A Coffee thread for the Café...

[js]

LEDmodMan,

Thanks for the update!

For those of us who live in places like Maine or New York or Vermont, the only solution in the Winter is to roast under a hood which vents to the outside, or to roast with the hot air popper pointing out a partially opened window. This is what I do and it works very well. I should also mention that most air roasters rely on having the proper voltage and if your house has old wiring or if you are using a very long and thin extension cord, the low voltage at the roaster will cause it to not get hot enough to get into or past first crack.

Also, INCREASING the amount of beans roasted will actually raise the temperature of the roasting air because there is more resistance for the fan to overcome and thus the air stays in contact with the heating coil longer. So decreasing the amount of beans will actually result in a slower roast. Most hot air poppers want a 1/2 cup of green beans, but some will take 3/4 cup. In any case, the beans should be MOVING even at the begining of the roast. They don't have to move much at first, but they should move a little. Some people actually stir them at first until things get going. The toastmaster that LEDmodMan mentions above is already at full capacity at 1/2 cup and should NOT be pushed past that. However, if you can find one, a WestBend The Poppery (NOT the Poppery II, but the original) will take nearly a full cup. The Proctor Silex The Popcorn Pumper, which I use, does well on 3/4 of a cup. I actually like it better than either the WB P I, or the TM, both of which I own in addition to my PS.

 

[Joe Talmadge]

[ QUOTE ]

It definitely sounds to me like you have too low a house voltage, or are using an extension cord. What happens if you wait a long long time? Do you know about first and second crack and what they sound and look like? This machine is a slow roaster, much slower than a hot air popcorn popper, so perhaps you have been under-roasting. Under roasted coffee does indeed taste vile, and sometimes the color of the beans will fool you and be darker than the actual degree of roast.

As for a variac fix, it's on the order of $100 from SM. coffeebeancorral (sp?) .com has a model for $50, but it is being way overdriven--they replace the fuses and everything. Safer to pay the extra $50 because you'll definitely melt something or other on this cheaper model. So it's a lot of money to remedy low house voltage.

Anyway, sorry Empath for the OT post. Joe, post in the Coffee thread if you have any further questions. Or PM me, or email sweetmarias. They are awesome at returning emails.


[/ QUOTE ]

js,

The color is turning out perfect, but the best explanation I have for the horrible grassy off tastes is that the beans are under-roasted. So you're probably right, the color is fooling me. I'm not sure what first and second crack look and sound like. I haven't ever heard a really audible crack, just some very light hushed popping-like sounds.

On my machine, the general guidance is that I should espect a city roast in like 8-9 minutes, and full city a minute or so after that. It's taking me easily 15 minutes to get something that looks like it's between city and full city. Old house, old wiring, that's gotta be the problem.

Rather than spending another $100 for a variac, maybe my best bet would be to get the $10 BB&B popper and see if things work out better.

 

[LEDmodMan]

I would also recommend monitoring the temperature. You'll need a thermometer that is good to about 500 degrees F. Sweet Maria's has several here.

First crack usually happens for me at about 425 - 430 degrees F, and second crack is usually between 445 - 450 degrees F. Sometimes temperature is the best gage for the beans' doneness.

 

[Doug S]

I just took the plunge into homeroasting with the placement of an order for some green beans from SweetMaria's a few minutes ago. A tip of the cup to Jim Sexton for nudging me over the edge.

 

[Doug S]

This afternoon I made my first effort at homeroasting. I'm using a Wear-Ever Popcorn Pumper with a 1400W nameplate. Line voltage measured at 123V and outside temp around 50F.
A thermocouple was used to measure the bean mass temperature.
First try:
1/2cup of Kenya AA
300F reached at 3 minutes
400F/1st crack begin at 6:15
Bean temp stalled in the 400-415F range from 6:15 to 12:00
Roasting stopped at 18:30/435F
Cupping: Pretty good but a bit "light" in flavor.

