Elusive Roast Times

I've been playing more with my Behmor. There's no way to gauge the temp as the beans roast, so I'm left a little in the dark wondering when I can stop the roast and get the color I prefer. This has led to sour batches and 'roasty' batches. I think I was saddest to get a really 'roasty' tasting Ethiopian Harrar that burnt off all of the blueberry notes. It did, however, make an okay espresso shot. I think that whatever blend I use for espresso will definitely include a bit of Harrar.

After destroying one batch of Harrar, I tried it again and managed to taste all of its berry wonderfulness, but I think there's more I could do to get it just right. I've learned that the best time to cup a coffee is two days after it's roasted, so I'm trying to do a better job of sitting on my beans before I break them out. I have a batch of Guatemalan that Carrie and I are going to taste tomorrow. I gave some of this batch to my mom the day I made it and she said it was the 'perfect roast'. Here's a cheer for being believed in!

I took my roaster to my parents' house to play with last weekend, and Fritz, my step-dad, the nuclear engineer, took a look at how to tell roast temp. He -gave- me a laser gun that you shoot at the beans and read their surface temp with. Now, this is still an imperfect tool, because there's a glass screen between my beans and me that reads at 180 degrees right when I want to stop my roast. BUT, all I have to do is crack the door and shoot the beam at my beans when I intend to stop the roast and perhaps that will at least prevent me from stopping the roast too soon. Opening the door changes everything in terms of the temp inside the roaster and could make a roast difficult to duplicate, but it could also be a good way for me to discover how the temperature corresponds to the color, times and sounds of the roast.

The hope is that I could get a good roast on my little home roaster and possibly recreate that same roast again and again. I also received my voltage regulator in the mail the other day, so that should help with variations that exist just because it uses a variable electrical current. So, more to come on all of that in the future!

Coffeepreneur

You always hear people say, "Do what you love.". Well, I love coffee. I started drinking when I was I was 10 and 15 years later it remains my passion. My first cup was laden with milk and sugar, hardly coffee at all, and from there, I went to three lattes a week on my way to jazz band rehearsal. It was expected that I would show up a few minutes late with my daily special in hand.

From there though, I moved to Portland, and truly, what better playground for coffee. With Stumptown roasting and the little cafes wielding their portafilters; Bi-Partisan, Rimsky-Korsakoffee and Pied Cow, late night study sessions at Java Vivache, and the relative new comer, Albina Press, with their award winning baristas.

It was there that I touched the surface to realizing the depth of coffee. Coffee has over 800 discernible flavor components, that's twice the amount of wine! And so much of it is missed by the common coffee drinker because they can only access stale flat coffee beans beaten to death by a blade grinder. I had no idea how flavorful a coffee could be until I had my first cup of Ethiopian Harrar fresh from a french press. And I learned how much more amazing a latte could be with creamy, dense foam and just a hint of Monin syrup.

And so, it began.

Now, at 25, married, staying at home with two kids, I hope to realize my dream of bringing all of this to a town of 60,000 in the mid-west. I want to provide the most amazing experience, like you only could in a west coast city, and gift it to the people of this college town. Now, not to decieve, I currently live in Tacoma, Washington, but we're planning to move in about nine more months, so now is the time to prepare. Beyond just giving an incredible experience, I also want to educate consumers about why fair trade is important and give 10% of all profits back to charities working in coffee producing countries.

I ordered my first roaster just days ago, a small Behmor 1600 1 lb. home roaster that I hope to use to find my favorite origins, suppliers and roasts on. I guess you could call this research and development. My hope is to get things in order in time to sell at my local farmer's market in the spring. So, I'm here to invite you along on my journey. I want to share with you my trial and error, my successes and my failures, and I want to grow with your advice, suggestions and accountability.

Currently Reading: "The Idiot's Guide to Starting and Running a Coffee Bar" by Susan Gilbert and "Javatrekker: Dispatches from the World of Fair Trade Coffee" by Dean Cycon