Tije de Jong, Frans Goddijn and I are thinking of a small simple affordable-for-all fluid bed home roaster for coffee. We use some hard- and software idea’s from the Roastuino project. Today we installed the electronics and tested several configurations. The results are promising. To be continued!
Sudden Coffee – Just add water and stir
By Frans Goddijn & Jan van der Weel. This blog is also on kostverlorenvaart.nl
Travelling can be tough when you are used to excellent coffee. How does one prepare a decent cup on the road if there is no specialty coffee place in sight?
You can load all your equipment in your trunk but this isn’t a very practical solution when you travel by airplane or when you drive out to very remote places, if you want to go backpacking or if you don’t want to have another coffee related argument with your partner.
Now there might be a simple solution. A relatively new company, Sudden Coffee, promises to offer a solution. “Just add water & stir – it’s really that simple”, they say. Read More
‘Kitchen stress’ relieving coffee station
I know that this coffee thing has got out of control. It has taken over our house. Our kitchen has become something of a laboratory. This 5 square meter space is crammed with cutlery, cooking equipment, kitchen appliances, dishwasher, washing machine, fridge, deep freeze, a vegetable stall and all of my coffee things: a giant roaster, a huge grinder, a big espresso machine and lots and lots of other coffee related stuff.
I have tried to convince my girlfriend that our kitchen situation was quite normal. This was everybody’s kitchen situation, I could hear myself say. However my words weren’t compelling and after some time I had to admit that she was right. Entering our kitchen gave me bad vibes. It was absolutely no relaxing feng shui environment. It was certainly the worst room in our house. Also, the space was not very practical. All the kitchen counters were filled with stuff. There was no more room left for cooking. That’s why I could regularly find my girlfriend on the kitchen floor, the only ‘open space’ left in the room. While cutting vegetables on the cold floor I ofter heard her mumbling ‘I hate this kitchen’. Read More
How to fix a La Marzocco GS3 pump on the cheap
Recently the pump of my LM GS3 espresso machine broke. It was the second time the machine experienced this problem in a period of one year. The problem was quite substantial. The pump refused to run after pushing the brewing button. This brought me in a depressing situation. I wasn’t able to brew any espresso.
The cause of the problem
What was the cause of this problem? Inspection showed that the vane in the fluid-o-tech pump head didn’t turn smoothly. That made it impossible for the motor to drive the pump head.
An Afternoon at the Opera
Roemer Overdiep made a wonderful video of our visit, see it on Vimeo.
[Text by Jan van der Weel and Frans Goddijn]
The Sanremo “Opera” machine development used the input of an international array of baristas like John Gordon (New Zealand), Serif Basaran (Turkey), Sasa Sestic (Australia) and even Torpong Tantraporn from Thailand.
This “dream machine” is new to The Netherlands so Maarten Meijer of Sanremo Netherlands invited us to come and have a closer look. Read More
Think Coffee Out of the Box
If coffee wouldn’t be such a challenge, we all wouldn’t be here.
John Gordon
Coffee has been around for many years but we are still struggling just to learn the basics about it. Consistent coffee roasting, grinding and brewing is quite a task and many aspects of the process are not properly understood and controlled. What we think we know today may be discarded tomorrow. That’s not a bad thing, however and the above remark by John Gordon summarized this very well. The joint discovery and sharing of knowledge brought together a group of fun and open minded baristas. Read More
Communicating roast color values
Many coffee roasters use roast color meters to monitor the quality and consistency of their roasts. Furthermore, calibrated roast color can be used for productive communication between roasters and coffee traders. For instance, a trader could provide a target roast color for a specific coffee. Also, coffee roasters around the world could share information about the roast color they find best for certain beans. Read More
‘Following the Curves’ Roasting Insights from Joanna Alm
Joanna Joanna Alm, the Swedish roasting champion, gave an interesting talk at the Nordic Roaster Forum 2015. In her presentation ‘Following the Curves’ she presented the most fundamental theories that she build up as a roaster. Read More
La Marzocco GS3 non vertical flow fix
My la Marzocco GS3 had problems with the flow from the brew head. This could be especially be seen after the shower screen was removed. The flow was non vertical with water going from left to right. Read More
The Eureka E65 Super Jolly
A week ago I had troubles with my Eureka E65 grinder. No matter what I did, I was not happy with my espresso shots. I opened the machine and the burrs seemed to be a little dull. Should I buy new Eureka burrs? There was also another possibility.
Horchata de Chufa recipe
When I was a young boy I went many times on holiday to Spain. One of the things I remember is the delicious taste of Horchata the Chufa. Read More
The instant Nespresso experiment
Nespresso coffee extracts better on low end equipment than most high quality coffee in combination with high end brewing equipment. What’s going on? Is Nespresso adding instant coffee to the Nespresso cups to increase the extraction yield? Read More