Can imagine how hard the journey to where you are now would have been. May have taken you months, if not years, of dedicated research and hard work to achieve the expected outcome.

Minions like us can now use your template and make a damn good coffee. The beauty is I haven’t seen the need to change my grind settings for different beans. 😊 It hardly requires any major adjustments except a click or two on either side.

MWJB Of course, I still enjoy immersions, but 95% (just a guess) of my brews are pour overs. Sure, I come a little unstuck every now & then, but usually due to trying a new regime/brew weight/grinder or setting.

We hardly take out our Indian (immersion filter), unless some one gifts a bag of ground coffee. 😂

Many thanks and best of luck for keep pushing the boundaries. Please do post regularly so that we get to read and learn from your brewings. I also think you may want to consider sharing your journey so far on this forum. 😊

Cheers mate!

    13 days later

    Blackcat’s Ethiopian medium

    20.1g, 335g water, Mark’s method, 284g liquid and 6:02 mins in total. Another balanced, fruity and sweet cup; had a tiny lingering orange bitterness after taste, which I think is the impact of the orange peel. I am grinding coarser than I normally would. I brewed this coffee for the first time. Perhaps, I will grind a tad coarser next time.

    Clever would be interesting, although I doubt it would make a difference to the cup.

    Edit :

    Please ignore the espresso shot.

    11 days later

    Django Santa Ana

    Brewed 16g on 270g of boiling water using Marks method. Got 231.3g liquid. The blueberry, mild sweet blackberry and vanilla taste come out clearly. Considering I ground this at the lower end of the pour over range at 3.6 turns on my grinder, it did produce a slight raw fruit bitter after taste; the cup was very good though.

    There were no silts, although the mild bitterness call for a coarse grind; I wondered if the water was too hot >100C that resulted in bitterness.

    Perhaps, I will grind at the normal setting of 3.8-3.9 and see.

    @MWJB Given the tasting notes (blueberry, blackberry, vanilla), I thought the bitterness seeps through the grind size. Considering the other person also got it but only at the first sip, could you explain how does it creep in? I can understand notes like Rhubarb, fruit peel, dark chocolate, etc., producing the (sweet) bitterness.

    I wonder if Anaerobic natural process is contributing to the tiny bitterness. It is tiny sweet bitter. I felt it in the espresso as well. IMO, it doesn’t alter the taste profile, although does brighten up the coffee a bit.

    Thx mate!

    If it’s around the first 2 sips and a generic bitterness, it’s likely fine particles suspended at the surface of the brew.

    Sometimes this just comes with the territory and I don’t worry too much if the rest of the cup tastes OK. If it isdtracting from your enjoyment & happening all the time, grind a tad coarser and/or tray and agitate less.

    To me sweet & bitter tend to be poles apart, I understand a mix, but I’m not sure I grasp sweet bitterness?

      MWJB Thanks mate!

      It’s a general bitterness, although it gets muted gradually. This, IMO, is because the taste buds are used to the bitterness.

      I brewed another cup today and did grind 4 click coarser. The bitterness had reduced. I think will grind another brew at my default setting, which should address this problem.

      On the espresso side. I ground this a click coarser but pulled the shot at a higher temp. This is helping. Another shot or two should fix it.

      I am struggling to give an example of sweet bitter. I would probably think of blackberries, grapefruits, cranberries having both characteristics, IMO. 😊

      Overall, it is a very good coffee. Increasingly, I am beginning to think they are all fruity bags falling into red fruits, citrus variety and so on; why am I chasing bags trying to differentiate if they are cranberries, strawberries, and so on. I think it is not worth it, IMO. 😊

      • MWJB replied to this.

          LMSC

          “I am struggling to give an example of sweet bitter. I would probably think of blackberries, grapefruits, cranberries having both characteristics, IMO. 😊”

          I would normally regard these as sour/tart? I guess it depends on your previous experience & frames of reference. Citrus peel/pith strikes me as having elements of sour & bitter, the flesh & zest more crisp/sour bright.

          There’s next to no sugar in coffee, so the acidity is often the driver for ripe fruit/sweet like flavours (like in wine perhaps), so I guess ripe fruit mixed with more pithy flavours, or silty flavours could be described as sweet bitter?

          • LMSC replied to this.

              MWJB would normally regard these as sour/tart?

              True’ They are definitely sour / tart, if not riped fully. I would also expect them to retain a little bit of bitterness.

              MWJB pithy flavours, or silty flavours could be described as sweet bitter?

              You know a lot about coffee and brewing than most of us here. However, I can think of Bergamot orange having characteristics of both sweet and bitter! 😊

              • MWJB replied to this.

                    LMSC

                    I guess when I am looking at coffee, I initially look for the generic & common flavours (accross different coffees) that present similarly and that I can attribute to being related to a specific brew fault/malfunction. Once they are minimised, I can focus on what the coffee tastes of…broadly speaking, but without too much angst if the notes are not precise.

                        MWJB I guess when I am looking at coffee, I initially look for the generic & common flavours (accross different coffees) that present similarly and that I can attribute to being related to a specific brew fault/malfunction.

                        Could you explain with an example how you correlate the common flavours with fault / malfunction please ? Otherwise, it will be a little difficult for someone like me to understand. Am sure, at least some of the readers would appreciate such an example-based explanation! 😊

                        Thanks mate!

                          At the extremes low pour over extraction would be tangy, green, tree bark sort of flavours. Slightly higher extraction may be less tangy, but more charred/iron/lacking sweetness. Ideal would be clean, most transparent, the notes most accessible. A little over might start to edge a little drier (but still may be fine until the last sips). Overextracted is the least common fault but would be a hoppy/smokey dryness specifically (not bitterness in general).

