GoodShave's Coffee Journal

Been without Lavazza for three days now. I am dying.

Actually got a single shot Americano to go from a cafe' to hold me over until I can get more. Not even Bustello available at my local store. All sold out.

Some great reads and definitely you are a coffee scientist! My thinks it is my chemistry/lab background that has me measuring and timing and jotting down notes, but she may ask me to become a barista at a reputable coffee roasters, if she didn't dislike coffee so much! Odd, right?! More in my Journal soon on that. But GoodShave, I think what you do is amazing and no doubt you are an enthusiast. And an influencer, as I know subscribe to Hendrick, have become enamored with the 4:6 method, and have purchased a new kettle to get my pour on!!

Thank you for your kind words!

I really appreciate it.

I hope you get as much enjoyment with the coffee journey as I have (and more)!

Today's brew, I used the Varia FLO dripper with the Kurasu basic recipe using a Kalita 185 filter and the 'Slow 1' filter screen/disc.
In a previous brew, I debated if the papery taste would go away if I removed the chaff before brewing. So I did just that with today's brew.

I removed the chaff and stuck with the 45 seconds between pours.
The coffee stalled and the draw down was 5 minutes which led to a bitter cup.
I suspect my pouring was the issue since the only thing I changed from my previous brew was remove the chaff.

I found this video yesterday which added two more recipes for the FLO dripper, one hot and one iced. This video was released ten days ago, so it is fresh indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKW2lRlrJs

So I went with the 'hot' recipe from this video using the 'Medium 1' disc. I was surprised that they went with 90C (194F) water temperature since they were brewing a light roast, but I tried it with the beans I currently have, which are medium roast. I was pleasantly surprised that it produced a nice cup of coffee.

Things were a little busy yesterday and I did not have time to post yesterday's coffee adventures, so I will double up today.

Yesterday, I decided to branch out and try one of the optional discs that I purchased for my Varia FLO dripper. I tried the 'Medium 2' disc. I used the same scenario as I had previously used for the 'Medium 1' disc but the brew did not come out that well with those settings. It was a totally different flavor profile and needs some adjustment to capture what it offeres. That tells me that even though both were 'Medium' discs, there is definitely a difference between all the discs. I would need to dial in the 'Medium 2' disc.

My second brew from yesterday was with my favorite fall back for my current beans which is the Glass Hario V60-01 with the Lance Hedrick Two-Pour recipe (with Tales Coffee stir after final pour). That makes a great cup of coffee with Happy Mug Coffee (Erie, PA) - Comforting Rwanda (medium roast) beans. I took the V60-01 cone out of the plastic holder and used it with the Origami wooden dripper holder that I purchased recently.

The Origami holder doesn't allow the V60-01 to sit perfectly level and you give up the ability to swirl the brewer if using a small mouth vessel such as the Hario V60 range server but I do fee it gives a little more access to the brew bed and it was easy to get a slow, consistent pour close to the bed with no concerns of accidentally bumping the brewer or brewer handle with the kettle neck. It was a little awkward heating the brewer and you have to pick up the filter to remove it from the cone if the cone is still hot since you cannot dump the filter due to no way to hold onto the cone to keep it from going in the trash. I think I prefer the more sure grip of the red plastic cone holder that came with the V60-01 glass dripper when washing the cone by hand. I can also easily dump the spent filter while the cone is hot.

Note that Hario offers a V60-02 with an olive wood dripper holder, but that also has a wobble to it like the Origami and it has a rubber gasket on the bottom (to keep the glass from coming out of the holder) which would prevent it from swirling at all (unless you picked up the dripper to swirl). So for now, I will stick to the less expensive Origami holder. It also allows me to stack my AeroPress funnel on top of my V60s for storage as I use that funnel more than I use my AeroPresses.

For today's morning brews, I used the Glass Hario V60-01 Switch with the Coffee Chronicler hybrid recipe w/more sweetness as mentioned in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYvSzfIxfDY

For the first brew, there were some dark floaters on the top of the slurry so I used my WDT tool to gently stir them so they went away. Unfortunately, the initial taste was bitter, so I think that may have been too much agitation. As it cooled, the bitterness went away but there was a dry finish.

