So Embarresment!

Ok, I'm a coffee nut, not a tea nut, let me get that clear from the beginning.

I found Coffee Snobs just a little over a week ago - and very impressed with the whole site and its inhabitants. I've been home roasting for a year or so, having found my first hints at Sweet Marias which seems to be a reasonably common starting point for many. I found my first green beans while wandering through a whole foods shop in Fremantle and went on from there.

When I found Coffee Snobs I was very excited by the idea of the starter pack and ordered one right away. Then I stuffed up the payment and sat for a week watching the "payment pending" not change to "you package will be with you shortly". Finally checked the transaction log for the bank - yup stuffed that one. Finally the payment went through.

My starter pack arrived from coffee snobs with the 4 packs of coffee as mentioned last post, and a pack of Lapsang Souchong tea. I knew there was a 'surprise tea' with every pack, and I like tea, just not with the same level of passion or interest that I have for coffee.

I've heard of Lapsang Souchong, I've seen it on sale (at horrendous prices) but not being a big tea drinker I never thought to fork out the cash for a same and consequently I've never tried it so I was pretty curious about it.

The calico "Coffee Snobs" bag that everything was wrapped in was very cool, but it had a strong smokey smell to it. No problem, they've just been keeping the bags beside their fish smoker, thinks I.

In fact the whole package of coffee had a wonderful smoky wood fire aroma, and I was a little worried by how strong it was. Could it affect the coffee? or maybe the tea? No idea - I didn't think so, it surely couldn't be like wine grapes where a smokey fire before harvest can totally destroy the flavour.

Decided to take a chance on the tea, so made up a pot. I tried it, the wife tried it, but no, the smoke had gotten to the tea well and truly. I drank most of my cup - I like smokey things (usually meat, fish or peppers, but hey I'll try anything), however I didn't imagine that Lapsang Souchong was supposed to be enjoyed smoked. (OK, if you know about Lapsang Souchong you know where I am going with this).

I suddenly thought about the big coffee orders from the September poll "my god! what if it all gets smoked!" I gasped. So I fire off a quick email to the bloke who runs Coffee Snobs: "mate, package arrived ok - thanks for that, only there's this smokey smell through the whole thing - haven't been keeping the coffee beans in a smokehouse have you? or maybe the parcel train went through a bushfire on the way here?"

At this point I really need to reiterate my earlier caveat:

I AM A COFFEE NUT!
Ich bin eine Kaffeenuß
Soy una tuerca del café
Je suis un écrou de café
Sono un dado del caffè.

The next morning an email is waiting from Andy, the Leading Coffee Snob, and I've gotta say he was pretty kind in not calling me a total idiot, or in posting the saga on the forums and embarresing me (hell I'm doing that myself now anyway).

No, he just gently pointed out that he sure hoped that the package arrived with a smokey smell because the $400/kg Lapsang Souchong tea is prepared by rolling the leaves and smoking them over cedar fires, a remarkable and unique process that has made this tea one of the most highly prized (and priced) on the market.

Did I mention I like coffee?

Beans with variety!

My Coffee Snobs Starter pack arrived today with:

Indian Mysore Nuggets A Grade
Columbian
Panama Panamaria Special A
Guatemala Huehuetenango Blue

AND my Lapsang Souchong tea.

and to this will be added:

Indian Tiger Mountain
Bali Gunung Batur
Ugandan Mt Elgon AA

In addition to my existing stock of Brazilian.

NOW I feel like a bit of everything.

BEANS!

Today at 11am WST Coffee Snobs released the September bean poll.

I waited in the bean bay with my finger suspended over the mouse until the magic window opened.

I am now the proud owner of 10kg of green coffee beans – woohoo! Roast-a-rama coming up.

5th Roast - City style

Better than expected, but a genuine comparison is impossible with my Faema out of action. I’m making it in the French Press, but it is mild at the tip with low acidity and only a slight residual bitterness very faintly at the end. Sadly though nothing of note but better than a lot of what is served along Hay street – a pretty depressing thought in itself!

Coffee or Life?

Grendel's Lair (Hobby or Obsession) was the recipient of a coffee related blog entry today - Not sure if it is really about coffee or about life - decide for yourself.

Double Shot!

Ahhhhhhh coffee.



