Month: July 2023

Brew Notes

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: German St Coffee and Candlery Private House Blend
  • Grind: Medium-coarse – 2.5 turns on the JX (the recipe specifically recommends this setting). This is coarser than what I’ve used in the past with the AeroPress, but finer than what I usually use in the French press.
  • 90°C water
  • 13 grams coffee / 180 grams water (about 1:14)
  • One new paper filter (dry)
  • Recipe: 13g that makes you happy (inverted: add 30g water, stir 5x, top up to 180g at 0:30, stir 10x, flip at 1:30 and press very slowly, finishing at 2:30)

This recipe indeed made me happy. I followed it exactly, except I stirred 10x at 0:30 (which the recipe recommends if you want more extraction). It produced a cup that was well-extracted, not too weak, and not too strong. It was by far the best cup I’ve gotten from these beans using the AeroPress. One thing I noted was that the 30g of bloom water didn’t seem like quite enough to fully wet all of the coffee. I guess the initial stirring is supposed to take care of that. A little bit of coffee did get stuck to the stirrer, but went back in when I stirred again with the full volume of water. Whatever the case, it’s the end result that matters, and I really liked the cup. The true test, of course, is whether it will be good the next time I brew it. 😀

Brew Notes

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Local Coffee Roasting Co. Breakfast Blend (light roast)
  • 20 grams coffee, 260 grams water (1:13 ratio)
  • French press
  • Gooseneck kettle
  1. Preheat French press
  2. Heat brew water to boil
  3. Coarse grind (JX setting: 3 rotations + 4 clicks or 94 total clicks)
  4. Start timer and pour at the same time
  5. 60 second bloom (including pour time)
  6. Stir a few seconds until grounds settle
  7. Steep 6 minutes

I’ve been getting a little bit frustrated with my AeroPress lately. I just seem to be unable to get consistently good results with it. One day I’ll brew something that is really good, and the next day I’ll brew the exact same beans with the exact same recipe, and it will be lackluster. I wish I could figure out what I’m doing when I get a good cup from it, and repeat it somehow.

On the flip side, we have the French press. It takes longer than the AeroPress, but I don’t think I’ve ever brewed a bad cup with it. For this one, I used the light roast beans I picked up last week in Bethany. I’ve used this exact French press recipe with lots of different beans. The only difference today was that because it’s a light roast, I used boiling water instead of 85-95°C water. The result was a rich, full-bodied, generally excellent cup. The only problem was that it was maybe a little too strong. I am feeling the caffeine more than I would like. The 1:13 ratio is stronger than the 1:18 I’ve been using with the AeroPress, but it may just be because it’s a 30% larger cup than what I usually make with the AP (260 vs 200 grams). I can see if I like it at 1:14 or 1:15, or just cut the volume down to 200 grams, which would call for about 15 grams of coffee to get a 1:13 ratio.

I may try out an AeroPress recipe like this one that uses a coarser grind which more closely mimics what I’ve been using with the French press, just to see what kind of results I get.

Run Notes

lpaulriddle

I left the house at 7:45 this morning and ran 7.5 miles. The temperature was 72 when I left and 77 when I returned, with the dewpoint hovering right around 70 — pretty typical conditions for mid July here on the humid East Coast. I ran pretty well, with good energy and reasonably good form until I started to tire a little bit around mile 6. My average pace was 11 minutes/mile, which is only 30-45 seconds slower than I typically run in cooler weather — not too bad, especially given the high dewpoint. I ate 3 pieces of egg bake and a peanut bar before heading out, and drank 16 ounces of water during the course of the run. I lost a lot of fluids while I was out. When I got home, my shirt was soaked through and heavy with sweat. As usual, my SweatHawg head band kept it out of my eyes. I’ve become a big fan of these. I re-hydrated with some Gatorade (which I drink very sparingly, and only this time of year) and am trying to drink plenty of water over the course of the day, something I’ve historically been better at doing when I’m at the office vs. at home.

Cold Brew

lpaulriddle

I started experimenting with making cold brew in the AeroPress last week at the beach. Here’s what I did today, and it turned out pretty good. I’ve been using the scoop and stirrer that came with the AeroPress.

