Were back up and running.

Hello everyone Jake here (Chewbacca to Ian's Han Solo),

(See previous posts for upcoming references.)

Chewbacca has now been flying solo for a while, roasting a mean bean and will be using this blog to sassily write about what is going on in the world of Bittersweeet coffee (and barely operable machinery in the warehouse).

I have to give much thanks to Ian for giving me the skills to do something I love. Roasting makes not only me happy but all the people who need to get their fix, I mean daily cup of coffee. So thanks Ian for the training and mentoring. You have been an invaluable asset to not only me but Bittersweet as well.

News...
We will be holding public cuppings on Friday afternoons at two o'clock here at the cafe. I will be taking this opportunity to showcase one of the coffees that we are currently offering, while hopefully giving out some good information about each selection, teaching people how to cup, and why cupping is important.

On the shelves is a new Yemen Mocca Sanaani. This is a limited run so... come in while we have it! I know that many people will miss the Bali as one of our single origin offerings but the Yemen is a strong stand alone contender. Give it a try. This is a natural processed coffee and every one who has tried it has liked it very much, each for different reasons. Pretty good for being sun-dried and sorted on a Yemenese roof top!


Onward to the land of barely operable machinery...
Rebuilding steam wands seems straight forward enough, however, in the land of "barely operable machinery" this becomes a challenge like many others. These things have been the bane of my machine repairing experience since I took over the coffee program. There are only a handful of small parts but each one is apparently essential to the proper working of the steam wands and by that I mean not leaking, or spitting hot steam all over your hands. Unlike other projects where a left over bolt is no big deal, these things are picky.

After rebuilding a couple of wands I was getting rather good at it, or so I thought. They come apart easy enough and go back together easy enough, but in the end after installation and some high pressure steam, small leaking prevailed, proving that easy is not always the case. Espresso machines (I have learned) need constant love and care. Like a puppy they demand attention and if they don't get it they can become annoying in little ways. So the wands still puff out a little steam, minor in the grand scheme of things, but annoying none the less, and I only have one rebuild kit left so... wish me luck.

So there you have it my very first blog post ever. I am sure that you will be seeing more and maybe giggle while learning something along the way.

You know what would be a good name for a coffee blog?

Hot Commodity. Right?! On so many levels. Most often served hot, second most traded commodity in dollar terms after oil (and with far less depressing concequences when huge quantities of it are spilled into the deep ocean, mainly highly caffienated blobfish, which, let's face it, they could use some caffeine) and um, also it's ... hot, which I'm not sure I mentioned, and a commodity.

Also, since, in this case, the author often refers to himself as a hot commodity, Hot Commodity as a blog title becomes the heretofor unthinkable quinta entendre. Which is all by way of saying that I wish I'd thought of it earlier.

Alas, the pun will have to remain tetravalent, as I will be departing for the semi-arid hills of Los Angeles' Silverlake district at the end of this month.

I know. Unthinkable, right? Who will man the host of barely operable machinery in the warehouse, not to mention the barely operable puns of this blog?

Fortunately I have trained a new roaster, Jake (Chewbacca to my Han Solo), and he is fully equipped to roast a mean bean and blog sassily about it later. Also, he has a history as an EMT and volunteer fire fighter, two professional skill sets which often come in handy in the wild and dangerous world of coffee roasting.

This then, is the last word I'll be typing for the bittersweet coffee blog. And by the last word I mean this

one

here

right

now.

Within 5/8" of my life

It's easy for me to forget that most people spend less than 80% of their waking hours around high-voltage, pressurized equipment and, as such, have far less opportunity to learn the valuable lessons that can only come from working with high-voltage, pressurized equipment.

In fact, I find I learn these lessons on an almost daily basis. Today, for example, I learned that Type L 5/8" O.D. soft copper tubing is either a) sixty feet long or b) contains materials known to the state of California to be hazardous. Although I'm not sure how total length affects whether or not the tubing is hazardous, there is clearly a correlation. And while I would be happy to buy 60' of tubing even though I only need 10' if that means I wouldn't be source of an army of mutant babies from Emeryville, I'm worried that only sixty continuous feet of tubing will actually remain free of hazards, so as you can see, I'm in a bit of a bind: Either I create an elaborate rollercoaster of copper tubing in our already cramped warehouse, or everyone who drinks my lattes ends up looking like Jeff Goldbloom at the end of "The Fly."

Oddly, 1/2" soft copper tubing doesn't seem to have this issue, nor does 3/8" or 1/4". Also these sizes are available at any hardware store with a plumbing department, whereas neither Home Depot nor Ashby heating and plumbing had 5/8". Although I am happy to report that, for those in need of 5/8" soft copper tubing, it can be found at Ashby Lumber (contains hazardous materials) and Rubenstein Supply (sixty feet long).

That said, everything else is in place for us to open a small retail operation out of the warehouse. I have recently returned old one-eye to it's original housing, and I'm happy to say it looks very sleek and 80s (which is to say tremendously boxy). In honor of this transformation, I am rechristening it Johnny 5 after the eponymous robot protagonist of the Short Circuit movies. Here is a direct comparison:

Right?

