Tag: pourover

Zeke’s Beans of Summer

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Beans of Summer” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: Light (3/8)
    • Origin: Indonesia, South America, Central America
    • Roast date: 7/8/24
    • Purchase date: 7/8 or 7/9/24 at Green Valley Marketplace in Elkridge, MD
  • V60:
    • 21g to 22g coffee / 300g water
    • JX: 20-25 (60-75 clicks)
    • Water at 99°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with size 1 dripper
  • AeroPress:
    • 18g coffee / 250g water
    • JX: 20
    • Water at 99°C
    • Prismo + metal and 1 paper filter
    • Pour to 50g / stir to wet / bloom until 0:45 / top up to 250g / stir 5-7x front to back / steep until between 2:30 and 3:00 / stir 5-7x again / press slowly

I bought these close to the day they were roasted, and let the bag sit for 10 days or so before opening it. First cup in size 2 dripper at grind setting 20 was pretty good. Second cup at setting 19 was good as well. Started getting a little bit of bitterness at 18. Backed off to 20, and it was still bitter. Tried setting 20 in plastic size 1 dripper and later in the ceramic size 1 dripper, and both cups were good. I’ll keep it there for the time being and see how it goes.

Like most Zeke’s beans, these appear to be washed, leave very little fine residue in the grinder, and drain down quickly in the size 2 dripper and even faster in the size 1. I’m wondering if these beans are similar to Zeke’s Snow Day Blend, which required a really coarse grind in the larger dripper. Maybe the key to avoiding bitterness with these is to make sure they finish draining down by 2:20 to 2:30, which would make the coarser grind appropriate for the larger dripper.

7/26: These are starting to want a coarser grind now no matter which dripper I use. I tried setting 25 with size 2 V60 this morning, and it wasn’t bitter, but not what I would call a perfect cup either. It seemed maybe a little bit under-extracted. I wonder if it would be better if I went back to a finer grind and dropped the water temperature 10 degrees or so. I might try that this afternoon.

7/28: Ignore most of the above. It has proven challenging to get a good cup with these beans with the V60. Grind setting 20 with 90C water was bitter. Setting 30 at 100C was sour and under-extracted. I think the coarser grind is the appropriate setting for pour-over, but with the V60 (both sizes) It seems like the water is draining too quickly for proper extraction. It might turn out better if I brewed a larger quantity at a time (say 500-600g). Maybe a thicker filter would help, if such a thing exists. Or, perhaps a different style of dripper (Kalita Wave?) would give better results. For today, I switched to the AeroPress (recipe above) and it produced a much better cup than anything I’ve gotten with the V60 recently. I’ll probably stick with that until the beans are used up.

Rise Up Pura Vida

lpaulriddle
  • 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.

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.

LCRC Beach Blend

lpaulriddle
  • 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:

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. 😀

Zeke’s Colombia Huila

lpaulriddle
  • 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.

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.

Black Acres Lexington Market Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Lexington Market Blend” from Black Acres Roastery (Baltimore, MD)
    • Roast level: looks like lighter end of medium*
    • Origins: Mexico Mico de Noche, Organic Colombia Sierra Nevada
    • Tasting Notes: Cherry Cordials, Praline, Rich Chocolate
    • Purchase date: 3/22/24
  • V60:
    • 21g coffee / 300g water (1:14.3)
    • JX: 19 (57 clicks)
    • Water at 95°C
    • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover with slow pour; draw-down finished around 2:50

Cathy picked this bag up at Lexington Market (surprise, surprise). The web site says it is a dark roast, but I think that may be a mistake — the beans have a tan to light brown coloring, with no oils visible on the surface. To my (admittedly amateur) eye, they look like a light to medium roast. In any case, I’ve been brewing them like a medium roast, with good results so far. I made my first cup 2 or 3 days ago at setting 25, but it tasted weak. 20 was an improvement yesterday, and 19 was a little bit better still today. It had pretty good body with a definite hint of cherries and a mild bit of acidity.

4/8: For the moment, 18 appears to be the best grind setting. It seems to bring out most of the chocolate flavor, which complements the fruitiness nicely and results in a nice, well-balanced cup. I tried it at 17 (slightly finer) but did not like it as much — it seemed to have a bit less sweetness and a bit more acidity. It will be interesting to see if I need to tweak things as the beans age, but I may go through them quickly, as I don’t have any others at the moment.