Second try:
I was concerned about the long roast time so decided to try speeding the roast by using more beans. Tried 3/4cup Kenya AA.
With this amount, it was necessary to shake the popper for the first 3 minutes to insure bean motion.
390F/1st crack at 6:00
At 7:40 and 400F the popper shut down on it's internal thermal protection.
Cupping: Very bad! I now know what is meant by "grassy" flavor.

I disassembled the popper and bypassed the thermal cutout.

Third try:
Reroasted the under-roasted batch from my second try.
395F at 6 minutes
Bean temp stalled in the 400-420F range for about 6 more minutes.
Crack noted at 438F/14 minutes
Roast stopped at 448F/17 min
Cupping: Pleasant, light flavor (tasted like I brewed it a bit weak) but retained a hint of it's original grassy flavor.

Fourth try:
Sumatra 2/3 cup.
400F/1st crack at 3:45
420F at 7:00
Bean temp stalled in the 420-433F range to 14:00
Roast stopped at 22 minutes after 448F peak temp.
Appearance: very dark
Cupping: tastes like a Vienese roast which is a bit dark for my tastes but otherwise was quite good with a clean taste.

Comments: I am concerned about the very long roasting times with the very slow temperature rise after 1st crack. Partially blocking the air intake on the popper did not seem to help the heatup rate. Despite the 123V line voltage and the 1400W nameplate [more than some popular poppers] roasting time is much longer than the 6-10 minutes I see mentioned on the various webpages on using poppers to roast coffee. I wonder how much this is adversely affecting the quality of my end results.
At end of roasting I am just dumping the beans out into a metal baking pan and shaking until cool. Anyone have any comment on whether a more controlled cooldown by modifying the popper to run the fan only makes much of a difference in the final result?
My fourth try was dark enough that I assume that it was well into 2nd crack but I never was able to preceive a 2nd crack.
I'm not sure what to do about the long roast times. I'd rather not buy a variac with 1400W capacity.

EDIT This morning after my various roast attempts had rested overnight, I brewed several batches. Attempt number four is definitely roasted well into Vienese. This is much too dark for my tastes. At least I know that with enough time the roaster can get there. I brewed a stronger batch of attempt number one. This I would rate as very good coffee. It tastes a bit darker when brewed strong. Perhaps this is due to the overnight rest instead.

EDIT 2 Well I've solved the slow roast problem. I tried roasting with the popper in an open-topped box. I can now roast *too fast* if not careful.

 

[iddibhai]

have any of you tried "qahwa", the coffee served in the middle east in very small round bowl shaped cups. i'm told it's green bean, unroasted coffee. first time i tried it, was horrible, but live there a while and any social meeting coaslesces around the stuff, and pretty soon you enjoy it. wondering how they make it.

on a more topical note, I'm using a plunge pot (press) to brew coffee, and got some new mexico pinon coffee, but no matter how i brew it, it's nowhere as nice as the cup i had at the store that sold the stuff. tried less grounds/cup, more grounds/cup, brew <5min, brew >5min. it's either too bitter or watery and flavorless. I heat water in a cup in the m.wave till it bubbles, and pour into the press w/ ground in it, stir, cover and wait. what am i doing wrong? coffee was ground at the coarsest setting the store had, for press-pot use.

 

[avusblue]

I received a Senseo coffee machine for Christmas. It uses those little prepackaged coffee "pods", combined with water delivered under high pressure. Makes very delicious coffee, in only about 30 seconds. The coffee is delivered to your mug with a very pleasurable "frothy" layer on top. It also makes cool sounds while operating! While it's probably not what the hard core coffee snobs go for, I recommend it for folks who just like good tasting coffee, made easy. I've put away my French press on a high cupboard shelf. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Cheers,

Dave

 

[lambo]

Doug, since you guys got me interested in "real" coffee a few months ago, I thought I'd chime in. Try roasting fewer rather than more beans to speed up the roasting. In the consumer roasters like the Hearthware I have, they recommend doing a half cup at most, and the roasting chamber on the Hearthware seems quite a bit larger than any air popper I've ever seen. I've found that on the one or two occasions when I accidentally grabbed the 1/3 cup measure thinking I had the 1/2 cup measure, things moved even more rapidly. You might even try 1/3 or 1/4 cup. Should be easier on the popper, too. It means you roast more often, but you get more practice, too. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinser2.gif

You might also try doing it indoors next to an open window if you can stand the smoke and lingering aroma. (Doing it under the range hood helps some, if you have one.) The cooler ambient temperature from roasting outside is certainly making the popper work harder and thus take longer.

