Tag: medium roast

This and That

lpaulriddle

I’m trying a new WordPress theme out. I had been using “Twenty Twenty” for a long time, but never liked that it didn’t have a widget sidebar. So, I’m trying one out called “Simple Life”. It’s responsive, has a sidebar, and seems fairly lightweight, without a lot of bells and whistles and other stuff I don’t need. So, I’ll probably use it for a while until I get tired of it.

As promised yesterday, I brewed a pourover cup of my medium roast Mexican coffee beans using 18 grams of coffee to 250 grams water (around 1:14) and it was just about the perfect strength. It did have a tiny touch of bitterness that I didn’t notice yesterday, but I think that was because I wandered away and let the coffee sit and drip for a little too long. I’ll fix that tomorrow, and if it’s not perfect, I’ll try it just a tiny bit coarser.

I did my usual Friday morning session at the climbing gym today, and felt pretty good after climbing 8 routes ranging from 5.10- to 5.11-. There definitely is a huge difference in my energy level between my morning and evening climbing sessions. I suspect part of it is because I typically commute 22-25 miles on the bike on the same days as my evening climb sessions, with the 8-mile homeward leg wrapping up an hour or so before I leave for the gym. Something probably needs to give there…

Brew Notes

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast (Mexico)
  • 20g coffee / 250g water (1:12.5)
  • JX: 2 rotations less 6 clicks (18 on the grind chart / 54 total clicks)
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: A Better 1 Cup V60 Technique (see below)
  1. 0:00: Pour 66g of water to bloom
  2. 0:10 – 0:15: Gently Swirl
  3. 0:45 – 1:00: Pour up to 100g total (40% total weight)
  4. 1:10 – 1:20: Pour up to 150g total (60% total weight)
  5. 1:30 – 1:40: Pour up to 200g total (80% total weight)
  6. 1:50 – 2:00: Pour up to 250g total (100% total weight)
  7. 2:00 – 2:05: Gently swirl
  8. Drawdown should finish around 3:00

This is the same V60 recipe I’ve been using for light roast, with 20g coffee (vs 15), proportionally more initial bloom water, and slightly lower water temperature. I wanted to try brewing a stronger pourover cup, and it appears I have succeeded. This tasted well-extracted and very rich. I’m going to try my next cup at 1:14 (18g coffee / 60g initial pour) and see how that turns out. Over the past 3 days, I’ve now brewed 2 different AeroPress recipes and 1 pourover cup with these beans, all at roughly the same ratio. Both of the AeroPress cups tasted weak, but the pourover was strong. The pourover method is obviously doing a better job of extracting the beans, which makes me wonder what I could be doing differently with the AeroPress. It’s pretty clear that just upping the ratio is not the answer. I suspect that I need to be grinding the beans a lot finer, and/or increasing the steep time. But, if I get consistently good results with pourover, I’m inclined to stick with that for the time being.

Brew #2

lpaulriddle

Round 2 with the same beans as yesterday:

  • Beans: “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast (Mexico)
  • Grind: Medium-coarse – 2.5 turns on the JX minus (25 on the grind chart, or 75 total clicks)
  • 90°C water
  • 16 grams coffee / 180 grams water (1:11.25)
  • One new paper filter (pre-moistened)
  • Recipe: 13g that makes you happy (inverted: add 40g water, stir 5x, top up to 180g at 0:30, stir 10x, flip at 1:30 and press very slowly, finishing at 2:30)

This turned out similarly to yesterday’s cup. The flavor was fine, and while it was a tiny bit stronger (in line with the slight difference in ratios) and overall a pleasant cup, it was still a little bit weaker tasting than I would prefer. So, not much difference between the two recipes, at least when it comes to the finished product. I feel like I’m going to end up at 1:10 again, which tasted really good with a dark roast, but seems kind of like overkill. Based on an interesting Reddit thread I found, I think as an experiment, I’m going to try the following, not necessarily in this order, and see what I end up with:

  • One of these two AeroPress recipes at 1:12 to 1:15, with a very fine grind
  • Pourover using 20 grams of coffee with 250 grams of water and a similar grind to my previous pourover cups

If neither of these do the job for me, then I’ll break down and try 1:10.