                          These are all dealt with by grind adjustments, at a single grind setting & brew size, you will not experience more than a couple of these and certainly not the full span from under to over.

                          Beyond extraction (which is only concerned with dissolved solids, it doesn’t consider outside malfunctions) you can still screw up a brew with the non dissolved solids. So once you are broadly dialled in, if everything tends to be dry/powdery/charred, especially in the first sips, or there are no flavours coming through because it all tastes charred/charcoal try going coarser or limiting agitation,

                          If everything has a sour edge, but is otherwise clean, try going a little finer and see if you can lose it, without generating too much silt/ non dissolved solids in the cup.

                          Mainly, you are looking for common & similar malfunctions (at the same grind setting) that present the same, even when your coffees have very different notes.

                          Don’t make adjustments based on a single coffee, sanity check against another bag to rule out a badly/over roasted bag throwing you off course.

                          In my experience the 2 main problems are, in this order:

                          Coffee roasted too dark.

                          Grinding too fine/too much agitation ruining cups that are extracted well but too silty.

                            MWJB Thanks mate. Very useful explanations. In the absence (*) of a quantifiable framework to measure the extraction — low, over, correct and middle of nowhere — taste is the only way to determine if one is happy with the brew, is it not?

                            Of course, a high yielding extraction doesn’t mean it will taste good; similarly, a low extraction doesn’t necessarily produce a bad cup either. 😊

                            (*) cost reasons!

                              If you’re brewing at a constant grind setting for your method, you will be adjusting the grind to dial in for best flavour, sure. But low drip extractions have the same recogniseable faults, as do overly high extractions.

                              When you’re dialled, in your extractions will have a natural variation based on different coffee’s solubility, lower (but still normal) extractions will be fine, as will higher (but still normal extractions). Being able to measure it just saves a lot of time & exploring rabbit holes because you may have second guessed an issue that wasn’t extraction related.

                              You won’t be getting abnormally low, or high extractions.

                              In the absence of measurement, record taste scores and note the nature of any faults, both compared to grind setting.

                              16% drip extractions will not taste good, neither will those over 24% for the vast majority of people, though a normal span would be more like +/- 2% for 95/100 brews.

                              But also, focus more on the second part of my post, is the roast OK, are you introducing too much silt. Forgot to mention ensuring that you are recognising where your preferences lie, be aware of wasting too much time on origins that you may have low preference for,

                                MWJB you’re brewing at a constant grind setting for your method, you will be adjusting the grind to dial in for best flavour, sure.

                                Yes! Have been brewing V60 and Clever for > 1 year. I always start any new beans at the best previous known grind settings. This is always at the upper end of the pour over range or perhaps even a little coarser for V60.

                                I do steadily grind finer until either I see silts or bitterness. If i think it is a little stronger at finer grind settings, I go back to the well known settings or vary the ratio a bit next time. I have hardly seen the need to change the grind settings for most of the bags, except a few clicks finer or coarser.

                                For clever, the coffee is at its’ best at the lower end of espresso grind as I steep for 30 mins to 45 mins. A very fine grind yielding a clean cup with 0 silts surprise me every time. It does amaze me how forgiving Clever is with a fine grind.! 😊

                                MWJB Being able to measure it just saves a lot of time & exploring rabbit holes because you may have second guessed an issue that wasn’t extraction related.

                                Agree. Measurement is ideal. I do record if I liked the brew, what’s right or wrong with it and note what the next corrective step should be!

                                Thanks again!

                                Edit:

                                If only the VST is not in an eye popping range, given the frequency of use. I know iI had spent a fortune on Evo leva. 😁

                                    @MWJB and @LMSC - I don’t do pour-over, but thank you both for a very interesting discussion over the last few posts! A lot of stuff to improve coffee-making in general.

                                      9 days later

                                      Finally managed to brew Django’s Kisinga. I used 20g coffee, 334g of water, 5:55 of total brewing time and got 295g of liquid. Ground a little outside the pour over range, which is my V60 sweet spot. As usual, the brew method was @MWJB ’s!

                                      What can say! Like espresso, the coffee was ok; it wasn’t as good as Santa Ana or the other bags I had brewed so far. If at all, the cup was decent because of the brew method. If I were to choose between espresso and pour over, I would perhaps stick to V60 for this bag.

                                      There was a bit of fruity notes. Noting specific, other wise. It’s an Ugandan coffee, which is less soluble. This may be reason the coffee was on the blander side. It also had a lingering bitterness, despite grinding above the pour over range.

                                      Perhaps, I will grind coarser to see if I can lose the bitterness and then try to brew at 65g or 70g (may be at the mid 67.5g) a litre.

                                      As things stand now, it’s been more than a week since I shared my feedback to Django for the second time. It’s hardly a surprise that they never responded as they didn’t do it the first time around. These guys remind me of a lack of response from Thompson Coffee. It’s a shame a roaster doesn’t bother responding! Perhaps, they are too busy to reply. 😉

                                      I won’t recommend this beans either for espresso or for brewing.


                                      V60 fans if you are UK based I have to recommend Faodail Roastery, specifically this one -

                                      C40 20 Clicks (red clix not in) 1:16 ratio, Hairo V2 Filters, 96c.

                                      Really strong boozy strawberry taste and it’s just a banging cup. Beans I would say medium/dark. No bitterness though this is a sweet tooths delight.

                                      Found it in my local café, the barista had tasted it at Glasgow Coffee Festival and said he was impressed and it did deliver.

                                      Nice - been after something boozy and this looks great. K

                                      Just ordered a kilo of that and 250g of the Mexican decaf which also sounds nice

                                      A different but a short nice video from JH

                                      😊