This afternoon’s cup:
- Beans: “Brazil Yellow Bourbon” medium roast
- Roaster: Vitality Roasting (Minneapolis, MN)
- Roast date: 9/20/2023
- 20 grams coffee,
280260 grams water (1:141:13 ratio) - French press
- Gooseneck kettle
- Preheat French press
- Heat brew water to 99°C
- Coarse grind (JX setting 30, or 3 rotations)
- Start timer and pour at the same time
- 60 second bloom (including pour time)
- Stir a few seconds until grounds settle
- Steep 6 minutes, plunge, and pour
This was a much better cup than yesterday’s. I kept everything the same, except I started with hotter water, and I remembered to preheat the French press. The result was a more robust, better extracted brew. I feel like it could have been a little bit stronger, so maybe 1:13 will be the sweet spot. The pourovers I’ve been making with these beans have been a little bit lackluster recently, so I may stick with the French press until I use them up.
In totally unrelated news, I was amazed with how quickly I bounced back from the COVID booster I got yesterday afternoon. The only symptoms I had were minor body aches last night and this morning, which disappeared after I took some Ibuprofen. This is in contrast to all of my previous shots, after which I had 24 to 36 hours of flu-like symptoms (aches, chills, shakes, fatigue, slightly elevated temperature). None of that this time around. The big difference: my past shots were all Moderna, and yesterday’s was Pfizer. I guess I must tolerate the Pfizer vaccine better.
10/5: Brewed again. Kept everything the same, except I reduced the water to 260g for a 1:13 ratio. This seemed like a good strength. I have enough beans left to brew about 3 more cups, and may just do all of them like this.
10/9: Used the beans up this afternoon. I had 26g left, so I used 338g of water (1:13). I believe this was the best cup I’ve gotten with them using this method. I didn’t do anything differently, so I wonder if it had something to do with the larger volume of water. I’m also wondering if the speed and/or length of time of stirring makes any difference in the finished product.