Wake Up and Coffee
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@don_pipone @Tago-Mago and I just drank mine. Sorry!
“His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.“
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@ARNC it‘s always the right time for another one
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@don_pipone it’s coming along — definitely a bit of a learning curve with it, for sure. So far I’ve been able to pull decent-ish shots, but there’s a ways to go.
The biggest thing has been dialing the grind size and getting the pressure right. The shots I’ve been pulling haven’t had enough resistance, so they’ve come out really sour. I need to keep moving a click or two down until it works out. Obv temp affects this too, so I need to figure that out.
What’s hilarious is how much stuff online varies. One early suggestion was that I use 5 clicks on the Comandante (this is before I got the Red Clix upgrade), and I friggin swear I was grinding the beans for 10 minutes haha. I was like “shit I made a mistake by buying this thing — I’m not gonna be able to do this every day.” Once I tried to pull the shot with a grind that fine though, seeing that the arms on the Robot were literally immovable, I realized I needed to go a lot coarser. Things got better after that
All in all I’m really digging it though. It’s great how fast it is, really just takes a couple minutes for the kettle to heat up and for me to grind the beans, cleanup is basically nothing, and I don’t have to worry about some thing that cost a couple thousand bucks getting ruined by the wrong water or whatever (one big thing that gave me pause about buying an espresso machine, though I’d love to have one someday).
Lastly, I do think I’m gonna get a J Ultra grinder and save the Comandante for pour over.
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@popvulture Great read. Honestly, all the experimenting and dialing things in at the beginning is one of the most fun parts of getting into espresso. Sounds like you made the perfect choice with the machine and are enjoying the process - and hopefully many many cups from now on.
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@Cymro said in Wake Up and Coffee:
How do you like the new Paragon setup @Chap ?
Received it yesterday and did only two brews yet. Will have to make some adjustments and get used to it. I used the same coffee I had in my prior rotation. What I can say for the moment is that the result seemed to have a more precise taste, the brew is very clean and clear. Handling needs more attention.
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@Chap thank you, have fun experimenting!
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@ARNC sooo surprised to see bolivian coffee make it to fellow IH-forummites cups!
Caranavi is our TOP quality coffee region. If I ever make it to an IH meet where you show up I’ll take some local buys for you.
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@motojobobo thanks! I’ve never seen Bolivian coffee in the UK before, but the write up from my usual coffee merchant was intriguing. It sounds like the grower and his family are involved in supporting the wider industry in Bolivia and developed the coco natural process in house. In case you’re interested, here’s an extract:
“ Pedro Rodriguez runs his farms with his daughter Daniela, and son Pablo under their company ‘Agricafe’. Their business is committed to preserving Bolivia’s coffee production, which had been in decline for the last couple of decades. Yields were falling due to outdated farming practices, lack of government support, as well as a wave of Coffee Leaf Rust disease in 2008 which devastated much of Latin America’s coffee farms. Many farmers opted to stop growing coffee in favour of other crops. Concerned that Bolivian coffee production would cease altogether, Pedro started cultivating coffee on his own plantation in 2012. Later, the Rodriguez family created their ‘Sol de la Mañana’ programme, which helped other farms learn and adopt better farming techniques such as pruning, cherry picking and fertilizing. Their La Llama farm is their highest-altitude farm, named as a homage to a llama they encountered when they first looked to purchase the land.”
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I prefer my coffee cold, but I I like the flavor of hot extraction much more than cold brew. In the past I’ve done flash brewing where you do a pourover over ice. This is great, but obviously dilution happens, and while I enjoy the ritual, it takes time and attention.
An industry friend let me borrow this bre:zi contraption and it is very cool. It does a heated bloom followed by a cold brew. So it can do a cup in 11 minutes. You get the brightness of heated extraction with a great smooth mouthfeel and a predictable cup. Don’t have to weigh ice and water, just dial in the grind size, weight, and adjust the brew style (light/medium/dark concentrate or normal, or their lengthier kissaten slow‑drip mode) and weight (you can lie about how many grams you put in there to dial it in: higher for more dilution, etc). You can make concentrates for espresso martinis that have bright flavor. But a morning cup for me of 30g at a pourover grind consistency has let me enjoy bright, light roast coffee at the temperature and viscosity I prefer.
The thing is expensive but worth it IMO. Well-built, very easy to keep clean, everything is magnetically attached. Very slick.
https://brezicoffee.com/products/brezi-cold
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@mclaincausey very cool bit of kit
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There was a yt-online-live-coffee-tasting thing on this weekend run on James Hoffman's channel. First time I've done a proper cupping, and I have to say it was really really hard. Much harder than expected. Still enjoyable but not quite what I had been hoping for in terms of "flavour experience".
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@tenuin I had the Fermentation Kit from Hex Roasters out of Charlotte, NC. My order of preference was 3 2 4 1.
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@havingmysay said in Wake Up and Coffee:
@tenuin I had the Fermentation Kit from Hex Roasters out of Charlotte, NC. My order of preference was 3 2 4 1.
I got mine through a roaster local to me in Berlin. Apparently they messed up a bunch of orders, as on the day I received the kit, i also got an email that I would be refunded because the package could not be delivered.. reached out to them to let them know I did indeed receive it. And just today I got another email saying they are going to have a re-run because of some technical problems...
Order of preference 2 3 4 1, but it was really pretty close. I think my expectation was also a little different. I have been really into Ombligon by Jhoan Vergara, and natural and honey processed coffees in general for a while. The Ombligon has undergone some crazy 80 hour fermentation process that genuinely makes it taste like cherry cola. I was kinda expecting that they would pick some wildly different processes to really make the effects processing has apparent. I did not expect things to be this subtle and similar.
But then, the point they raised about repeatability and sustainable business practices make a lot of sense too, and from what I can tell, James is not the type to chase the latest trends..
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