Received a large order of coffee yesterday roasted on 27 June. Couple of bags were like balloons today - they didn't have one way valves. Tried one this morning through V60. Beans looked dark but not black. V60 was undrinkable - tasted burnt. Decided the best thing would be to cup all four beans. You don't hear much about cupping these days but it's a foolproof way to check as the tasting notes roasters put on the bags come via cupping. The bean I tried as V60 was the same via cupping. Another tasted ashy, dry and dark treacle - not pleasant. The other two beans had definable tasting notes. I've taken it up with the roaster and will await their response which I will share in due course.

https://imgur.com/a/RrSjeBO Cupping followed SCA guidelines - 8.25grms of coffee per 150grms of Volvic water at 92c. Coffee was left for four minutes then the crust was broken and scum removed before each cup was tasted several times. You should use a different spoon for each coffee to avoid contamination and/or dunk the spoon in a jug of water between each tasting. You should also attempt to get as much air in with the sip as you can to maximise the impact on your taste buds. You don't need any fancy equipment although it does help to have cupping cups that hold around 160-170gms. A temp probe like a Thermopen also helps to ensure the water is at the exact temp. So if you are struggling to get the tasting notes on the bean's bag, you might was to try cupping.

Interesting, I'll have to give it a try one day. Is there a rough grind size to be aiming for?

As noted above, fed back my cupping notes with the roaster who got back to me very quickly with an apology and full refund. My order was one of the first through their new roaster and came out darker than expected. Should the beans have been sent out like that - obviously not. Shows that it's a good idea to cup your beans especially if you aren't happy with them.

> @"Dusk"#p20926 Interesting, I’ll have to give it a try one day. Is there a rough grind size to be aiming for? Not critical. I ground for Chemex on my EK which is probably between caster and granulated.

@"Systemic"#p20927 You will be on that special list starting with C

> @"DavecUK"#p20930 [Systemic](https://coffeetime.freeflarum.com/d/876/4) You will be on that special list starting with C What list??

> @"Systemic"#p20927 through their new roaster This sounds familiar. But, you only drink light roasts. In any case. my ![Giphy - Embarrassed Memory GIF by NOW WE'RE TALKING TV SERIES](https://media3.giphy.com/media/cMDv7sx5hIq18lna7o/giphy.gif?cid=bb77869f4rx7rirotjam1xyrw4fx0tuyrov78c74kjlbt58v&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g) 😂

> @"LMSC"#p20933 This sounds familiar. But, you only drink light roasts. I do. Been chatting with the roaster and they've struggled with getting to grips with their new one. Roaster said mine were among the first through the new roaster and came out darker than they should. Also said they have struggled with adjusting to the new roaster's profile, i.e. hitting the key roast temp points at the right time.

> @"Systemic"#p20934 Also said they have struggled with adjusting to the new roaster’s profile, i.e. hitting the key roast temp points at the right time. I don’t know if this happens to everyone changing to a new roaster. The beans coming darker than the intended profile is expensive, especially under current economic strain!

@"LMSC"#p20936 It's an easy thing to do when moving up to a larger roaster and "if" they are being a bit tentative about using the full batch size to start with…things go out of control very fast….as I found trying to roast 15Kg on a 25Kg roaster!

Cupping

Systemic

PartySausage The kilo bags don’t have one way valves so will balloon as the CO2 degasses.

Recommend trying both offerings as pour over first. That way, you will soon know if the beans are OK.

PartySausage

Systemic Cheers, Will do. These were roasted on the 28th & I’ve got about 5-days of my current pour-over beans left so that should give these a little longer to rest. I doubt the bag would go pop but I’m tempted to decant the kilo into a valved bag
None of the kilo bags from this roaster that I’ve had in the past have been inflated even though they didn’t have the valve & had only been roasted a couple of days beforehand so like the comments previously I was a little perturbed

MWJB

LMSC

LMSC This was directly related to Clever. We steep longer to get a proper extraction of flavours. If we are cupping for a certain number of mins and if the flavours are there to be extracted, I guess it hits the mark within that time and hence different steep times in cupping do not matter. I wonder if any one has ever attempted cupping with a longer steep time?

When people say “cupping” it is usually assumed they mean the SCAA protocol, however yes I do know of folk who cup for 15min instead of 10, some folk use wildly different ratios too (up to 75g/L). I have ground more like coarse espresso/moka grind (450um avg), steeped covered for 20 min. Using thin walled glass beakers, or double walled glasses, thick ceramic bowls will rob heat. I don’t do it much anymore because it’s not informative & is very time consuming & wasteful. I certainly see the value for a green buyers, weeding out defects though.