4/9: I decided to brew a cup with my ceramic size 1 V60, which I had not used in a while. I kept everything else the same, and I used my old tried-and-true preheating method of sticking a Fernco cap on the bottom of the dripper and filling it with water from the kettle. I pre-moistened the filter at the same time. Later in the day, for comparison, I brewed a second cup with the plastic size 2 V60. The first big thing I noticed was that with the ceramic V60, the water drained down a lot faster. It was finished by around 2:30, vs. 2:50-3:00 for the plastic V60. I’m not sure if this is because of the different geometry of the dripper, different filters (size 1 vs size 2, but both Hario brand unbleached paper filters), or something else. The cup brewed in plastic was better than the cup brewed in ceramic: the former had more flavor and body, and while the latter wasn’t bad, it was a little bit thinner, likely because the faster drain-down led to less extraction of the grounds. I’m curious to see if this is more related to the size of the V60, or the material, but to determine that, I’d need to buy a plastic size 1 V60. In any case, with the ceramic, it might make sense to use a finer grind to try to slow down the brew a little bit. I’m fine just sticking with the plastic, but I have a lot of size 1 filters to use up.

4/14: I used the rest of these up this morning. Like the beans I bought in Morton a month or so ago, I had to start grinding these finer to keep the cups from getting weak. I finished up at grind setting 15, and at that setting, the draw-down finished at around 3:00. The last few cups were still pretty good, if not quite as good as the first few cups.

LnB Organic Fair Trade Peruvian

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Organic Fair Trade Peruvian” from Leaves ‘n Beans Coffee (Peoria Heights, IL)
    • Roast level: medium
    • Purchase date: 3/9/24
  • V60:

Started these off at grind setting 29, only because that setting had been working well with the beans I just used up. It wasn’t bad, but had a very slight hint of acidity. I tried it a little bit finer at 28, and got a really good, smooth cup. I then tried 27, and it wasn’t quite as good, so I went back to 28, and I think I’ll stay there for the time being. Compared to my past few bags of Zeke’s, these beans are similar in that they grind pretty cleanly and don’t leave much residue in the grinder, but they take several seconds longer to draw down.

3/17 (Happy St. Patrick’s Day): acidity creeping in at 28 this morning, so this afternoon, I tried 26, which is the finest I’ve ground these so far. It was very good at this setting, so maybe finer is the right idea after all. I definitely felt the caffeine in this cup, so maybe 1:14.3 is a little too strong, though. FWIW, the draw-down finished at around 2:45-2:50 at this setting.

3/19: After 2 days of really good cups at setting 26, both cups today tasted weak and watery. I don’t think anything changed WRT water temperature, ratio or my brewing technique, so I’m not sure what happened. I guess I’ll try it finer tomorrow morning.

3/20: Adjusted grind to 24 this morning, and I think it was a little bit too fine, as it was starting to taste bitter. It will be another 6 days before I brew these beans again, but when I do, I’ll try 25. Could be that 25-26 is good, and I just need to adjust the ratio as the beans age, but I won’t know for sure until next week.

3/26: Setting 25 was not an improvement today. The cup tasted weak and lifeless. I haven’t changed anything WRT technique or recipe vs 10 days or so when I was getting fantastic cups, so my only conclusion is that the beans must be getting past their prime. I think I’m going to switch to AeroPress and see if I can get better results with immersion.

3/27: My usual AeroPress technique at 1:14 (ish) and grind setting 20 yielded a thin-bodied cup, which makes me suspect even more that the beans have degraded. I’ve been storing them in a Fellow vacuum canister, but haven’t been terribly impressed with these canisters, as they seem to slowly lose their seal over several days. I’ve moved the beans to a mason jar, because at least I can be confident it’s airtight. I tried pourover again today with grind setting 25 and a stronger ratio of 1:12.5 (24g coffee / 300g water) and it was better, but still tasted a little bit acidic/under-extracted. I’ll probably keep the strong ratio and start slowly adjusting the grind finer to see if I can get any improvement, or if it just starts getting bitter.

3/28: V60 at grind setting 24, 24g coffee and 300g water was a huge improvement over the past few days. The only thing of note is that I pre-wet the filter with water from the insta-hot tap, which I hadn’t been doing recently, but I doubt that made a huge difference. I could probably go a little bit finer still with the grind, but this was a good start. I don’t have many of the beans left, though.

4/2: Brewed the last of these (all except for about 7-8g) at grind setting 25 and 24g/300g. I didn’t check these notes ahead of time, and forgot that I had most recently been using grind setting 24. Probably not much of a difference either way. Today, I made a point of trying to slow down the water flow rate by pouring as slowly as the kettle would allow. The result was a pretty good cup.

