Tag: medium roast

Bean Alchemy Elysian Morning Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans “Elysian Morning Blend”
    • Roaster: Bean Alchemy Roasters (New Market, MD)
    • Origins: Bolivia, Colombia
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Roast date: 11/21/2024
    • Purchase date: 11/30/2024 at Sykesville Holiday Mart in Westminster, MD
  • V60:
    • 19.5g to 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15.4)
    • Ode: 5
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 40g bloom water – finishes 02:45-02:50

I started this bag on 12/14, which is a little longer past roast date than I typically like, but that’s how the timing worked out with travel, etc. this month. It’s only a 10oz bag, so I’ll likely use it up within a week to 10 days. I brewed my first cup using grind setting 3+1, mainly because that setting had worked well for my most recent bag of medium-roasted beans. However, these particular beans seem to like a coarser grind. Setting 5 was a noticeable improvement on 12/15, and as of 12/18, my last 2 or 3 cups at setting 5 have been excellent.

With winter once again at our doorstep, and the house getting cooler, I’ve gone back to preheating my mug with insta-hot tap water prior to brewing. I used to also pre-rinse the V60 filter with insta-hot water, but lately, I’ve been pre-rinsing with heated water from the kettle. I also have consistently been using the plastic size 2 V60 for all of my brews, because, for whatever reason, I find I get longer draw-down times and better extraction than with the size 1. I still can’t explain this phenomenon, and there don’t seem to be many people commenting on it online. But, “it is what it is”.

Café Medrano Medium Roast

lpaulriddle
  • Beans:
    • Café Medrano Medium Roast Organic (Kensington, MD)
    • Origin: Honduras (Copán)
    • Roast Date: 11/14/2024
    • Purchase date: 11/16/2024 at Chestertown, MD farmer’s market
  • 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

I believe I had read about Café Medrano a few months back when I was looking for smaller local(ish) roasters. They seem to be unique in that a single family owns both the coffee farms in Honduras, and the roastery/café in the D.C. suburbs. Kensington is (unfortunately) not all that convenient for me to get to regularly, but I wonder if they are at any other local farmer’s markets. I will have to keep an eye out.

First and second cups (today) were very good at grind setting 3 and 95°C water. We’ll see if it will need tweaking as the beans start to age a bit. I bought a 1-pound bag, so I’ll have them for at least a couple of weeks.

11/28: After a couple of ever-so-slightly underextracted cups, I made a couple of adjustments, and ended up at grind setting 2+1 and 99°C water. I’ve been happy with the past couple of cups at these settings. It’s not that the previous cups were bad — I just felt that there was room for improvement. This is (coincidentally) the same as how I brewed the bag I finished just before these. The difference is that those were light-roasted beans, and these are medium-roasted beans. However, over time, I’ve learned that those terms are rather subjective.

Foxtail Brazil (Cerrado)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Brazil (Cerrado) from Foxtail Coffee Co. (Winter Park, FL)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Roast date: 10/4/2024
    • Purchase date: 10/21/2024 at Foxtail Coffee in Mount Dora, FL
    • Tasting notes: Almond, milk chocolate, toffee
  • V60:
    • 19 to 19.2g coffee / 300g water (1/15.6 to 1/15.8)
    • Ode: 4
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 40g bloom water – typically finishes at between 02:45 and 03:00

I bought these beans while we were in Florida visiting friends who had just moved down there. The above settings produced a nicely flavored cup. 19.4 grams was a little too strong-tasting, so I think 1:16 may be the sweet spot.

I seem to get more consistent brews with the Ode than I do with my hand grinder. It’s not that I can’t brew good coffee with the hand grinder, but it does seem like I have to play around with the brew parameters a lot more to get things dialed in. On the other hand, with the Ode, I’m finding that I’ll often go through an entire bag of beans without tweaking my starting settings at all. In light of this, I may rethink how I do these blog posts at some point. I want to continue to track how I’m brewing various beans (mainly to have something to refer back to if I buy them again) but I don’t want to fill this space up with repetitive posts. Maybe I could start creating pages instead, or take them out of WordPress entirely and move everything into a spreadsheet. I will have to think on this a little bit.

