Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Category: Coffee

  • Gracefully Papua New Guinea

    Gracefully Papua New Guinea

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Papua New Guinea Nebilyer Valley A
      • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Origin: Papua New Guinea
      • Roast date: 02/20/2025
      • Purchase date: 02/21/2025 at Gracefully Curbside Cafe (2601 N Rolling Rd Ste 104, Windsor Mill, MD)
      • Elevation: 1350; Varietals: Bourbon, Typica; Process: Washed; Drying Process: patio drying
      • Tasting notes: extra dark chocolate, toffee, red apple
    • V60:

    I first brewed these with pretty typical settings: grind 3, 95C water, 60g pulses. The first couple of cups were good, but then I started getting sour/under-extracted cups. The beans draw down pretty quickly, finishing up at 2:30-2:35, which I’ve often found isn’t enough time to get everything fully extracted. In the past, when I’ve had beans like this, I’ve ended up going to an immersion brew with the AeroPress. However, at the moment, my AeroPress is at my office at UMBC. Rather than breaking out the French press, I decided to try modifying my V60 technique. Usually, I pour 5 “pulses” of 60g water, and finish pouring at 02:00. For this experiment, I tried pouring 6 “pulses” of 50g, finishing at 02:20. This kept water in the cone until around 03:00, theoretically allowing for more extraction.

    Did this make a difference? The jury is still out — this morning’s cup, brewed using the 50g pulse technique and 95C water, was still a little weak/sour. This afternoon, I bumped the water temperature to 98C, and also brushed out the grinder chute (there were a bunch of old grounds in there), and the cup turned out really good. Maybe I just need to get better with brushing the chute out more regularly? Who knows. As long as I’m getting good cups, I’m happy. Whatever the case, it seems like I have a technique I can use to vary the draw-down time with the V60. If I end up using it more often, I’ll update the recipe page.

  • Gracefully Clumsy Girl

    Gracefully Clumsy Girl

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Clumsy Girl
      • Roaster: Gracefully Coffee Roasters (Baltimore, MD)
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Origin: Brazil, Colombia, Ethiopia, Costa RIca
      • Roast date: 02/06/2025
      • Purchase date: 02/21/2025 at Gracefully Curbside Cafe (2601 N Rolling Rd Ste 104, Windsor Mill, MD)
    • V60:

    This was my first time visiting this small local roaster. I first had their coffee at Evergrain Bread Co. in Chestertown, and enjoyed it. I think it was this one, but there’s a small chance it was Jamberry, one of their other popular roasts. They don’t classify this in terms of “light, medium, or dark roast”, but visually, the beans look like what I would call a medium roast. This is a really good everyday kind of coffee- not overly complex, but with a lot of interesting character. There is a noticeable fruity twang to go along with a decent amount of body. Grind setting 4 worked well, for the most part. Finer than that brought out a touch of bitterness. My cups were pretty consistent up until the end of the bag, for some reason. My third-to-last cup was a little bit subpar, with a little less body to balance out the acidity. I brewed the penultimate cup with more water (about 425g), still at 1:15, and it was really excellent- maybe the best of all of them, actually. The final cup, though (back to 300g/1:15), really fell flat. It had a weak, dishwatery kind of taste. I suspect that I messed something up. It had been about 48 hours since I last used the grinder, so maybe there were enough stale grounds in there to foul things up? I’m not sure, but it’s not going to stop me from buying this again at some point. I’ll probably alternate between Gracefully and Brewing Good in Savage for a while, at least until I’ve tried several roasts from each.

  • Brewing Good Decaf Ethiopia

    Brewing Good Decaf Ethiopia

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Decaf Ethiopia,Sidama
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origin: Ethiopia (Arroresa, Sidama)
      • Roast level: Medium
      • Roast date: 1/26/2025
      • Purchase date: 2/9/2025 at BGCC in Savage Mill
      • Process: Washed; Varietals: Heirloom; Grade: 2; Elevation: 1850-2200 MASL
      • Tasting notes: Gentle brightness, medium body and sweetness, notes of spiced plum, crisp apple, almond, vanilla, and caramel
    • V60:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 2+2
      • Water at 95°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 36-40g bloom water – finishes 04:00-04:05

    This is very different from the Ethiopian light roast that I bought at BG at the same time. It is a smooth medium roast with no hint of acidity. Definitely not as complex as the light roast, but nice body and overall a very drinkable decaf. The beans have one of the slowest draw-down times of anything I’ve brewed with the V60, but none of the cups have tasted bitter or over-extracted. The recipe also works well doubled, but with the slow draw-down, I had to be careful not to overflow the size 2 V60. I’m sure I’ll eventually buy more of these.