I've never been able to detect much of a second crack myself, but you might not be getting there, even with the 448 degree roast that looks and tastes nearly like a Viennese to you. See Sweet Maria's pictorial which says that the first audible snaps of second crack come at 454 degrees.

I doubt it's worth modifying the popper so the fan alone cools the beans. I would bet contact with the cool air and the cold baking pan is already stopping the roasting. I've read somwhere -- I think in Ken David's book on home roasting -- that you can also spritz the beans with a bit of water to cool them down quickly without doing them any harm.


EDIT: I see I've contradicted Jim Sexton's message above with my first piece of advice. Given the genius all his posts display -- I still want one of those Tiger mods -- I'd rely on him over me, but in my experience with my roaster, which isn't much more than a glorified popcorn popper, fewer beans most definitely roast faster.

I also meant to encourage you to stick with it. It took me a few tries before I got something that struck me as good, and then you have to navigate the potential minefields of all the grinding and brewing methods before you can be fairly certain the roasting isn't what's keeping you from perfection -- or acceptability. Good luck.

 

[lambo]

iddibhai, try messing with the grind. As you obviously know, grind for a French Press should be coarser than for drip or espresso, but you're still going to get more flavor the finer the grind is. I had to experiment until I found the finest possible grind that is still large enough not to pass through the filter screen, and it was a very good match for the best coffee I'd ever had up to that point. And if you can take a little sediment, you might try an even finer grind.

Of course, this may be a pain in the neck if you're having the coffee ground where you buy it, but if they'll grind in smaller batches, you could work your way down the scale until you find what suits you. You might appreciate the convenience of even a cheap burr grinder, though. (Those whirly grinders make it hard to control fineness. Grind for a shorter time and you're just getting a few more bigger pieces and a bit less dust.) In the after-Christmas sales, I bet you could find one for $40 to $50. I've managed to ignore the true coffee nuts' recommendation to spend a couple hundred on a grinder and have remained happy with a 15-year-old Krups. So I'm a neanderthal. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif

Also -- though I don't see how this could possibly be contributing to flavorless coffee -- your water should be a bit below boiling. If you have a $5 kitchen thermometer, aim for 195 to 205 degrees; if not, just wait 20 seconds before pouring it over the grounds.

Haven't tried qahwa, but I developed a great fondness for Turkish coffee while in the Middle East (or Greek coffee if you're in Greece -- I'll never make that mistake again). That's one thing the whirly blade grinders are actually pretty good at, too, since Turkish coffee is essentially powder.

 

[Doug S]

I made a couple more roasting attempts today. I think I'm homing in on what will work best. To solve the slow roast problem I placed the popper in an open-topped box. This greatly shortened the roast time.

Fifth batch:
2/3 cup Decaf Kenya AA
285F at 2 min
390F/1st crack at 3:40
428F at 5 min
450F at 6 min, roast stopped.
Cupping: Excellent. Best Decaf I think I've had. Retains that characteristic, hard to describe, Kenya flavor.

Sixth batch:
1/2 cup Sumatra
Popper was still hot from batch 5. It was a mistake to not have let it cool.
365F at 1 min (!)
400F/1st crack at 1:20
450+ at 4:20, roast stopped.
Due to the very fast roasting there was much uneveness in the color. Some beans looked Vienese, others were clearly under roasted.
Cupping: I had low expectations for this batch due to the excessive roast speed and uneven roast. It was actually quite drinkable but did have a grassy flavor due to the contributions of the under roasted beans in the mix.

Comment: I can see a benefit of modding the roaster to run the fan only to speed cooldown between batches to avoid the problem encountered in batch six. Remember that those temperatures are by thermocouple in the bean mass. It can generally be expected to read higher than bean internal temp. I would expect that for very fast roasts the difference between TC temperature and bean internal temperature will be greater than with a slow roast.

