Coffee – Page 10 – Abstract Gourmet

Espresso lessons.

Knowing people is a good thing.

Having recently popped in to see Ben at the Barista Academy I got to borrow his La Marzocco naked portafilter. Unfortunately it didn’t fit my Silvia, but the LM double basket does fit into my Silvia portafilter. So I’ve been pulling a few practice shots with the LM basket instead. It’s a little deeper than the standard Rancilio double basket, and the walls are straighter, and the holes in the bottom go right out to the edge of the basket, as opposed to the Silvia which has a little gap around the edge where there is no extraction.

Having said all that you’d think i’d be getting better shots with the LM basket, but so far that hasn’t been the case. I assume it must be because of my dosing/tamping method and the amount of coffee I’m putting in each shot, because each shot I’ve pulled with the LM basket has been soggy on top (a sign of under dosing), and a lot faster than normal.

I think the additional holes in the LM basket, as well as the increased size, all add up to there being less resistance in the puck, which means fast/under extracted shots.

So to test this I kept the grind at exactly the same level and repeated my procedure with my standard Rancilio double basket, and immediately got a much nicer, properly extracted shot.

The lesson in all of this. Better equipment does not add up to better espresso if you don’t know how to use it properly :)
I’ll keep playing with the LM basket and try adjusting my technique to see if I can compensate for the differences i’m seeing.
It could also have a lot to do with the beans I’m using, which are a couple of weeks old now… Not having a roaster is causing me much pain.

Also, here’s a couple of latte art shots I’ve taken in the last couple of days. Still not getting them how I’d like despite getting Ben to show me… More practice required :)

WA Barista Academy

Just been hanging out with Ben of the newly formed Western Australian Barista Academy. Soon to be holding the WA state heats of the Australian Barista Championships.

Here’s a nice shot taken a few short minutes ago on my phone. Trying to put them roughly in sequence to show a bit of the technique Ben uses to dose, tamp and pull shots…

Dosing

Levelling

Tamping

The Linea

The shot (not the best one we pulled)

The latte art… just after Ben had almost knocked the cup over :)

Roasting on hold…

Well it’s sad times here in roasting HQ. My IMEX CR-100 (otherwise known as the cheapo Korean wunderkind coffee roaster) has officially kicked the bucket.

I have no idea what I did to it, but as soon as I plug it into a power point and hit go, it shorts my entire appliances circuit in my house, causing much unhappiness to the rest of my non power surge circuit breaker tripping appliances, just sitting there minding their own business.

So in a very sad moment for me I was forced to buy some pre-roasted beans today… of dubious freshness as well, seeing as I can’t be sure if the roast date is the 2nd or the 7th of March.

I may move on to try some pan roasting, but from what I can gather at a glance it’s a lot of effort to try and get any sort of evenness in roast colour and consistency.

If anyone has any bright ideas then feel free to let me know… I’ve got about 20kg of beans just sitting there waiting for me to roast them up…and nothing to do it with…

R.I.P little roaster… You served me well…

Actually what am I saying… It lasted less than six months and carked it… piece of crap…

Green Bean Scene

This is my current list of green coffee beans… just in case anyone cares :)

* Indonesian Bukit Marrante Kalosi Toraja
* Indian Plantation A (Tiger Mountain)
* Costa Rica Tarrazu SHB (Fancy)
* Ethiopian Yirgacheffe
* Yemen Moka Ismali

On order:
* Sumatran Mandheling Grade 1
* Paupa New Guinea Sihereni AX
* Indian Monsoon Robusta (just to see what all the fuss is about with Robusta)

For me, roasting coffee is basically another level of understanding in the whole experience. I’m not sure what inspired me to get into it in the first place. To be honest, I’m not addicted to coffee. I can go for days without having one, and I’m sure I’d be fine if I never drank another cup of it in my life. But once I do get into something, I find it hard to stay on the fringe, without delving deeper and working out how things work for myself. My inner geek is never completely satisfied with just accepting what someone else tells me is true without investigating it myself.

That’s not to say I’m about to go planting coffee bushes in my backyard (although i would be able cut all the middle men out of the picture :)), but It’s definitely been a great learning experience so far.

Lately i’ve been struggling to roast the Yemen Moka Ismali… It’s such a tricky little bean… very uneven looking in the bag, lots of chaff, and difficult to tell when its at the right level. I’ve been stopping just into the second crack so far and it’s been coming out ok… but not exactly to the level that it’s reputation deserves.

To date my favourite blend is called ‘Easy Tiger’. It’s a smooth, but punchy espresso blend made of predominantly Indian Tiger Mountain, with some Yirgacheffe to add some sweetness, and a nice chocolately highlight bean to round things off :)

My new shipment of beans should arrive next week, so i’ll be posting more reports when I’ve had a chance to give them a try.

Latte Art – The next step

Well i’d been getting kind of bored with trying to do latte art of late. My skills didn’t seem to be improving despite all my better efforts to get all the factors right. The image below is an example of the best i was capable of.

But things have all changed very rapidly. Sharon’s friend Serena was over and Sharon was showing her the website, and then some other shots of latte art… and then asked me to find the videos of people doing latte art. I hadn’t looked at them in a while and suddenly i realised what i’ve been doing wrong.

I’d been pouring from the middle to the edge and then trying to pour the rosetta back over the top… but what i saw them doing in the videos is pouring into the middle and then pouring back to the side whilst at the same time pushing the coffee outwards. So i gave it a try, and low and behold…it worked !

That was the first effort… followed very quickly by this one… Just to show it wasn’t a fluke.

Very happy by this point as it’s all so easy once you’ve got the technique right… Now i know all i need to do is work on my milk texturing and it will all come together. I managed to back it up this morning with another effort. The milk was too thick, but i’m getting close to it looking like some of the nice shots i’ve seen on other sites.

Yay ! All i needed was a little inspiration and there you have it. Look forward to some more inspired latte art efforts in the near future.

Big Morning Coffee

This is how i like my morning coffee

Indian Tiger Mountain

Yes another coffee roasting post.

I’ve been having another go at roasting my own beans, and have now moved onto a new variety called “Indian Tiger Mountain”.
I’ve also worked out how to make my little home coffee roasting machine work properly. So this last roast turned out really well. I hit the first crack at around 6 minutes, and the second crack at about 9-10 minutes. I’d never heard the cracks so clearly before, as my machine gets pretty noisey in full flight. For non coffee roasting type people (possibly everyone), coffee beans roast in a similar way to popcorn. Basically they have lot of gases and oils inside the green bean, which when heated up cause the bean to pop (crack). A roasted bean will crack twice during the roast cycle, and when it cracks for the second time you’re pretty close to being done (for a dark espresso roast). If you go much past second crack you get a whole lot of charcoal and a nasty mess in your laundry (or preferred roasting spot).

My problem before was that i wasn’t getting enough heat into my system, and the roast was taking a long long time (around 20 minutes plus) and the beans weren’t cracking like they should. So i made a little modification to my machine, by sealing half of the air vent with aluminium foil to cycle the heat back into the machine. I also added more beans so that it spins slower… in theory making sure more heat hits the beans on each cycle… This proved pretty successful, so unless i was just completely lucky i seem to have worked it out.

The resulting espresso was great. Thick dark crema laden cups of espresso that was smooth and a little fruity on a the palate. Without the harsh bitter aftertaste a lot of blends/single origins seem to create. I’ll definitely be roasting some more soon.