Brew and Run

lpaulriddle

Got a bunch of medium roast coffee beans to use up before I resupply. Here was this morning’s attempt:

  • Beans: “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast (Mexico)
  • Grind: Fine – 1.5 turns on the JX minus 6 clicks (13 on the grind chart, or 39 total clicks)
  • 95°C water
  • 16-17 grams coffee / 200 grams water (around 1:12)
  • One new paper filter (dry)
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe (20 second pour, 2 minute steep, swirl, wait 30 seconds, press 30 seconds)

This is essentially the same thing I brewed about six weeks ago, with slightly hotter water and a little bit more coffee. The result was similar to last time: just fine flavor-wise, but lacking in body. I guess I could try grinding even finer, or I could try my go-to inverted recipe again, although that attempt also yielded a thin-bodied cup. Maybe I’d get better results with pourover or French press. I’ll figure it out one way or another.

I left the house at 7:10 this morning and ran a little over 7.5 miles. It was not a bad run on yet another damp, overcast, humid morning. Similar to yesterday’s bike commute, I wanted to get a sense for how the bell schedules for all of the local schools will affect my route. Verdict: unless I wait until after 9:15, I’m going to be dodging kids in one place or another. 7:10 worked out OK, but there may be another window between 8:00 and 8:20ish that may work out. I may try leaving around then on Thursday.

This, that, & the other

lpaulriddle

I brewed 13g that makes you happy this morning with my “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast beans that I picked up on the way home from Bethany, after getting great results with the recipe with different beans yesterday and the day before. Everything was the same, except I slightly overshot and ended up with about 190g of water (the recipe calls for 180g). It wasn’t a bad cup flavor-wise, just ever so slightly on the weak side. I’ll try this again and try to avoid over-pouring (update — 180g tasted about the same — maybe try tweaking water temperature and/or grind size). I seem to get better-extracted coffee from this recipe than I have been getting recently with the James Hoffmann recipe. My last few cups with the latter recipe have tasted kind of sour and weak. Granted, this is only the third time I’ve brewed today’s recipe, but I have yet to get a sour-tasting cup. I’ve gotten great cups of coffee with the Hoffmann recipe, too, but not consistently, and I’m still not sure exactly why that is. My goal is to find an idiot-proof recipe that produces consistently good coffee with a wide variety of beans (with maybe a small tweak to grind size and/or temperature here and there), and I am hoping that today’s recipe will turn out to be it. Time will tell.

Yesterday morning, I ran just over 10K at 10:45/mile, which is my first time averaging under 11:00/mile in probably a few weeks. I suspect it was mainly due to the weather, as the dewpoint was in the low 60s… still on the muggy side, but less so than my past several runs, and everything is relative this time of year. It will be interesting to see what my pace is like once we get into the cool, crisp days of fall. Later this week, we are supposed to have our first real heat wave of the summer, so I may end up running in the pool a couple of times. I hope I can find my flotation belt…

I got out for a “short” bike ride of about 25 miles this morning, looping through Ellicott City and parts of Columbia. Along the way, I rode the Grist Mill Trail from the swinging bridge west to Ilchester Rd. Parts of that section of trail could use some work. There is one area where some of the asphalt has washed away, and several other areas with remnants of flood debris on the path. I guess that part of the trail wasn’t in the scope of last year’s bridge work. Perhaps they’ll work on it later this year. I don’t go into the park often on weekends, so just for future reference, it was still nice and quiet at 7:30am. I didn’t see any other people (other than a park employee) before I crossed the swinging bridge. I’m not sure exactly what time they open the gates, but it was clear they hadn’t yet when I was there.

Quick Brew Notes

lpaulriddle

I brewed the exact same recipe as yesterday morning, except I used my Lost Dog “La Esparanza” medium/medium dark blend. The result was another pleasant, well-balanced cup. I’ve gotten mixed results with these beans using a couple of other recipes, with some success, but most of my more recent attempts have tasted kind of sour and under-extracted. That was not the case today. Whether it was the absolute best cup I’ve ever gotten from the beans is up for debate, but either way, this one gets the thumbs-up. I think I’ll try this recipe with another medium roast tomorrow.

On a totally unrelated note, we’ve had a bunch of red grapes sitting on the counter for a few days, and today, I tried tossing a few into one of my smoothies. I didn’t think it would be very good, but it actually wasn’t bad. I noticed a little bit of extra sweetness from the grapes, but not much of a grape flavor, I guess because the other ingredients kind of overpower it. That said, I didn’t add too many grapes, so I wonder how it would be with more of them in there.

