Author: lpaulriddle

Zeke’s Colombia Cold Brew

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Colombia Sierra Nevada” medium-light roast
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 9/6/2023
  • 14g coffee / 230g water (around 1:16)
  • JX: 2 rotations less 6 clicks (18 on the grind chart / 54 total clicks)
  1. Set AeroPress up in inverted orientation with plunger inserted about 1cm, and add coffee.
  2. Fill AeroPress to within about 1cm of the top with room temperature, filtered water.
  3. Start timer and stir vigorously for 1 minute.
  4. Flip AeroPress and press gently into an 8-ounce tumbler.
  5. Add a drop or two of stevia and stir.
  6. Add 2 or 3 ice cubes to chill.

This is the same recipe I’ve brewed in the past when using whole beans to make cold brew in the AeroPress, except I used a little bit less coffee. I also measured the amount of water I used for the first time, just for my own enlightenment. It ended up being about 230g, or roughly 1:16. I only had a few sips of this glass. It was on par with the other glasses of cold brew I’ve made with freshly ground coffee, which is to say, a step up from using good quality pre-ground coffee, but not leaps-and-bounds better. I think I’d be best served by getting a bag of pre-ground to make cold brew, and saving these beans to make pourovers.

Ophelia Run

lpaulriddle

We have a tropical system meandering through the area this weekend, so things are a bit windy and rainy. It looks like this one is going to pass south of us before heading out to sea. Right now, we are just getting effects from the outer bands of circulation, which means there are a lot of breaks in the rain. I took advantage of one of those breaks to head out for my Saturday run. I went 10.01 miles at an average pace of 10:20/mile, making it my fastest 10-miler so far. The run was mostly rain-free except for a 15-minute shower at around mile 8. Temperatures were in the upper 50s. It was the first time I ran in long sleeves (plus a rain jacket) since probably last spring. As I had expected, my Vibram V-Runs and toe socks got pretty waterlogged. In spite of that, my watch reported my average cadence at 189 SPM. I’m not sure I buy that, but if it’s accurate, I’ll take it. However, my toes were beginning to get cold at the end of the run, and likely would have gotten uncomfortably cold and/or numb had it been any cooler out. I’m likely going to have to reconsider my footwear choices in these cases. I’m hoping my new pair of Xero HFS, plus wool socks, will be warmer than the Vibrams in dry weather, but I doubt they will keep my feet dry if it’s raining. I’m sure my waterproof Altra Lone Peaks would do the job, but they’re a bit on the heavy side.

Vitality Brazil Pourover

lpaulriddle

I’m back home from Minneapolis with a new 12-ounce bag of coffee beans. This was the first time I flew with a bag of beans in my carry-on, and when I unpacked, all of the air had been sucked out of the bag through the little plastic valve, almost like the beans had been vacuum packed. When I opened the bag, air rushed in and everything went back to “normal”. I was worried that this phenomenon might spoil the beans or otherwise negatively affect things, but it did not seem to. It did inspire me to do some reading and learn why the bags have those one-way valves. It’s to let the beans out-gas after roasting, while keeping air out so they stay fresh. I’m learning more every day!

This morning’s cup:

  • Beans: “Brazil Yellow Bourbon” medium roast
    • Roaster: Vitality Roasting (Minneapolis, MN)
    • Roast date: 9/20/2023
  • 18g coffee / 250g water (1:14)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 95°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 55g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 2:45

The only brewing note is that (once again) I forgot the initial swirl at step 4. I remembered around the end of step 5, and gave it a half-hearted swirl then. I made sure to level the bed before I started pouring (I’m pretty good with that) and I ended up with a mostly-level bed of spent grounds at the end. I’m not sure how much the swirling actually matters in most cases, but I’ll keep doing it when I remember.

This cup tasted excellent. The beans are very fresh, which I’m sure didn’t hurt. I’d been drinking mediocre conference coffee for the past week, so the bar was admittedly low, but I’d rank this among the better cups I’ve had since I’ve been brewing with the V60.

