. I was in Wichita a little while ago, and had to suffer with bad coffee. One drawback to getting into coffee is now I can really tell when I'm drinking bad coffee, and its nasty stuff. Really need to start bringing my little manual coffee grinder when I travel.

I've wanted to try cold brew for a while, haven't gotten around to it yet.
How do you filter 2 gallons of coffee?
You use all 5 pounds to make 2 gallons?

Off topic. I find it funny I joined a headphone/audio forum, and most of my posts are about coffee

Randy

 

I’m almost certain i can find good coffee in Hattiesburg as it’s somewhat of a hip college town and most towns have updated coffee shops these days as so many more people have become educated (at least moreso than the past). I’m about to stop in Ruston, LA in a few mins (don’t worry, the wife is driving as I type this ) to grab some brew at what Google tells me is a 3rd wave coffee shop. We’ll see! Too bad about Wichita. Kansas City has some really good coffee shops. I’m surprised that Wichita does not at this point.

I’m not a fan of cold brew or iced coffees personally.

 

I think I could have found good coffee if I had tried, but was too lazy to go out and look.

 

Yeah, usually I’m not desperate because I take a good grinder, beans, my Bonavita kettle and V60 whenever I travel but I’m just low on beans this time. I do like to explore new coffee shops if there’s something that looks promising though. I’ve found some great ones in the past by googling and examining their pics and whatnot. Topeca Coffee in Tulsa and Icon in Santa Fe both come to mind in the US.

 

Given you just lumped cold brew and iced coffee together, I'm betting you've never tried cold brew done right - it's espresso without any acid or bitterness. Extremely smooth, brings out the chocolate and floral notes better than other other method I've tried except an espresso "god shot"

Super easy! You can follow recipes which is the right way to get started if you want to ensure you get all of the flavors, but what I do is:

(1.) Take 3 sealable gallon ikea jars and fill each half full of reverse osmosis water
(2.) Fill the hopper of the Baratza vario until it almost overflows (this is the right amount from experience)
(3.) Grind for 30 sec & pour into jar 1, stir, repeat for jar 2, for 3, repeat, repeat, repeat until all the beans are gone
(4.) The beans will release CO2 so you have to stir occasionally and punch that down for awhile, maybe 10 min until the coffee stops "rising"
(5.) Fill the jars to the brim while stirring and then seal and leave on the counter for 18-24 hours. I usually flip them around once or twice too.
NOTE: ensure most of the CO2 is gone, especially with fresh roasted (ideally I brew 3-4 days after roast). If you don't and seal the jars ... boom.

Then you just pour the brew through a normal filter into another jar. You can use a pour-over on top or the jar or I use a technivorn as the stand. you just pour and let it filter, then pour again. I listen to my headphones while I do it

That'll make about 2 gallon which will last about 2 weeks if you drink a lot like me I use a Yeti 20 oz tumbler and dilute the CB about 1:1 or 2:1 or you can dilute with milk or almond milk or oat milk! or, despite it being déclassé, you can heat it up in the microwave.

The 5 lbs last me about 3-4 runs.

 

You bet wrong. I only mention them together to say I do not enjoy cold coffee in any form. I have had cold brewed coffee made with top coffees and brewed appropriately.

 

thanks for that post. Informative!.

Nice technique. I am going to try it with my beehouse. I never stir. and I make two cups at a time, should I only be doing 1?

And I use an affordable supermarket coffee, Peet's Big Bang. Any others that are similar and not over $12 a pound?

 

If you have any "old" beans, might I suggest a cold brew then heat it up for a hot cup? Its a different kind of good, especially if your stomach is off...

 

well, cold is an acquired thing, at least it was for me. Once I got used to it though I kinda don't like hot coffee any more

As for "top coffees", give me a medium roast Yirgachefe, and that's about the best bean in the World in my book. That said, Four Barrel in SF makes a Friendo Blendo which blends Ethiopian Biftu with some central/south american beans and that's about my second favorite.

The thing with coffee beans is they're about the most pesticide contaminated product you can buy, so for me that's another reason to get Yirgachefe: it's the home of the cherry so they're naturally pest resistant, plus most farmers couldn't even afford pesticides even if they wanted them, so for me, anything Ethiopian but especially Yirgachefe is the top coffee.

Coffee is the #1 source of pesticide ingestion for most people - I stay far away from any cherry of questionable / unknown provenance.