• Beans:
  • Organic Papua New Guinea Light from Leaves ‘n Beans Coffee (Peoria Heights, IL)
  • Roast level: Light
  • Purchase date: 10/25/2024 at LnB Morton, IL
• V60:
  • 19g to 19.5g coffee / 300g water
  • Ode: 2+1
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 40g bloom water – finishes 02:45-03:00

These seem to work well with a rather fine grind. I started at setting 4, and worked my way to 2+1 over 3 or 4 cups. Seems to be pretty good at this setting. The bag advertises low acidity, which I’ve found to be accurate. My favorite cup so far was today’s, with 19.6g or so of beans. It was very rich and full-bodied, but a little bit more of a caffeine hit than I would prefer. 19.2g to 19.4g seems like a reasonable compromise.

11/19: I’ve been brewing most of my cups with 19.2g, which (with a couple of exceptions) has been producing what I would consider perfect cups of light roast coffee. I’ll be tempted to buy more of this the next time I’m in Morton, but the desire to try different roasts will likely win out. However, this does raise an interesting point. I should probably come up with some kind of rating system so that I can start to identify which origins/roast levels/processes/etc tend to produce coffee that I like the best. That will help drive my decision process when I’m trying to figure out what to buy when I go somewhere new. Will have to think on this for a bit.

• Beans: “Texas Pecan” from Lola Savannah Coffee (Houston, TX)
  • Roast level: Light
  • Origin: unknown (Arabica)
  • Roast date: unknown
  • Purchase date: received as gift on 10/12/2024
• V60:
  • 19 to 19.2g coffee / 300g water (1/15.6 to 1/15.8)
  • Ode: 3+1
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 40g bloom water

I received these as a gift from family who live in Texas. Started out at grind setting 4, but have been nudging it finer with good results. Currently at 3+1. I have also been using less bloom water recently. As long as I get all of the beans wet, and the water stays in the cone long enough to swirl a few times, I’ve been getting good results using a little over 2x the coffee weight. It also worked well with my last bag of beans.

I’m not normally a flavored coffee drinker, but I do like these quite a lot. The aroma is fantastic if you like pecans/pralines, and the taste is very smooth with no hints of acidity or bitterness. Also, when the bag is gone, I’ll have an excuse to learn how to tear down and clean the Ode, as I kinda don’t want my next several bags of beans to taste like pecans. 😀

• Beans: “Hippie Blend” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Roast level: Light (2/8)
  • Origin: Sumatra, Peru, Papua New Guinea
  • Roast date: 9/23/2024
  • Purchase date: 9/27/2024 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
• V60:
  • 19 to 19.2g coffee / 300g water (1/15.6 to 1/15.8)
  • Ode: 3+2
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 50g bloom water

I started off brewing 21g with 300g at grind setting 4, but I like these beans much better at 1:15 to 1:16. I’ve brewed 4 or 5 cups at this strength, and they have all been pleasant: not too strong, not too weak, not too bitter, not too acidic.

I bought my first bag of these around the beginning of 2024, and according to my notes, I struggled to get the grind size dialed in. I eventually ended up grinding rather coarsely, which is interesting, because this time around, the cups are turning out nicely with a much finer grind. It appears that I was brewing at the same ratio with the same water temperature, so the main differences seem to be: Ode grinder vs 1Zpresso JX, and plastic size 2 V60 vs ceramic size 1 V60.

• Beans: “Peruvian” from Lost Dog Coffee (Shepherdstown, WV)
  • Roast level: Medium/Medium Light
  • Origin: Peru (Chanchamayo)
  • Grade: Screen 18/19
  • Tasting notes from bag: Huge body, intense aroma, caramel & smoky wood burnt sugar
  • Purchase date: 9/14/2024
• V60:
  • 21g coffee / 300g water
  • Ode: 5 1+2
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover

I hadn’t been to Lost Dog since May of last year, when I was just getting started with this new hobby. This place has a great selection of coffee beans, all sold by the pound, and my only complaint is that they don’t put the roast dates on the bags. Since they’re a small batch operation, though, I’m just kind of giving them the benefit of the doubt that the bags they have for sale in their store are pretty fresh. Unlike last time, I only bought 1 bag, as nowadays, I only like to buy what I know I can brew and drink in a month or less (plus, it’s highly likely that I’ll end up going back within the next several weeks).

The beans looked lightly roasted (as advertised) so I brewed them exactly the same as I brewed my last bag, which was also a light roast. The first two cups have been pretty good. Not sure if I’ll try tweaking anything going forward, but I don’t necessarily need to. Will add notes here as I use up more of the bag.