9/24: Second cup today. Did the swirl at step 4. Overshot the final pour and ended up with 252-253 grams of water. It seemed like the water percolated more slowly than yesterday. The level in the V60 was higher than usual after steps 7 and 8. Drawdown took several seconds longer, finishing at roughly 3:00. Maybe I swirled a little too aggressively? The initial sips tasted slightly thin, but the rest of the cup was very good. If yesterday’s cup was a 10, I’d call this a 9.

9/26: Accidentally ground finer today (setting 18) and also used 17g coffee instead of 18g. Did not like the results. Body was OK, but flavor was bitter.

9/27: Tried a little bit coarser today at grind setting 22, and 18g coffee. The first thing I noticed was that the drawdown was faster, finishing at 2:40-2:45. Definitely a better cup than yesterday’s, with decent body and no bitterness, but room for improvement. I think I’ll keep this grind setting tomorrow and try nudging the water temperature a little closer to boiling. While (with the exception of yesterday) all of the cups I’ve brewed have been good, none of the subsequent cups have been quite as good as the first one, which tells me that bean freshness (and possibly how they are stored) makes a big difference.

9/28: Brewed exactly the same as yesterday, except I nudged the water from 95°C to 97°C. I did not notice any discernible difference from yesterday’s cup. Probably should have gone straight to 99 or boiling. Not sure if I’ll tweak further next time, or just keep brewing it like this.

9/29: Brewed at 99 and grind setting 22 today and the result was bitter and lacked flavor. This is definitely moving in the wrong direction, so I will adjust the temperature back downward next time.

I’m not sure why the first two pourovers I made were really good, but subsequent cups didn’t quite measure up. I wonder if it had something to do with bean freshness. I probably could have gotten it dialed back in, but ended up brewing the rest of the beans in the French press, which worked out pretty well.

Run notes

lpaulriddle

I took my first run in 4 days today. I am in Minneapolis for the week, and if everything works out, I hope to take a run on Thursday as well. Today, I ran north from my hotel about a mile to the Mississippi River, where there are numerous walking/running and biking paths. I ran just over 10K, crossing the river twice, before stopping to do some geocaching. The caching involved probably about a mile of walking, and I finished up by running another mile back to the hotel. I obviously love running, and I also love caching while traveling, but I hate stopping during runs, which often puts the two activities at odds. Today worked out great — I ran an uninterrupted 10K, then backtracked a bit and found caches along the route I just ran. I ran back to the hotel mainly to save time, so I wouldn’t be late to my first conference session. By then, I had cooled off considerably, and as a result, I felt a little bit sluggish. It did get me a little bit of extra running distance, though. I really like the trails around the river here (and there are more caches to be found), so I’ll likely run here again on Thursday.

Run Notes

lpaulriddle

Beautiful, fall-like morning today, with temperatures in the high 50s and low humidity. I skipped my morning run yesterday in favor of paddling, and won’t have another opportunity until Monday at the earliest, so I headed out this morning in lieu of my usual Friday climbing. Not only was the weather nice, but Howard County schools were out as well, so things were quieter than usual in the neighborhood. I went 10.16 miles, besting my personal best distance by about a tenth of a mile. It was only my 4th run over 10 miles, and it was my fastest, at 10:53/mile, which is almost 30 seconds faster per mile than my second fastest of 11:22. It’s kind of ironic that most of my speed PRs, today included, came when I was not consciously trying to go fast. I was just trying to maintain a comfortable pace with a high cadence, and it worked out great, with a definite assist from the weather. If I do try to go fast, it seems like I start out going too fast and then poop out early, ending up with a slower average pace overall. The run was pretty good comfort-wise, with just some fatigue in my feet towards the end. I suspect that will abate somewhat as I my feet get more acclimated to running these distances.

