South-American Pale (Blend #6)

1oz - Brazil Mogiana
1oz - Bolivian CIAPEC
1oz - Guatemala Palhu SHB Huehuetenango

This recipe was roasted to the point that the Second Crack was just beginning. And while it suffers in comparison to the Manna it possesses its own classic flavor. My wife describes it as more "chewy" and much "stronger" coffee - something akin to Camp-Fire coffee.

I do not find anything special about this blend but it is good all the same. This is a cup to enjoy while sitting out on the porch on a brisk fall morning.

Coffee Froth

When I make and pour a coffee with the French Press I get a froth that settles on top of my cup. I don't know why but I like it. Somehow it says "This is a great cup of coffee."

I know that my liking the stuff is irrational. It has no extraordinary flavor, it does not add to the body of the cup, and it does not clean the lid of the garbage can. It serves no identifiable purpose. But like the foam on top of a pint of Guinness, it is still somehow comforting and expected. If it were not there I would look away ashamed as if my mother came over in just her knickers.

So, I love the stuff - that much is true and only my psycho-therapist might begin to know why. But what really boggles my understanding of the world is that I don't know what to call it beside "Coffee Froth." Calling it "Coffee Froth" is as disrespectful to me as if I called my wife "Hey You!" The stuff needs a name and I shall not rest until I have come up with the perfect name. You can help too! Leave me your suggestions and together we can right this wrong and I can stop call my wife "Whatsername."

BINGO! I Call It "Manna" (Blend #5)

Have you ever wondered how some flavors were developed? I suppose much of it is just like it happens in the commercial where one idiot is walking down the street eating a chocolate bar while some other fool is walking down an adjoining street eating peanut butter from the jar, both so engrossed in their snacks that "POW" they run into each other and the chocolate accidentally got into the peanut butter and the Peanut Butter Cup emerges. OR... Some chemical engineer needs to come up with a new flavor to save his hide from the unemployment line and starts mixing all sorts of wacky flavors until "BINGO" they invent a winner.

Well I, like the chemical engineer, keep putting coffee beans together in the hopes of finding a Bingo. Yesterday I found a winner and I call it "Manna"

1 oz. Zimbabwe Salimba
1 oz. Kenyan Gichi Kiambu
1 oz. Sumatran Aceh Gold

I roasted this batch to a Full-City+ removing the heat just as the second crack was starting. I brewed it in the french press which created a very full body cup but not (as my wife commonly refers to it) chewy. And the aroma was mildly sweet and fragrant with no hint of a rogue acidity.

The flavor was full, deep and rich - free of free floating background taste-nuances and bitters. This cup was so good that my wife suggested that I make this for her tea-party this Saturday. Even though my wife is developing a taste for good coffee, this is a huge compliment to the flavor of this blend.

I am going to blend this again to make sure that I get a consistent cup and when I do I think I will take on Timmy Horton's.

Coffee Dreams - Thom's Rebuttal!

Well - as promised Thom has seen fit to change his 50% plus of the Coffee Dreams post. John - is seriously considering that allowing me to be a guest blogger may have ended his blogging career.
Here is Thom's take on the coffee roasting experience.

The Other Side…

It was still early, Friday night around 5:30 PM and Malcolm had already called me three times, left voice mails for my wife twice, and sent out several text messages and emails. The messages were all the same: Thom, do not come over before 10 AM – otherwise, you might not like what you find (imagine Malcolm sitting in his wife’s pink bathrobe at his computer creating fabulous stories of grandeur and laughing hysterically to himself).

[I note here that Thom fails to account for the Oatmeal Breakfast Stout in the bathrobe pocket - but then this is his rebuttal - so I shall let him continue]

Due to snow and a pregnant wife asking for just three more things to be done before leaving, I didn’t arrive at Malcolm’s until 10:30 AM. I drove faster and faster though, worried that my friend would not wait for me, but instead pioneer ahead without me. Finally I arrived… and was somewhat concerned at the sight of hazy smoke pouring out as Malcolm guiltily opened the door. He had indeed begun without me; luckily though it was with just a handful of beans in a skillet to make what he repeatedly called Cowboy Coffee. It was wonderful – the smell was deep and strong, the color a black mocha. The steam coming off the mug actually tickled my nose and forced a slight giggle out of me (which I quickly covered with a cough).

After much debate, two spreadsheets, a PowerPoint presentation, and a heads/tails toss of the coin, we started roasting the Costa Rican beans. I spent the first hour trying to distract Malcolm, so as to keep him from continually opening the oven door and frowning at the beans: “Why aren’t you popping!” Finally, after turning up the oven and hearing a few lonely pops, we pulled beans out. We both sampled a few and found them to our liking. We set them aside and immediately began roasting the Brazilian beans. We played with the oven settings – going from 410 to 425, trying to find the golden spot – the perfect temperature. We heard a glorious sound after only 5 minutes... it was a choir of popping, aww yes, such a sweet popping sound, like little angles clapping their hands to our hard work.