For the second brew, I did not use the WDT tool for the floaters. I tried to pour in a way to hit as many floaters as I could before I hit my total water limit. It was a very tasty cup. I will have to do a comparison of the regular recipe (closing the switch at 45 seconds) vs. this more sweetness setting (closing the switch at 25 seconds) to really see how different the cups really are. The sweetness version made a very tasty cup.

The OXO kettle is "out for delivery" and I am staring out the window! I am having success with the 4:6 pour over method using a medium-light roast that I tried back in 2020 and found difficult to get it brewed either by autodrip or pour over to my liking. The closest I got was using lots of beans, and then the taste declined as the cup cooled. So I noted in my coffee notes to not buy it again! But I just finished my second cup and liked it even better than the first one. Both were balanced (two equal pours for the first 40%), and differed in the 60% percent pours, one being heavier body (3 equal portions) and the best being medium body (2 equal pours).

Today, I received coffee from Longneck Coffee Roasters (Williamsburg, VA).
One bag was Haitian Blue Norde Organic beans. I was sent a sample bag of this with a previous order from this roaster, so I decided to order a full bag.
It was roasted five days ago. The roaster let the coffee rest for two days after roasting before shipping it. I have not tried coffee that fresh before and would like to try it but there is other coffee as well.
This bag is sealed in an opaque bag.

They also sent me a 123.7g sample of Columbia Huila Pitalito beans as well. It came in a clear zip lock bag. Light is an enemy of coffee, so I transferred those beans to one of my two PlanetaryDesigns.com medium AirScape stainless steel canisters. Historically, I have not enjoyed coffees from Columbia but I have learned a lot more about brewing coffee since the last time I brewed with beans from that country. So I look forward to trying these out.

Both of those coffees are medium roasts.

MaineYooper has been very generous and sending me two different light roast coffees as well that he has previously sampled.
Those are Atomic Coffee Roasters (Peabody, MA) - Simple Summer and Jim's Organic Coffee (West Wareham, MA) - Papua New Guinea (Korofrigu region). Those are arriving tomorrow if all goes well.

I have two days' worth of Happy Mug Coffee (Erie, PA) - Comforting Rwanda remaining from a bag that I received for free back in May that was occupying my other AirScape canister so I moved it back to its original bag (adding a sticky note on it to say how much coffee was left and when the coffee was purchased as well as when it was opened). That frees up a canister for one of the other three bean choices. I figure I will eventually finish off the Comforting Rwanda, but I would rather enjoy the fresher beans first.

An interesting tidbit about Longneck Coffee Roasters is that they don't list all of their coffees on their website. They currently have ten coffees available but only three coffees are list on their site. To find out about all the coffees they currently offer, you need to call them on the number of the website. The roaster is a very nice person. He has another company called Dining with Dignity that makes adaptive silverware for people who are grip impaired. If you order coffee from Longneck Coffee Roasters, the credit card charge and the shipping label will say 'Dining with Dignity'.

Today's brew was with Longneck Coffee Roasters (Williamsburg, VA) - Haitian Blue Norde Organic beans, using a glass Hario V60-01 with a Cafec Abaca filter and the Lance Hedrick Two-Pour recipe.

I had planned to do a Tales Coffee stir of the slurry after the final pour, but being an early morning brew, I forgot to do the stir. I am not sure if that would have pushed the brew to over extraction since I re-heated the kettle during the two minute post pour bloom and the resulting brew had some dry notes to it.

The last time I brewed these beans, I was using a different grinder, so I am using grind settings from different beans (same general roast level using the same brewer) as a starting place.
I still have the other grinder as well, so I could use it if I wanted.

Yesterday, I cleaned and calibrated my 1zpresso K-Ultra hand grinder.
My previous daily grinder was a 1zpresso JX grinder (also a great bang for the buck for a burr grinder). That grinder is my travel/backup grinder.

I picked up the K-Ultra when I was gifted some extra funds and decided to treat myself to an upgrade. I really wanted the external dial adjustment and the magnetic catch up.
It is a very consistent grinder grind wise and the flavor profile is slightly different than the JX.
I like the K-Ultra but you have to be careful with the magnetic catch cup and make sure the magnets engage before you move the grinder or let go of the cup or you will see your coffee on the floor (I did that this morning in my sleepiness). This is true for any hand grinder with a magnetic catch cup as there is a way to attach the cup without the magnets engaging.