  1. Set AeroPress up in inverted orientation with plunger inserted about 1cm.
  2. Add one heaping scoop of drip-grind coffee. AeroPress says this is about 15-16 grams, but I haven’t confirmed this. I have been using Wellsley Farms pre-ground medium roast breakfast blend, because I have a bag of it I’m trying to use up. Once it’s gone, I’ll switch to grinding whole beans by weight.
  3. Fill the AeroPress to within about 1cm of the top with room temperature, filtered water.
  4. Start timer and stir vigorously for 1 minute.
  5. Flip AeroPress and press gently into an 8-ounce tumbler. Add ice cubes to chill.

When I was doing this last week, I used less water to brew, and then topped the glass up with water or milk after pressing. Today, with more water in the chamber, it seemed like the coffee got mixed up a little better, and there was less coffee “sludge” on the stirrer when I removed it. The finished product seemed a little more flavorful, although it was subtle, and I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference in a blind taste test. I didn’t really care for it with milk. The milk gave it kind of a watered-down taste, probably because I was expecting it to have a milk-like consistency, which it didn’t, because it’s mostly water. I wonder how it would turn out if I brewed it with all milk instead of water? Might be worth trying one of these days.

Bike Ride

lpaulriddle

I had been hoping to ride my MTB to work today, but I woke up to unexpected rain showers that hung around for 3 hours. No complaints, as it was a nice, gentle, beneficial rainfall (in contrast to our usual summer deluges) and, in spite of recent flooding elsewhere in the region, our area has been relatively dry over the past couple of weeks. The rain let up around 8:30am, and I headed out on the road bike just before 9. It was my first ride to work in two weeks. I got to check out the newly-reopened Grist Mill Trail in PVSP. The trail had been closed since last October to replace two bridges which had been washed away by floods in 2018. The trail was originally scheduled to be closed for a year, but reopened after 9 months. The new bridges look great. I was able to see some of the work in progress as I biked by on the other side of the river, during the winter when the leaves were off the trees. Based on the size of the drilling rig they used for the footings, I’d say the bridges should withstand any future flooding. Most of the trail has been repaved as well. I only rode as far west as the second bridge, but next time, I’ll ride all the way out to Ilchester Rd.

Today’s Second Cup

lpaulriddle

I opened another new bag of beans to brew a mid-afternoon cup. These beans are from Amity Coffee Roasters in Greenwood, DE.

  • Beans: “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast (Mexico)
  • Grind: Fine – 1.5 turns on the JX minus 6 clicks, or 39 total clicks
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 200 grams water (1:13.3)
  • One new paper filter (dry)
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe (20 second pour, 2 minute steep, swirl, wait 30 seconds, press 30 seconds)

This is a slightly finer grind than I’ve used with medium roasted beans in the past. Also different is that I only used one filter, and I did not wet it. This was probably the best cup of coffee I’ve brewed in a couple of weeks! Always great to hit on a good recipe. I may try these same tweaks with my “La Esparanza” beans, as the last cup I brewed with them seemed a little under-extracted for some reason.

Random notes

lpaulriddle

Still experimenting with the light roast coffee beans I picked up the other day in Bethany. This was an improvement over yesterday:

  • Local Coffee Roasting Co. Breakfast Blend (Guatemala/Colombia)
  • 11 grams coffee, ground at 39 clicks on the JX (1.5 turns minus 6 clicks)
  • 200 grams water at full boil (1:18.1)
  • Two paper filters
  1. 20 second pour
  2. Steep 2 minutes
  3. Take off scale and swirl
  4. Wait 30 seconds
  5. Press 30 seconds

Compared to yesterday, this was ground slightly finer (39 vs 42 clicks) and poured right off the boil, instead of 99°C. Arguably not much of a difference there, but I suspect that due to heat loss, this gives an actual steeping temperature close to 99°, which is what the Hoffmann recipe calls for. The cup definitely had more flavor than yesterday’s. Just to make sure I’m extracting these beans as much as I can, I may try drawing the brew time out a little longer, and see if I can get it to the point where I start to taste some bitterness. At that point I’ll back off the brew time a little bit, and see if the cup is as strong as I would like. It’s worth noting that the instructions on the bag of beans specify a 1:17 ratio, which is slightly more coffee than I’m using here.

