Tim Ferguson, who owns Heroes, recently gave me a bag of Tanzania coffee to sample.  When I get beans from a local roaster to try, I usually swing by a local coffee shop and test them out with the owner of the shop for two reasons: 1) the shops have the best equipment on hand to brew up a couple cups to sample, and 2) I think it’s always good to keep the efforts of local roasters in front of our local coffee shop owners to help further the local coffee community. It’s always fun to evaluate a local roast with a coffee shop that works to brew excellent coffee every minute of every day.

Some of the local coffee shops use local roasts, such as the Mudhouse, which roasts its own coffee at the Mudhouse roasting facility downtown, Heroes Coffee Cafe, Big Momma’s Coffee, which uses coffee from a local roaster named Origins, and from what I’ve heard, Hot Shots over on East Sunshine in Springfield.  There may be other local shops that also use local roasters, but several of the local shops use national roasters, namely PT’s Coffee and Intelligentsia, both of which create a great coffee product on a national level with expeditious shipping to guarantee freshness.

On this particular day, I knew the The Hub Bikes and Beans, which carries Intelligentsia coffee beans, had just received a shipment of Tanzania beans.  So I felt it would be fun to do a side-by-side comparison of the Intelligentsia Tanzania with the Heroes Tanzania.  Jason Strother, who owns The Hub, can brew two cups side-by-side using a pourover drip brewer, using the same measurement of beans, the same grind and the same water.  By equalizing those variable as much as possible, we can see what comes out of these two roasts.

On physical inspection of the beans, we noted that the Heroes Tanzania beans appeared to be of the peaberry variety while the Intelligentsia beans appeared larger and may not have been a peaberry.  A peaberry is a special type of coffee bean.  Typically, two flat-sided coffee beans, called flat berries, develop inside each cherry of coffee fruit, but in the case of a peaberry, only one side of the coffee fruit gets fertilized and as such only one small oval, pea-shaped coffee bean develops inside.  According to Wikipedia, about 5% of the worldwide coffee crop comes in the peaberry form.  Tanzania has become known for sorting out the peaberries and selling them together as a coffee variety.  For more on peaberries and the specific peaberries of Tanzania, there’s an interesting, very detailed read over at the Virtual Coffee site on the matter.

Back to the side-by-side comparison, though, it was interesting to us that the Heroes appeared to be a peaberry variety while the Intelligentsia appeared to be more of a flat berry roast.  I was expecting both roasts to be of the peaberry variety simply because it was from Tanzania, but looking at the Intelligentsia site’s description page for this bean, I don’t see any reference to peaberry.  What was also noticeable in visual inspection was how similar the two roasts were.  The Heroes roast was barely darker than the Intelligentsia roast, but they were so close that you couldn’t really tell the difference until you put the beans side by side.

In grinding the beans, they smelled similar, and then in brewing, the only thing we noticed different between the two brew cycles was that the Intelligentsia roast had a more prominent “bloom” than the Heroes roast.

Fresh roasted and freshly ground coffee will typically “bloom” as it comes into contact with water, meaning the grounds will expand and almost foam together. From my experience, the bloom of a coffee brew is a good sign of freshness of the roast, but you can actually get too much bloom if you brew too soon after  a roast without letting the beans rest for a few days.  I once had a roast that wouldn’t stop blooming — the whole time the grinds were in the French press with the water, they were constantly effervescing and moving the grinds in almost a rolling boil style, and after a little research, I discovered that too much bloom means you’re brewing the coffee too early, and the beans haven’t had a chance to release enough gases post-roast, so all those gases are expelling out during the brew process.  Typically, a freshly roast coffee that has had ample time to rest will bloom for about a minute after coming into contact with water and then settle down.  Anecdotally, I’ve heard that you won’t get much bloom in a brew around 30 days post-roast, but I personally believe it’s shorter than that.  In this situation, though, the low bloom in the Heroes roast was somewhat odd, because I know it was freshly roast.  I’ve notified Tim about this odd behavior and he’s checking into it because the Heroes coffee should have bloomed more.

After the brew, Jason poured the coffees into cups, and we tasted them.  After a few slurps, Jason and I both agreed that the tastes of the coffees were almost identical.  The flavors were the same, the acidity and the same, but the only real distinction was the body.  The Intelligentsia brew was a little more syrupy in its mouth feel than the Heroes version.  We couldn’t really tag one as better than the other.  Instead, it came down to a preferential determination as to whether you wanted a more syrupy body to the coffee or a less syrupy body.

