Spent all day yesterday repeating the recipes for my coffees, getting ready for tomorrow where my work will be on display. Very exciting.
We will be tasting and offering all of the coffees I have been spending hours and hours on tomorrow from 10am to 3pm. I must say that the most surprising and astounding coffee there will be the sumatra. Mmmm, delicious. Many others that have turned out be very rewarding will be there, like the summer snow, dragon fire, guatemala, and more.
I did make a couple of mistakes during the roasting prep, but because of what I learned from the mistakes I am thinking of making it mandatory to accidentally do something wrong because it forces me to explore the bean's flavor and personality through that mistake.
I have noticed that the costa rica coffee turns darker and heavier at a lower temperature than most of the other coffees.
I have also made these wonderful tasting truffles that will be available. Made with 100% unsweetened chocolate, white chocolate and coffee liquor. Very much worth a taste.
With snacks, dips, and products on display, this party will be great. As far as coffee roasting goes, it's a whole bunch of repetition. I have placed an order for more coffees coming my way, including a new addition to the origin list: Yirgacheffe. Can't wait to play around with that one as a light roast, dark roast, and espresso. It's FTO, and I know some places like Tantra want an FTO espresso, and I love those ethiopian coffees as espressos.
Julie's new place, Wake the Dead, is getting a little bit of stir before the opening has even been anounced. I heard a barista at Tantra asking questions about the when and the where. I know her place will be awesome, and she has promised to dedicate an airpot just for Rivertown Roasters!
We may also be spotted soon in Austin! We went around on our intro to the neighborhood drop off some goodies round and stopped by Lava Java, an old employer. Tony said he was super impressed by the Summer Snow and the Nicaragua. Yay! Now we need to get our asses in gear and start offering whole leaf teas and whole leaf tea accessories.
I am in such a good mood, it feels so great to get such good response from my coffees. I hope to be able to grow and get even better as I continue to repeat, and make some mistakes along the way.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Relaxing in the midst of chaos
Took the day off today to sort things out a little bit for the up coming weeks ahead. We are having our opening party on Saturday 9 Feb. Exciting, lots of coffee to drink, take home, and buy. Getting things ready and trying to create something that looks as appealing as it tastes is important to me.
I roasted a two days ago that came out fantasticly. It was sweet and smooth but still earthy. Really a great taste. I've also gotten a lot closer to my house espresso. It's spicy and sweet with a slight fruity finish. I think it might be a little too spicy for mass marketing, but I know I will enjoy this one as it develops and evolves through out the experimentation of roasting. I will make a more subtle, heavier espresso for most of the coffee shops around here. I'll be working on a really good light one, I'm sure, in a couple of weeks.
Went around, put up posters about the opening. Really hope it's all right and people want to buy this coffee. I have some strong blends and the origin roasting is just getting better and better everytime I roast. I am truly excited and hope this opportunity makes enough money to last.
I can't wait till the day that we get to go on origin trips and buy directly from the farms. Oh what a wonderful warehouse we would have to have. I love daydreaming about it. All fun and fantasy, but here and now I must work hard to get these coffees out. Quite a bit of work when your max post roast capacity equals to something around 3lbs.
Of to sleep for tomorrow's espresso adventures.
I roasted a two days ago that came out fantasticly. It was sweet and smooth but still earthy. Really a great taste. I've also gotten a lot closer to my house espresso. It's spicy and sweet with a slight fruity finish. I think it might be a little too spicy for mass marketing, but I know I will enjoy this one as it develops and evolves through out the experimentation of roasting. I will make a more subtle, heavier espresso for most of the coffee shops around here. I'll be working on a really good light one, I'm sure, in a couple of weeks.
Went around, put up posters about the opening. Really hope it's all right and people want to buy this coffee. I have some strong blends and the origin roasting is just getting better and better everytime I roast. I am truly excited and hope this opportunity makes enough money to last.
I can't wait till the day that we get to go on origin trips and buy directly from the farms. Oh what a wonderful warehouse we would have to have. I love daydreaming about it. All fun and fantasy, but here and now I must work hard to get these coffees out. Quite a bit of work when your max post roast capacity equals to something around 3lbs.
Of to sleep for tomorrow's espresso adventures.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Roasting up a storm filled with chaff and debri
Just a side note: sometimes the chaff catches on fire underneath the roasting drum.
I have been learning so much and the more I learn, the more excited I get to go back to work on roasting the perfect batches. I now have some delicious guatemala, costa rica, harrar, and a wonderful blend called summer snow.
Making some progress on the espresso, I feel at this rate I should have something good by next wednesday. It takes a whole lot of tasting, hoping, tasting, blending, weighing, blending, roasting, tasting, hoping, roasting..... You get the idea. I know the day I come upon that magical taste I will be thankful for all the days of hard work, but I think it will take a couple of months of slight tweaking to get it perfect.
Opening is coming up fast, only a week and a day away!! Working hard to get samples out to all those around us and to get all the coffee that will be available at the opening ready. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm getting the recipes down so after this it's just repeating that magical formula over and over again.
I have been learning so much and the more I learn, the more excited I get to go back to work on roasting the perfect batches. I now have some delicious guatemala, costa rica, harrar, and a wonderful blend called summer snow.
Making some progress on the espresso, I feel at this rate I should have something good by next wednesday. It takes a whole lot of tasting, hoping, tasting, blending, weighing, blending, roasting, tasting, hoping, roasting..... You get the idea. I know the day I come upon that magical taste I will be thankful for all the days of hard work, but I think it will take a couple of months of slight tweaking to get it perfect.