The smile upon Malcolm’s face was indescribable – the kind of smile that makes every wrinkle disappear and the eyes glaze over with contentment. We congratulated each other - our second batch was successfully roasting away, quickly approaching the famous 2nd pop… just as we had hoped and dreamed it would.

The process was at its end – we were happy, sad, wired and exhausted. What a morning… why oh why had it taken us so long in life to rediscover the simple and beautiful process of roasting our own coffee. It was at this point I noticed Malcolm fondly holding the bowl of yummy roasted coffee beans close to his chest. He had a look in his eyes… the look of pure determination, “this is mine.. mine.. all mine.” I realized then we had not discussed how, if at all, we were going to divide the beans. I knew I had one chance at breaking through to Malcolm and so I did the only thing I could, I casually handed Malcolm a paper bag and with arms wide declared loudly, “well done my friend, now, let’s hug it out.” Needless to say, I left with half the beans, of which I’m now enjoying my first cup.

Ok – time for a reality check: The process was very fun and exciting, though in the oven on a pan seems to take a considerably long time – about 1-2 hours depending on how dark you want to go.
I’ve heard about a popcorn popper that works much quicker – any comments out there? The taste of the coffee is satisfactory; I would call it a light bodied smooth blended taste. It isn’t nearly as harsh/dark/acidic as I sometimes like my coffee, but still good. I think we needed to roast it longer to bring out a more robust flavor. I’m excited to try again and again and again.

Thanks for believing in us!

Cafe Du Monde

My friend Darlene brought me some Cafe' Du Monde from New Orleans to try. The object of this coffee is that it has a Chicory additive which is a flavor developed by the French in New Orleans during the Civil War and a shortage of coffee proper.

So I eagerly brewed some up as I looked forward to yet another coffee experience. Although it is not my favorite, it has a very unique flavor. So unique in fact that if I were used to the chicory flavoring in my coffee I would notice its absence and likely be unhappy with just plain coffee.

This was a very dark roasted coffee, darker than anything I try to roast. I suspect that this roast is very close to charcoal. Which explains its use. Chicory was added to very dark roasted coffee as a way of taking the "bitter edge" off. I understand this because when coffee is over roasted the sugars first "carmelize" then they scortch. This scortching actually burns the sugars and oils and creates a bitter/burned taste. So the chicory is added to take the edge off.

The only way that I can explain the aroma is by telling you to try and remember what the wood-shop classroom smelled like when you were in school. It was woody and dominant. The taste was basically the same - wood shop in a cup. I am not criticizing the flavor nor am I suggesting that I did not like it but that is just the way it was.

All in all, I am happy to have the experience of the chicory. Would I buy it for myself? Not likely. Would I turn this brew down at a friend's home? No. What I will say for it was that it was indeed tasty and UNIQUE.

Coffee Roasting Nightmares and Dreams

It was early, 5:30 AM, I wanted to be asleep but the intense desire to begin my new life as a coffee roaster was driving me to near insanity. I had already speed dialed Thom, who was supposed to be here at 10 AM to help me roast. He had angrily turned his phone off after the 4:55 AM call. I sat by my oven, already warmed up to 400 degrees and ran the green Mogiana coffee beans through my fingers. 'Oh sweet toasty Brazilians! Roast! Roast!'. Tears of anticipation welled up in my eyes as I imagined that first cup of the sweet fruit of the labors from my new life. Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the pounding on my door. Rushing down I opened it to my friend Thom, visibly angry, holding a 12 gauge over/under shotgun and wearing snow boots and his wife's lacy pink bathrobe which he had obviously grabbed by accident in the dark. I immediately thought about two things. First, the elegant workmanship of this remarkable shotgun and second, my own deep wish that his lovely wife had been a bit taller, as the short pink robe made the moment very awkward.
Thom, not by nature a morning person, waved the gun and shouted "Why in the world would you call me at this time in the morning!!!?" I began to utter an apology, while looking discretely away, when suddenly the aroma of the coffee beans I had already begun to roast in the skillet on my stove overtook us. As the aroma overcame us, tears came to both our eyes. We realized that whatever differences we might have regarding the hour of the morning to get up - we were united in our love of coffee.
"Let's hug it out buddy" I said (a very discrete hug followed)

Thom responded "Let's get to roasting coffee!"
We quickly drank the potent brew which we had whipped up in the cast iron skillet as our hardy pioneer forefathers had done for centuries before and now we went on to the oven process. That deep calling that had brought us both here this morning also brought us together. Calling and brotherhood demanded that we finish the quest that we had begun. New lives as real live amature coffee roasters.