Zeke’s Colombia Pourover

lpaulriddle

I went through my last half-pound bag of coffee beans in only 9 days, of which I drank all but two of the cups. So, if we assume that I average 1.5 cups a day, and Cathy has an occasional glass of cold brew, I can expect to use up a pound every three weeks or so. Today, I opened a new 1-pound bag:

  • Beans: “Colombia Sierra Nevada” medium-light roast
    • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast date: 9/6/2023
  • 16g to 17g coffee / 250g water (1:15.6 to 1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 96°C 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 50g to 60g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
    • 16g coffee → 50-55g water; 17g coffee → 55-60g water
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 2:45

The local grocery store has a pretty good selection of Zeke’s Coffee, all in 1-pound bags. I chose this one partly because it’s single-origin, and I’m looking to get a sense for how some of these taste so I can figure out what regions I prefer. Zeke’s labels their roasts on an 8-point scale, and this one is graded 3 out of 8, so I’m calling it medium-light. I used the same recipe as yesterday and the day before, with just a tiny bit hotter water. It seems like it was a good starting point, as the cup was pretty good, although I suspect there’s room for a little bit of improvement. I may try my next cup with boiling water, just to see if it brings out any different flavors.

9/16: Brewed this again with water just under boil (99°C) and I do think I preferred it to yesterday’s. Flavor-wise, it was a little bit reminiscent of my most recent bag of light roast beans, which makes sense, because that was a blend that also included beans from Colombia. It will be several days before I brew this again, but I’ll likely stick with this recipe when I do. I also recently found an interesting AeroPress recipe that I’m curious to check out. The science behind it seems pretty sound, so I’m wondering if it’ll address the issues I’ve been having with weak AeroPress brews.

9/23: Brewed again this afternoon, everything the same as 9/16. It was well extracted, and the flavor was fantastic. If I were to nitpick, it might have been ever so slightly on the strong side, but that’s a good problem to have. I bet I could get away with using a little bit less coffee. Maybe try with 16 grams next time?

9/24: Brewed this evening with 16 grams of coffee and 50 grams initial bloom water. Kept everything else the same. Gets a thumbs up. It was a little bit less strong, but still robust and full-bodied. I might stick with this ratio for a while, unless I’m in the mood to make it stronger (more likely in the morning than the evening 😀).

Interesting note about these beans: after grinding them, there’s less fine “dust” left over in the grinder than with any other of the beans I’ve ground to date. Not sure why that is, or whether it’s considered “good” or “bad”, although I suspect I’ll learn at some point. For now, it’s just an interesting observation.

9/26: For the second time today, I forgot to reset my grind setting after brewing cold brew yesterday, and ended up grinding the beans finer than with my prior cups. I used 16g coffee with a grind setting of either 16 or 18. There was not much difference with the brewing process: very little fine dust left in the grinder, and the V60 drained down at around 2:40. The flavor was definitely different, but not in the way I would have expected. It had a little bit less body and a much more prominent fruity/cherry overtone. While it wasn’t bad, It was decidedly better balanced at the original grind setting of 20, so I’ll definitely be going back to that. Intentional or not, though, It’s always good to learn more about how various tweaks affect the flavor of the coffee.

9/29: Decided to make a larger cup of this “to go” today. I went back to a grind setting of 20, used 20 grams of coffee to 300 grams of water (1:15), and poured in 5 “pulses” of 60g each (vs 50). This worked fine with my size 1 V60 and my 12-ounce Hydro Flask mug, and tasted the same as the numerous 250g cups I’ve brewed. I seem to get pretty consistently good cups out of these beans.

10/2: Have brewed larger cups of this (per 9/29) several times now and they have all been pretty consistently good, but this afternoon’s seemed a little bit better than the others. Same water temperature, same grind size, same ratio, same recipe, etc., except this time I did not swirl the V60 at all. Instead, I rotated it a little bit between each interval, because I noticed that the area closest to where I was holding the kettle looked like it wasn’t getting as much water as the rest. Don’t know if that was the difference maker, but I’m going to try it again next time to see.

10/18: Used up the last of these today. Somehow, I ended up with 29 grams of beans left, which was only enough for two really small cups or one really, really big cup. I opted for the latter, brewing all 29 grams with 435 grams of water for my usual 1:15 ratio. I was initially going to use the French press, but realized that I had already ground the beans too fine, so I stuck with the V60 recipe, and scaled the 5 “pulses” water up to 87 grams each. These beans generate very few “fines”, and the water drains through them quickly, so I had no issues with the dripper overflowing. Other beans might require a larger V60 for this quantity of coffee. The cup was pretty good. I didn’t notice a big difference from the smaller cups I’ve brewed. I would definitely buy these beans again, and probably will at some point.