All in all, we considered this a success for Heroes Coffee.  Intelligentsia Coffee is a national roaster that produces some of the better coffee roasts in the coffee industry, so for Heroes Coffee to produce a roast of similar, almost identical qualities is a big deal.  Heroes is working hard to develop their roasts to the level of consistent quality that the national roasters, like Intelligentsia and PT’s Coffee, are putting out, and it’s exciting to see a local roaster producing a good Tanzania roast like the one we sampled.

The roasting process is a sweet and simple chemical process. As the temperature rises, the coffee makes a small 1st crack, which releases a small amount of its weight and doubles in its size. As the bean continues to heat it will undergo pyrolysis. This is referred to as the 2nd Crack. This is where the chemical compounds in the bean change and release CO2. The bean losses about 13% of its weight at this stage. The bean then continues to darken after that. Most commercial roasters will have a guide to show you what time and temperatures to use to make the appropriate roast you want.

I found their website online, and they have a menu of their custom espresso drinks and lattes online, including a holiday menu.  They have a signature drink called the Train Track Turtle that I noticed posted on their window, and they also refer to it on their website.  Their website says they have free wifi, and if you’re interested, there’s a page highlighting their baristas.

If anyone knows anything about Java Station, let me know.  Next time I’m in Bolivar and they’re open, I’ll try to stop by.

This video notes the trend that I’ve noticed locally where people are moving away from the larger chains and more toward the locally-owned independent coffee shops that work hard to focus on the quality and uniqueness of their coffee.  As Matthew Clark of Sacred Coffee notes in the video, consumers are coming to a point where they’ve had enough Starbucks that they are willing to move into a more refined view of the coffee they are drinking and try out new styles, flavors and beans to learn more.   The industry has Starbucks to thank for bringing all of these consumers to the table, but ultimately, the consumers may move away from Starbucks to more local shops.

Thanks to @steveoleolson for pointing me to this video.

If you’ve never tried coffee from a Clover, it’s a must. You can get coffee from a Clover at The Coffee Ethic, and they also have one at the Roasterie Cafe in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, and they may have one at the cafe in the Roasterie plant near downtown Kansas City (but I’ve never been to the plant cafe).

It can be slightly confusing the first time you order — essentially, you pick which single origin bean you want from a list, and then they put those beans into the Clover to make a single-cup drink customized to that bean’s characteristics. At The Coffee Ethic, they have jars of beans along the wall behind the register, with the names of the coffees above the jars and a price per cup along with the name. Just pick your coffee, tell them you want it in the Clover, and off you go.

Sean from Ozarks Coffee Co. at the farmers market on the Ozark square

You can currently buy his fresh roasted coffee at the farmers market on the Ozark city square every Thursday evening. I visited the farmers market a couple of weeks ago just to see his setup, and I also needed some coffee to take to a family reunion and had not homeroasted anything of my own.

Sean has a pourover drip coffee setup right there on site with preground coffee ready for sampling. I found his setup ingenious because it spread the aroma of coffee around the farmers market, plus it allows for realtime samples of the coffee before you buy. I tried the Ethiopian blend and the Black Velvet blend. The Black Velvet is a blend of dark roast Indonesian coffee and lighter roast Kenyan beans designed to capture the thickness and body of Sumatra while adding in the high, bright notes the Kenya’s coffee is known for. I bought a pound of the Black Velvet for $8 to share at the family reunion. Although I’m a fan of lighter roasts and Ethiopian coffee and was really tempted on that blend, I figured that something with a darker feel to it would be more of a crowd pleaser for those who drink Starbucks. It can be hard to change people’s tastes too quickly.

Ozarks Coffee Co farmers market pourover drip setup

We were camping at the family union, so I packed a 30 ounce JavaPress camping French press, a camping kettle for heating up water, bottled water (which we were taking anyway for general use), and my Zassenhaus hand grinder. Thanks to my friends at The Coffee Ethic, I weigh my beans instead of measuring with tablespoons, so I used my gram scale at home to weigh out the beans, premeasuring the proper dosage for the 30 ounce press and then sealing the beans in Ziplocs for the trip.  I calculated my dosage using a 6-ounce cup with 7 grams of coffee per cup, and thus measured 35 grams of beans for the press.

Brewing the coffee on site at the family reunion was fun.  I ground my coffee beans by hand (which always catches someone’s attention), heated the water on the gas camping grill, and then brewed and pressed.    The 30 ounce press allowed me to fill up my thermal mug plus share a cup with my brother-in-law.  The Black Velvet is a great blend, too.  It has a rich dark flavor with full mouth feel up front with just the right amount of bright notes to make it a very balanced coffee.   It’s the kind of blend that Starbucks should have used when making their Pike Place Blend.  I made it at the campground, and it was so good, I also used the JavaPress at home as well to make it again.