Today's roasts - the comparison shot and below, the roasting kit (and roaster)

Desperation Blend

Well,

I've finally managed to order some coffee from Coffee Snobs, but I left it a bit late and I ran out except for about 50 grams of the PNG. A quick trip to Kakulas Bros. was necessary but instead of the PNG they had last time, they only had a bag of Brazilian 'Santos' (i.e. bulk lot out of the warehouses of the port of Santos).


As the title of this post suggests though I had to have something to roast - after all I'd just spent $1.65 on a can of Golden Circle Pineapple juice so that I could use the can as a chimney.


5 Minutes work with the Dremel and I had three neat flanges cut to hold the tin in place. I was able to load it with 150grams of coffee for the first roast with the chimney and it worked out pretty well. Of course I was ably assisted in the roasting today by my 1st assistant coffee roaster (seen here preparing the biscuits to eat with the coffee).

He's just learned to wink and now every photo has a wink included.


My 2nd assistant coffee roaster mainly supervised, which seems to be his preferred area of tasking - comes with the monkey jammies I think.


So the primary mission was accomplished - we all had a fun time, but there was also some coffee involved and that is pretty crucial also.


The Chimney really did slow down the roast - this made it much easier to control the outcome. I wanted to try two batches. The beans are not premium ones but they'll do in a pinch and they are good to experiment on. I tried for a medium roast - pulling the beans from the popper just before the second crack really took hold - and the result:

Pretty even roast - I used air cooling for this one.


The second roast I let go until the 2nd crack was well underway, then I drenched it in cold water for a second:







As you can see it is a good couple of shades darker without being all the way to a Vienna style roast probably half way between full city and Vienna.

Whenever I do more than one roast on a day I am going to try to take a photo of them both side by side and then do a comparative cupping after the coffee has had enough time at rest. This will be a lot more interesting once I get my hands on some of the specialty premium coffees but this is good practice for me. Up until now it has been hit and miss in the wok and the results have varied widely including the infamous 'Charcoal' blend at Christmas.

I'll post another entry shortly with some more photos of today's roasts together and the full roasting kit (such as it is).

The Bottom of the Barrel

I've ground the last of the 4th roast, which sadly means that I am at the end of my PNG beans. I'm holding out for my resupply from Coffee Snobs hopefully by tomorrow. If not I'll have to duck into Kakulas Bros. in Northbridge to get an emergency ration of beans. The only trouble with kakulas' is that the staff usually don't know where the beans are from. Last time I was able to talk with the staff member who purchases the beans and got the whole provenance of that batch.

Its a bit hit-and-miss though.

4th Roast

This was the 4th/5th use of the popper. I've been sticking to about 100 grams at a time but I was having some people over and wanted to roast a bit more that one batch. I haven't yet gone so far as to make a chimney for my popper so I thought I'd try matching the profile of the first roast for the second. Happy to say it seemed to work out. Timing was a little different - the popper was already hot for the second run but I watched it carefully and pulled both roasts out at about the same stage. Didn't try for a water cool of the beans though, just seived them as usual. The coffee is excellent. Unfortunately I am now down to the last scant handfull of my PNG beans. This week I go in search of more! I've ordered a newbie pack from CoffeeSnobs and I am looking forward to trying the varieties in that.

Links

I found a bunch of new sites today that were pretty interesting - the Forum at Coffee Snobs looks to be a mine of information. I look forward to catching up with it all. I'm not really sure how this will evolve yet, but as I am not a commercial player I think I'll stick to providing information about what is available, what I have seen work and how to do this all in Perth.

A lot of the suppliers are based in the east but I reckon we can get by just fine here.

Water cooled

Cooling the coffee beans immediately after roasting is critical to ensuring that they don't roast beyond the point you intended.

I know that one method of cooling the beans after roasting relies on immersing them in water very quickly, and another is spraying the beans with a fine mist while agitating them.

Last night I used the rain (very briefly!) and that seemed to work out ok, the bean cooled quickly and dried out almost as soon as the water hit them - will be drinking that lot today!

I will try the full immersion method on the weekend.

I am now going to refer to these two water cooling methods as the "Catholic" (Sprinkling) and "Protestant" (dunking) methods.

As far as I am concerned however the Coffee religion comprises a broad church where many are welcome. Nescafe however is considered an anathema promoted by the heretical.

Third Roast

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Third Roast

Medium Dark, took 7 minutes from start to finish and I cooled it by winnowing between sieves under fresh light rainfall.

Will grind in 4 hours and drink tomorrow!

