Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Pronto From Strandvejsristeriet

Pronto



The third and last coffee from Strandvejsristeriet is called Pronto. 
This is a blend containing Robusta. Not something that's common in these days with light roasts. I've heard many good things about this blend on our Danish coffee community Espressobar. 
Many people has an opinion about robusta, mainly because it's used for discount coffee and it's very bitter. 
But what many seems to forget, is that also high quality Robusta is produced by micro lots with great passion, not only minding profit. 
A gentle and well considered amount of robusta, in a blend, can be very very tasty. Especially if the consumer enjoy milk in their espresso. Luckily I fit that description, and that's why I look forward to this blend. 

Strandvejsristeriet describes it as sweet and fat, suitable as straight espresso or cortado. 
Pronto contains 15% high quality Indian Robusta, and 85% arabica. 
It's a lovely dark roast, and the smell is pleasant, the characteristic smell of Robusta, rubber'ish, is also present, but not in a way that makes it bad.
I'm a little gentle with the dosage, expecting it to be strong and powerful. I dose 16 grams trying to hit 25 grams of espresso in 25-30 sec.
After dialing it in which required a few shots, because it's a bit darker than my last bean, it ran very good, didn't see blonding at all actually. 
It's a very heavy espresso, super rich and lots of crema. As I assumed its a strong one. The flavors that come to mind is, chocolate, almonds and more chocolate. Last but not least sweet ! It's a well balanced blend, especially considering the robusta. Not drinking much straight espresso, it's a tad strong for me. A little like a high percentage special brew ale. I love the taste, but when I'm half way thru the taste is too overwhelming. Luxury problems i call it. 
It's a long time since I've had an WAUW feeling with espresso, but Pronto as a cappa sure made my day. A superb balance between the taste of coffee and hot chocolate is what I got. The strong coffee and robusta cuts right thru the milk and blends in with perfection. Did the suggested Cortado as well, and it was good but still a little too strong for me. But that's a matter of opinion and taste. 
The main thing about this blend is, that Strandvejsristeriet has made a statement, trying to compete with Brazil based blends. And they have indeed succeeded. My biggest recommendations to Pronto, and Strandvejsristeriet in general. What I have seen and tasted is a convincing handling and distribution of quality roasts. 
Once again we thank Strandvejsristeriet for giving us the opportunity to review their coffee. 

Pronto can be purchased at 

  

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Rocket Cellini Plus v3


Rocket has released the successor to the Rocket Plus v2, and is offering a PID to control the HX-boiler, so you can reach the optimal brewing and steaming temperature. The picture above shows that Rocket strategically has placed the PID behind the drip tray, so the classic aesthetics of the machine isn't ruined by this mini computer.



Seattle Coffee Gear has once more been up front and provided a video of the newly launched v3 version - see the video above.

The Rocket Cellini Plus v3 is now for sale in Denmark for only 10.500,00 DKK with free delivery in DK, buy it here.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Dominican Republic, Karoma Estate From Strandvejsristeriet

This second coffee from Stransvejsristeriet is from the Dominican Republic.



They describes it as a coffee with good dept and strong coffee flavor. Suitable for filter and press. 

Again a nice and dark roast, very even with a strong and lovely smell. 

The first try is with my aeropress. I have a special way of brewing AP, i grind pretty coarse, almost as coarse as frenchpress.

 I use a small dose and I only let it soak for 2 minutes. 
This one is 15,7 gr with 220 ml water, soaked for 2 minutes. 
Look at the lovely dark color. 


The result is usually a light brew with bright notes.


This coffee is no exception. A nice bright cup, but still with a strong flavor of coffee from the darker roast. 
It's not the most lively coffee with many different aromas. Just a solid coffee, that's easy to work with. 
With this AP recipe I get lots of lemon, apple and a nice bitterness in the end ! I do like it, but i enjoy my AP roast a bit lighter. 

Did one Press a bit finer in grind and upped the dose to 17,5. The result is much sweeter, and a lot stronger. I think that suits the bean better. But it's not really my thing. 

Then I tried some frenchpress. 
Used 38 grams for 800 ml of water.



A really great pot of coffee. This bean is ment for frenchpress. No doubt about it. 

