Fresh roasted coffee batch

Hey there sugar. I am a FRCB  from Rwanda looking for a hot and steamy fling with anyone who wants to have me. 

Men, women, couples, alternative lifestylists,  teen goths, aged nuns, southern dandys...

People of all ages, races, shapes, and sizes have enjoyed my pleasures, and so can you. As long as you enjoy having a good time.

 Have me alone or pass me along to friends or family members. Use me and abuse then leave whats left of me on the compost heap. 

Looking for short flings only, do not like things to get stale.

Interested?

Follow this link here

Smell me later...

G Whiz

Here is a new pic of my plant. I took it with my G-Phone then sent via G-mail over the 3G network to my G-mail account. Gee whiz huh?

Unfortunately the Google Phone has a rather crappy camera function (which is no doubt made better by some app you can download) and I am left with this photo. However, I do like the convenience that comes with snapping pics and then sending them directly to your g-mail account allowing you to download them from any computer. Smart phones, gosh where would we all be without them?

Anywho, Here is a updated pic of the coffee plant that my sweety pie got me a few months ago. The top two pairs of leaves are pretty recent, the bigger guys on the second tier blossomed a few weeks ago then got huge right before my eyes (ehh ehh I said "got huge"). They are now the biggest leaves on the plant. The ones above them seem to be shooting out at a pretty fast pace also resulting in a phenomenonol growth spurt after a month of kind of laying dormant (ehh ehh I said "spurt"). 

I am not sure what caused this spurt (ehh ehh). It could be a number of different things. Perhaps the fertilizer I have been giving it in  every other watering (fertilizer: wink wink, watering; nudge, nudge). Perhaps the warmer weather that we have been havingor,  it could be that my little green friend finally got used to its new home.  (weather?...nah nothing to go on there) 

Anyways, I am taking it as a sign that I am doing something right. I just can't wait until I pick my first coffee cherry from it. 

(ehh, ehh Cherry picking) 

Behmor Update

These last two weeks of tooling around with the Behmor 1600 have sure been fun as well as educational. I learned that when they say that the Behmor really does not have the capability to go real dark, they actually mean it.  I am still currently having trouble getting my roast up to full city plus and have ended up with a number of batches that are way too light for my taste. 

I ave also learned that not all profiles work well. I tried roasting some Indonesian Flores Organic Manggar on the P2 setting and got some real patchy looking roasted bean. Sure, this might be the beans themselves (I guess I will find out when I roast the remainder on another setting) but I have a feeling that P2  was responsible. 

Not that other profiles have been working out for me...

 I already bitched about what I did to my precious Tanzanian Blackburn Estate that I screwed up on P3 and the  Rwandaian Gkongoro  also turned out less satisfactory then I expected. Pretty much the only batch that came out good was some El Salvador Siberian Estate which I roasted on P3 for  a touch over 15 minutes. This stuff turned out pretty decent, although its taste evaporated quickly over the next week. Oh yeah, the and the Columbia Huila one star also came out pretty good, but that was a fluke. 

Oh well, I guess I got some more experimenting to do before I try to go to the big leagues. 

Saving the beans

Oops, I done spilled the beans. Went  and got them all over my carpet. How could I be so careless with something so precious? I always seem to have a bit of trouble when it comes to putting my beans into a different container. I have lost count of how many time I have ended up with  half of my load all over the carpeted floor of my lab (which is really just a corner in my apartment). 

 I really need to figure out a better bean saving method. A funnel perhaps, or just jars with wider mouths. Sure, pasta sauce jars worked great for my little Nesco but now that I went and got myself a big bad Behmor, I might actually have to go and invest in some fancy schmancy storage canisters with wide openings and perhaps even a degassing valve.  They are probably going to cost me a bit, but I guess they would be worth it if it means no more carpet coffee. 

The whole Food Saver experiment thing also seems like a bit of a bust. The thing works great for keeping my chicken from getting freezer burn, but I still haven't figured out how to save freshly roasted coffee with it properly. The problem is the  dang nab CO2 that the roasted beans like to release for the first 48 hours after being cooked. If I do not wait for them to release all their gas, I end up with a bloated bag of beans, however if I wait too long, then the taste degrades and the whole point of vacuum sucking becomes lost.  

