Kostverlorenvaart

The FZ-94 ready to get roasting Roasting a new stock of beans on a new roaster is exciting because one needs to get 'the feel' for the machine and at the same time find out what could be the best performing roast profile for the bean, not just for oneself but also for fellow baristas. Beans I picked up 22.5kg's of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe  beans harvested 2015/2016 at 1600m above sea level on Nefas Farm in the Oromia region, 500km from Addis Ababa. The berries were hand picked, washed at a local station, fermented up to 48 hours and dried for 9 to 15 days on elevated drying beds. On arrival from Giraffe I measured a moisture value of 9.5%, using the Wile Coffee an Cocoa moisture meter . Taste over time Since I do not do any cupping , my roast evaluation method takes more time. I let the beans rest for about a week, preferably longer and then taste the espresso over a few days time. At home I use a Compak E8 grinder with the redspeed burrs , and also a Compak R120....

(Adding the following contribution by Tije de Jong to the main blog about this roaster ) We asked Tije to make us a sketch of the construction he built for this roaster to assist anyone who would like to copy the concept:

(Adding the following contribution by Jan van der Weel to http://kostverlorenvaart.blogspot.nl/2016/08/tiny-cheap-fluid-bed-roaster-by-tije.html ) Hardware and electronic design (copied / merged from http://www.byleew.nl/coffee/simple-affordable-fluid-bed-roaster/ ) Essentially the electronics for this design consist of a heating element, air pump, two relays and a temperature probe. The hardware design is inspired by the  Roastuino project . In this project they used a simple heating element (heat gun), glass roast chamber and  cheap (€ 12) but effective air pump . For the ‘electronic heart’ we used  TC4 Digital Thermometer and Temperature Controller . The advantage of the TC4 is that it’s relatively cheap, programmable and it already has existing firmware to make it work with the Artisan roast software. After sourcing all the hardware, Tije manufactured the remaining parts and he also constructed the prototype. We used a  very helpful wiring diagram  (us...

I added this as PS to the recent " Delicious Old Coffee " blog entry: Yesterday, Jan van der Weel told me that the Italian owner of a cafe in De Pijp here in Amsterdam purposely keeps his beans in open containers. Jan is a regular customer of the place that I have only visited when Jan and I wrote our article in KTC Magazine about espresso recipes. When Jan saw these open containers filled with beans, he asked the owner about it, since it is generally assumed that these beans must be conserved in dark airtight containers to slow down ageing as oxygen causes swift deterioration. The Italian barista explained how he expressly wants oxygen around his roasts. He demonstrated how he actually stirs the stored beans daily to make sure that all beans come in contact with fresh air! I realised that I am often impatient to find out how my roasts develop over time. If so, why do I keep the beans in closed boxes? For now, I keep the lid off the big hopper to allow the full roas...

During the roast described in the previous blog entry  I noticed that the beans heated up slower than I expected and as I was also chatting with a visitor, it took me a while to realise I had the drum turning at the slow "warming up" speed and also that I had not yet set the SV-BT slider to the proper maximum value. This was swiftly corrected without anyone noticing my glitch but afterwards I decided to make use of the "Alarms" feature in Artisan  to automate a number of routine actions and alerts. (Also see the "More Alarms" blog entry on the Artisan blog ) Below is a short video demonstrating what happens now after I click Start : After I click Start, Artisan makes sure that my Coffee-Tech FZ-94 roaster has the correct drum speed and airflow and also it sets the PID of the Drum Temp to the correct maximum (SV-BT) value.  The values of the sliders on the left of the Artisan screen automatically move to the intended figures. Drum speed 60 ...

Costa Rica, Perla Negra, Las Lajas beans, airmailed to us ahead of the shipment A year ago I roasted some samples of Costa Rican beans for Erik Rauws  ( http://www.anemoicoffee.com )  of  Tres Hombres , a sailing ship owned by three friends who are building a green, sustainable fair trade logistics network, transporting chocolate, rum and coffee beans across the ocean. At the time I was still using my Fracino Roastilino and we had small batches of 220g so it was a matter of trying out which profile would work best with just a chance or two to get it right. This is one Artisan profile saved from last year: July 2015 profile of Costa Rica Las Lajas beans The result wasn't bad but it would have been better with a lighter roast. Profiles are not easily translated between roasters but we kept this in mind preparing the roast of 1.25kg in the Coffee-Tech FZ-94 today. Background design Erik Rauws and I started off with a background design. The idea was to...

One of the first things I picked up when I became seriously dedicated to coffee is how important freshness is. For a while I was studying roast dates on bags of beans that I was buying, sorting through the bags on display in shops, always making sure to get the absolute freshest beans available and of course completely ignoring any bag that did not have a roast date. Later, after much struggling to get the grind and dose right on super fresh beans, I made peace with the fact that for espresso, a week is the least amount of time to wait before finding out how it tastes and I try to keep enough stock of a roast in order to be able to try batches roasted in a range of a week ago until a month or even a little more. Of beans that I have roasted myself, I keep notes on the prints of the profiles and I also add notes that friends send me whom I have shipped bags of the same batch so I can compare how these beans do in my setup of Compak E8 and R120 grinders and Londinium espresso machine...