Paddling Again

lpaulriddle

We finally got out paddling again this morning, for the first time since mid July. While I’m normally not a huge fan of paddling during the dog days of summer, most years I do get out at least once or twice through late July and August, so this year was a bit of an anomaly. In my opinion, September and October are the best months of the year for paddling in this area, but this September kicked off with a massive heat wave that was great for swimming in the pool, but not so great for paddling. Looks like the sweltering weather is behind us for now, so going forward, I’m hoping to get out about once a week, until it gets too cold.

Today brought us to Solley’s Cove Park in Anne Arundel County, where I have launched numerous times. It’s one of my “go to” places when I’m looking for something 20 minutes or less from home (if I recall, I took my last paddle of 2022 here). This used to be an unofficial “locals only” launch area that was accessible by parking at the nearby American Legion, and carrying the boats down a 100′-or-so path to a small sandy beach. That access point is still there, but a couple of years ago, the county built a public boat ramp, soft kayak launch, and parking area, which is a much nicer and more convenient place to launch. I suspect it’s more popular on weekends now, but it was very quiet on this pleasant, breezy Thursday morning. There are lots of places to paddle here, but today, we headed upstream to Furnace Creek, paddling all the way out past Rt 10, and continuing until it got too shallow. Our total distance was about 4.2 miles — not the longest paddle in the world, but enough to scratch the itch. I won’t be able to paddle next week, but hope to get out one morning the week of the 25th to paddle a little bit on the Patapsco River.

After-dinner brew

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Cold Brew Blend” medium roast (Guatemala/Colombia) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE
  • 17g coffee / 250g water (1:14.7)
  • JX: 2 rotations (20 on the grind chart / 60 total clicks)
  • Water at 95°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 55g of water to bloom, then return kettle to base
  4. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  5. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
    • Hold kettle for the remainder of the brewing process
  6. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  7. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  8. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  9. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  10. Drawdown finished around 2:45

This cup was just about perfect — full-flavored, well-balanced, and well-extracted. It’s the same recipe that I brewed a few days ago. I added a few extra details here to try to document what I did as closely as possible. I find that I really prefer holding the kettle over returning it to the base after each pour. It makes the whole process seem more smooth and fluid, and I doubt that it makes much difference with regards to the water temperature. It does make me wonder if the volume of water in the kettle has any effect on the resulting brew (the more water in the kettle, the greater its thermal mass, so the longer it will hold its temperature) but I think that’s getting to the point of splitting hairs.

I do wonder why all of my AeroPress brews lately have been weak. Everything I read says it’s because the coffee is ground too coarse, the water temperature is too low, the steep time is too short, etc., but I’ve tried adjusting all of those, and the brew is still weak. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong. I know it wouldn’t be weak if I brewed it at 1:10, but I feel like I shouldn’t have to — this evening’s pourover was fantastic at 1:15, and my French press cups are good at 1:13 to 1:14. To add to the confusion, it wasn’t too long ago that I was consistently brewing good cups in the AeroPress at 1:14, with different beans that are long gone now. I haven’t been able to replicate that success with any of my other beans. If I have to brew at 1:10, then I don’t see the point of using the AeroPress when I can get the same results with pourover using less coffee. I expect I’ll eventually sort this out, but in the meantime, it sure is vexing.

Latest AP Attempt

lpaulriddle

After a few days of dodging it, we finally got a significant, torrential rainstorm last night. It poured for a couple of hours and I suspect we got 2-3″ of rain (one of these days, I need to buy a rain gauge, so I’ll know for sure). It was the first real test for our new driveway trench drainage system, and it seemed to go fine, as we had no water in the basement except for wetness behind the bar, which is a known issue. In theory, the drain should keep a lot of water from reaching the sump pump on the east end of the house, so the pump should not run as often any more. In practice, the jury is still out. The pump still runs occasionally, but I need to hang around it for a while during a heavy rainstorm to get a better sense for how often it runs now. Last night, I rode the storm out in bed. This morning, I rode to work through Patapsco Valley State Park, and the only evidence of flooding I saw was on the road near the parking for Lost Lake and the Grist Mill trailhead, which is a common trouble spot. No issues on the trail itself — the new bridges seem to be working great. Overall, the trail (and the park in general) was in much better shape than it would have been a few years ago after a similar rainfall event.

