Author: lpaulriddle

Afternoon Report

lpaulriddle

The “AC Loss” issue with our new alarm panel seems to be resolved, at least for now. After reprogramming the last few zones in the system, I unplugged the system and let it run on battery for several minutes. Then, I swapped out the old Ademco 4300 X-10 transformer, replacing it with the transformer that came with the new panel. When I plugged it back in, the AC Loss condition cleared up. I have a hard time believing that the transformer was the issue. I read the panel voltage across terminals 1 and 2 with both transformers, and it was exactly the same — about 16.7 volts AC. Maybe the panel was just in a confused state, and needed an actual AC power loss and recovery to “reset” itself. However, the problem did persist through several power cycles (although I’m not sure I ran the panel on battery at any point). The only way to find out for sure would be to swap the old transformer back in, and see if the problem returns. However, since it’s working now, I’m inclined to leave it alone.

I decided to try doubling my cold brew recipe this afternoon. I put 2 slightly heaping scoops of Wellsley Farms breakfast blend into the (inverted) AeroPress, added room temperature filtered water up to near the top, stirred for 1 minute, and pressed. Then, I split the concentrated coffee equally into two tumblers, topped them up to roughly 8 ounces, and added ice and a couple drops of stevia to each glass. The extra coffee made it a little bit harder to press, but it turned out just fine. I couldn’t tell any difference from my single cup recipe. The next time I do this, I may measure the total amount of water per glass more carefully, then press into a carafe or pitcher instead of directly into a tumbler.

This and that

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I had hoped to take a bike ride this morning, but ended up sleeping until almost 9:00. It was probably just as well, as it’s very hot and humid today, and would have been a rather sweaty ride. The reason for my oversleeping was that we got a call around midnight from our alarm monitoring company because of a “trouble” condition. Turns out that the newer Vista panels have “trouble” reporting enabled by default, while the older ones didn’t, and I didn’t think to turn it off when I programmed the new panel. Earlier in the evening, I had popped the cover off one of the wireless contacts to check the battery, which caused the zone to go into “trouble”. I’m not sure why the alarm company called at the time they did, but it does confirm that reporting is working! The panel is still showing “AC Loss” this morning, in spite of the power being just fine. When I get to messing with it again, I’ll try unplugging it, running it on battery for a few minutes, and plugging it back in, to see if it resets. If not, I may try swapping out the transformer, and if none of that works, I’ll contact the alarm company.

The pool SWG is still reading an abnormally high temperature today. At least it’s consistent. When I get to messing with that, I’ll try re-seating the tri-sensor cable and see if it corrects itself. I may also pull the tri-sensor itself out of the manifold and take a look at it. If none of that works, I’ll test it with the tri-sensor simulator to narrow down the source of the problem, and contact my Autopilot dealer to see what he recommends. This is a rather easy issue to work around, either by calibrating the temperature reading down, lowering the Chlorine output, or turning off the setting that automatically adjusts the output based on the water temperature. Assuming I can’t fix this easily, I’m inclined to ride it out for the rest of this season, and buy any needed replacement parts over the winter.

I brewed yesterday’s dark roast coffee recipe again today, exactly the same way, except I used 180g of water instead of 200g. Truth be told, I didn’t notice much of a difference from yesterday. It was a pleasant cup of dark roast. I have enough beans to make 7 or 8 more cups, and I’m probably just going to be boring and stick with this recipe until they’re gone.

Broken stuff

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The abnormally-high temperature reading on my pool’s SWG that I noticed 10 days ago is back. This morning, it was reading 94°F when the actual water temperature was 80°F. The reading was consistently about 14-15° too high every time I checked today, all the way up until 7:00 or so, when I went out to swim. I’m going to try disconnecting and re-seating the cable that connects the tri-sensor to the controller, and I’ll take a look at the contacts to see if they’re dirty or oxidized. Maybe it’s just a bad connection. I went ahead and ordered a tri-sensor simulator, which is a little widget that plugs into the controller and generates a fixed temperature, salt, and flow reading. If cleaning and re-seating the cable doesn’t do the trick, then I can use the simulator to determine whether the problem is with the tri-sensor or the controller.