Opening is coming up fast, only a week and a day away!! Working hard to get samples out to all those around us and to get all the coffee that will be available at the opening ready. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm getting the recipes down so after this it's just repeating that magical formula over and over again.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Practice makes a happy and confident roaster
I have been spending my days roasting the same thing 5 times in a row to practice consistency and more strongly develop my individual roasts. Of course there are adjustments here and there when I see something is not coming out right. I have also been working on making a delicious house blend and espresso for Jo on the Go. I do believe that by the end of the week I will have something superb.
Talked to Julie who is opening up a coffee shop hang out up on rr12. I will be going out and visiting her soon. She says that there will be an airpot with my name on it, so lookout for fresh coffee out on RR12!
Will make more detailed post about tastings and blends coming soon!
Talked to Julie who is opening up a coffee shop hang out up on rr12. I will be going out and visiting her soon. She says that there will be an airpot with my name on it, so lookout for fresh coffee out on RR12!
Will make more detailed post about tastings and blends coming soon!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
23 January 2008
Today was more of a play day with coffees. I roasted up a bunch of samples for Jo on the Go and experimented in making a couple of possible flavored coffees for Justin's mom. I made one snickerdoodle cookie and one sweet dark chocolate. Surprisingly they worked out really well.
Tomorrow morning will be full of coffee tastings and espresso makings. I am Trying to create an espresso with Harrar. I like it straight as a single origin espresso, but it doesn't have enough body to be good for a latte. It's really fruity and sweet and light, and kind of just disappears in milk.
Also tomorrow, Amber's mom will be visiting and I'm going to set up a little cupping demo for her, send her off with a couple of small bags of coffee.
We will also be working on the invites to the grand opening only a couple of weeks away!
The hardest thing to do now is to find the time for all the roasts I want to do. I am keeping detailed logs, but everything is so fast sometimes that it's difficult to keep all the information I'm writing down organized.
Hope to have some info on that espresso here soon. Keep drinking.
Tomorrow morning will be full of coffee tastings and espresso makings. I am Trying to create an espresso with Harrar. I like it straight as a single origin espresso, but it doesn't have enough body to be good for a latte. It's really fruity and sweet and light, and kind of just disappears in milk.
Also tomorrow, Amber's mom will be visiting and I'm going to set up a little cupping demo for her, send her off with a couple of small bags of coffee.
We will also be working on the invites to the grand opening only a couple of weeks away!
The hardest thing to do now is to find the time for all the roasts I want to do. I am keeping detailed logs, but everything is so fast sometimes that it's difficult to keep all the information I'm writing down organized.
Hope to have some info on that espresso here soon. Keep drinking.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Roastin' stylie
Today I roasted the first parts of the first experiment that I'm doing with my roaster. I installed it yesterday evening and then my mom came to town. Today I worked in my new founded laboratory for about 5 hours. It's sunday, so I took a little bit of a break in the morning.
I started off with the costa rican coffee. My experiment is to roast the same weight of bean to different set max temps on the machine for a set amount of time. My weight is 1.51 lb, my time is 13 minutes. The variable, temperature, changes in incriments of 10 from 310 F and 410 F. I record the beginning weight, the ending weight, the set temperature and the final temperature, as well as the highest temperature reached during the roast and at what time in the thirteen minute roast period. I hope to find out several things what is happenning to the bean in the various stages of it's roasts, as well as find it's ideal range for bringing out the flavor. I will be cupping each one the following day and recording the flavors, mouth feels, cup intensities, and my personal opinions.
Today I roasted trials 1-3 (310 F, 320 F, 330 F). at a set time of 310 F, for a set time of 13 minutes, the first trial didn't even go into the second pop. The second trial had the same results. The third trial peaked right before the second pop.
After this trial is finished, I will experiment in changing the set temperatures at different times during the roast.
My goal is to find a temperature that brings the coffee in the first crack and then settles it out right before the second crack, and a temperature change, will occur.
Soon I hope to get photos up on this site to show more of what is going on inside the walls at rivertown roasters.
Grand Opening is Feb. 9th, 2008, From 10am to 3pm.
I started off with the costa rican coffee. My experiment is to roast the same weight of bean to different set max temps on the machine for a set amount of time. My weight is 1.51 lb, my time is 13 minutes. The variable, temperature, changes in incriments of 10 from 310 F and 410 F. I record the beginning weight, the ending weight, the set temperature and the final temperature, as well as the highest temperature reached during the roast and at what time in the thirteen minute roast period. I hope to find out several things what is happenning to the bean in the various stages of it's roasts, as well as find it's ideal range for bringing out the flavor. I will be cupping each one the following day and recording the flavors, mouth feels, cup intensities, and my personal opinions.
Today I roasted trials 1-3 (310 F, 320 F, 330 F). at a set time of 310 F, for a set time of 13 minutes, the first trial didn't even go into the second pop. The second trial had the same results. The third trial peaked right before the second pop.
After this trial is finished, I will experiment in changing the set temperatures at different times during the roast.
My goal is to find a temperature that brings the coffee in the first crack and then settles it out right before the second crack, and a temperature change, will occur.
Soon I hope to get photos up on this site to show more of what is going on inside the walls at rivertown roasters.
Grand Opening is Feb. 9th, 2008, From 10am to 3pm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)