Had a nice visit with Kickapoo Coffee in Viroqua,Wisconsin last Saturday and just thought I'd share some pics of their 30k Probat, circa 1930. What a great old roaster. The sample roaster is a two barrel Jabez-Burns circa 1905. Another cool fact is that their entire roastery is solar powered. Alex turned me on to a pound of green Ethiopian beans. It's the Sidamo that they use in their "Jam Jar" blend. I roasted it on Monday but haven't tried it yet. Smells amazing. I hope I did it justice. They're great people and put out some great coffee. Mostly organic except for the Africans, but they're working with a grower in Kenya who's trying to get certified.

WOW!

Unrelated to coffee, but what happens to solar production once that field has 3 feet of snow on it?

Question was mentally raised for me when a neighbor down the alley put up panels on his garage.

Yeah, there will definitely be days that they'll be back on the grid. No way around that. Here's a link to an article about it. http://dailycoffeenews.com/2015/08/06/k ... -the-same/

They are now using new 12 oz. bags instead of the steel cans.
Use coupon code NEWBAG for $2.00 off every coffee good till Nov. 8th.

Does that airflow adjustment cog say "espresso roasting" with an X?

Yep, definitely says espresso with an "x". I was curious too and thought maybe that was how it was spelled in 1930's Germany, but all I could find was this from "The Grammarist.com": "espresso (with an x)started as a misspelling of espresso, which came to English from Italian and refers to a strong, pressure-brewed coffee. But because espresso(x) has so often appeared in place of espresso, we can perhaps consider it a variant. And indeed, some dictionaries now list it as such. This doesn't change the fact that many English speakers consider espresso(x) wrong, however, and some will no doubt continue to do so no matter how common it becomes. So if you don't want anyone to think you're wrong, espresso is the safer choice.
It's also worth noting that espresso(x) is the French word for the pressure-brewed coffee, and this perhaps has had some small influence on English usage."

Maybe someone else can shed some light on this.

Reminds me of a 1959 Volkswagon Bug I used to have. It had after market knob labels on the dash. For the turn signal knob it said "Glimmerblinkin", and for the windshield wiper knob it said :"Drizzleflippin".

Edit to original reply: When I view this post in "preview mode, my spellings say espresso, with an "x", but when submitted, spell checker is correcting it to read espresso with an "s".

Boldjava wrote:Unrelated to coffee, but what happens to solar production once that field has 3 feet of snow on it?

Question was mentally raised for me when a neighbor down the alley put up panels on his garage.

Time to break out the brooms

On the plus side there is possibly a solar charge on a full moon, I had a panel that would register power during those moon cycles.