9/25: After several weak/watery/acid-y cups, I have figured out that these beans like a very fine grind. I kept nudging it finer and finer, until I finally got what I consider to be an excellent cup this afternoon, at grind setting 1+2 (or 1.67) on the Ode, which is just two clicks past the finest setting. I used 21.5 grams of beans or so, poured maybe 50g water to bloom (vs 60), and made sure to slosh it over all of the grounds. I finished pouring right around 2:00, and it took until 3:15-3:20 to fully draw down, which is a lot slower than I’m used to, but apparently the ticket for getting good extraction. No hint of bitterness at all, unlike some other beans where I’ve struggled to find the sweet spot between weak/sour and bitter/over-extracted as I’ve adjusted the grind.

9/29: I had 15.5 grams of beans left at home. I bumped the Ode to setting 1+1 (just 1 click past finest setting) and brewed with 248g water (1:16) and ceramic size 1 V60, preheated with insta-hot water. I used about 40g bloom water and otherwise followed the recipe linked above. The draw-down finished at 2:45, which is 30 seconds faster than my larger cups in the size 2. This produced an excellent cup. It was very well balanced and lacked the acidic aftertaste that my stronger cups have had. I have 21-22g of beans left at the office, and once they’re gone, I guess it’ll be time for another trip to Shepherdstown.

• Beans: “Pura Vida” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
  • Roast level: Light
  • Origin: Costa Rica (Finca Las Gravilias)
  • Tasting notes from web site: Complex and very well balanced; bright with hints of honey and orange citrus. Light roast, sweet cup
  • Roast date: 8/13/2024
  • Purchase date: ~9/3/2024, 9/10/2024 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
• V60:
  • 21g coffee / 300g water
  • Ode: 5; JX: 18
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover

I have a new grinder this month. I’ve been happy with my 1Zpresso JX hand grinder, but got tired of hand-grinding beans twice a day. I also wanted something that could grind enough beans for more than one cup. For now, I’ve taken the JX to the office, so I can grind beans there instead of pre-grinding at home. I’ll also continue to use the JX as my travel grinder. My new home grinder is a Fellow Ode Gen 2. I initially had my sights set on a Baratza Virtuoso, but I had a 25% off coupon from Fellow which brought the Ode 2’s price down enough for me to pull the trigger. (Sometimes it pays to take surveys. 😀)

The Pura Vida have been my favorite of the beans I’ve bought (at least locally) this summer. They have also been the freshest Rise Up beans available at the local grocery store for the past few weeks, so I’ve bought 2 12oz bags from the same batch this month. I’ve brewed a few cups with the JX at setting 18 (same as July) and a bunch in the Ode at setting 5, most of them with the size 1 ceramic V60, and this morning’s with the plastic size 2 V60. The JX cups have been fine, but the Ode cups have been better. The grinder has been the only variable, so I’m curious if the difference has to do with grind size, grind consistency, presence or lack of “fines” in the coffee bed, or all/none of the above. As I’ve noted before (more than once), with identical grinds, the size 1 V60 consistently drains faster than the size 2, and today was no exception. With the Ode at setting 5, my brews in the size 1 are always finished by 02:30, but today’s brew in the size 2 finished at 02:35-02:40. Not a huge difference, but it seemed like this morning’s cup was a tiny bit better extracted than some of my previous cups. Just something to keep in mind when I’m trying to dial things in, as one size might work better than the other, depending on the beans and various other brewing parameters.

• Beans: “Colombia Sierra Nevada” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Roast level: Light to medium (3/8)
  • Origin: Colombia (Sierra Nevada)
  • Roast date: 7/29/24
  • Purchase date: 7/29 or 7/30/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
• V60:
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 20 (60 clicks)
  • Water at 97°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper
• AeroPress:
  • 18g coffee / 250g water
  • JX: 20 (60 clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Prismo with metal + paper filter
  • Pour all 250g; stir front to back 6-7x; steep until 2:45; stir again; press slowly

I bought my first bag last September, so it’s been a little while. It took a few cups to get there, but I see that I’ve settled on similar brewing parameters to last year’s bag. The last few cups have been pretty good, if not spectacularly good. I’ve been on a kick of brewing strong cups lately — most of my recent pourovers have been 22g to 300g, or about 1:13.6. I’m trying to back off that a little bit, as I think it may be negatively affecting the flavor of the cups. I brewed this morning at 20:300 (1:15), and preferred it to some of my earlier, stronger cups. If this works out, I’ll also go through coffee less quickly. 😀

8/18: I’m definitely having a bad run with V60 coffee. Not sure if something is off with my technique, or if it’s just the beans I happen to be buying. With these, everything I have been brewing has been bitter, weak, or just OK but generally unremarkable. Grind setting 20 and 95-97C water seem to produce the cups that are the least bad. The AeroPress cup I brewed today (see above) was leaps and bounds better than anything I’ve gotten from the V60. It had a nice flavor with a hint of sweetness that was totally lacking with the V60 cups. The immersion method seems to do a better job of extracting the beans. I suspect that the issue with the V60 is that the beans aren’t staying wet long enough to fully extract. I might get better results by brewing a larger volume of coffee (maybe 500-600g), or possibly using a filter that is more dense and drains more slowly (maybe Abaca?). I could also grind the beans finer, but that seems to make the coffee taste bitter. As I’ve written before, I’m curious to try a Kalita Wave dripper at some point. It has a different design which (on paper) sounds like it will result in longer immersion time with washed beans like these. Lots of potential things to try, but for now, it seems like AeroPress is the way to go with the rest of these beans.