In other news, we are preparing to get rid of our landline phone service, but before we can do that, I have to convert our security system to use cellular and/or internet monitoring. The problem is, the panel’s firmware was too old to work with the new communicator, and to make a long story short, I had to swap out the entire panel. It’s kind of amazing that the panel is still in production, and is practically identical to the version that was produced 21 years ago when I originally installed it. All I had to do was move all the wires over and then reprogram the new panel (a tedious, but not difficult, job). That was today’s project. Now, the weird thing: the new panel works perfectly, except for one thing: for some reason, it thinks it doesn’t have AC power. The alpha keypad flashes “AC LOSS”, and the fixed keypad says “NO AC”. This is normally what it does during a power outage, when it’s running off the battery. Get this, though: it does this even with the battery disconnected. So, if it doesn’t have AC, I don’t know how it can possibly be working. Induction? Hamsters? Who knows. The voltage from the transformer is fine: I read 16 volts AC at the transformer itself and the connection terminals on the panel. I’m wondering if maybe I can just ignore this, as everything seems to be working, but I’m concerned that it may not be charging the battery. If it’s not, I’ll find out in the next few days once the battery runs down. As a last resort, I may try unplugging the panel to simulate an actual “NO AC” condition, and seeing if maybe it resets itself when I plug it back in. But I’m not holding my breath, as the problem has persisted through several power cycles. I’m also going to reread the manual and see if there’s anything I missed with the initial setup. If all else fails, I’ll contact my alarm company, and see if they have any ideas.

Run Notes

lpaulriddle

The good news this morning was that I got out early for my run, as it’s forecast to be 92 today with high humidity. The bad news is that I only got around 4.5 hours of sleep. I woke up around 2-2:30 and couldn’t settle back in. In spite of that, the run wasn’t bad. When I initially went outside at 6:30, it felt less oppressive than I had been expecting. I ran 6.8 miles at a rather slow pace, but felt pretty good throughout. I feel like I have been doing a good job lately with keeping my cadence up in varying conditions. The weather slowly warmed up as the sun rose, but there was more shade due to the low sun angle, and it was still fairly tolerable out when I finished the run at 8:00. I can’t complain, especially for being short on sleep.

5am Darkness

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Woke up early today, and for a change, I got moving instead of lounging around in bed on the computer. I decided to try a different AeroPress recipe this morning.

  • Beans: Lost Dog “Mocha Sidamo” Ethiopian dark roast
  • JX: 2.5 turns (75 total clicks, or 25 on the grind chart)
  • 80°C water
  • 13 grams coffee / 200 grams water (1:15.4)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Recipe: “Basikairoo” (inverted: add 50g water, swirl aggressively for 3s, top up to 200g starting at 1:00, invert at 2:15, press for 30s starting at ~3:00)

I have no idea how this recipe got its name or what it means. My only deviation from the recipe was that I slightly overshot the initial 50g of water, and ended up with 55g (which probably made no difference) and I used slightly less total water than the 210g that is called for.

This made a pretty good cup! 80°C is the lowest temperature I’ve brewed with to date (other than cold brew). The nice thing about the AeroPress is that it brews more quickly than the French press, so the water doesn’t lose as much heat. When I brewed single cups with these beans in the French press at 85°, they were never quite warm enough. This cup was at a good drinking temperature right after pressing. It seemed well extracted, with no bitter or sour flavors. It was neither too weak nor too strong. I may try it with slightly less water (180g) to see if I get a bolder tasting cup, but it’s perfectly fine as-is.

La Esparanza

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I used up the last of my Lost Dog medium/medium-dark blend beans today, and they have left me with more questions than answers. I thought I had them dialed in with this recipe, but I brewed it twice today identically to yesterday (scaled up slightly for the second cup because I had 17g of coffee left), and both cups turned out bitter. The taste was very similar to the cups I brewed a few days ago when I skipped the bloom phase. The most consistent thing about brewing these beans was the inconsistent cups I got with seemingly-identical recipes. One day, it would be the best coffee I ever tasted in my life; the next day, it would be weak; and the next, it would be bitter. I have no idea why, but the beans are gone now, so I guess I’ll never know. All I can do is move on to the next bag I want to use up, which is my “Mocha Sidamo” dark roast. By my estimate, I have enough of that for 8-10 cups, depending on how strong I make it. I’m thinking about starting with around a 1:10 ratio with a rather coarse grind and a brewing temperature of 85-90 Celsius. I’ll also try making some cold brew with them. These are single-origin beans, so I’m curious if I’ll get more consistent results with them. However, they are about 3 months old, so I’m a little concerned that they might not be so fresh any more. I’ll find out tomorrow.