Rise Up Organic Decaf Coffee

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Decaf Coffee” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium (3/5)
    • Origin: Ethiopia (Yirgacheffe)
    • Roast date: 9/24/2024
    • Purchase date: 10/9/2024 at Green Valley Marketplace (Elkridge, MD)
  • V60:
    • 19 to 19.2g coffee / 300g water (1/15.6 to 1/15.8)
    • Ode: 4
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with 40g bloom water

This was my first time brewing decaf coffee with the V60. I brewed it using the same settings I would start with for any other medium roast, and it turned out well-balanced and bright. Most of the decaf I’ve had over the years has been akin to brown, vaguely coffee-flavored water, so I was pleasantly surprised. I bought this mainly for my better half, but I may occasionally sneak a cup for myself if I find myself wanting coffee later in the evening. We’ll probably freeze some of the beans to try to keep them fresh for longer, as I doubt we’ll go through them as fast as I go through a typical 12-to-16 ounce bag. I’m sure I’ll buy these again.

11/21: I froze what we had left of these on around 10/19-10/20, and took them out at the beginning of this week. They seem to have survived the freezer just fine, as the above settings produced another good cup (from what I could tell from the sip or two I took of it). That said, I think if we buy 12 ounces of decaf beans at a time, we should have no problem going through them fast enough to avoid having to freeze them. It’s good to know that we can, though.

Rise Up Guatemala Single Origin (bag #2)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Guatemala (Single Origin)” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Origin: Guatemala (Asociación Chajulense, Quiché)
    • Roast date: 7/1/24
    • Purchase date: 7/30/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • French press (good but sludgy):
    • 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 25 (75 clicks)
    • Water about 20-30 seconds off boil
    • Pour about 60g bloom water and stir; steep until 0:30; top up to 300g; stir several times; steep until 6:00 to 7:00; press slowly and pour immediately
  • French press #2 (James Hoffmann method) (very good):
    • 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 30 (90 clicks)
    • Water right off boil
    • Ceramic French press (preheating might be prudent in the winter, but I didn’t bother during this god-awful hot summer)
    • Pour all 300g at once, being careful to wet all of the grounds; steep until 5:00; stir a couple times; spoon foam and clumpy grounds off top; insert plunger until it rests on top of the coffee; steep 5 more minutes; pour slowly
  • V60 (not good):
    • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 15 (45 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper, preheated with insta-hot tap
  • AeroPress (OK cup):
    • 18g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 25 (75 clicks)
    • Water at 90C
    • Prismo with metal + paper filter
    • Pour all 250g at once / stir 6x / steep until around 3:00 / stir 6x again / press slowly

I last bought these beans in April, and my notes from then suggest that I was getting inconsistent results with the V60. Today, I pre-ground 22g to take to work, with the intention of using my V60 there, but then I realized I had ground the beans coarser than I wanted (setting 25 vs 20). So, I decided to dust off the cheap plastic French press at the office. I’m not sure the bloom step was really necessary, as there was no visible bubbling or out-gassing from the grounds. The end result was a cup that was pretty good, with decent flavor and a hint of acidity, but a lot of sludge in the bottom of the mug. I’ve previously used grind setting 30 for all of my French press brews, so it may be that 25 is a little too fine. All the same, I suspect this was a better cup than I would have gotten with the same grind setting with the V60.

8/1: This morning, I brewed a cup with the ceramic size 1 V60 at grind setting 19. It drained through ridiculously fast, and the resulting cup had no body whatsoever. This afternoon, I tried setting 15, and it was much better, although it still drained relatively quickly — it was finished by 2:30. Interestingly, in my notes from April, I see that I tried setting 15 once, and it turned out bitter. This afternoon’s cup had no hint of bitterness at all. The main difference was that in April, I used a plastic size 2 V60. While my sample size is admittedly small, I’ve noticed that with everything else equal, the size 1 ceramic consistently drains faster than the size 2 plastic. Could be that these beans just need a fine grind and a fast drain-down. Of course, my next cup could prove me wrong and turn out unbearably bitter. It’s all part of the fun.