LMSC how many of them understand what it takes to cup a roast properly. If they are, they wouldn’t be tasting a half-brewed cup (as you stated) and identify flavours that are not meant to be there, would they?

Again, refer to the SCAA cupping protocol…if you do this ‘properly’ you can only get half brewed coffee. The grind is too coarse, the steep is too cool & too short to achieve the targets the SCAA set themselves. e.g. “after 10 mins as the coffee approaches 70c…” this might take more like 20 mins cupping in glasses…that’s a big difference in time.

LMSC

MWJB Systemic

If following SCAA protocol properly produces a half-brewed cup, why follow it? Why not replace it with a traditional brewing such as V60 or any filter that can yield a good outcome?

Systemic

Years back, went to an event hosted by Steve Leighton at Hasbean in Stafford. Was a fantastic day - got to play on a Slayer. It’s PI mode sounded like a V8 on tick over.

Steve had arranged a cupping session. He set out eight coffees including a Robusta and a wild card. He encouraged us to first go down the line and just sniff each offering. Only one that stood out, smell-wise, was the Robusta which had an unpleasant aroma of burned rubber bands. Steve said it was important to taste each offering several times to gauge how the bean performed at different temps. The wild card was a natural that screamed overripe bananas. Was seriously impressed with Steve’s cupping skills - he has a very fine nose and set of taste buds.

Systemic

LMSC If following SCAA protocol properly produces a half-brewed cup, why follow it? Why not replace it with a traditional brewing such as V60 or any filter that can yield a good outcome?

You could - but, if you have four coffees to check, making a V60 for each would be a faff. Plus, cupping is designed to pitch coffees against each other. You can cup a single coffee but having two, three or more other cups, you can see which stands out and how the merits of each bean stack up against the opposition.

I think and @MWJB may comment on this, perhaps the reason for the SCAA protocol is to purposely taste the coffees on the weaker side so any subtle flavour notes don’t get drowned out. With one bean in my order, I could taste one note albeit faintly but with the same bean through V60 and extracted to my preference, i.e. between 20% -21% yield, the coffee tasted very different and I couldn’t get any of the listed tasting notes.

LMSC

Systemic With one bean in my order, I could taste one note albeit faintly but with the same bean through V60 and extracted to my preference, i.e. between 20% -21% yield, the coffee tasted very different and I couldn’t get any of the listed tasting notes.

Have you seen this pattern before when there were no roasting malfunction / issues?

Do you always cup every order ?

MWJB

For tasting lots of coffees, or even a few in real time, cupping in general is very practical, more in terms of identifying defects. It’s not so feasible making more than a handful of cups with v60 simultaneously (2 easy, 3 at a push…4 or more and you’re struggling). Kalle Freese did suggest getting a bunch of 1 cup Moccamasters, but again not very practical, nor cost effective, compared to cupping.

Cupping can be much better than the SCAA protocol, but in reality this is the one a lot of people look at as a standard, cupping existed for 100 years prior, but beyond 7.27g of coffee in a 5oz (US) vessel and professional cupper’s experience, not a lot more is known about it. Nowadays when people say “I cupped it”, the implication is they followed a protocol, in reality this is unlikely. And it’s certainly not some kind of magic eye into a coffee’s flavour…I mean, it’s full of bits! :-)

Systemic

Notes I followed suggested 8.25gms per 150grms of water which works out at a ratio of 1:18 which is not far short of the brew method I used for V60 and Chemex - 30grms of coffee to 500grms of water giving a ratio of 1:16.6 so hardly weak. The longer the cupping is left, the longer the grinds have to infuse. Would be interesting to refract a cupping offering at 4mins, 7mins and 10mins to see if yield increases and to what extent. It’s a long time since I dusted off my cupping cups as I did yesterday. I will repeat the exercise with my next batch of hopefully pukka roasted beans and see what the difference is, if any…..in the cup🤣

MWJB

Systemic 10 mins is the SCA cupping minimum (OK 8min technically), why go shorter rather than longer & if going longer why break the crust (because this will impact on extraction)?

Why not try 10, 15 20 min, the latter 2 covered with no break, refract & taste?

I’d be interested in what you find as I did something similar some years ago.

55g/L or 1:18 was the advised brew ratio in the US from about 1900 onwards (old cupping norm of 7.27g in a 5 US oz vessel is about 1:17-16.5), NCA did a study centering 54g/L in the early 50’s, later superceded by the CBI reinforcing 1:18 in the late 50s. These CBI & NCA ratios were for all brewing drip, siphon and percolator (popular then) there was no distinction between methods (only in terms of grind size & brew time).