  • Brewing Good Ethiopia Tega & Tula

    Brewing Good Ethiopia Tega & Tula

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Ethiopia (Tega & Tula Specialty Coffee Estate)
      • Roaster: Brewing Good Coffee Company (Savage, MD)
      • Origin: Ethiopia (Kaffa Zone, Limmu, Oromia)
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 1/22/2025
      • Purchase date: 2/9/2025 at BGCC in Savage Mill
      • Process: Washed; Varietal: Ethiopian heirloom; Elevation: 1500-2000 MASL
      • Tasting notes: Cocoa, spice, citrus notes with medium body and moderate acidity
    • V60:
      • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
      • Ode: 1+2
      • Water at 100°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 36-40g bloom water – finishes 02:50-03:00

    I’m finally getting around to checking out some of the smaller roasters around home. Savage Mill is only around 10 minutes away by car, and I occasionally bike right past it on my Sunday morning rides. Going forward, I’m going to try to put a few of these places into my rotation and return every few months or so. This place was busy on Sunday morning, and parking was a little hard to come by. The coffee here is definitely “top shelf” (and priced accordingly), but sometimes you get what you pay for. This was a complex light roast with a good bit of acidity and a lot of interesting flavors. This kind of coffee is almost like wine- not so much a “daily drinker”, but rather something to be savored. That being said, I got slightly better extraction when I brewed larger cups of it (450g vs 300g). I never strayed far from 1:15, but I’m wondering if maybe I should have tried brewing a couple of smaller cups at 1:16 to 1:18, just to see if it turned out differently. Something to keep in mind for next time.

  • PJ’s Maple Street Blend

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Maple Street Blend
      • Roaster: PJ’s Coffee (New Orleans, LA)
      • Roast level: Medium (3/5)
      • Origin: Brazil/Honduras
      • Roast date: unknown
    • V60:

    PJ’s apparently started out in NOLA in the late ’70s, but has evolved into a large chain (not on the scale of Starbucks, but they have multiple locations in several states). I’m not sure where or when the beans were roasted. The bag had a lot of husks and bean fragments in it — I don’t know if it was a handling issue during transit, or a Q.C. issue during bagging. It didn’t seem to affect the taste of the coffee until I got down to the end of the bag. My second-to-last cup was a little bitter. For the last cup, I spent several minutes picking out the whole beans, and composted about 3.5 grams of husks and fragments.

    The beans worked well with a fine grind, but I really felt the caffeine, more than most other beans I’ve brewed to date. Not sure why that is. I brewed most of my cups at 1:16 or thereabouts. Taste-wise, it didn’t knock my socks off, but was perfectly drinkable. The web site describes it as “nutty/floral”, which I mostly agree with. No fruitiness or acidity at all, and no burnt/roasty taste, either. I have a sneaking suspicion that the beans were a little past their prime, but have no way to back that up. It’d be interesting to get my hands on a bag that I know was freshly roasted, just to compare, but with chain coffee, that’s easier said than done.

  • Orinoco Old Man Winter

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Old Man Winter
      • Roaster: Orinoco Coffee and Tea (Jessup, MD)
      • Roast level: Light
      • Purchase date: 12/24/2024 at Martha’s Café in Arbutus, MD
    • V60:

    I bought a bag of this on a whim, not realizing that it was flavored. I got the best cups at grind setting 3 after initially starting at 5. This was OK black, but the maple/butter/cinnamon flavoring didn’t really work for me. It would probably be better with sweetener and/or creamer, but that’s not how I roll (except on very rare occasions). Oh, well, live and learn.

  • Good Time Earth Coffee

    Written on

    in

    Getting caught up on a few coffees I have brewed (or am brewing) over the past few weeks or months. This one is somewhat unique. It’s made by Good Time Health, based in Finksburg, MD. The description from the web site is: “Organic Medium Roast Ground Arabica Beans from Mexico, are paired with the Fruiting Body Mushroom Extracts of: Lions Mane, Reishi, and Cordyceps! Giving you a rich and naturally smooooth black coffee.”

    So, coffee with mushrooms. It’s pre-ground (I suspect that they add the mushroom extracts after grinding) and looks to be a medium to coarse grind. My wife bought the bag in mid-December, so it’s probably a little past its prime by now, but my usual AeroPress recipe is still producing reasonably good cups. The mushroom extract adds a definite earthy flavor to the coffee.

