What's new

Café Acquisition Thread

Ordered the Behmor 1600 last night along with 10 pounds of green beans (Columbian supremo & Columbian decaf). Let's see how this goes!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Ordered the Behmor 1600 last night along with 10 pounds of green beans (Columbian supremo & Columbian decaf). Let's see how this goes!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Mail man was busy today! Columbian decaf will be here tomorrow. Tomorrow should be fun although I really want to try it tonight so I have something fresh in the morning [emoji38]
proxy.php


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Put some money down on a roaster. I have been using an 2kg machine at my brother's house for awhile but I wanted to have a roaster at my house. No pictures yet but will take some when it arrives in a couple months.
 
Put some money down on a roaster. I have been using an 2kg machine at my brother's house for awhile but I wanted to have a roaster at my house. No pictures yet but will take some when it arrives in a couple months.

What did you end up ordering?

Mini-500?
North?
Mill City?
BC?

.
 
Sorry, I guess I should have mentioned that in my post...

I will be getting a mill city 2kg machine. Looking forward to learning how to use Artisan and keeping better records of my roasting. Right now when I get low I take six scoops of my greens and have close to 2kg (+/- 150g) of beans. I then try to arrange a time to go over to his house and roast.

My brother's machine is a Ambex 2kg. The one thing that can be adjusted on it is the LP gas. Moving to a machine with variable air flow, and drum speed will have a learning curve. My hope is logging will help me shorten the time it takes to get used to the new roaster.

My brother and I usually split 2-3 full bags of coffee at a time from a local importer. That gives us a good blend, a bit of variety and not a crazy amount of coffee to store (150ish lbs of beans takes up less space than you would think). Maybe we have been lucky but the importer always seems to have some quality coffees that interest us.

Ruckin.
 
Picked up a 650ml Gooseneck Kettle from that big-auction-site. It was not needed but it was bargain priced and claimed to work on induction cook tops. The level of magnetism was low when compared to a much nicer 1 liter kettle but it did work. It poured very well. Stock picture:
650ml Stainless Steel Pour Over Coffee Gooseneck Kettle.jpg
 
This is my 3rd electric kettle (hario, bonavita, & Russell hobbs) and will go with me to another house as a pour-over kettle.

I'll do a review outside of this topic
 
When I ordered two replacement beakers for my french press, I also ordered some Illy Costa Rica single origin beans so I could get free shipping. Instead of shipping the Costa Rica they shipped Guatemala. Anyone have any opinions on whether one is significantly better than the other? I'm inclined to drink the Guatemala and see how I like it. They are both the same price so there is no economic loss here.
 
Depending on the farm/coop.....

My personal favorite central American is from the Costa Rica Tarrazu region, La Minta estate. There are other small farm offerings that are good but La Minta is like McDonalds. It's always good. It's always consistent. Hard to go wrong sticking with them until you find something from a smaller producer you like better.

I've roasted and brewed several Guatemalan coffees from various growing regions. They are typically good in a blend and I am sure that some small producers that have great beans but so far I've not found one I could recommend. Don't get me wrong, the coffee from there is fine, it just is a step back from what you will get from the La Minta estate (or any estate or small producer).

If the coffee you received is just marked Guatemala, you may have a blend of many different coffee types, farms, and regions. When buying coffee try to get the ones that can be narrowed to at least a co-operative (minimum) large estate (good) or farm/grower (best). The price will go up, the narrower the coffee is.

Co-operatives are made up of a group of small producers/growers who combine their harvest and sell it through a large central marketing operation. Co-operatives are always regional and will only take coffee from growers within their region. You may get many different versions of coffee beans from a co-operative bag but all will be grown within a general climate zone.

I can see this answer is going to be a bit large and complex so I'll just stop now before it gets out of control.

If you want me to break this out into a separate discussion on the type of coffee plants, the growers, processing, and marketing operations let me know.

.
 
Depending on the farm/coop.....

My personal favorite central American is from the Costa Rica Tarrazu region, La Minta estate. There are other small farm offerings that are good but La Minta is like McDonalds. It's always good. It's always consistent. Hard to go wrong sticking with them until you find something from a smaller producer you like better.

I've roasted and brewed several Guatemalan coffees from various growing regions. They are typically good in a blend and I am sure that some small producers that have great beans but so far I've not found one I could recommend. Don't get me wrong, the coffee from there is fine, it just is a step back from what you will get from the La Minta estate (or any estate or small producer).

If the coffee you received is just marked Guatemala, you may have a blend of many different coffee types, farms, and regions. When buying coffee try to get the ones that can be narrowed to at least a co-operative (minimum) large estate (good) or farm/grower (best). The price will go up, the narrower the coffee is.

Co-operatives are made up of a group of small producers/growers who combine their harvest and sell it through a large central marketing operation. Co-operatives are always regional and will only take coffee from growers within their region. You may get many different versions of coffee beans from a co-operative bag but all will be grown within a general climate zone.

I can see this answer is going to be a bit large and complex so I'll just stop now before it gets out of control.

If you want me to break this out into a separate discussion on the type of coffee plants, the growers, processing, and marketing operations let me know.

.

I believe it’s a blend because it does not mention any specific estate, farm or region. Once I’m done with my container of La Colombe I’ll open this one and see how it is.
 
Got an early Christmas present yesterday. Tested it out twice so far and I'm getting great results. It's at least as good as what I've been getting out of my pour over cone. Coffee is actually hot when poured into a cold mug.
proxy.php


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Sweet....

There are a number of B&B members who use the Behmor Brazen Plus and are very satisfied with now it performs.

.
 
Got an early Christmas present yesterday. Tested it out twice so far and I'm getting great results. It's at least as good as what I've been getting out of my pour over cone. Coffee is actually hot when poured into a cold mug.
proxy.php


Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
Added a Kalita wave 155 and bonavita kettle to my collection today. So far brewed one cup with it and the kettle makes pourovers so much easier. Can't believe I've gone so long without one. Also got a scale with timer built in. I'm going to have fun with all my new coffee gear this week!

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
Not much of an experimenter as far as brewing equipment any more. I use a stainless steel Nicro stove top vacuum coffee maker and a burr grinder with whole bean coffee, mostly from Peets in Berkeley, CA. Only ground I buy is New Orleans style French roast with chicory for something totally different. Water volume and coffee weight are both measured. Brewing time is timed too so I get very consistent results. For my taste I do not think it is possible to find better equipment for brewing "American" style coffee. Certainly better than the standard electric automatic drip maker results.
 
I bought the 2017 Valhalla Java Ceramic Tankard from Death Wish coffee on amazon.ca. I have been looking at their mugs for a long time and finally pulled the trigger.

proxy.php
 
Just uncrated a coffee roaster this weekend. It is a mill city roaster and I need to spend some quality time with it to dial it in. With a bit of luck I will be doing some seasoning roasts and testing this week.

Ruckin.
 
Top Bottom