Shaving notes of the MaineYooper

Since I am using citric acid powder and water to clean my kettle, I think I will follow your example and descale every two months instead of every month and see how that goes.

This is funny, as I was going to start monthly descaling!

Mail came early enough (ok, late morning but earlier than my shave!) that I could use The Hive brush by Techichi Shave what was delivered. 



The Hive has a 26mm Tuxedo knot and the handle looks big! Paul (mrdoug) had one, shown below, that made me think of a song off of Van Halen I
Paul's photo, which I stole from his Journal:


And the Van Halen song:

The shave was very nice, the brush worked well and surprised me by how good it felt in hand. Reminded me of how the Wald Calyx looked uncomfortable but is actually quite pleasant in hand.

On the coffee front, the OXO kettle is doing a wonderful job, making my pours more easily controlled than I thought it would. The Bonavita goose neck kettle has a longer neck, and while it is easy to hold, I adjusting the pour to be challenging. I honestly didn't expect the OXO to be better, and was after some of the features, like a count up timer and being able to return it to the base to stay warm. The Bonavita stops heating after you remove the kettle, whereas the OXO gives you 30 seconds I think. 

The reality is that I can pour slower with the OXO. I could not with the Bonavita, it would dribble down that long neck. So the OXO is a win for me as I geek out even more as I brew my coffee!

And if anyone would like to try a goose neck kettle, the Bonavita is a great kettle and I have just descaled mine (I descale every 2 months). Let me know and we can work something out! I may post it on the BST as I will get in hot water (pun intended) if I clutter my coffee corner with too much stuff, especially duplicate stuff!!

Since I am using citric acid powder and water to clean my kettle, I think I will follow your example and descale every two months instead of every month and see how that goes.

This is funny, as I was going to start monthly descaling!

Too funny!
I just checked the manual for the Oxo kettle and it says to descale every 60 uses.
I use it twice a day on average and my family uses it occasionally, so that is where I landed with descaling every four weeks.
I will have to think about it now.

Counter-counter Enabling..... I like it

I descaled my kettle today and will stick with every four weeks.

I also cleaned my hand grinder and re-calibrated it.

I am good for a month!

I had a nice, relaxed shave this morning using the Fatboy, a Personna Platinum Chrome on its 6th shave, and a descending setting for each pass (5, 4, and 3). The Hive was used again with MWS Sensitive Skin.

For the workdays coming up, the plan is a boar brush (SOC cherry wood), Sensitive Skin soap, and the Yaqi Romulus. Blade will start as a Proline with 8 shaves already, but I will be alert for any issues. My (sometimes faulty) memory is that the last few Romulus shaves felt off, so I will proceed with caution! I may also mix in the Hawk v3 with a new Feather ProGuard for comparison. Bottom line, I am hoping for a good week of AC shaves with two razors that work well for me.

Coffee News
The medium-light roast from Jim's Organic, Jo-Jo's Java (named after his wife), is continuing to impress me. And this also continues to surprise me! I keep waiting for a "sour" cup. But the 4:6 recipe for heightened sweetness (first 40% done in two pours of 1/3 and 2/3) and the two equal pours for the final 60% for a medium body is consistently good, even if I change up starting bean amounts or rapid vs slow pouring. I bet you are getting tired of me going on and on about it, dear reader, but this is opening up a whole new rabbit hole for me to go play in!!

Coffee Update

I made a drinkable pot of medium-light roast coffee! Woo hoo!

Why the delight? Well, this particular roast was last tried several years ago and failed to make coffee I liked. After much learned study of coffee lore by such luminaries as James Hoffmann (See one such book HERE), I found that I was using too much in my attempts to make better (i.e., more palatable) coffee. What I needed to do was grind coarser, thus reducing my draw down time in the auto-drip coffee machine. Yesterday I brewed my 6 cups as I always do with medium roasts, and the coffee was tolerable. Tolerable isn't acceptable anymore! So, this morning I set the grinder a coarser setting and got a very drinkable and even enjoyable result. That's a win in my world. 

This particular roast, Jo-Jo's Java by Jim's Organic Coffee, was a big letdown the two times I tried it (with the last time being in 2021). But experimenting with the 4:6 pour over method produced great results for single cup brewing, and grinder coarser for the auto-drip as been a winner as well. 

Tomorrow, I plan to try my (replacement) first coffee from Trade Coffee. This is a single origin bean roasted in Nashville, TN, by Good Citizen Coffee Co. It is from Brazil, and Good Citizen calls it Louback Farm - Mutua Project. 

We do have to go to Portsmouth, NH, for a doctor appointment in the afternoon, but I am hoping to have some good coffee first and maybe even with me on the road!

Eric,

That is great news about redeeming previous coffees to make great brews!

I second Hoffmann's book. It is very good as is his 'The World Atlas of Coffee'.

I wonder how many coffees I dismissed due to my lack of  understanding when I first started pour over brewing. I think it was similar to blades I wrote off when I first learned to shave with DE razors and my technique/lather/face prep was not that good.

Redemption is good for the soul. 

I mentioned earlier that I roast my beans. I think it’s amazing the journey that a coffee bean makes from bush to cup. Planting, growing, picking, pulping or drying, sorting and grading, packing and shipping, storage, roasting, grinding and brewing. It’s really remarkable how many things have to be done right so we can enjoy a superb cup of coffee and it can be ruined at every point along the journey. I feel the weight of responsibility when I roast. I want to honour every hard working person in the chain and I don’t want to be the guy that screws it up. It’s not just a cup of coffee, it’s a cup of coffee.

Marko

https://youtu.be/a01QQZyl-_I?si=QbciKxLmM87RPGvM

Marko 

https://youtu.be/a01QQZyl-_I?si=QbciKxLmM87RPGvM

Exactly. Pressure is a privilege. 

Great video. I’ve always thought my talents would have been put to better use in precision demolition