8/3: I’ve brewed several more V60 cups since 8/1, each with various tweaks to grind size and water temperature, none of them all that good. Giving up on V60 for now and sticking with immersion. Today, I decided to try James Hoffmann’s French press method, the basic steps of which I’ve listed above. The linked article has more detail. This definitely takes some time to brew, but it turned out really good, and as advertised, there was very little sludge in the cup. The opaque ceramic French press is not ideal for this method, as I couldn’t see exactly where the plunger was resting, and I also ended up with a little bit of liquid left over in the press after I thought I had poured all of it out. However, it worked well enough that I’m not going to run right out and buy a transparent French press. I think this will be a great alternative to the AeroPress on days when I have more time to brew coffee, and the French press also has a lot more brewing capacity than the AeroPress.

8/7: I have come to the conclusion that this is French press coffee, full stop. Everything I have brewed with either V60 or AeroPress has been mediocre (alternately bitter or vague/sour), and without exception, all of my French press cups have been excellent. The James Hoffmann method has been a winner with both the plastic and the ceramic French presses, and cups have been good at any ratio from 1:13.6 to 1:15 (20g to 22g grounds to 300g water).

8/8: I managed to brew a decent AeroPress cup this morning. Tried grind setting 30 with 85C water yesterday, and it tasted sour. Today, setting 25 with 90C water was better. It was not quite as good as it turns out in the French press, but a perfectly reasonable cup of coffee — not sour or bitter, and fairly balanced, if a tiny bit lacking in “personality”, for want of a better word.

LCRC Delaware Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Delaware Blend” from Local Coffee Roasting Co. (Roxana, DE)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Origin: Guatemala/Colombia
    • Tasting notes from web site: smooth/chocolatey
    • Roast date: 5/27/2024
    • Purchase date: 6/17 or 6/18/24 at Three Blonde Bakers in Bethany Beach, DE
  • V60:

I bought an 8oz bag of these along with an 8oz bag of Beach Blend. I started them off at grind setting 20, but ended up at 18 mostly by accident — I forgot to change the setting after brewing the aforementioned Beach Blend, it was still pretty good, and when I’m working on two bags at once, I always prefer when I can use the same grind setting for both. Initially, it was kind of a toss-up which of these I liked better, but as the beans have aged a little bit, I think I slightly prefer these. My recent cups have had pretty good flavor and body, while the lighter-roasted Beach Blend seems to be getting a little flat. I should probably play around with the settings a bit, but the beans are almost gone. I suspect I’ll use up both of these by the end of next week. Looking forward to next year’s Delaware trip so I can get some more.

Amity Costa Rica (Terrazu)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Costa Rica (Terrazu)” from Amity Coffee Roasters (Greenwood, DE)
    • Roast level: Medium (wet process)
    • Origin: Costa Rica
    • Tasting notes from bag: clean sweetness / floral
    • Roast date: 6/11/2024
    • Purchase date: 6/16/2024 at T S Smith & Sons in Bridgeville, DE
  • AeroPress:
    • 20-21g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 18 (54 clicks)
    • Hot water from Cuisinart machine (pretty hot but not boiling)
    • Prismo with metal and paper filters
    • Pour to 250g and stir 6-7x; steep until 2:45; stir 6-7x; press slowly, finishing up somewhere around 4:15

I have brewed this recipe 5 or 6 times now at our beach house, and the cups have been pretty consistently good. I’ll almost certainly be bringing some home, so I’ll try it in the V60 next week and see how that compares.