Whilst sampling a delightful breakfast stout (from a bottle Thom had discovered in the pocket of his wife's bathrobe) Thom and I began the roasting process in a 400 degree convection oven. The smoke alarm went off and I called John Rock, editor of this blog, for advice. As usual he had his answer machine on. We opened the door to the sub zero cold and quickly the smoke cleared. Thom, now wearing a long over coat was by far the better coffee roaster novice. His advice was invaluable. We began with some Costa Rican beans (less expensive) and roasted them to a toasty brown. They didn't seem to make the distinctive first pop that the beans in the skillett had done. We discovered that we needed to turn the oven up another 10 degrees. Then we went on to the Brazilian beans as the house filled up with the smokey goodness of fresh roasted coffee. Thom suggested that we roast some lighter and some darker and then mix them. This seemed to be the best way to go. Having finished the roasting process, and having mixed the lighter and darker beans together we suddenly heard. . . .

A Friend's Coffee Roasting Experience

My friend Malcolm has this funny way of getting me into new things. First it was beer tasting, then it was wine tasting, then it was scotch tasting (do you notice a theme?). He likely would have gotten me into cigar smoking were it not for the fact that I had quit smoking after having spent over 10 years with the habit (my wife doth protest this particular vice). So now it is my turn to influence him, he liked the idea of roasting his own coffee so he decided to give it a try.

He obtained some Brazilian Mogiana green beans and decided that Saturday morning he would roast them at 400 deg/f in the oven on a cookie sheet. I have not tried the oven roasting method so I was particularly interested in his results. The only advice that I offered him was to take the battery out of his smoke detector and then I waited to learn how it went.

The following day I took my son out on a Daddy-Son Date and when I returned home I had a 20 second message on my answering machine. Click **** HERE **** to listen to the message.

Horse Nugget (Blend #4)

1 oz. Harar Horse
1 oz. Mysore Nugget
1 oz. Tres Rios La Magnolia

Sometimes the best part of creating the blend is the naming process. ("Horse Nugget" - HA! That's rich.)

I took an ounce of each of these three beans and roasted them together. I roasted to a very dark French Roast. The resulting aroma of the grounds were spectacular but the aroma did not necessarily equate to a spectacular flavor. Please don't misunderstand, the coffee was a good solid cup but it suffered in comparison to the aroma.

The flavor of this hot cup is little better than standard. The acidity was very low which made the flavor very smooth. A good cup of coffee to drink but it is not something that screams "make me again!" As the cup cooled a sort of defect arose in the taste as a bitterness that attacked the back of the tongue began to develop.

I've been using these three beans in various concoctions of blends and I have yet to come up with something that I really like. I think for the next blend I will abandon these and move on to something brand new.

Anchor Bay Roasts roast

As this blog is titled "ANCHOR BAY ROASTS" (meaning coffee roasts) I never thought that I would ever be writing about Pot Roasts. However, today is the day that I cross-over for a moment and tell you how a bovinian delectablity is actually meaningful to coffee - and thus this blog.

Today my wife made a roast in the Crock Pot and used a cup of strong brewed coffee as a base to cook it in. It was delicious. It did not taste of coffee as strongly as I would have liked but it was still very flavorful.

I have read articles about cooking beef in distilled spirits (whiskey, vodka, rum etc.) and while it sounds yummy who wants to spend $30 on a bottle of liquor just to dump it on a pot-roast? For my budget, I'll just stick with coffee.

Bold And Clean

I had some left over grounds that I used to make Turkish coffee the other day - Very fine. So I added 2 Tbsp. to my French Press and poured boiling water on them. After a minute or two I pressed and poured.

The coffee is quite good. It seems to taste less aggressive than the Turkish boil but yet it has a ruggedness that would make John Wayne proud. The coffee is strong with a good body. The grounds are from the Bolivian CIAPEC bean which was roasted to Full-City+. Although there is nothing wrong with the CIAPEC I think this would be an excellent brew with another, more interesting bean.

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 3

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 1
An Experience Experiment - Pt. 2

RESULTS:
Each method of coffee brewing was evaluated by our two evaluators (again, the scientifically challenged wife and me) for six different attributes. Since there were just 4 brews, each one was evaluated against the other on a 1-4 scale (1 being first or best & 4 being least or worst)

• It is worthy of note that my wife (always the girl) thought that the Perk had the best flavor and that shows the subjective nature of this study. The girl liked the tea-like nature of the coffee produced by the Perk and I preferred the heartier flavor of the Press. My wife's reaction to the flavor of the Turk was (and I quote) "Eeeww, yuck!" and I kind of liked its stout-beer like quality. My wife claimed that the Turk was "chewy" but I thought it had a very enjoyable "full" body and flavor.