It's a very subtle coffee. Not wild or crazy notes that needs a lot of thoughts into it. As mentioned earlier; a solid coffee that works for everybody. Even my father in law who is very conservative liked it. Usually he doesn't have much joy of my fresh specialty coffee. Not like his supermarket pot à coffee he says. But this one was different. I think it's because it's not all that fancy. Just basic and solid. Yes, I sayid it again. Solid. 
Again I would just have to agree with roast master. It's a strong and good taste of coffee, the balance is perfect when the grind isn't to fine. Not to bitter with strong hassle nut flavors. 
But if it's to fine it easily gets to bitter. So be aware of that. 

If you want a coffee that works for everyone, this is the one. If you want a coffee that's simple, still good, fresh and great quality, this is it. 
If you want to do lots of precision and experiments with volatile floral aromas, this is not it ! It's to dark for that in my opinion. 
I have served it in the frenchpress at three different occasions to different guests now and everybody enjoyed it. 
I'm sure you will too. 
It can be purchased at


Stephen Sweeney´s TPF - Transparent Portafilter


Saturday, March 22, 2014

Kenya AA - From Strandvejsristeriet

Our newest friends, Strandvejsristeriet, has supplied us with three different coffees, all with different qualities.

The microroastery opneded their doors in 2006 with a vision, of delivering fresh quality coffee to their part of the country. The last few years they have had a busy day to keep up with demand, and they are now delivering global in Denmark.
I haven't been at their shop yet, but it's a thing I am looking forward to. The roastery is located in beatiful surroundings at Kronborg Slot.
Strandvejsristeriet also provides different barista and roasting traning sessions.


 In this post i will review a Kenya AA.



Strandvejsristeriet description of this Kenya is; well balanced, complex, taste of black currant and a touch of lime. Suitable for precision brew 

Looking at the beans I think their a bit dark roast, not that it's a bad thing, many roasters would ship this as espresso. Not my thing. I'm glad to see a darker roast, also for v60 etc.



I have used my 1 cup v60, standard recipe 14,5 grams/220 grams water. 

I tried changing the dose a bit up and down, but the 14,5 grams leaves the best outcome.



Freshly poured, this coffee doesn't bring much flavor to me. It has to cool a bit, but when that's done it's a lively thing with many impressions.



I can only agree with Peter, who is roast master, black currant and lemon is the flavors to catch. Typical African I'm tempted to say.
Bright and very tasty notes of berries, the aftertaste of lemon isn't as strong as many other Kenyan coffees. The complexity of the coffee is in my opinion, that it changes quite a bit from pour to cold. It's common that coffee gets stronger and more defined as it cooles. But it's just like this one is a bit more tricky than usual. 
Because of the many different notes thru the temperature drop, it's very versatile. Good strong taste of coffee when fresh poured suits great as my morning coffee. The bright acid and freshness is what I enjoy in the afternoon. 

A lovely coffee with many great qualities. Enjoyed every bit of it.

It's a 250 kr (45$) a kilo coffee. That's pretty stabdart price.
The coffee among many others can be bought at:
http://www.strandvejsristeriet.dk/produkt/kenya-aa-gaturiri/

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Mazzer Kony Clumbing Issue

I have upgraded my previous grinder, Mazzer Major, to the Mazzer Kony, which has 63 mm conical burr grinders, instead of the Majors 83 mm flat burrs. The specs actually makes the Kony worse then the Major, if you think that size is everything. Luckily, this isn't the case and the Konys low RPM is a giant step towards achieving a sweet and delicious espresso. 

Nevertheless I thought that this upgrade would eliminate the common problems with "home" grinders, but I was in for a disappointment. The Kony was clumbing right from the start and hasn't approved over the 1800 shots, that I have pulled over the last three months. 

I therefore added the antistatic filter for the Kony Electronic, but this hasn't any affect on the clumbing issue (this is the marked as the "old" in the video below). But is the antistatic filter for the Major Electronic better?




I afterwards got the tip, that I should buy the antistatic filter for the Major Electronic instead, because of its smaller holes, which should eliminate the clumbs. 

What is an antistatic filter?? Well, an antistatic filter is a device that keeps your espresso grounds loose and static free - its installed between the body and the doser. 

The antistatic filter for the Major is shown to the left and for the Kony on the right.
I have learned that the actual filter for the Kony had to big holes to eliminate the clumbing issue and as you can see in the above picture, the Major filter - on the left - has much smaller holes.

