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When you start, be like a young man on the dating scene for the first time.... play the field. I tried pretty much the full spectrum. I developed a fondness for the Panama Geisha beans, Ethiopia, Kenya and Brazil beans. I tried a lot of the expensive "blue chip beans" (three types of Kona...

Yep, that is certainly a method. I am taking copious notes, as I am still trying to perfect and tune all of my roasts. I don't want to pay big bucks for some of the more exotic beans, if my next roast is not an improvement upon the previous roast.

Welcome to the forum. You may discover people's experiences are not uniform. Their opinions may vary as well. I have seen well reviewed coffee, and when I tried it, the best description was "far less than stellar". For those who roast beans, they have experienced beans from a specific farm...

Moka Pots, and their cousins work well for camping. Whether done over a wood fire or a camp stove.

Part of the difference is the boiling point of water goes down as altitude goes up. Most people have a target temperature of water, when they brew. If your altitude gets high enough, you may be knocking on the door of the boiling point of water. I live at over 1500 Meters of altitude, water...

My handwritten notes are usually jotted in haste. I sometimes have two thermometer readings written, due to lack of logging software, and no USB interface to feed a logger. The roaster I used does not support a bean temperature probe. It is a Gene Cafe roaster. One temperature is an exhaust...

It would require a precision fit between the bottom piece and shell. Othewise it would leak water which was not ran through the grains, resulting in a thin cup of coffee. In theory, such a part could be machined (but not formed/moulded from plastic, which lacks the precision). As coffee...

I use what looks a lot like a "knock block" to empty my K-cups. I live in a small town which lacks any serious coffee supplies. So, an item like a Knock-Block was unavailable (without doing it mail order). Target sells a "kitchen organizer" which works as a cheapo "knock box". It is made by...

The pressure seen, is the amount of bars required to push the hot water through the grinds. A bar is roughly 14.7 pounds per square inch pressure. If the pressure is too low, the water just rushes past the grounds, and does not extract the flavor from the beans. If the pressure is too high...

Chuckle... I just wish the local Baristas had your interest and devotion. They produce sad cups of liquid disappointment in my area. The one I visited last night had their espresso machine set to do a 7 second two ounce shot. But, due to the low (learned) standards in my area, they stay in...

Billy Banana, great question. I always run a cool down cycle between beans. I do this for two reasons. 1. It extends the life of the heating coil on the Gene Cafe. 2. It returns my starting temperature to a point which helps make the roasts more "repeatable in outcomes". I have always...

Yemen Mocca Khulani Natural review Cupping flavors: Clearly defined Chocolate with very faint berry in the finish. Strong and well developed body with a full mouth-feel. Statistics: Roast level City+, Moisture loss 13.66 percent, Development 23.1% Green Been description: Lots of variability in...

Those pesky beans from Bali finally bent to my will, or perhaps rather... I started listening to what the bean was trying to tell me. It required a more gentle roast, as the beans were very low density. One of my first two batches actually had some tipping. This surprised me, because...

The beans progress as they hit certain target temperatures. What I suspect is your rate of temperature rise is too slow, and it is baking the moisture out of the beans. Once that moisture is driven out, there is no steam forming inside the beans to make them "pop". The first step is to...

I wish I had your level of ambition. The coffee shops in my town, are "place holder cofee shops". As far as I know, none in the town roast their own beans and they simply use commercial big-box store beans. I won't even go into how they fix their drinks. They simply believe enough dairy...

They prefer it because they have been programmed to believe it is "real coffee flavor". They have no clue about the incredible flavors available with single-origin coffees done at a lighter level of roast. If, many of them tasted a properly roasted Geisha, or a fruity Ethiopia coffee... they...

Brief cupping notes on the Rwanda. It has only rested 28 hours. From the picture you can see it was not a darker roast. (it is the bottom right bag in the previous picture). It was only taken to 22.2 percent development. The chocolate flavor is bigger than I expected, but (thus far) any...

Roasting summary: I ended up doing a total of 6 batches of a half pound each. I did two batches of the Kenya Nyeri Gatomboya peaberry beans so I could play with different roasting curves to see which gives the best flavor. The rest of the beans were roasted based upon what those "family of...

The picture below is the beans being roasted today. This is the second time for the Kenya Kiriyaga Kamwangi Peaberry bean. It roasted lock-step identical to the first attempt last week. It was selected because it has a loud and distinctive first crack. I wanted to see if the exhaust...

Quick note on the Kenya Kiriyaga Kamwangi Peaberry. It is a very solid cup with no detracting characteristics. It lacks some of the wow factor of other beans which have been roasted, but just makes a clean and wonderful cup. The Citrus, Tea and Spice notes are there, just not pronounced...