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.  

Dancing with my bag

You remember that scene in Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, in which Kumar ( that dead dude from House) does a whole relationship montage with a giant bag of  the bubonic chronic?

 "you call this coffee?" Slap 

This is how I felt wheni got  my first sizable bag of beans via Fed Ex the other day. I got me some five pounds of the tanzanian blackburn estate shipped to me from Indiana. 

Mucis started playing and I saw myself taking the bag by the hands and running off into the field of daises somewhere where we could make sweet, sweet love. It will be all playful tickles and ass  grabs at first, then the affair will heat up ( if you know what I mean). Soon I will be sharing her with friends, and not being able to stop myself I will end up finishing her off and then move onto another conquest. 

 

Those girls from Ipanema

We have all heard about those girls from Ipanema....

So when I saw that some Brazil Ipanema "Tree Dry Process "was avialable from SM, I just had to jump on the opportunity to taste little something saucy, sexy region.  Being seduced by the name, I actually went ahead and bought two elbows, so that I could explore this Ipaneman beauty to full extant and really get to know her ins and outs

 

Actually, I ended up buying the same bean twice , not realizing that the first one was  Tree Dry Process also. I should probably be taking better notes, or at least lay off the "hippy speed balls" in the morning so as to not make this mistake again.  If my mind was a bit clearer and my memory not just a pile of swiss cheese, I would not have wasted my time buying this bean again. 

While the girls from Ipanema may be creatures worthy of song, the beans of Ipanema hardly seem deserving of faint whistle. I might be willing to throw a little hum jobby at them, but really these beans are kind of blase. 

 This dull Choco-chalky robustness does do better when mixed with a wild child like the Ethipoian Kambata making for a fine Moka Java thing, but it does not do well alone. 

Then again, It just may be that I do not know how to handle this little creature from Ipanema. While my little Nesco does not do well when I want to go dark, I decided to crank it up a notch and bring this latest  batch to full French mode. Perhaps this little Ipanema will final open herself to me and give me pleasure. 

I will let you know....  

Using a (chaff) cup

The games I like to play are dirty, messy and dangerous, which is why I like to use a special cup like this one here.... 

It is great at collecting all the messy leavings that can come with certain bean types that are into the act of "chaffing" while roasting. Okay, most beans do chaff a little as they start to get all heated up, but some really chaff, sending out copius amounts of the flaky brown particulates. These beauties can get quite messy, making you feel like a jizz mopperat the Lusty Lady.  

 

This little puppy performs a vital role in collecting the chaff, which are little pieces of husk that fall off during the roasting process. The screen on the right sits on top of the little metal cup and the whole device is inserted into the top of the glass roasting chamber (not pictured). After roasting the beans, the roaster kicks in a "cooling off cycle" which increase the air flow, allowing the chaff to float up through the gashes in the cup which serves as sort of a diaphragm for the steamy, agitated beans. 

I got a hot and steamy video of the whole process which is available for the sexy low price of 19.95. Just make a check out to BSRiter then go here...

Ah, crap wait a minute, how the hell am I going stop you from just clicking on the link without cutting me a check?\, I guess the am going to have to hold my readers to auspices the honor system. If it is good enough for the museum of local folkart, it is good enough for me. 

Fresh Ass

When it comes to coffee, freshness is the key. The longer that bean sits around after it has been roasted, the shittier the coffee is going to taste. Now, if you roast it in a big factory, grind it up and then stick in a can on a shelf, the drink you get is going to be a gritty bitter, muddy mess that not even worthy for the lips of a desperate trucker needing a bit of the go go juice to make it to Chatanooga with his pay load. 

Even when left whole, coffee beans tend to peak in flavor after two to three days of being roasted. These succulent young nymphettes blossom quickly, becoming desperate old ladies with too many cats, all in a weeks time. Even in a airtight plastic or metal prison, time is a factor when it comes to taste. 

When I had my first real taste of freshly roasted coffee, my tastebuds unleashed a huge, orgasmic wave of pleasure towards my mendula umblagutta. A shotgun blast of taste propelled me unto a completely different plane of coffeelocity. I place and taste that I did not even know to exist even after my decade long journey into the world of Araby Wine.   

 I had seen the light my brothers.

I had seen the light and knew that I must tell others.