Brew Notes

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: German St Coffee and Candlery Private House Blend
  • Grind: Medium-coarse – 2.5 turns on the JX (the recipe specifically recommends this setting). This is coarser than what I’ve used in the past with the AeroPress, but finer than what I usually use in the French press.
  • 90°C water
  • 13 grams coffee / 180 grams water (about 1:14)
  • One new paper filter (dry)
  • Recipe: 13g that makes you happy (inverted: add 30g water, stir 5x, top up to 180g at 0:30, stir 10x, flip at 1:30 and press very slowly, finishing at 2:30)

This recipe indeed made me happy. I followed it exactly, except I stirred 10x at 0:30 (which the recipe recommends if you want more extraction). It produced a cup that was well-extracted, not too weak, and not too strong. It was by far the best cup I’ve gotten from these beans using the AeroPress. One thing I noted was that the 30g of bloom water didn’t seem like quite enough to fully wet all of the coffee. I guess the initial stirring is supposed to take care of that. A little bit of coffee did get stuck to the stirrer, but went back in when I stirred again with the full volume of water. Whatever the case, it’s the end result that matters, and I really liked the cup. The true test, of course, is whether it will be good the next time I brew it. 😀

Today’s Second Cup

lpaulriddle

I opened another new bag of beans to brew a mid-afternoon cup. These beans are from Amity Coffee Roasters in Greenwood, DE.

  • Beans: “Angel Albino Corzo-Chiapa” medium roast (Mexico)
  • Grind: Fine – 1.5 turns on the JX minus 6 clicks, or 39 total clicks
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 200 grams water (1:13.3)
  • One new paper filter (dry)
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe (20 second pour, 2 minute steep, swirl, wait 30 seconds, press 30 seconds)

This is a slightly finer grind than I’ve used with medium roasted beans in the past. Also different is that I only used one filter, and I did not wet it. This was probably the best cup of coffee I’ve brewed in a couple of weeks! Always great to hit on a good recipe. I may try these same tweaks with my “La Esparanza” beans, as the last cup I brewed with them seemed a little under-extracted for some reason.

Last Cup

lpaulriddle

I brewed my last full cup of coffee with my Starbucks medium roast beans this morning, which is noteworthy only because this was my first foray into grinding beans myself. I’ve had the bag since last winter, and started out using a blade grinder and a drip coffee maker. Needless to say, the results were inconsistent — some cups were good, and others were not so good! I soon switched to a good quality burr grinder and a French press, which produced much better results. Somewhere along the way, I started measuring beans and water by weight rather than volume. Then, I upgraded from a cheap electric kettle to an expensive one that lets me heat water to a specific temperature, and I added an Aeropress. I now brew most of my cups with the electric kettle, burr grinder, scale, and either Aeropress or French press. But the point is, these beans have been with me through the entire progression.

I brewed this recipe with the Starbucks beans yesterday and today. Yesterday’s cup turned out pretty good, but ever so slightly bitter. Today’s was great. The difference: yesterday, I dumped the beans into the grinder directly from the jar, and a lot of “fines”, husks, and other smaller fragments from the bottom of the bag got mixed in there, which I suspect imparted a little bit of bitterness. Today, I made sure that only whole beans got into the grinder, and the result was a better cup.

There are still a few beans left at the bottom of the jar, which I’ll probably grind up along with the fragments and use for cold brew. I guess it won’t be too long before I’ll be looking to buy some new beans.

Brew/Run Notes

lpaulriddle

I decided to try a different Aeropress recipe with my Starbucks beans today, as my last couple of cups have been on the bitter side.

  • Beans: Starbucks House Blend medium roast
  • Grind: “Finer end of medium” – 1.5 turns on the JX minus 3 clicks, or 42 total clicks
  • 90°C water
  • 15 grams coffee / 200 grams water (1:13.3)
  • James Hoffmann’s Ultimate Aeropress Recipe

I followed the recipe pretty closely, except I used 15 grams of coffee where the recipe calls for 11 (although that assumes a light roast) and I did pre-wet the filter with cold water. I used two paper filters that are on their 5th or 6th cup. This produced a pretty nice cup with less bitterness than I had been getting lately with a different recipe. Compared to that recipe, this one uses a slightly finer grind with a lower water temperature. I do like Hoffmann’s scientific approach to brewing with the Aeropress, and this is a pretty easy recipe to follow, so I’m sure I’ll be tinkering around with it some more.

Another bad air day here in Maryland thanks to Canadian wildfires. I’m sure this isn’t the first summer where there have been wildfires in Canada, but it’s the first year I remember it having such a large effect on our weather here. Maybe this is just the first year everybody is paying such close attention to it. Who knows? I got out of the house at 6:30am this morning, when the temperature was still in the low 60s, and I ran 7.7 miles at a very relaxed pace of 11:30/mile. It was a pretty good run, with none of the energy issues that have plagued me over the past week or so.