• Beans: “Pura Vida” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
  • Roast level: Light
  • Origin: Costa Rica (Finca Las Gravilias)
  • Tasting notes from web site: Complex and very well balanced; bright with hints of honey and orange citrus. Light roast, sweet cup
  • Roast date: 6/18/2024
  • Purchase date: 7/8 or 7/9/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
• V60:
  • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
  • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper; slow pour

I’ve been starting most of my new bags out at grind setting 20, but may switch to 18 going forward, as I seem to end up there regardless of what I’m brewing. The exception has been a couple bags of Zeke’s beans that seemed to work better with a coarser grind.

I have managed to get myself a workable pour-over setup at my office. I bought a plastic size 1 V60 cone for the office and a new coffee scale for home, and brought our old OXO food scale to the office. A couple of coworkers have electric goose-neck kettles they’ve said I could use, and we also have a cheap communal electric kettle that boils water, so there was no need for me to buy another kettle. In lieu of a grinder, I’ve been grinding the beans at home and bringing the grounds to the office. A true coffee snob might not approve, but the extra few hours between grinding and brewing doesn’t seem to make much difference with the finished product.

That all brings me to my experience with these beans: I started out at grind setting 20 and used my size 2 plastic V60, and the result was good, but not awesome. Same thing with grind setting 19. Then, I brewed a cup at work with the smaller cone (also at setting 19) and the cheap kettle. It has a regular, non-goose-neck spout, which makes it more challenging to regulate the pour rate. In spite of that, the cup tasted much better than the cup I made at home with the larger cone. So, I decided to try using my size 1 cone at home. The big difference is that it’s ceramic vs plastic, so I preheated it to avoid cooling the coffee too much during brewing. I also adjusted the grind to 18. The result was another really good cup. In general, I’ve noted that with all else equal, the size 1 V60 drains a lot faster than the size 2. These beans are no exception: with the larger cone, they finish at 2:40 to 2:50; with the smaller cone, they’re done by 2:30. With other beans, this has been a recipe for thinner-bodied cups, but these beans seem to work better with the faster drain-down. This is good to know, as it will give me something else to try with beans that I have a hard time dialing in.

• Beans: “Beach Blend” from Local Coffee Roasting Co. (Roxana, DE)
  • Roast level: Light
  • Origin: Ethiopia/Colombia
  • Tasting notes from web site: milk chocolate/strawberry
  • Roast date: 5/27/2024
  • Purchase date: 6/17 or 6/18/24 at Three Blonde Bakers in Bethany Beach, DE
• V60:
  • 21g or 22g coffee / 300g water
  • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with slow pour

I bought an 8oz bag of these and an 8oz bag of “Delaware Blend” in Bethany last week, but waited until I was home to open them so I could use my pour-over setup. Nice, strong cup this morning with low acidity for a light roast. There’s definitely a slight hint of fruit. When I brew my next cup (likely tomorrow) I’ll pay more attention and see if it reminds me of strawberries as advertised. 😀

• Beans: “Colombia (Huila)” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
  • Roast level: Light (2/8)
  • Roast date: 4/20/24 or 4/28/24 (second digit of day hard to read)
  • Purchase date: 5/2/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • Process: washed
  • Tasting notes: Orange, caramel, milk chocolate
• V60:
  • 21g coffee / 300g water (1:14.3)
  • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
  • Water at 99°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with slow pour

I started these at setting 19 a couple of days ago, and it seemed like it needed to be a little finer, so I went with 18 today. This was a good cup. It will be interesting to see how I need to adjust things over the next couple of weeks. Some of it depends on the actual roast date. If it was 4/28, I expect I’ll need to tweak things quite a bit; if it was 4/20, probably a little less so. A couple of the bags on the shelf clearly read 4/28, so I’m wondering if mine is actually 4/28 also, with the bottom half of the 8 chopped off. But, it could also be 4/20. Who knows?

5/11: I have settled on setting 19 for my most recent several cups, and they have been fairly consistent, with some slightly better than others, but overall pretty good. I can definitely taste a hint of orange, as advertised, and the overall roastiness balances the acidity out nicely.