Coffee
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Give it a few more days if you can. It peaks around days 4-11. Haven't looked too far for a definititive answer but it's been true to my tastes as well as what I've been told. Quick quote I found;
Most single origin coffees will start to show well around 4 days post roast and start to decline on day 8 or 9. Most well made blends, many of which demand higher dosing (at least those "marquee blends" from major roasters in N. America), will peak a little later, maybe on day 5 or 6 or 7, and could last for 4 or 5 days near peak, if they have enough constituent coffees in them so that there is more than one "peak" to contend with.
As a general rule, the more lightly roasted is a coffee, the longer it will take to peak, and the darker is the roast the faster it will peak and decline.
http://www.home-barista.com/knockbox/how-long-after-roasting-is-coffee-at-its-best-t16604.html
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Oh yeah; the idea is to get them ASAP after roasting and use a repeatable extraction so that I get to sample the full progression and evolution of the bean. Then I can determine each bean's taste curve. Then I can adjust the recipe as needed once I've found the peak for a given bean. The scientific method rocks!
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Respect to that! I don't open a roast for 3-4 days generally, have had too many 'flat' experiences on the first few days.
Not overly sure if the repeatability is there. The same beans roasted on a different day will be different. The same beans from the same farm a year later will be quite a bit different. All data points, tho. Look forward to reading what you find next year.
How are you recording the data? I've wanted to do tasting notes but haven't found a good long term method for establishing.
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My mind…. Probably should just get a moleskin. Evernote would be cool though since you could tag your notes with different flavor characteristics and preparation parameters. For that matter, OmniOutliner could also be a good way to do it.
Variables such as roast and how the beans are per harvest are variables I can't control (well, I could, and eventually may, start roasting). So, the best I can do is to treat those as controls right now, and leave my fate in the hands of quality roasters on those.
The sumatran, 6 days after roasting, has adopted some flavors of almond and marshmallow, and retained its punchiness and surprising brightness. Ultimately, not my favorite of the batch so far, somewhat to my surprise, but still great. It doesn't have that rotten leather or burnt rubber characteristic you sometimes get out of Sumatrans, so that's good.
The Yirgacheffe has been a surprise too. I don't typically like lighter, more acidic coffees, and perhaps this is due to the strength (I mean concentration, not bragging about technique or anything) of my pour over recipe, this comes out as possibly my favorite, though I have an espresso nuevo in the works as I type. All of these were roasted on the 11th and I've been sampling them daily.
And the espresso, though it does even better in the Aeropress, is just lovely this morning. Pending on how the honey process ages out, I think I've zeroed in on two that will be staples for the near term. Espresso Nuevo for the AP, Yirgacheffe for PO.
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Fucking exhausted just hand ground any entire bag of Toby's Estate Panama La Batista, Geisha. It smells so good It's almost a shame to drink it. It's like killing a unicorn… with, like, a bomb.
"Obstacles are stepping-stones that guide us to our goals"
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Hand grinding… you Luddites
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I think this is a great solution for keeping notes: http://www.33books.com/products/33-cups-of-coffee
Question though, why grind an entire bag at one time rather than grind the amount needed the morning of? To each his own of course and I can understand with hand grinding (if that's your only method of grinding) getting it all out of the way - it does suck.
Stumptown has a great geisha offering right now. 3 bags from different farms… A bit spendy, but I've enjoyed the limited beans I've bought from them in the past.
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I grind for each cup I make, aside from grinding a couple of ounces to take to the office….
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Another question for the coffee Aficionados. This time the topic is mugs.
I have been trying to find some heavy duty mugs here in the UK. They style I have found looks similar to the American coffee shop style mug but I am unsure as to whether they are as heavy and well built as the mugs I have seen featured in this thread.
If you could check out the weights, dimensions and pictures and let me know whether you feel these are proper "hardcore" coffee mugs or just "lightweight pretenders". They will do me for taking to work but it would be nice to know whether I can buy better versions.
Mug weighs 371 grams ( 13.1 US Ounces / 0.8 lbs )
Mug is 3 3/4" tall ( 96mm ) 3 3/8" ( 85mm ) width across the brim
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Highly suggest not grinding until you're going to drink, if you can avoid it;
if you do not grind your beans right before brewing, you are never going to taste everything a top-shelf coffee has to offer.
That is because the volatile flavors and aromatics concentrated inside a coffee bean are exposed by grinding; when you make coffee, you are dissolving a portion of the bean’s solids in water. By crushing coffee beans into small pieces, you have better access to those tasty solubles. Grind just before brewing and you have a good chance of getting most of them into the cup; grind 10 minutes ahead and a noticeable amount of flavor will have dissipated. Grind the night before and you throw in the towel before you step in the ring.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/dining/better-coffee-depends-on-good-grinding.html?_r=0
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ddtrash, it's getting more into a feeling than science at this point (actually, I'm sure there's some science, the same as wine glasses). Can you measure the width of the lip? I'll measure in the morning if no one else has. The lip looks a little thin, but it's really really close otherwise.
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Dd, I have two mug recommendations. First, stoneware like Some of us discussed earlier in this thread; you can order those from the link I posted. These are heavy but fairly thin.
Second, a local place called dogwood where I live makes a great mug. Super thick and heavy. PM me if interested in that and I can send you one, they are $10.
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Snowy / Mc
thanks for your feedback.
The lip of the mug measures aprox 3/8" thick, difficult to measure due to the curvature.
Mc Thanks for the offer of posting me a mug from the US, will drop you a PM
thanks again
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Ha I just dig a couple of mugs out of storage. One is a Japanese made mug with a series of duck decoys on it
The other is just a humble, innocuous diner mug
Or is it?
NOOOOOPE. I almost dropped the goddamn thing when I pulled it out of the box. Gets me every time.
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Intelligentsia Coffee at Ground Support Cafe is my go to daily!
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Yeah when I was a little boy I was obsessed with ducks and turtles. This was a Christmas present so it is very special to me.
I also loved cowboys. Had a "Cowboy Bob" persona.
