Kostverlorenvaart

This morning, Tije replaced a p-stat on one of my La Pavoni's and he also treated the rust on the inside of the La Pavoni drip tray. Using a dremel he first cleared the existing rust and then he rubbed it in with a zinc compound. Finishing it off he rubbed it with a cloth and now a rusty drip tray shines again: Brushing off the rust Zinc compound rubbed in

(Part 2 is here: http://kostverlorenvaart.blogspot.nl/2015/01/measure-moisture-part-2.html ) The oven is a very time consuming method but it seems better than using the air roaster. I loaded 200g of the 14% beans and ran this program: 1) Ramp up to 140ºC in 2 minutes 2) Stay at 140ºC for 60 minutes About every 9 minutes there is a little ripple in the graph because then the roaster needed a restart. At 09:30 it switches off as a safety measure to I needed to quickly restart it before that time limit. Result: 200g in, 182.6g out Not very conclusive material. Measuring against another meter seems much much simpler.

( See also Part 1 ) On the Wile65 moisture analyzer you can adjust the readings if you find that the results are consistently higher or lower than a reference device. The two barista's that I know who have a similar moisture analyzer are currently very busy getting their new roastery & cafe ready to open up and they have not had time yet to try out their moisture device, so I do not currently have a reference. Instead, I took 1000g of beans that measured 14% and put them in an oven at a temperature between 100-110ºC for 26 hours over two days (48 hours), switching the oven off when I left the house and when I went to sleep. The oven cools down slowly so the beans were in a hot environment longer than the 26 hours. Then I weighed them again and they were 904.5g which I count for 905g and this might indicate the beans were originally over 10% in moisture but probably not 14%. I will next do a few tests with samples of 200g of beans from the same "14%" source i...

I just watched these four segments of a brilliant talk by Danny O'Neill, founder of his own highly successful coffee roasting company in Kansas City. Had never heard of him before. He needs a few minutes to warm up but all of what he has to say is so straightforward and sincere that it's a practical wisdom version of business savvy and pure decency. Very inspiring I think for people wanting to start their business in whatever market. His success depended on a lot of tiny bits of dumb luck before success started to appear in small portions. Intriguingly, he was helped through the first very hard months initially by two car wrecks and then by an earthquake. You have to watch him tell that so I won't spoil the story. His company's method of staff selection for instance sounds great. If a super talent comes over and performs outrageously well, they still first call the taxi driver that drove him from the airport and back and if the candidate was anything less than dec...

(note added later: also check the newer blog about this instrument  which may not be the original brand one and also not ideal for coffee measurements). (2nd note: bought the real Wile device:  http://kostverlorenvaart.blogspot.nl/2015/04/measure-moisture-glean-bean-part-2.html ) Hey look, a parcel arrived! After finding your optimal roast profile for a certain coffee bean, you run out of that specific bean and you take the next bag of a different origin of one that's supposed to be the same but it "works differently." One cheap and simple test to prepare for these variables is to  measure the density of the bean. An additional method is measuring the moisture in the bean. There are two types of instruments to do this and they both observe the bean mass as if it was a component in electronics. One of these treats the bean mass as if it were a resistor and it either measures a standard volume of beans to see how much current can flow through it or it measure...

English version: As I grind coffee for my first espresso of the day I notice how the low winter sun (which has just climbed over the roof tops of the houses on the other side of the Kostverlorenvaart canal) creates a spectacle about the coffee grinds falling from the funnel below the burrs. I quickly grab my phone to save a few of these moments before the sun will disappear again. Dutch translation: Ik zag net de maler in het laagstaande winterzonnetje. Dat zag er zo mooi uit dat ik het maar even heb gefilmd. Zou zo kunnen worden gebruikt in een prachtige documentaire “Zij Malen De Koffie” over de vrijwel anonieme ambachtslieden die dag in dag uit koffie malen opdat moeder de vrouw haar gemalen Roodmerk van de schappen kan pakken. Iedereen kent wel iemand die maler is van beroep maar slechts weinigen kennen de mores van de werkvloer en vrijwel niemand weet van het subtiele lichtspel dat de laaghangende zon speelt, hartje winter rond koffietijd of op de zeer late zomeravond a...

Two camera's: one iPhone 6 plus on the Roastilino & PXG4, one Canon 5D III on the Artisan roasting program screen. When I just started off with roasting I was looking high and low for a video like this and only found one, but right after I left a comment the owner deleted the video before I had had time to download & save it. There are still precious few full length roasting videos with this type of roaster online for free. I loaded both video streams over each other (syncing using the background music on both audio streams) and then cut away parts of the one so as to make the other one visible. Previous relevant blogs: Planning the roast Measuring bean density Building & using the PXG4 controller