All that said the CBI RoI (based on historical norm & later also adopted by the SCAA) encompasses a range of ratios, the ‘ideal’ just being the average that intersects the box most evenly.

LMSC

Systemic I will repeat the exercise with my next batch of hopefully pukka roasted beans and see what the difference is, if any…..in the cup

MWJB 10 mins is the SCA cupping minimum (OK 8min technically), why go shorter rather than longer & if going longer why break the crust (because this will impact on extraction)?

Why not try 10, 15 20 min, the latter 2 covered with no break, refract & taste?

These type of cupping based results will really be interesting. Essentially, at the longer end — 15-20 mins — we are kind of skewing towards the Clever regime. It will be useful to find out when does the yield starts tapering off

I would also be interested in what you find Systemic!

Thx

MWJB

LMSC Clever, Aeropress, French press, cupping, it make little difference, it’s more about time vs grind size (whilst battling temperature drop).

Extraction by all methods tails off exponentially (immersion against time, drip against beverage mass), for immersion after about 30seconds, so as you get closer to target the last parts of the extraction become tiny increments, but these tiny increments are still important. In immersion it’s pretty much impossible to over-extract and ‘as much as you can possibly get’ still may not be enough.

dutchy101

Systemic Tried one this morning through V60. Beans looked dark but not black. V60 was undrinkable - tasted burnt

Was this the Kanya per chance? Opened mine earlier (took a big nosefull to take in the aroma and almost passed out from the Co2. Mental note, don’t do that again) and it looked darker than I had expected. Made a latte with it and tasted the espresso and was a quite bitter. Admittedly, it wasn’t dialled in and I need to loosen the grind for the next one, but wasn’t what I was hoping for. Have lowered temperature on my machine to 93 and will loosen the grind for the next one.

It tasted OK but pretty underwhelming. Hopefully the next one will be better.

The other bag I got looks lighter roasted and will hopefully be better

Systemic

dutchy101 Was this the Kanya per chance?

Yes, it was.

dutchy101

Update. At a looser grind and lower temperature it’s a completely different coffee so hands up here. Still need to tweak the grind down 0.5 of a notch I think, but it’s actually very enjoyable so very happy with the Kanya on 2nd attempt.

prezes

I tried the Mbata today which out of the three looked nearest to expected roast level. The shot run a tad to fast. Wasn’t too pleasant as espresso as quite bitter but cut well with a bit of milk.

going to try Kanya tomorrow

dutchy101

Kanya was darker than I was expecting but the Kissinga looked spot on.

Bagged them up into 250g bags and dropped them over to my parents’ chest freezer where I found other bits I’d forgotten about. Sitting on almost 4kg of beans at the moment. No more purchases for a while

PortafilterProcrastinator

@dutchy101 Sorry if I missed it, but what was your roast date? Mine was 27 June.

I’ve just brewed my first v60 with the Kanya and it is roasty, none of the tasting notes. Surprisingly not harsh, but there is nothing but ‘roasted coffee’ there.

It is a tried and tested recipe/ method, but I will go again later.

Will try to open the Kisinga tomorrow.

Systemic

PortafilterProcrastinator I’ve just brewed my first v60 with the Kanya and it is roasty, none of the tasting notes. Surprisingly not harsh, but there is nothing but ‘roasted coffee’ there.

Same here - drinking it through gritted teeth until my next order arrives - the sooner the better. Leaves a bitter, acrid taste in mouth - not good.

PortafilterProcrastinator It is a tried and tested recipe/ method, but I will go again later.

Don’t think it will get any better - I’ve tried.

dutchy101

PortafilterProcrastinator Sorry if I missed it, but what was your roast date? Mine was 27 June.

Same mate - 27th June. I’d be surprised if it’s not the same batch. I used it for espresso for a latte as opposed to a V60. Didn’t really get any of the tasting notes, but was quite nice on my 2nd one yesterday.

PortafilterProcrastinator

Systemic Agreed on things not changing, but I will feel better going back to them if I’ve brewed more than once.

Mine wasn’t quite as harsh as you’ve described. There isn’t the acrid mouth drying aftertaste I’ve had with other over-roasted beans.

LMSC

PortafilterProcrastinator They are a good roaster. As @Systemic said it can happen to anyone. I loved their Ana before they switched the roaster. Their Kisinga was decent and nothing exceptional.

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