The popper seems to be working very well - of course only the third use so it bloody well better be!

p

Espresso!

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Espresso!

Being a cool windy day we went out to the new nursery nearby, came home, fed the kids, put them to bed for a nap and decided it was time to try roast number two.

The beans on the left are the medium roast from yesterday, and on the right are the beans (medium/dark) from this afternoon.

It took about 5 minutes to roast to this colour and it was very even across all the beans. Much more even than I ever got roasting from green beans in the wok.

The machine. . .

If choosing a popcorn popper to home-roast green coffee beans, make sure you select one that blows the air in from the sides of the machine not from a mesh underneath. This is so the skins that flake off from the beans don't fall back into a heating element, but also because the side-air models keep the coffee moving and give a nice even roast. It also help if you don't overload the machine.

Below is a picture of the roasting chamber of my popper and you can see the solid base and airflow ports on the side.

The Proof

Sunday, August 13, 2006

The Proof

The proof of the pudding may be in the eating but for coffee my personal proof of a good roast has always been in whether or not I need to add sugar.

I think I could do a slightly darker roast for flavour but overall yesterday's popper roasted bean are terrific. Given the ease of roasting with this method it would be a simple thing for me to roast each night the small amount of Coffee I want for the next day.

Coming up:

Coffee roasting 101 - at least from my experience.

Ta-Da!

I've been home roasting my own coffee for over a year now - I have found it very satisfying but it does smoke out the house a bit (I use a wok on the gas stove).

Today I did something I have wanted to try for a long time and bought a popcorn maker. Many of the web sites that provide information about roasting your own coffee talk glowingly about the results achieved by the humble popcorn machine.

The picture above shows my green coffee beans on the left, and the result of 5 minutes in my $22 Black and Decker Popper.

Pretty damn impressed actually - very even roast all over, low mess, little effort and very fast. The main drawback is the amount you can roast at any one time, but still, pretty happy.

Will make the ultimate test tomorrow morning when I drink the product. . .

Home Green Coffee Roasting - Wok method

You can do this using a heavy frypan or a wok. I’d recommend a wok on the wok burner of the BBQ – it keeps the smoke outside and wok burner heats up a larger surface area of the wok. Even with a 900m3 per hour range hood it can get pretty smoky inside – I prefer to do indoor roasts when it is windy then I open all the windows.

The Beans
The first step is to obtain a supply of green coffee beans. I know two places in Perth where they are stocked regularly, although it never hurts to phone ahead and make sure they have them in stock. The other alternative is to contact a coffee roaster who will sell green beans – I recommend Five Senses in Rockingham – they can be contacted through their website: http://www.five-senses.com.au/ (also if home roasting just isn't working for you they are the best coffee supplier in the WA market and roast fresh to order). The two shops in perth that I know of:

Kakulas Bros. 183 William St Northbridge 9328 5285
Kakulas Sister Grocer Shop 29/ 31 Market St Fremantle 9430 4445

I usually buy a kilo or two at a time, at about $9 to $11 a kilo.
The green coffee beans will keep for years if stored in a dry dark place in a sealed container. Mostly the green beans stocked at Kakulas are Papua New Guinea Highland beans.

The Roasting
This is the simplest method of roasting and the results vary but with experience the result can be spectacular. It is easy to stuff it up as well, and the key is to not scorch the beans, so keep the flame about medium and keep the beans moving.

You’ll need a wok, the wok lid, oven mitts, a colander (or two is even better) and a wooden spoon and keep everything you need close to hand. I’d normally roast half a kilo of green beans at a time – this will yield about 350 grams or roasted coffee.

Pre-heat the wok on the medium flame for 3 minutes, toss in the beans and put the wok lid on – if you don’t have a wok lid you can just start stirring at this point but the lid does give a better result.

For the next 5 minutes give the wok a shake every 20 seconds or so (with the lid on). After 5 minutes take the lid off and start stirring the beans over the heat. About this time you should hear the beans start to crack and the beans will start to lose the gossamer thin outer ‘skins’.
The beans may be a mix of still slightly green to tan coloured. Some may be a little more roasted if they are sitting on the bottom of the pan and missed by the stirrer.

The beans will start to smoke and darken in colour – first a tan colour and then rapidly towards a true ‘coffee bean’ colour. Colour is a pretty clear indication of the strength of the roast – the darker the colour the stronger the flavour will be.