A buddy of mine sent me some small ziploc bags that have a degassing valve, that is supposed to be the best way to store your roasted batch. These valves swing only one way, letting gas out but not in, which is an ideal situation for roasted coffee. Once you lock your beans in one of these babies, the Co2 that is released pushes all of the oxygen in the bag out through the valve and keeps your beans nice and preserved. The only catch, is that these guys can end up being a bit pricey and they also make my whole reasoning in investing in a Foodsaver a moot one. I have been looking online for a sort of hybrid such as a vaccuum seal bag that has a degassing valve, but I have not found one yet. But, being onewho does not like to buy things and not use them, I am sure I will figure something out. 

why dont we do it on the roast?

So far, roasting with the Behmor has been a fun experience.  So many buttons to push, so many roasting variations that you can fiddle with. Unlike the Nesco, which only lets you fuck around with the time, The Behmor people give five different buttons (wieght, time, additional time, profile, cool)  that you can mess around with, making for almost infinite ways to roast your beans. 

Of course, just like the first couple times doing it in the backseat of your Ford Escort, it does take a while to get a good grasp as to what exactly all these buttons can do for you and your roast.  My first time, with the roaster not in the backseat, actually turned out pretty good. I used 8 oz of the Columbia Huila One Star for my maiden voyage figuring if I screwed it up, it would not be a huge loss (a kinda blase bean) and ended up getting a pretty good roast out of it. Then I started messing around with the profile settings and cranked out a couple of pussified roasts. It wasn'tuntil my fourth batch until  I produced something that was worth writing home about. 

The dang profiles are taking a while to wrap my noggin around, what with the different settings, having different roast curves, making everything all technical andstuff. Just like, the Ford Escort analogy, sometimes the first time works out because you rely on instinct, however the next couple times, you start to think about it and how can improve upon your performance. perhaps even read a few articles or get a book from the library.  This just makes things more complicated and you start to overthink things and the next thing you know she is dating your best friend who owns a van. 

So anyway, my first go round, I played it straight, set it on P1  and then watched and waited for the right time to hit the "cool" button, resulting in a pretty nice full city roast. Then I decided to get all fancy with the buttons and ended up with a city plus on my next two, because P3 has a completely different roast curve which seems to prolong the time between the first and second crack.  Oh, well I guess it is  all part of the learning process.

 I sure do miss that van. 

hot and bothered

Here it is, my new roaster in action. Nine minutes into a batch of the Tanzanian blackburn estate baby. This was my third 8oz batch in three days and I am now up to my ass in coffee. 

I could invite over a dozen Cheerleaders  with a penchant for caramel machiatos and throw a full blown coffee orgy and everyone would go away happy and jazzed. 

Anyway I definitely made enough of the jazz juice to pass around and no longer have to hoard my precious beans from my family and co-workers. 

Coffee for Everyone! Huzzah!

In my three days of experimenting, I have notice quite a few differences between the Behmor and the Nesco Roasters...

The Sound 

While the Nesco is like watching a porn on your lcd computer screen with loud shitty speakers, the Behmor is like listening to that same porn with one of those high class Bose Speakers while watching it on your crappy flip phone. Hearing every moan and grunt, in perfectly clarity, but not really getting a good view of the show. Using the Nesco, which can drown out Edith Bunker getting it good and hard "OOOH ARCHIEEE!", I do not think I ever really heard that first Crack and depended on the lound second crack to know it was time to hit that cool button. In the Behmor you can hear it loud and clear so now I can listen to "All in the Family: the lost episode"as i cook my Beans.

The Control

Ohh so many Buttons to push! i just love it. On the Nesco All you get is a timer, now I got all kinds of stuff to keep track of.  Although, I still need some time to grasp the whole "profile" thing. 

The Type

Now I am old school. The Behmor 1600 is a drum roaster (albeit fused with a toaster oven) while the Nesco uses the more modern hot air convection cooking method. Drum roasting was how its been done for years and there is something about the taste and the overall tactile feel that appeals to me. 

And Of Course...

The Size

I know that its how you use it, but when it comes to batches of roasted beans, I believe that the bigger the better. Now I will never have to resort to outside coffee because the measly 5 ounces that I roasted could not last the weekend. I can roast a full LB in one sitting now. Huzzah! Of course, that also means that if i screw a batch up , I screw up a whole pound of beans. It also means that my apartment now smells twice as "burny" when i do roast. Even though the Behmor has a smoke suppression apparatus (which my GF's ass needs cause its soo hot), some still gets released and I even had to run and turn off the smoke alarm which was blaring in bedroom (it also happens everytime my GF undresses). I am probably breathing in a lot of CO, which bad for brain, but me think me is ok.