5th Roast, Ethiopian Ghimbi

March 27, 2006 at 10:53 am · Filed under In my Kitchen, On the Radar

Continuing on my pilgramage of heat gun roasting we decided to give the Ethiopian a try. Robin and I enjoy a lot of coffees but we’ve found a love for the fruitier blends and Ethiopian’s generally do not disappoint.

My real concern is that if I am going to continue this I need to start a log book like any good roaster should. The processing and varietal influence a lot in your expectations. The Ghimbi had a ton of chaff, while a Moka we did a few days ago had nearly none. The Ghimbi’s first crack was nearly unnoticeable while the Colombia Narino sounded like black cat fireworks going off. Some roasts I find roast very even without effort, others seem to take a bit more care to get everyone at the same speed. If it weren’t for things like smell and color I’d have missed the marks of when to stop.

We let the new roast sit about an hour before we did a french press and boy it was tasty. Lots of cherries came to the surface of my mind and subtle oaks. Today I’m watching the flavor profile blend further into a normal curve and I find it very very palatable. Even when the cup is room temperature I am amazed at how candy like it is.

I need to find a new technique for holding the HG since the weight begins to really perturb my wrist & forearm after a while. Maybe a newer HG model would be lighter weight. Something I’ll have to look in to as I progress. The whole process is a bit taxing (but very rewarding).

-a

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Roaster Humor

March 15, 2006 at 9:31 pm · Filed under In my Kitchen, On the Radar

Today I did my first 250g peaberry roast.  Working in a new bowl, with a lot larger volume, and a bean that I am unfamiliar with.  I’ll taste it in the morning, curious of the results.  I was probably 80-90% even in roast. It just had it’s first crack at a very slow pace which didn’t make for easy judging when second crack was coming. It’s a large experimentation time and I’m having fun, which is all that really matters.  Since I did the roast over at Jeff’s to show him what I’ve been up to, his dog Uma was kind enough to devour any fly aways that went outside the bowl.  Gladly we left for dinner afterwards and were not present for any caffinated motions she might have went through.

Next month I’ll just order 5lbs of something I can stick to so I can figure out the variables without always having a new origin to mess with.  As I perused the alt.coffee archives I ran across the following which really made me laugh.

Google Groups : alt.coffee

Here is an interesting roasting method for the adventurous: I call it the slingshot/cutting torch method. Get an oxy/acetylene cutting torch, set it up with a proper flame for cutting through 1/2 inch mild steel. Lock the torch in a vise with the flame extending horizontally. Position yourself behind the torch and off to the side a little. Place a large bucket opposite the torch to catch the roasted coffee (you can use a smaller bucket is your aim is good). Now use the sling shot to propel the beans individually through the torch flame. Adjust the bean trajectory and the angle of the flame to reach second crack in 312 to 318 microseconds (how’s that for a roast profile). Shoot each bean through the flame until you have a weeks supply of coffee. I’m still experimenting with my super bean cooler which has the discharge from a Co2 fire extinguisher in the bean trajectory. After your aim improves, you can shoot the beans directly into the open valve-bag.

-a

technorati tags: coffee, humor, roasting

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Chocolate Love has left the building…

March 14, 2006 at 8:57 pm · Filed under On the Radar

Playing around with digg and I run across  "Singer Isaac Hayes quits South Park" and I think to myself, nooo.. whose going to sing about Chef’s Chocolate Salty Balls?

Chef: Hello There Children
Kids: hey Chef
Stan: Chef whats a prostitute?
Chef: Ugh where do you kids get this stuff.Where do baby’s come from chef,whats a prostitute chef cant you kids say hey chaf nice day aint it
Kids: Hey chef nice day aint it
Chef: Thank You!
Stan: Chef Whats a prostitute?

We will miss you Chef.

  World news from The Times

South Park was one of many “adult” cartoons that emerged after the success of The Simpsons. Its story lines are generally more scatological and deliberately offensive than those of The Simpsons, making it popular with male teenagers.

Crazy reporters.  What’s that imply? heheh!  Now when Southpark started as the Christmas card (Jesus vs Santa) in the mid-90’s, teens & young adults hit this with a force unheard. (man that idea today was such early early online-viral)  I still watch this show.  It’s wrong, it’s sick, it’s perverse, and it’s generally very intelligent or at least timely. (FNORD)  However we’ve aged.   It’s audience window should be wider than ever, shouldn’t it?  Season starts soon.  Wish they made more of them but I’ll take what I can get.  I wonder what their online model would look like.

I digress.

-a 

technorati tags: SouthPark, TV, Funny, Goodbye,

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ClaimID

March 13, 2006 at 10:28 am · Filed under MetaWeb

Got my beta code for ClaimID. ClaimID is trying to center your online identity in one place. As well as implement the idea of an (def) I think it’s a good idea for those of us that surf far and beyond. A personal lens persay.

Feel free to use my extra codes (link above), I got two invites.

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Monday Morning Coffee

March 13, 2006 at 9:19 am · Filed under On the Radar

Good morning fellow readers. It is again Monday. After going through some of my routine I’ve taken a break. Enjoying another fantastic cup of Bolivia Juan de Dios Blanco and listening Cado Bejo from Bebel Gillberto. If only I could get paid to drink coffee and listen to music right?

The weeks are chopping by right now. I’m keeping myself fairly occupied with lots of tasks. CCC hooked me up with the local Habitat group that has just completed a Restore. Within their new space they are building a small coffee shop and I am assisting Joe Zimmerman with some planning and hopefully more as time permits. As I understand it Joe wants to bring some good coffee to the area and all the proceeds (minus daily operations) will benefit Habitat. Sounds awesome.

Elsewhere Jeff Hoffman threw a Ruby Meetup last Thursday which went real well. A few very keen individuals in the area stepped out to show support. With a little bit of work I think Charlotte is prime for this type of group/programming/lang. If anything the group is going to be run fairly loose and should provide an excellent resource for idea incubation.

Caffe Nuance hasn’t dissapeared but is about 20% of our thoughts at this time. We’re reworking the menu and in a holding pattern for Bellissimo to get back with us on assumption advice. I think we’re on the right track, but it helps when the professionals give the nod. After doing a lot of SCAA 2005 conference reading I think we have a good idea on how assumptions are built. It would just take a few good weeks in the area of consideration’s competition doing detailed number counts. Being true entrepreneurs with no wealthy backing makes all of this so much more difficult than any counterpart that has large collateral pieces to bank on. The only silver lining we look to is the amount of work that goes into the analysis will cause us less pain in the long run. If you are given things then you are apt to not plan nearly as well. We’re forced into planning so those with money will take a risk on us. Such a horse and cart run around a lot of the time.

We’re still working on our little Web tewOh project as well. Let’s call it, Project: Crunch’n’Munch. Right now I’m trying to figure out how to make it a more selfish service. Jeff’s been detailing a lot of how to orient oneself in app design and it’s a balance between being selfish and being social. We’ve given a ton of thought to the social networking side but we can’t forget the app needs to be driven and completly usable by an individual. Should be easy enough. (heh)

One foot after another …

-a

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