I have found that a totally even colour for the beans is very difficult to obtain with wok roasting, but the overall result is of a good flavoured mellow coffee so don’t worry if some beans are lighter or some are very dark. The main aim is to have about 80%-90% of the beans within the same colour range.

Take the beans off the heat when they area shade lighter than you’d like them to look as they will keep cooking from their residual heat.

Pour the beans into the (metal not plastic!) colander and take them outside.
I always use two colanders and winnow the beans from one to the other. It helps if there is a breeze as this will blow away the remaining skins and also help cool the beans. Tip the beans back and forth from one colander to the other until they are cool to the touch.

The beans will reach best flavour from 4 to 24 hours after the roasting and they will be at peak freshness for at least 6 days. The flavour difference from fresh beans is really noticeable.

For the VERY keen there is a whole variety of home roasting devices from the mini-roaster to the not-quite-commercial size roaster but the next step up from wok roasting is to use a popcorn machine. These work by blowing very hot air through a roasting chamber and are renowned among home roasting enthusiasts.

If you go down the ‘popper’ path you must ensure that it is a model that blows air in from holes in the sides of the chamber rather than from a wire mesh at the bottom. The problem with wire mesh poppers is that the skins can fall through and catch alight – not a great plan.

When I started home roasting I found most of my information on US websites. One of the most informative for those just starting out is: http://www.sweetmarias.com

And how!

As my previous post indicated I love coffee. A lot. But It wasn't always that way, and I am a self confessed coffee snob - I only have one cup a day so it better be worthwhile and I'd rather drink water than instant (and that is exactly what I do the rest of the day).

Coffee is something I discovered when I travelled overseas.

I volunteered work for a short while in a country devastated by earthquakes, and while I was there I discovered the overwhelming hospitality that is possible in that part of the world. This tradition includes the drinking of coffee, in the Greek/Turkish style. Thick and rich and sweet.

It has left a lasting impression and since that time I have not tasted any coffee that quite compares. Perhaps this is because of the experiences that accompanied the drinking of the coffee.

It was certainly unique to be in that place and in that time and to sit with people whose language I did not speak, whose culture I did not understand, but to be made to feel welcome, and at home.

The eastern coffee tradition is something that has been used in marketing coffee in Australia, but I somehow see it as very false. There is not the depth of tradition nor the overwhelming sense of hospitality that accompanies the coffee traditions of middle eastern and southern European countries and the feeble attempts of advertisers to portray coffee as the great icon of hospitality lack the essential quality of authenticity.

Coffee will always hold important memories for me and at least in my own home I like people to really enjoy their coffee - it means a bit of work for me, even down to roasting green beans when I run out of the Papua New Guinea fair trade coffee I buy.

I often wish though that traditions grew faster to enrich a culture - I believe Australia is on its way to something unique but its taking its bloody time.

C is for Sacred

Ok, I know, the whole 'C' and 'S' thing, but give me a little artistic license. . .

Ode to a Coffee Bean

Of all the vices human beings have chosen to employ,
There are some that prefer coffee as their favourite to enjoy.
It does not draw in fierce pursuit, the wrath and ire of law,
It is plentiful and thus enjoyed by those both rich and poor.

It’s felicitous aroma stirs the tired and fading workers,
Although in extreme amounts it has been known to rouse berserkers.
It fits snugly in receptacles of ceramic, glass or paper,
It can be served at table or on the run, with biscuit wafer.

In its vegetative life, the bean starts humbly on a tree,
Yet a little gentle handling will soon set the flavour free.
Just a pause within an oven’s blessed heat, let it roast,
The sacred bean is transfigured, a beverage of boast.

A grinding task remains before the ceremony ends,
Fine, medium or course - on this the brewing shall depend.
Espresso pots or plungers, pans and percolators too,
The Greeks, Turks and Armenians prepare it like a stew.

Latte, ‘chino, short or long, royale or macciato,
The varieties spill out in caffeine induced staccato.
For affogato – add ice cream, for Irish – add some liquor,
And when in urgent need of it, drink espresso, ‘cause it’s quicker.

Don’t preach to me the evils of the caffeine hid within,
Or try to sell to me ‘decaf’ stuff – to drink it is a sin.
Dare not serve to me ‘instant’ - that thing they call ‘freeze dried’,
For there is a special place in hell for those that such supply.

© Grendel, 2004

Coffee Migration

The first posts after this one will be ones brought across from Grendel's Lair