Coffee Appreciation

Going to the Cup North launch at Waffa in Manc later, even though a "Latte art throwdown" sounds pretty insufferable.

Got a kilo of the ManCoCo espresso mix last week, very impressed.

Nice one - you have an order! I put as grind for filter as I couldn’t see pour over/V60 - if this is the wrong option is there any way I could change it? Thanks

I got mine ground for filter and regretted it - should really have gone for cafetiere as I found it way too fine for the way I'd usually brew.

Is there a 'universal' measurement or does it vary from place to place (obvs will differ machine to machine).

Not a cheap option, but will deliver much better results than a hario or porlex. There's a pre-order discount running at the moment.

http://www.madebyknock.com/store/p40/FELD2_%3A_HONED.html

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£100 for a manual grinder? Crikey.

You can go even higher.

https://www.coffeehit.co.uk/lido-3-hand-coffee-grinder.html

Thank you.

Also @CYOA Yeah our filter grind is the median between a 1 cup v60, which needs to be very fine and a 60g, 1 litre batch brew on the Technivorm. Thats a pretty wide range unfortunately but obviously it would be impossible to offer options for everybody's various brewing techniques.

If you email me details of your brewing method (type of brewer, coffee dose, qty of water) or put them in the comments on the order form then I will do my best to get the grind size right for you.

Cheers Steve, appreciate the offer - will prob just get wholebean in future (assuming my new toy (Wilfa) ever arrives...) And still looking at the technivorm but waiting for a few clients to cough up first before pulling the trigger : )

Could possibly try looking through the ground coffee by Union and spotting any which has been roasted/ground within the last 4 weeks. I'd try Bright Note. They usually have it in Waitrose.

@StevePeel the YB coffees are excellent. I like how they are neither too light, nor too dark. Sounds obvious, but not all roasters manage to get a roast which works well from filter to espresso.

Anyone who hasn't got themselves some YB beans yet - get on it!

Top tip! Thanks. I'll have a browse through Waitrose when I can this weekend.

Thanks to everyone else's suggestions too, the problem with going to Pret is I don't think they'll be firing out beans or ground coffee at all, let alone at a reduced price, I think their deal is that they give out coffees which won't work so well for our scenario as we run overnight with a relatively late start, rather than a late afternoon food and drink only type deal. It is worth investigating though, thanks.

Cheers, that's how I describe my roast level myself! I guess everybody does, but I still find grassy, cereally, dusty flavours so often in modern roasters' stuff.

To find the roast level I do the first roast of a new coffee using paramaters which have worked previously with similar style coffees, taste it, then next go I'll adjust the drop-in temp until the body is about right (lower drop in for longer roast to boost body, or higher drop in and shorter roast to get the juiciness going) and adjust the end temp so its neither grassy nor carbony. With very fruity coffees I'll keep coming down with the end temp until it gets grassy then push it back up a touch when I've found the limit.

I think a lot depends on what methods roasters use for their quality control evaluation. I find that cupping coffee (water over grounds then slurp with a spoon) is very kind to lighter roasting, thats kind of what its for - evaluating lightly roasted coffee as a purchasing sample with an emphasis on exposing bean defects, more than as a final drink, so when I brew the coffee using my filter method those vegetal flavours which weren't aparent in the cupping bowl appear. I know the thing now is for lots and lots of extraction to overcome the absense of cooking, but the payoff in terms of lack of body and overall strength of flavour doesn't suit my preference.

My QC for single origin coffee is done using a v60, the same as the coffee will be served to the customer, and the espresso gets tasted through the espresso machine. We don't QC every single batch of espresso - we use a 2kg roasting machine so batches are too numerous but we're dialling it in and drinking it every day so if anything starts sliding (and thats the danger - incremental movement toward brighter or darker roasting, more than catastrophic roast errors or bean defects) then we're on it.

our filter grind is the median between a 1 cup v60, which needs to be very fine

Finer than multi cup v60? Never knew if so!

Only a bit - grind size needs to increase with brew time to finish up with the same amount of extraction, so a 250ml brew for 1 cup will ideally be ground a touch finer than a 500ml brew for 2 cups.

Zassenhaus may get a mention too

only by me :)

Makes sense now I think it through. Ta!

I thought I'd save you the job.

Enjoy. I was told about (invited to?) the Ancoats Coffee doo at ABC brewery but can't go. All sounds a good weekend of coffee stuff though.

Really enjoying the Espresso Blend @StevePeel comes out black as night with a really dark crema but is still nicely in the medium roast range that I like.

the hermosa premium is still my fave but glad I tried this too.

mwa

Thanks @StevePeel - my Hermosa Premium arrived today less than 24 hrs after I ordered it and it's delicious. Outstanding coffee and service!

A bag of the Hermosa has just arrived for me too. What is the recommended method of brewing? I have v60, aeropress and gaggia classic at my disposal as well as a grinder. Recommendations welcome!

I use mine for milk based coffees on the gaggia. comes out lovely.

The Yellow Bourbon beans have been consistently stunning.

Recent favourites have been the Sumatran - we liked it so much we bought the last 2kg. There is an amazing Costa Rican (I think it translates as black pearl) and an Ethiopian Guji Yuraga which have excited our palates this week. That Hermosa works well with milk.

We mainly make espresso based coffee with milk, but the beans have also been great in the aeropress too. The incremental improvements in the roasting of some of the beans over a few weeks have been interesting, with extra levels of complexity being revealed.

I believe the small batch roasting has enabled a really tight quality control and ensures beans are super fresh. Generally I’d suggest letting them settle for a few days after roasting. We are getting better at arranging a bean re up just under a week before the current stash runs out.

This is the third roastery Steve has worked at that I have bought beans from and with greater autonomy it appears he is buying better and more interesting beans. Can’t wait to taste 2018’s offerings.

@StevePeel would you post to Spain? Barcelona to be exact.