    • AeroPress with Prismo, metal filter, and 1 paper filter
    • 1 heaping scoop of grounds (I use the scoop that comes with the AeroPress)
    • 250g of water at 95°C (or just pour to about 1/4″ from the top of the AeroPress cylinder)
    • Stir 6-7x / steep until around 02:45 / stir 6-7x again / press slowly

    The one thing I’m noticing recently is that it takes a good bit of effort to press this — I suspect this may work well without the paper filter, so I am going to try it that way next time.

    Update- As I had suspected, this is better when brewed with the metal Prismo filter only and no paper filter. I suspect that the metal filter lets more of the mushroom extracts (and coffee oils) into the cup, which is kind of what you want with coffee like this. I bet it would also make good French press coffee, so I may try that.

  • Zeke’s Snow Day Blend #2

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: Snow Day Blend
      • Roaster: Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
      • Roast level: Medium (3/8)
      • Origin: Bali, Indonesia (Blue Krishna) / Tanzania (Peaberry)
      • Roast date: 12/30/2024
    • V60:

    This is my second bag, and my first time grinding the beans with the Ode. Last March, I ended up using a very coarse grind with 95°C water, with good results. With this bag, I again started with 95°C water, but couldn’t quite get it dialed in. Grind settings 5, 6, and even 7 all had an unpleasant bitterness. Grind setting 8 was way too coarse — it did get rid of the bitterness, but the cup was weak and watery. So, I backed off to setting 6 (still on the coarse side for V60) and dropped the water temperature to 90°C, and the last couple of cups at those settings have been good. Interestingly, these are the exact same settings I used with my recent bag of Rise Up Winter Warmer, and the two also have a somewhat similar flavor. This tells me that when I buy Indonesian coffee in the future, I might want to start off with a coarser grind (e.g. Ode setting 6), and then adjust from there.

    1/28: I nudged the grind setting 1 click “coarser”, to 6+1, for my final couple of cups. Both were among the best I’ve brewed with this bag. Recipe adjusted accordingly.

  • Rise Up Winter Warmer #2

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: “Winter Warmer”
      • Roaster: Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
      • Roast level: On the darker side of medium (4/5)
      • Origin: Indonesia (Sumatra/Java)
      • Roast date: 12/3/2024
    • V60:

    This is Rise Up’s winter seasonal blend, and I last had it in December 2023. The big difference this time is that I’m grinding the beans with the Ode instead of my hand grinder. I started off at setting 3+2 with 95°C water, which was a little bitter. 4+2 (this afternoon) was much better. With both settings, the draw-down finished at around 2:35-2:40.

    1/8/2025: I’ve been nudging the grind coarser over the past few days to try to chase some pesky bitterness, and am now up to 5+1 (which was pretty good this afternoon).

    1/11: I am now at grind setting 6 and water temperature 90°C, which was good this morning. Setting 6 at 95°C was still a tiny bit bitter the other day. The web site lists this as a “medium+” (4 out of 5) roast, and I am definitely finding that it is behaving like a darker roast. However, it tastes more like a medium roast. I am tempted to try it in the AeroPress and see how that compares.

  • Tree House El Mirador

    Written on

    in

    • Beans: “El Mirador”
      • Roaster: Tree House Coffee Company (Boston, MA)
      • Origin: Colombia (Tolima)
      • Roast level: Light
      • Roast date: 12/9/2024
      • Purchase date: 12/12/2024 at Tree House Brewing (Copley Place, Boston MA)
      • Process: Honey; Varietal: Gesha; Elevation: 1750-1830 MASL
      • Tasting notes: Persimmon, honey, and orange blossom
    • V60:
      • 19.1g coffee / 300g water (1:15.7)
      • Ode: 2
      • Water at 99°C
      • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 36-40g bloom water – finishes 03:10-03:20

    This is the most expensive 12oz bag of coffee I have bought to date. I think it was more expensive than any 16oz bag I’ve bought, as well. It likes a fine grind, and has a long draw-down time. Taste-wise, it has a good bit of fruity acidity and a rather complex mouthfeel, with some flavors I can’t really quite identify. This is definitely a coffee connoisseur’s coffee, and while I’m not sure if the cups I’m brewing are the best they can be, I am enjoying them, and I am fairly certain that I couldn’t have brewed them as well a year ago. In other words, I’ve progressed to the point where buying top-shelf coffee isn’t a waste of money. Which isn’t saying much, but it’s something. 😀