6/28: At home, I’ve been using the same recipe with my gooseneck kettle and 95°C water. The past few cups have been very slightly bitter. I tried dropping the temperature to 90°, but it still was not quite as good as last week’s cups. I only had about 30g of beans left, so today, I brewed all of them with the V60 (size 2) and 450g of water at 95°, and I also backed the grind off 6 clicks to setting 20. The result was a very good, smooth cup. Seems that making the grind slightly coarser is the ticket with these beans as they start to age. They were only 17 days past roast date when I used them up.

Zeke’s Market Blend (second bag)

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Market Blend” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium (5/8)
    • Origin: Central and South America
    • Roast date: 5/13/2024
    • Purchase date: (TBD) at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • AeroPress:
    • 18-19g coffee / 250g water (1:13 to 1:14)
    • JX: 25 (75 clicks)
    • Water at 90°C
    • Prismo with metal and paper filters
    • Pour to 50g, stir to wet, and bloom until 0:45; top up to 250g and stir 5-6x; cover and steep until 3:00; stir 5-6x; press slowly

This is my second bag of these. I previously bought them last October, and I settled on kind of a convoluted V60 method where I used hotter water to bloom the grounds and then diluted the water to cool it before brewing. I didn’t want to go to that much trouble, so this time, I just tried V60 with 90°C water and grind setting 20(?). This was similar to what I did the first few times with the last bag, and the results were similar, too — it was on the bitter side. Since the beans are ever so slightly on the darker side of medium, I decided to try the AeroPress, which I don’t believe I had used at any point with the last bag. After an initial bitter cup at grind setting 20, I settled on the above, which was smooth and chocolaty. Rereading my first linked post from October, it looks like I ended up at a slightly finer grind setting (23) with V60, which is interesting, because I usually end up grinding finer with the AeroPress than with pourover. However, every bag is different, and taste always wins out over what seems logical on paper.

5/27: For the past couple of cups, I have reverted to a similar technique to last fall’s, using the AeroPress instead of V60: Heat water to 99C; pour to 50-60g; stir to wet; cool kettle water to 82-86C; bloom until 0:45; top up to 250g and stir 5-6x; cover and steep until 3:00; stir 5-6x; press slowly. Today’s cup was the best so far, and I used 20g coffee at grind setting 22 (2 turns + 6 clicks). It was a nice, smooth, rich cup. This brewing technique seems to work well with Zeke’s Market Blend, but I’ve never tried it with any other beans. I wonder if it would be worth trying with some other medium to dark roasts. The only downside is that it adds an extra step to the process, and sometimes (particularly first thing in the morning) I’d rather just keep things simple.

Rise Up Guatemala Single Origin

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Guatemala (Single Origin)” from Rise Up Coffee Roasters (Easton, MD)
    • Roast level: Medium
    • Origin: Guatemala (Asociación Chajulense, Quiché)
    • Roast date: 3/26/24
    • Purchase date: 4/9/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • V60:
    • 21g coffee / 300g water (1:14.3)
    • JX: 17 to 20 (51 to 60 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with slow pour
  • AeroPress:
    • 14g coffee / 200g water (1:14.3)
    • JX: 15 (45 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Prismo with metal and paper filters
    • Pour 30g and stir to wet grounds; bloom until 0:45; pour to 200g and stir 4-5x; cover and steep until 3:00; stir 4-5x; press slowly

I brewed my first cup of these on Sunday afternoon (4/14), using grind setting 20, and it was really good. The flavor was great with no bitterness and low acidity. Just as an experiment, I nudged the grind one “click” finer on Monday morning, and another “click” finer this morning (Tuesday), but those cups did not taste as good — not bitter, but just lacking the flavor of the first cup. I returned to setting 20 this afternoon, and it was much better. I have a hard time believing that such a tiny adjustment to the grind made such a big difference in taste, but I guess anything is possible. It will be interesting to see how subsequent cups turn out.