So what is my highly scientific conclusion? I conclude that my original hypothesis was indeed correct and it has now been proven as a fact. It is my opinion that the original hypothesis should now be restated as the Theory of Coffee-Brewology. I name it, I claim it, therefor it must be forever so... "THE SAME EXACT COFFEE BREWED BY DIFFERENT BREWING METHODS DOES PRODUCE DIFFERENT RESULTS."

And oh yeah Van, it tastes different too.

Thanks for reading...

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 2

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 1

THE VARIABLES:

There are a few variables in this experiment which likely effects the outcome. These are how the coffee was actually brewed, the grounds used in each brewing method, and the very subjective nature of our testing group's (me and my wife) perspective.

While this subjectivity is not scientific it is the best that I could do.

BREWING PROCESSES:

1. Drip
2. French Press
3. Percolator
4. Turkish Boil

DRIP:

The drip coffee maker is the standard way that people make coffee in our country. My drip coffee maker is standard but it has a coned screen filter which allows the oils to be released with the brewed coffee.

An oversight in this experiment is that I did not include a drip coffee maker with a paper filter. Ah well, I will have to remedy this for another day and another post.

FRENCH PRESS:
The French Press is a very popular method for brewing coffee among coffee enthusiasts. I like mine simply because it will brew a single cup of coffee without leaving me with left overs to microwave for two days. I know that true coffee snobs will never, ever, drink microwaved coffee but this proves that I am more of a cheapskate than a real snob.

PERCOLATOR:
I bought this percolator just for this experiment. I have not had much experience with the Perk but I am looking forward to doing coffee for company with it. It looks quite elegant and it reminds me of my grandmother's from the 1970's. All I need is a lime green table cloth and people will call me Carrol Brady.

TURKISH BOIL:
Although I could not make a genuine Turkish coffee (because I could not find my Cezve) I did use a sauce pan to slow brew the coffee to make a Turkish style brew. It turned out pretty good and I think it accomplished the mission of the experiment.

When I re-run the experiment with the paper filters (in a drip coffee maker) I will also use a cezve for a genuine Turkish Coffee.

THE GRIND:
The grind was an unavoidable variable. Each brewing method requires a certain grind in order to make the coffee that it produces "good".

The Drip Method requires a moderate grind (not too fine and not too course) to make the optimum coffee. From 1 being the finest grind and 17 being the most coarse - the Drip was ground at a 6.
The Press Method does not require a very fine ground as it steeps the grounds in hot water for 4 minutes. I ground the beans for the Press at the coarsest 17 setting.
The Percolator Method washes the grounds continuously with hot water and does not need a fine ground. So I also ground this at a 17.
The Turkish Method uses a very fine ground as to get every last bit of goodness out of the bean. I used the finest grinding setting - #1.

I am sure that the different grinds effected the resultant brews but I felt that I had to use the grounds that the individual brewing methods methods required.

THE TESTERS:
Me and my wife are the last of the variables. It was our job to taste and evaluate each brew against all the rest. It was quite difficult at times to decide between a couple of them but in the end we did our best. The fact that my wife and I did not come to the same conclusions indicate that this whole experiment is really about our individual experiences rather than a scientific conclusion.

Please return as tomorrow I will detail the results of the experiment...

An Experience Experiment - Pt. 1

The next couple of posts come about because of a reader's request. Van (the reader) wanted to know what happened to the flavor of coffee based upon the brewing method. So, I put my 7th. grade science class thinking cap on and devised the following science experiment. (I hope you are reading Mr. Kawalski)

• HYPOTHESIS: The same exact coffee brewed by different brewing methods produces differing results. (Mr. Kawalski should be proud)

THE STANDARD METRIC:

1. COFFEE: Bolivean - CIAPEC (100% Organic)
2. ROASTED: Full-City+
3. WATER/COFFEE RATIO: 5 oz. (liquid) : 1 Tbsp. (ground)
4. WATER: Filtered by Brita

TOOLS:

• Green Beans
• Popcorn Air-Popper (coffee roaster)
• Coffee Grinder
  
• Weight Scale
• Pyrex Liquid Measure
  
• 1/2 Cup Measuring Cup
• 1 Tbsp. Teaspoon
  
• Knife
• Sauce Pan
• French Coffee Press
• Drip Coffee Maker
• Percolator Coffee Maker
• 4 - Coffee Cups
• Filtered Water
  

Tomorrow I will begin to describe the variables of the experiment. Stay Tuned...