Day: October 24, 2023

Biking Report

lpaulriddle

I had originally planned to go kayaking this morning, but it was a little too cold for me to feel like venturing out, even with a wet suit. The forecast is showing a warming trend for the second half of the week into the weekend, so I may try to make something happen later in the week, although my schedule is a little tight. We’ll see. In lieu of kayaking, I decided to take a mid-morning bike ride around the airport loop. A geocache puzzle I solved this morning provided extra motivation, as the final cache location wasn’t far off the BWI Trail. This ride is a 23-24 mile round trip from home, which is about the same length as my round-trip commute to and from work. It was my first road ride in 8 days, and my first time riding my single speed bike in at least a couple of months. I used to commute with this bike regularly, but it does not have an easy way to mount a rack and panniers. Back in the day, I used a rack that clamped to my seat post, which I think I still have, but I was never a big fan of it. I suppose I’ll have to break down and use a backpack if I want to re-introduce this bike to my commuting rotation. But, I’m going off on a tangent.

The timing for today’s ride worked out well. I left after all of the area schools had started, and returned home before they let out. Traffic was manageable. Going forward, I’d like to try to work these kinds of rides into my schedule more often on weekdays, especially during times of the year when I’m only going to the office once a week. In particular, I think it’ll allow me to get out on my mountain bike more often during the winter months. On days when trail conditions are bad, I can do something similar to what I did today, either looping the airport, or maybe riding out to Columbia and logging a few miles on the CA paths.

Rise Up Migration Pourover

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Migration” light roast (Nicaragua)
    • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast date: 10/5/2023
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. Preheat V60, pre-moisten filter, add coffee, and tare scale
  2. Make small indentation in center of coffee grounds
  3. 0:00: Pour 60g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 120g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 180g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 240g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 300g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 2:45

This was the other bag I picked up in Ocean City, along with yesterday’s. The same recipe as yesterday’s produced a pleasant cup. These are rather large beans, and I ended up with about the same amount of “fines” in the grinder as I did yesterday. I brewed another 300g cup, mainly for comparison with yesterday’s. I think 300g is about the most coffee I can brew with either of these beans at 1:15 without overflowing my size 1 V60. Regardless, I’ll likely drop back to 250g going forward, as 300g is a little bit more than I want to drink most mornings.

11/12: The past few cups I’ve brewed have had kind of an off flavor to them. Can’t really pin it down as bitter or acidic, but whatever it was, I didn’t like it. These are large beans that leave a prodigious amount of “fines” stuck to the grinder, and for some reason, I had gotten into the habit of shaking/tapping the grinder to try to get as many of the fines as possible into the dripper. I suspect it was in the interest of not “wasting” anything, but I’m not sure why it didn’t immediately occur to me that this was going to negatively impact the flavor. Today, I brewed the above recipe with 250g of water (50g pulses) and 16g coffee (1:15.6) and did not shake the grinder at all, and the cup was much better. I think I will keep doing this going forward.

11/18: I brewed my remaining 27g of beans today with 400g of water. I used my 1-cup pourover method with size 2 plastic V60 and pulses of 80g water. Turned out quite good. After grinding, I’ve been gently shaking the grinder once or twice to make sure all the beans made it through, and then lightly tapping the bottom of the grinder 3 or 4 times without going overboard. This seems to get most of the properly-ground beans “unstuck” while leaving most of the “fines” behind. I’ve also been “swirling” pretty regularly lately, both pre-bloom and after finishing the pour.