 

[Doug S]

OK. I think that I finally got the Sumatra nailed. I modded the popper to run the fan independent of the heating element for rapid roast termination. I modulated roast rate with variable box geometry.

Batch seven:
2/3 cup Sumatran
260F/1min
330F/2min
360F/3min
384F/4min
395F/1st crack/4:20min
425F/6min
1st smoke at 6:45min
457F peak/7min/roast terminated with fan cooldown
Appearance: uniform
Cupping: Very good! Typical Sumatran flavor. This is direct from popper to grinder. Hopefully it will be even better tomarrow.
I am way over-caffinated now. I think I need to quit fooling with the coffee and go for a run.

BTW, does anyone know approximately what percent weight is lost in roasting?

 

[Doug S]

I am continuing to get great entertainment from my novice roasting efforts. I have now done my eighth and ninth batches. Batch 8 was 3/4 Cup of Kenya Decaff and batch nine was 3/4 Cup of Kenya AA. I've learned several more useful things on these two batches. It is a very warm New Year's day here, 68F. At this temperature I get what seems to be about "just right" roast times of around 10 min without resorting to the box enclosure. Both of these batches were done with the top half of the plastic chaff chute removed. I much prefer this way. It allows unimpeded inspection of the roiling bean mass with the chaff blowing up into your face. OK, maybe I'm weird but I like this. Notably, this arrangement allowed me [I'm pretty sure] to unambiguously hear the 2nd crack. While the test engineer in me would not choose to do so, I think that I could now do a sucessful roast on sight and sound without benefit of a temperature probe. I also learned that 3/4 cup is about the max load for the Poppercorn Pumper. With this amount it is necessary to shake the popper for the first few minutes to keep the beans moving. I find that I really like the mod I did that allows the fan to run independently of the heater. This allow precise termination of the roasting once you have decided that you have reached the roast you want. The way I have it set up is the fan runs whenever the popper is plugged in and the switch controls the heating element. This also permits rapid cooldown between batches so that subsequent batches don't roast too quickly. I have also learned that it *is* true that a roast taste better the next day compared to straight from the roaster. Excluding my second batch which was grossly under roasted due to the thermal cutout [since bypassed] of the popper, my worst batch [number 4 where I roasted some Sumatran well into Vienese+] still tastes better than 19 out of 20 cups of coffee that I have been served in commercial establishments.
I think that I am a satisfied convert to homeroasting. A special tip O' the cup to Jim Sexton for his encouragement.

 

[javafool]

Congratulations Doug S,

I have been roasting all my own coffee for about 7 or 8 years now and believe it is the only way to go. I use my HotTop most of the time and just roasted 260 g of Costa Rican peaberry select from Sweetmarias when we got back from Indiana this afternoon. Most of the coffee tastes better the second day after roasting and the Konas and Jamaca Bule Mountain take at least two to three days to develop their character.

If you haven't joined the Sweetmarias forum you should check it out. Great people and total airheads when it comes to good coffee. I post in another forum with a great group that seem to be airheads when it come to flashlights but will not dare to mention the name of that group /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon3.gif.

 

[Minjin]

I can't seem to make coffee.

I now own my first coffee maker (small 4 cup Mr Coffee) and I'm having problems making a good cup of coffee. I first bought some Maxwell House Hazlenut but it was pretty bad. I figured it was the coffee, so I went to the local farmer's market and splurged for some 6 dollar (1/2lb) coffee that smelled great. First cup was much better but still not really all that good. Since then, I've tried more and less coffee grinds to no avail. I think the problem is that I don't know when I'm using too much or too little. I've read that if you use too little, its bitter because the water overextracts the beans. And I'm certainly making bitter coffee. Or at least I think. The thing is, I've been using more and more heaping tablespoons with no improvement. I can't even get it to taste as well as the first batch that I made. Will heaping tablespoons not work as a method of measurement? Whats the difference in weak and strong coffee? Are we talking 10% more or 200% more? I never thought I'd have such difficulty with this.

Mark