I have only had my K-Ultra a few months and yesterday was the second time I cleaned the grinder and calibrated it (which you must do after taking it apart to clean it).I learned the hard way (also this morning) that you can zero the grinder settings and be 360 degrees off of the absolute zero point.

I had an early morning meeting and not a lot of time to spare this morning. I dialed in my usual grind size and thought that it was way too little resistance when grinding these beans. So after I lost half my coffee to the floor (mentioned above) and reground the difference, and poured it grinds into my V60, I was shocked how coarse the grind was. It looked like I had ground the beans using a hammer. I decided it was a waste of water to brew that course of grinds. Had I been a little more alert, I might have reground that coffee in my JX to get the grinds to a usable size.

Since I was running out of time (but needed coffee), I pulled out my JX grinder. I was brewing Longneck Coffee Roasters (Williamsburg, VA) - Haitian Blue Norde Organic beans and I had JX settings for these beans since I was sent a sample of these beans in a previous order. I looked through my brew log for these beans for JX settings for brewers that were currently in my kitchen (and not in storage). I wound up going with the Timemore B75 brewer with a Timemore filter using the Wide Awake PH 3-pour recipe. I brewed the coffee, dumped it into  a Fellows Carter Slide Mug (actually, it was Carter Move Mug that I bought years ago and then bought the slide lid separately a few months ago, but for clarity, I just thought I would point you to the fully assembled product so you would know what it looked like) and ran out the door.

Later this afternoon, I re-watched a video on calibrating the K-Ultra and re-read the manual and repeated the cleaning and re-calibration process. I experimented with grinding beans and tightening grinder parts. I made some notes for myself next time to fill in some gaps in the user manual and in the video that will hopefully prevent the issue in the future. Basically, I now dial the grinder to its coarsest setting before I disassemble the grinder (that will keep me at the zero point or very close to it). Then after I put everything back together and I zero the grinder, I check to see if I can push the burrs further in or if they are tight. If I can push the burrs in, I do so and tighten the thumb nut until it starts to click. Then I check the zero point again. I also make sure to grind a few beans (two sets of 4 beans) after calibration to make sure the grinds are consistent and that when I dial back to zero, that the grinder indeed goes to the zero mark.

As a test, this evening, I repeated a brew from Saturday to see if everything worked. I used the glass Hario V60-01 with a Cafec Abaca filter using the Lance Hedrick Two-Pour recipe (with a Tales Coffee stir after final pour). The grind size was what I expected and the coffee turned out fine grinder wise. I may still need to dial in the beans/water temp for this brew method/recipe but at least I am back in business and know my backup grinder is available if needed.

Two side notes: 
Grinding beans by hand can give you a gauge of the roast level for a given set of beans. The harder to grind, the lighter the roast. The easier to grind, the darker the roast. This can come in handy when trying beans from a new roaster as you can gauge the roast level and know if you need to adjust your water temperature or grind size accordingly.

The Carter slide lid cleaning process looks like a lot of work (the reason I didn't originally buy it when it came out), but after cleaning it a few times, it really is not that difficult to do.

From today's brew, I learned that if your brew tastes smokey or burnt, decrease the water temperature next time. Going with a cooler water temperature today removed the smokey and burnt hints I experienced in a previous brew. I remember from a Lance Hedrick video that if you are going to change water temperature, make enough of a jump to actually taste a difference. He said to change three Celsius degrees at a time (if I remember correctly).

I also wanted to mention about brewing in a server. I have a small collection of brewers and the bases of some of them are too big to fit on some of my coffee mugs, so I bought coffee servers to brew into and then transfer the coffee to the mug of choice. Using a glass server also allows you to observe the dripping of the coffee which could give you clues such things as partial clogging of your brewer or the flow rate. Swirling the coffee in a server can help mix the different layers of the coffee that come from multi-pour recipes. I want to say that there was an additional benefit I read somewhere of aerating the coffee as you pour from the server to your mug. I pour my coffee from the server into a room temperature mug to help cool it down to drinking temperature. 