Here was this morning’s AeroPress experiment:

  • Beans: “Cold Brew Blend” medium roast (Guatemala/Colombia) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE
  • JX: 2 turns minus 6 clicks (Grind setting 18)
  • 95°C water
  • 17 grams coffee / 220 grams water (1:13)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  1. Set AeroPress up in standard orientation and add coffee
  2. Add all water at once, spinning brewer to wet coffee while pouring, ending by around 0:10
  3. Stir several times
  4. Insert plunger, then pull up to create a vacuum
  5. At 1:15, remove the plunger and stir several times again
  6. Re-insert the plunger and press gently, finishing between 1:50 and 2:00

This recipe comes from stumptowncoffee.com, and is similar to the instructions that ship with the AeroPress. There are small, likely negligible differences in the amount of coffee and the water temperature, but the main difference is that this recipe adds a little bit of stirring right before pressing. I didn’t zero my scale until I had already poured a little bit of water, so the total volume may have been off a little bit, but I suspect not enough to really matter. I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record, but this brew was similar to the last several I’ve done in the AP: the flavor was fine, but the body was thin. The quest for fuller-bodied AeroPress coffee will continue, but I may take a break and go back to pourover for a little while.

Another Monday

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Cold Brew Blend” medium roast (Guatemala/Colombia) from Local Coffee Roasting Co. in Roxana, DE
  • JX: 2 turns plus 6 clicks (Grind setting 22)
  • 90°C water
  • 13 grams coffee / 180 grams water (about 1:14)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Recipe: 13g that makes you happy (inverted: add 30g water, stir 5x, top up to 180g at 0:30, stir 5x, flip at 1:30 and press very slowly, finishing at 2:30)

First stab at brewing a (hot) cup with these beans in the AeroPress. This is a recipe I’ve used quite a few times before, but recently, I’ve been using more coffee than the recipe calls for, in an effort to get richer-tasting cups. Based on my experience with pourover, I think there should be a way to achieve this without using so much coffee. Today, I went back to a 1:14 ratio, which is what the recipe calls for. According to my notes, I have previously used a JX grind setting of 24 or 25 (around 2.5 turns) every time I’ve brewed this recipe. For today’s cup, I went with 22, which is a lot finer, and similar to what I’ve been using for a lot of my pourovers. This cup was not bad overall — it still was not quite as rich as a pourover at the same ratio, but it wasn’t weak, either, and had no bitter or sour notes. One thing I have noticed with these inverted AeroPress recipes is that after steeping for a while and then flipping, a bunch of coffee grounds frequently end up stuck to the plunger. I could prevent this by briefly stirring right before flipping, or by flipping immediately after the initial stir and letting it steep in the “standard” orientation. I might try one or both of these next time, just to see if it makes any difference.

I had a fairly routine bike commute to the office this morning. I woke up at 5:30 to another pre-dawn deluge, but it cleared out of the area in time for me to get out of the house on time. I have found that 7:20 is the absolute latest I can get rolling if I don’t want to deal with foot and bus traffic for the nearby middle school. If it had rained much longer, I likely would have ended up telecommuting. The Patapsco River was running higher and faster than I had seen it all summer, and a lot of the little feeder streams were really raging. The areas to the west of us have gotten hammered with rain over the past few days, and this morning’s downpour hit those areas as well.

Update (9/12): I brewed the same AeroPress recipe again, slightly finer (grind setting 21) and I flipped right after filling to 180g and stirring. It made no discernible difference. If anything, it tasted slightly weaker — again, not unpleasant, just lacking in body. I did notice that, while the plunger started out clean, grounds started getting stuck to it as I was plunging. So, it appears that the issue isn’t that they get stuck there during steeping, but more so that they just accumulate there while plunging. Seems like this would be unavoidable, and given that the finished product wasn’t an improvement, there’s no need to use a different technique from the recipe. I may try one more AeroPress experiment with these beans (not sure exactly what yet) and then I’ll just switch back to pourover to use them up.