4/7: I had 7-8g of beans to use up, so as an experiment, I ground it really fine (JX setting 10) and brewed it with 90g water (roughly 1:12) at 95C using my go-to AeroPress method (bloom with around 15g water until 0:45, top up to 90g, stir 5-6x, steep until 3:00, stir 5-6x again, press slowly) and although the cup cooled off quickly due to the low volume of water, it had pretty good flavor and body. I was surprised that it wasn’t bitter. So, these beans seem to like a really fine grind, at least after they age for a few weeks. There’s at least an outside chance I’ll try them again the next time I’m in the Peoria area, though I’d say more likely I’ll try something else from the same roaster, just for the sake of variety.

Zeke’s Snow Day Blend

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Snow Day Blend” from Zeke’s Coffee (Baltimore, MD)
    • Source: Bali Blue Krishna (Indonesia) / Tanzania Peaberry
    • Roast level: medium (4/8)
    • Roast date: 2/19/24
    • Purchase date: 2/27/24
  • V60:

Similar story to pretty much everything I’ve been brewing with my plastic size 2 V60 lately: I started too fine, and am slowly adjusting coarser in an attempt to make the coffee not taste bitter. This was starting to taste pretty good at 28 today, but could maybe go a couple more clicks. I think that my rule of thumb for light to medium roasts is going to be to wait until 10 days to 2 weeks past roast date, and then start with a grind setting of 28 to 30.

3/11: I brewed my first pourover with these in 9 days, using grind setting 29, and it was quite good. I’ll keep this setting for the next few cups, and see how it goes.

3/14: Used these up today. This has been one of my favorite blends from Zeke’s. Once I got the grind setting dialed in at 29, every cup was very consistently good. I also brewed several cups with the AeroPress while out of town, and those cups were good too (if not quite as good as the pourovers) in spite of inconsistent water temperatures and bean/water ratios.

Orinoco Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

lpaulriddle
  • Beans: “Ethiopia Yirgacheffe”
    • Medium roast
    • Roaster: Orinoco Coffee & Tea, Ltd. (Jessup, MD)
    • Roast date: Unknown (best by 10/28/24)
    • Purchase date: 2/20/24
  • 20g coffee / 300g water (1:15)
  • JX: 30 (90 clicks) for V60; 13 (39 clicks) for AeroPress
  • Water at 95°C
  • Recipe: Single Cup V60 Pourover, Light/Medium Roast AeroPress (TBD)

Taking some time to get this dialed in with the V60. I started at grind setting 20, and it was way too bitter. I brewed a couple of cups around 25/26, and they were less bitter, but still lacking. I backed off to 30 today (2/23) and it was the best cup so far, but seems like it could be better. The V60 drains really quickly at this setting: it is mostly finished by 2:30.

For AeroPress, I used this recipe with 250g water, 17g coffee, and grind setting 13. The flavor was good, but it was a little bit lacking in body, so I’ll start nudging it finer.

2/24: Brewed AeroPress with grind setting 12 this morning, and it was unpleasantly bitter, which kind of surprised me, given how it turned out at 13 yesterday. This afternoon, I brewed V60 at setting 29, which seemed a little better than 30. Will try at 28 tomorrow.

2/25 (morning): (V60) bitterness creeping in at 28. Seems like 29/30 may be the best setting. Could this be an issue with the beans being too “fresh” again? I wish I knew the exact roast date..

2/25 (afternoon): Went back to setting 29 with V60, and it was the best cup I’ve had to date. The only difference from yesterday afternoon’s cup was that I stirred the grounds with a spoon during the bloom phase instead of swirling.

2/27: Even 30 was bitter yesterday!! 32 was better today, but thinking 31 might be the sweet spot (today, at least 😀). This was the first time I had ever used a setting coarser than 30. These beans are behaving similarly to the last two bags of Zeke’s beans that I started brewing just a couple of days after the roast date. This lends credence to my theory that they may have been too “fresh” when I started brewing them.

3/1: I never quite figured out how to get a consistently good cup with these beans with the V60. However, I brewed a very good cup with the AeroPress this morning: 17g beans to 240g water (around 1:14), Prismo + metal and paper filters, 95°C water, JX grind setting 15 — pour 50-55g, stir, bloom until 0:45, top to 240g, stir 4x, steep until 3:00, stir 4x, press slowly. This cup was full-bodied and strong, with good flavor. That was the last of the beans, but noting this as a good starting point for when I eventually buy more of them.