My first server was an 800ml (size V60-03) glass server from Sweet Maria's. I bought it since it was not expensive. After a while, I wanted to find a smaller server that was more V60-01 sized and would take up less space in my kitchen cabinet. Having a shorter server would make it easier to pour closer to the brew bed. I then went with the Hario V60 range server (size 01). I  had debated the Hario V60 'Clear' range server, but I was concerned that it might be more fragile than the regular range server (though it would be easier to see the bottom of the dripper in action with that server than the regular server which has a black plastic band the blocks your view). The regular range server has fill guides on both sides (one side in cups, the other side in ml) which I use to measure the water I add to my OXO kettle. Note that the Hario server has thicker glass than the Sweet Maria's server (which is really thin glass). My guess is that the Hario glass is tempered and I have not shattered it mixing hot water (remnants from my hot kettle) and cold water (from my Zero water filter in the fridge) when going for a second brew in the morning.

Having a coffee server is not a necessity, but I find it helpful (especially measuring water for my kettle). Other times, when I am in a rush and don't have time for cleaning extra gear, I will pick a mug with a large mouth that will accommodate my brewer of choice and brew directly into the mug.

I have been enjoying the Atomic Coffee Roasters (Peabody, MA) - Simple Summer beans courtesy of MaineYooper .
I enjoy the challenge of light roasts to see if I can pull out the tasting notes mentioned on the bag. I don't always find those notes but most of the time I can at least hit one of them.
The tasting notes of these beans included citrus, ripe fruit, and sweet vanilla.

These beans are a blend of washed and natural process Ethiopian beans. Ethiopian beans are known to generate fines that can clog your filter and stall your brew (leading to over-extraction).

I did not re-read the type of beans before I started brewing with them for the first time. I started with the Varia FLO dripper with a Kalita 185 filter, the 'Medium 1' screen and using the Kurasu basic recipe. The brew slowed way down to a stall, but a slow drip continued, so I did not mess with the slurry. It was not bitter even though the draw down was at least twenty seconds longer than desired. The flavor was nice. I only tasted a berry flavor initially and the finish seems papery bland/thin. As it cooled, it developed a nice mouth feel. There may have been a hint of vanilla in the finish at points. When the coffee hit terminal cool, it had a citrus flavor. This was a good cup of coffee. I needed to dial it in better with laminar pours or pour closer to the brew bed. The Melodrip could also be used. This recipe originally called for much cooler water (cooler than I would use for a light roast), so that is an option as well.

The next day, I repeated the recipe but used the Kurasu logo 'fast 2' screen. I also focused on making laminar pours. There was still some stalling just before the brew bed dried up. The draw down was fourteen seconds faster. The brew was not bitter and some berry flavor appeared. As it cooled further, it hit several taste change stages, but none of them were particularly pleasant to me. At one point, the coffee was stimulating the tip of my tongue like bitterness would do, but there was not bitter taste. It had a citrus finish. It was not a good cup of coffee. So stalling doesn't necessarily mean a bad cup as I preferred the previous brew to this one.

For the last two days, I tried the Timemore B75 dripper with a Timemore filter using the Coffee Chronicler B75 recipe. The first day, the water temperature was a bit low and the flavors were present but not distinct (no clarity) or pronounced. Today, I increased the water temperature quite a bit and the citrus jumped out front and center. There was a point were there was a hint of vanilla. The mouth feel was much better with the B75 than with the FLO dripper (so far) even though the draw down was faster with the B75. The Coffee Chronicler mentioned that the B75 is very good for dealing with Ethiopian beans that like to stall.

I am still on the fence about the citrus flavor of the beans but I like the overall mouth feel of these beans.

I think tomorrow, I may try my glass Hario V60-01 using the Lance Hedrick Two-Pour recipe (with Tales Coffee stir after final pour). I think going with one less pour may help with the fines and the Tales Coffee stir should send the fines into the side of the filter to prevent stalling.

I also brewed today my Longneck Coffee Roasters (Williamsburg, VA) - Haitian Blue Norde Organic beans (a medium roast) to hedge my bet on brews. I used the plastic 2.0 April brewer with a Kaltia 155 filter using the James Perry Coffee - Standard 3 Pour recipe. This scenario was a winner for these beans with my JX grinder previously so I thought I would start dialing in my K-Ultra grinder and see what would happen. The nutty flavor did appear and it was a decent cup but it was not stellar. I may brew two cups, one with the JX with my favorite setting and one with the K-Ultra (using a different setting from today) and get a gauge on the flavor profile difference of those two grinders. I preferred the light roast over the medium roast this morning.

I still have more filter screens/discs for the Vario FLO that I have not tried yet and only a few of the screens have I used more than once, so I need to take a deep dive into that sometime soon.