Keep drinking coffee.

-Ian

IT'S OFFICIAL!!!

This Thing:

Works:

Yes! Months after my announcement that I would have this thing working in no time, I give you photographic evidence of Old One Eye's inaugural shot. Granted, every shot I've pulled thus far tastes like it was made with water from a public swimming pool - but that's what "dialing in" an espresso is all about.

It may be hard for the average coffee drinker to understand my excitement, but when you take into account my expectations when turning this machine on, which were to be either electrocuted or badly burnt, or to electrocute or badly burn someone else, I think it starts to become clear. In fact, just about the last thing I expected to do this machine to do was to make coffee.

But there it is, making coffee. Even after numerous applications of teflon tape and near-super-human torque on crucial nuts and bolts, it still leaks in places. But hey, if it works perfectly, it's not espresso.

IT'S ALIVE!!!

I thought I'd depart from my normal LucasFilms-laden rhetorical style for the more classic Mary Shelly in honor of the recent revival of Old One Eye, itself a classic of sorts, and shown here with it's little robot eye ablaze and both steam wands ablast.

This picture is taken during the descaling process, which involves dissolving a bunch of descaler inside the boiler and boiling a couple gallons of water for around forty minutes. This process has also served as a bench test for Old One Eye, and I am happy to report that just about every part of this machine that could leak, does, which means I will get to put off actually working for a couple more days and instead turn this thing on and off and look at it seriously and make concerned noises.

In other news, Steve and I cupped earlier in the day at Royal, and it looks like we'll be getting a very nice Nicaraguan in soon - about which I'm doubly excited, having never roasted a "Nic" (a moniker which I think falls short of Yirg and especially Guat in the ugly coffee region nickname contest) before. As we cupped it at Royal (thanks to the wonderful Jerri, sample roaster extraordinaire), it has all the acidity of a central, but the sweetness is more that of nuts and nutella rather than citrus. A compelling cup that we hope to bring your way soon!

10 girls (or boys?) from ipanema

That's right! We just got a palate (that's 10 bags, get it?) of a dry-processed Brazilian coffee that will shortly become the base of our espresso blend, Long Day's Journey (which is either a reference to caffeine as stimulant or caffeine as highly addictive substance, I'm still not sure). The coffee, called Porta Rossa, is from the Cerrado region of Brazil, a high plain much like the african savannah. The coffees from this region (typically of the Mundo Nuovo cultivar) are often dry processed and exhibit mellow acidity and great, big body.

Porta Rossa delivers notes of almond, tropical fruit and a toffee-like sweetness. It pairs beautifully with our recently arrived, washed Ethiopian coffee from Yirga Cheffe for a big-bodied shot espresso with top notes of lime and jasmine and a long, bittersweet finish.

Trials and Tribulations

I have been woefully derelict in my duties here at the BSCB. But spurred by responsibility to my readership, which has continued its furious ascent, barreling into double digits (!!!), I am back, and promise to be better than ever.

Several events at the BSMS (Bittersweet Mother Ship) and our satellite stores have kept me actually working at my job instead of just blogging about it.

Most recently your intrepid narrator was forced to answer that most ancient of coffee roasting riddles: How do you install a k-type thermocouple in a hole you have accidently and irreversibly drilled in the door of your roaster for a much bigger type of thermocouple?

Here, for comparison, is a side-by-side photograph of a k-type (the orange wire), and that other type (the one that looks like C3PO's nipple), for which the hole was drilled.

As I'm sure you can tell, the k-type did not even begin to fill the significant hole we'd had drilled in the door of our beloved Diedrich ir-3. I was at a bit of a loss. Fortunately, Steve (Qui Gon to my Obi Wan) offered this solution: "So just get a bolt the same size as the thermocouple, drill a lengthwise hole in it - see what I'm saying? - then use like maybe a rubberized epoxy to cement the k-type inside the hole and we'll screw it in." Which just about knocked me out of my chair it was so obvious.

Unfortunately, rubberized epoxies appear to have a maximum temperature rating of about 400 f (our roaster regularly reaches temperatures close to 450 f). So my first crack was a silicone gasket maker made for sealing stuff like exhaust systems. This, however, proved to a be a little too gummy and didn't retain the k-type. My next stop was JB Cold Weld, which has lived up to its name, firmly holding the k-type in the middle of the whirling bean mass.

Here's my mock jig holding the bolt and k-type while the jb works its magic.

As you can see, we operate with a maximum of sophistication here at Bittersweet Origins, Coffee Division (BSOCD, or Be Socked!, which I find both hilarious and a good piece of advice).

So now, riddle answered, we can tell the surface temperature of our beans! While air temperature provides a reasonable estimation of bean temperature, surface temperature is both more accurate and, when cross-referenced with air temperature, provides valuable clues as to what is happening inside the bean.

Furthermore, we take away two important lessons. First, think twice, maybe even thrice, before you put big holes in expensive pieces of machinery.

Secondly, once you've put that big hole in the machinery, don't stop until you've patched it up. Or, as a wise, green, two-foot-tall puppet once said "Do or do not. There is no try."