4/20: I seem to be alternating between good cups and mediocre cups, and I think it has more to do with technique than grind setting. Over the past few days, I tried grind setting 15 as well as 16, but both tasted a little bit bitter — not bad, but not as smooth as I would like. Today, setting 17 was really good. Earlier (see above), I was getting good cups at 20 and not-as-good cups at 19 and 18. I suspect that with more consistent technique, I’d be getting uniformly good cups at any grind setting from 17 to 20. I’m fairly confident that I’m keeping water temperature, proportion of coffee to water, and pour interval timing consistent from cup to cup. That leaves pour rate and height of pour, neither of which I have a way to measure, but neither of which I’ve varied much recently either. Today, I paid a little bit more attention to the bloom phase — I made a very deep well in the grounds, and poured quickly starting from the center, in an effort to get 100% of the grounds wet as quickly as possible. Initial results were promising, but we’ll see if it makes a difference going forward.

4/22: Deep well in grounds doesn’t seem to be the difference-maker, as my last two pourovers were subpar. I wish I could figure out the magic formula for making consistent pourovers. Obviously, something is changing from day-to-day. Maybe it’s my scale? Whatever the case, I brewed the last of the beans today in the AeroPress (see above) with my usual go-to AP recipe, and it turned out fantastic — maybe not quite as good as my best pourovers, but much better than the last two days’ pourovers.

Verona St Julien’s Breakfast Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: Julien’s Breakfast Blend from Verona Street Coffee (Dubuque, IA)
    • Origin: Central America / Indonesia
    • Roast level: medium to medium/dark (3/5 per web site)
    • Purchase date: 3/20/24 at Hy-Vee Grocery Store in Omaha, NE
  • AeroPress in hotel room:
    • 1 heaping AeroPress-sized scoop beans plus “a little more” (18-20g)
    • JX Grind Setting 20 (60 clicks)
    • Prismo with 1 paper filter and metal filter
    • Heat water to boiling in microwave
    • Start timer and pour enough to wet grounds
    • Stir and let sit for 45 seconds
    • Top up to about 1/2″ below top of AeroPress chamber
    • Stir front to back 5 or 6 times
    • Steep until 3:00
    • Stir front to back 5 or 6 times
    • Press slowly
  • AeroPress with measurements:
    • 18g coffee
    • 250g water at 95°C (ratio 1:13.9)
    • 50g initial pour
    • Everything else same as above
  • Tasting notes: roasty, smooth, full-bodied

I bought a 12oz bag of these beans at the beginning of our NCAA Tournament trip to Omaha. There was no roast date listed on the bag. The web site lists the origins as Central America and Indonesia, and the roast level as 3 out of 5. I’d definitely call this a medium/dark roast, based on the appearance of the beans (dark and oily), as well as the aroma and taste. My first cup at grind setting 15 was bitter, so I backed off a half turn to 20, and the subsequent cups have been pretty smooth and tasty, in spite of inexact brewing parameters and hotel room tap water. It will be interesting to compare when I get home and try them with the V60.

3/26: I brewed an AeroPress cup at home today, using the same technique I used at the hotel, with more precise measurements (see above). The flavor and strength were similar to the hotel room cups, but I think it was slightly better overall, probably due to higher brewing temperature and/or better water quality (filtered vs straight from the tap). I may end up just brewing all of these beans with the AeroPress, as I like how the cups are turning out, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

3/31: For the past 2 or 3 days, I’ve been brewing 300g cups with grind setting 20, 21-22g coffee, and 250g brew water at 95C (about the max that will fit in the AeroPress) and then diluting with 50g of bypass water. The cups have tasted similar to the earlier ones I’ve brewed, so this seems like a good way to get a larger cup.

4/8: I brewed my last 12g of beans with 120g water (1:10) using the same AeroPress recipe I’ve used all along, except I skipped the bloom step and just poured all of the water at once. I really liked the result — it was strong, rich, and smooth, and just about the right amount. I think a larger cup would have worn out its welcome — kind of like an imperial stout, a little bit of really strong coffee goes a long way. I’m not sure how widely available this brand is at retail outside of Nebraska/Iowa, but I’d certainly buy it again.