Late Run

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I went to the Orioles game last night, and didn’t get back until after 11. As a result, I slept until 7:30, and didn’t get out for my run until almost 10, which is really late for this time of year. Luckily, while it was humid as ever, the thick cloud cover kept the temperatures cooler than they ordinarily would be by late morning in August. So, I could have picked a worse day to get a late start. I set out to run 10K. About 3.5 miles in, I started feeling a tiny bit under the weather, and thought I might have to cut it short. Luckily, it was just a brief abdominal issue that went away after a few minutes, and I was able to complete the full distance. It was not a bad run for mid August.

Coffee: I’m still using up the last of my “La Esparanza” medium/medium dark blend. I brewed this recipe twice today. I’d rate cup #1 a 3.5 out of 5, and cup #2 a 4.5 out of 5. The only difference was that in between the cups, I put a new water filter in our Brita pitcher, and I reused the same AeroPress filter for cup #2. I wonder if some of the taste variation between cups is because I’m brewing a blend of two different roasts, and with each cup, I’m getting a slightly different ratio of medium-roasted beans to dark-roasted beans. The way to test that theory would be to use single-origin beans and see if the results are any more consistent from cup to cup (assuming all other variables stay the same). This will be interesting to try.

Morning ride

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Nice morning for a ride today, even if it was just a garden-variety commute to work. It’s my second day in the office this week, which has been the exception more so than the rule this summer, in spite of intentions. Weather, holidays, and vacations (mainly weather) have kept me home on a lot of Mondays. Weather once again threatened this past Monday, but held off until I got home, and I made it to the climbing gym in time to ride out the crazy storms. Different story today, with pleasant weather (for August) and no storms predicted. Both of my commutes this week have been on the road, as the trails have been a little too wet for mountain biking.

On the coffee front, I brewed yesterday’s recipe with the same beans this morning, and the cup was fine, but not quite as good as yesterday’s. I noticed some dripping while it was steeping, and when I flipped the AeroPress, I saw that it was because I had inserted the plunger a little bit crooked. Also, the filter paper was used once (for yesterday’s cup). I can’t really see where either of those things would affect the finished product. All the same, I’ll eliminate those variables the next time I brew this, which will be either late this afternoon, or tomorrow morning. I have enough of the beans left to make 4 more cups, and I’m hoping at least one of them is as good as yesterday’s.

Bloom

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Lost Dog “La Esparanza” medium/medium dark blend
  • JX: 2.5 turns (75 total clicks, or 25 on the grind chart)
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 180 grams water (1:12)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Recipe: 13g that makes you happy (inverted: add 35g water, stir to moisten grounds, top up to 180g at 0:30, stir gently 10x, flip at 1:30 and press very slowly, finishing at 2:30)

I thought I could get cute and eliminate the bloom phase of this recipe, but the result was two very bitter cups of coffee. For my afternoon cup today, I went back to following the recipe, again using 2 additional grams of coffee (as I’ve been doing with these beans) and proportionally more bloom water. The result was an almost perfect cup. I kind of get why the bloom is so important with pour-over, but I’m surprised that it made such a big difference with an AeroPress recipe, given that it doesn’t seem to matter much with the French press, and they’re both immersion brewing methods. Well, you learn something new every day. At any rate, I probably have enough of these beans left for 5 or 6 more cups, and I’ll probably stick with this recipe until they’re gone.

Tomorrow’s Brew

lpaulriddle

Thinking about trying this:

  • Beans: Lost Dog “La Esparanza” medium/medium dark blend
  • JX: 2 turns less 6 clicks (54 total clicks, or 18 on the grind chart)
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 180 grams water (1:12)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Inverted: Add water and make sure all grounds get wet as quickly as possible / steep until :30 / stir for 5s / steep until 1:30 / slow press

This keeps the same ratio and water temperature as last time, but uses a finer grind and simplifies the recipe by eliminating the separate bloom. I’m trying to aim for a French press style cup that doesn’t take as long to brew. We’ll see how it turns out..

Verdict: I have finally managed to brew bitter coffee with the AeroPress! At least I now know that it’s possible. I think my first modification will be to try grinding a little bit coarser.

8/8 update: Brewed again with a coarser setting: 2.5 turns/25 on the grind chart, and it did not make any noticeable difference. The cup was still very bitter tasting. At this grind setting, I’m brewing essentially the same thing as two days ago, minus the initial 30g pour and bloom step. So, apparently, that step must make a big difference.