I got out at around 6:40 this morning and ran 5.3 miles. I felt a little better than I did Sunday. I woke up slightly sore after climbing yesterday evening and swimming yesterday afternoon, and wasn’t initially sure I wanted to go out, but once I get moving, I felt fine. Climbing went well last night. I climbed 4 routes on lead and 4 on top rope, at grades ranging from 5.8 to 5.10+. It was my first time leading in about a month. Lead climbing is one of those things you have to keep doing regularly to stay comfortable and confident on the wall.

This and that..

lpaulriddle

On July 6, I noted some recent issues with tightness in my right calf, which has been a recurring issue with me. I’ve suspected that poor kicking form while swimming freestyle and backstroke might contribute to this. I did not swim at all while we were on vacation last week, and had no tightness issues for the entire week. However, I’m noticing that a little bit of tightness is back today, also in the right calf, and I have not yet been in the pool. It just occurred to me that both days I’ve had the issues were right after I took long drives. On July 4, we took a 6-hour day trip to Pennsylvania, and yesterday was a 4-hour(!) drive home from Bethany. My right leg, of course, is the side I use for the accelerator pedal. Could there be a connection here?

While at the shore, I picked up a few half-pound bags of coffee beans, including some light roast (breakfast blend) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE. Today was my first foray into brewing anything lighter than medium roast in the AeroPress. I followed the James Hoffmann recipe pretty closely:

  • 11 grams coffee, ground at 42 clicks on the JX (1.5 turns minus 3 clicks)
  • 200 grams water at 99°C (1:18.1)
  • Two paper filters
  1. 20 second pour
  2. Steep 2 minutes
  3. Take off scale and swirl
  4. Wait 30 seconds
  5. Press 30 seconds

The end result was OK, but lacking in flavor, which tells me I’m probably not getting enough extraction from the beans. In his video, Hoffmann recommends adjusting either the grind size or the water temperature to address this, instead of upping the amount of coffee, which you might do with a darker roast. Next time, I may try going a little bit finer with the grind, and possibly heating the kettle water to a full boil and pouring directly off that.

Ride notes

lpaulriddle

It’s our first day back from Bethany, and while I usually go in to the office on Mondays, I decided to telecommute today so that I could take care of a few post-vacation chores around the house. In lieu of my usual bike ride to and from work, I decided to ride a quick loop around the airport this morning, something I had not done on a weekday in a couple of years. Traffic was not all that bad, probably partially because it’s summer. Ridge Rd still seems to carry less traffic than Race Rd and Hanover Rd, at least for now, as I have a feeling that it is going to be getting more developed in the coming years. There’s already a monstrous townhouse development going up just south of the 295 overpass, although that does not seem to have impacted traffic all that much, at least at the times of day that I pass through. Until it becomes unpleasant to ride, Ridge Rd will continue to be my go-to weekday route to and from Elkridge. The BWI loop itself seemed quieter than the last time I rode it on a weekday, which (I believe) was in 2021 — still during the peak of COVID. Including a quick detour to find a cache in a business park along Aviation Blvd., my total distance today was a little over 23 miles. The weather was in the 70s with a dewpoint in the mid-60s, which felt downright pleasant after spending a week at the coast. I rode my Surly Disc Trucker. My next ride will likely be to work on Wednesday, and if it stays dry, I may try to take my mountain bike.

Run notes

lpaulriddle

I kind of knew that today wasn’t going to be the greatest run of my life. It was a good run in the sense that it happened at all, as today was our last day in the beach house, and we had to be out by 10:00am. I knew that if I was going to run, I was going to have to get out really early. I figured that if I woke up early enough, I’d go, and if not, I wouldn’t. The Powers that Be must have wanted me to run, because I was out of bed at 5:30 after 6 hours of sleep. I wolfed down a couple of sausage patties and potato pancakes, drank a little bit of water, suited up, and got out of the house just after 6, before any other adults in the house were moving. I went 5.4 miles at a rather plodding pace. My energy did not feel the greatest this morning, and I’m wondering if I was starting to get a little bit dehydrated after 7 extremely humid days here. It could also have been lack of sleep, or a combination of the two. I am glad that I got out, though, because it keeps me on schedule for the week. My next run likely will be Tuesday morning, and it will also have to be an early, short one, as I have to leave for an appointment at around 8.