The reason why I would like to eliminate the clumbing is because that it causes weak spots in the puck, which can lead to channeling, if you aren't using WDT (Weiss Distribution Technique) to take care of this issue and its a bit annoying to perform this technique every time an espresso shot is extracted - especially considering that the grinder is a professional / high-end grinder.

The Mazzer Major antistatic filter is mounted
The result of the two different antistatic filters is shown below, where the Kony filter is on the left (the one with the bog holes) and the Major filter is shown on the right (the new filter, with the smaller holes). The pictures speaks for itself and there is a clear improvement, but nevertheless the holes could be a bit smaller, cause there still is some small clumbs left. Positive upgrade!  

Thursday, February 13, 2014

How To Brew The Best Coffee On Your Coffee Machine


When most people think of coffee, it's made on a machine like this





Stationary in most households and used several times a day. 
What many people don't know, is that it's possible to enhance the quality many times by following some simple and easy steps.

The single most important of all things is, fresh coffee that's freshly ground. There's nothing that's more important than that, if you want the best cup from your coffee maker. Doesn't mater if it's a cheap or super expensive machine. It's fresh coffee that maters. A coffee grinder doesn't have to be expensive. As long as it's a burr grinder, then your better off than pre ground coffee. 
A bur grinder has two burrs that crush the beans in a size of your choice. Most cheap grinders has a blade, that blends the beans. This type of grinder/blender is not good enough. The partikels will end up in many different sizes, leaving you with an uneven extraction of the coffee.















Blade grinder                                                                                                









                                                                                           

                                                                                                           Burr grinder




Some people just want their morning fix without weighing and grinding coffee. We understand that as well. 
In that case there are other ways to improve your coffee. These steps should be done if you grind your own coffee as well. 

Use bottled water. It may seem ridiculous to buy a bottle of water to make some coffee, but there are more than one point to this. 
  • You will end up with a better and more clear taste in the cup.

  • It will spare your machine for a lot of scale, and a lot of descaling 
  • If you choose not to use bottled water, make sure you pour water on from a clean pitcher, and not from the machine pitcher. Explanation further down in the post. 
Rinse your filter thoroughly with plenty of water. There's a lots of flavor and other nasty stuff in the filters from fabrication. 

When your brew is finished, drink it within 20 minutes, or pour it to a thermos, when it's on the heater the aromas quickly go harsh and bitter. 

With any kind of coffee brewing, clean equipment is of great importance. Coffee oils are bitter, and as they build up, they will leave a bad flavor. 
Clean your machine every two month if you are sure no oils are in the water. Clean every week if you use the coffee pitcher to refill water. Every two weeks you should clean the pitcher and all plastic parts, that's in contact with coffee. Descale every week if you dont use bottled water. With bottled water every third month should  do. 
To clean the machine, use Urnex Cafiza. It's a soap made especially for coffee oils.

Just add 3-5 gr to the water in a full reservoir, and turn the machine on. When it's done, repeat three times with fresh and clean water and end the session with a pot of coffee, which you then pour to the sink. Now your machine is clean, and ready to make the best coffee possible. 

Just made a photo session from a cleaning of the coffee machine at my workplace. It has never been cleaned with Cafiza - just regular soap once in a while.




This picture displays the main issue with using the coffee pitcher to fill the reservoir. Everytime you fill the pitcher and pour it in the reservoir, a small amount of coffee and coffee oils ends up in the reservoir, and will build up in the system as the coffee brews. 





Build up coffee oils in all the plastic parts, and in the pitcher can'd be avoided. But it can be taken care of.





5 grams of Cafiza in the reservoir with 1 liter of boiling water, I cleaned the reservoir with this batch and made a new one to run thru the machine. 





5 grams of Cafiza with 1 liter of cold water in the reservoir and turn the machine on. The reservoir were clean before the solution ran thru, so this color is made by oils from inside the machine. 




First round of clean water



Third round if clean water. Notice the pitcher is completely clean now.




Before Cafiza
















                                                                                                               After Cafzia

Sunday, January 12, 2014

British Fraud By DPS-Logistics.Com

Be aware of the company 

www.dps-logistics.com

It's a fake cargo company. It's a very well performed page, with a working track and trace system.
The persons who want's to use this company are performing some kind of fraud..

Looking closely at the site, shows that it's only the T&T sektion that actually works. The rest i just for show.

So be aware everyone, it's a well played act of fraud..