On Monday, we brewed the Black Velvet in a French press at The Coffee Ethic, and Tom dosed it using a 5-ounce cup instead of the 6-ounce cup like I did all weekend, and it wasn’t as balanced using the 5-ounce cup, leading into my argument that the coffee world needs to settle on a uniform “cup” measurement — my preference is 8 ounces — so we can have a standardized brew measurement that works across the board without having to predefine “cup” every time we brew.

I like the Black Velvet very much, although I tend to be a light roast drinker.  I’m not a big fan of Kenyan coffee because it is so simple — just alot of bright high notes — but it works out perfectly as the coffee to match with the Indonesian to create a balanced blend.  In my opinion, the Black Velvet is a good blend to please a broad mix of coffee drinkers when you’re serving to a crowd.

Visit Sean at the Ozark square farmers market on Thursday evenings to buy his coffees.  When his website goes online, I will post the link here so you can also buy online.

So, I moved the Behmor to the garage to avoid the smells and because the best power outlet in my house is in the garage.  Before I could get it started up, though, I had to build a table that folds out from the wall and fits between our cars perfectly, because this perfect power outlet just happens to be right between our cars in the garage.

After finally getting the table built, I finally did a test run on the Behmor 1600.  It was an exciting moment.  It was so exciting that I pulled out the video camera for it.  I wanted to be able to share the sounds and views of a coffee homeroast with the Behmor 1600.   That was about 2 months ago, but I finally put together the video in a viewable format.  But let me apologize — this is my first online video ever,  so the editing is about as basic as it comes with iMovie on Mac, plus it’s somewhat dark because there are only 2 lightbulbs in my garage.

I typically roast at night, and it can get really dark in there.  In fact, I’m trying to figure out how to add some light because it’s so dark at night while I’m roasting that I can’t read my Kill-a-Watt very well to check the power coming out of my outlet while I’m roasting.  The good thing about the dark, though, is that you can see the heating element nicely in the video.  The Behmor has a light as well, so you can view the beans through the roast, and every once in a while in the video, I turn that on as well.  And please note– when you’re looking through the window in the video, you’re actually looking through the window, then through the chaff screen, then into the rotating roasting drum with its inserts that move the beans around, all backlit by the heating elements.  During the cooling cycle, the heating elements turn off,  so I turned on the light so you can see inside.

Lastly, I want to note that I’m very open to questions about the Behmor.  At this point, I’ve run about 3-4 roasts on it in 1/4 pound increments.  All of the cycles so far have been using the P1 “heat up to high and then roast” profile, but this last time, I roasted using the P4 “heat up halfway, hold for a few minutes and then heat up to high for the rest of the roast” profile.  I definitely get a roasting smell out of the roaster, and if I cook it to Full City Roast or beyond, I definitely get  some smoke seepage.  You can get a sense of the smoke that was involved in the process in the “cooling” portion of the video where it’s obvious there’s smoke in the chamber.   When running the full cycle, it brings the coffee to a full roast, and there was a little visible seepage of smoke that I saw but that the video camera didn’t catch.  I would not roast using this machine in my house due to the strong aromas — instead, it makes more sense to use the Behmor in the garage or an outbuilding.

I’m still dialing in the Behmor, but so far I like it.  At this point, I feel like I was getting better coffee flavors out of my gas grill rotisserie roasting, but that may just be the beans I’m using, plus I’m recently thinking I may be grinding too coarsely.   The Behmor is very convenient, and I’ve only used it 3-4 times, so I have a long way to go in really figured it out and getting the roasts I want.

So, with all of that explanation (and again, remember, this is my first online video), I’m embedding the video of my Behmor 1600 coffee roaster homeroast test run.  Thanks for watching!  I hope to put together more videos in the future, so you have to start somewhere.

If you’d be interested in a 417coffee meetup, either one focusing on homeroasting or just a general coffee geek get together, comment on this post or email me at john@417coffee.com.  Thanks!

They’re selling old coffee beans instead of throwing them away.  I always have old beans in my pantry from roasting too much or that people gave to me or that I bought in a period when I wasn’t roasting but needed some coffee at the house, and I honestly hate throwing out old beans.  It just feels wasteful.  These guys have come up with a solution — they’ve taken their old beans, bagged them up with a warning that life would be better if you didn’t try to grind up and drink these beans, and now they’re selling them in 8-pounds batches for decoration purposes for $20 a pop. How creative!