another_jim wrote:Yeah! For me, the difficulty of light roasts isn't usually the acidity, but the cutting bitterness.

For me, the difficulty is to actually grind them with manual grinder ... last batch of some light roasted ethiopian beans I had was indeed ungrindable with Feldgrind and barely grindable with Lido 3 ...

guydebord wrote:Currently struggling to dial-in a bag I just bought from Gotham, one of my favorite NYC roasters, its called Degrees North: http://www.gothamroasters.com/store/deg ... 734-by-294
Light roasts behave so differently, even though Im dosing 20gr I had to downsize to my 18gr VST basket... Last pull (after 5) was very acceptable
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Is quality coffee that expensive in the US??

mivanitsky wrote: Also, some light roasts need to age a bit before they are fit for consumption.

+1
For me, light roasts start hitting their sweet spot around the time a medium roast starts to fade.

For washed 7 days after roast. For naturals 14 days after roast. This can vary, after I get the sweet spot/max aroma I freeze the beans and do single dose from the freezer, even after 6 weeks post roast the taste/flavor is the same as it was at max before freezing.

And another thing I found out, if the coffee is roasted 10 days ago, it is not so great when you open the bag, it needs some air from outside to oxidase and then it starts to get better. I guess because of the pressure inside the bag (the valve maintains some pressure inside the bag, the air gets out only when pressure is over certain value) the air inside the bean/the gases are not released completely and therefore the extraction is not 100% efficient.


If I get a smoked drum roasted coffee I let it for 1 month and if the smoke is still there I just drop it to the garbage bin. This might happen if the roaster doesn't clean his drum or if he doesn't evacuate the smoke after FC.

guydebord wrote:I succeeded with grinding 20gr finer into the 18gr VST basket and with a 1:2.3'ish ratio, temperature was showing 202F in the Erics thermometer. I made two close-to-perfect doubleshots this morning, very happy about them. The coffee was so delicious that Im getting another bag later today. This was a tough one...

Just purchased some and going to try your recipe; how long did you let the coffee rest after the roast date

NelisB wrote:Is quality coffee that expensive in the US??

Ha! This is the medium-high-end since its for a 12oz or 340grams bag, I often buy from Sey https://www.seycoffee.com and Parlor https://parlorcoffee.com those prices are for just 8oz or around 240grams
Yes, if you want top quality it is incredibly expensive. But good quality beans are a bit cheaper, around $14 for 340grams. I go to NL often and I dont remember quality coffee being cheap either, unless you are buying Douwe Egberts that has got to be on my top 5 worst coffees I have tasted.

guydebord wrote:I go to NL often and I dont remember quality coffee being cheap either, unless you are buying Douwe Egberts that has got to be on my top 5 worst coffees I have tasted.

LOL!!!

michael wrote:Just purchased some and going to try your recipe; how long did you let the coffee rest after the roast date

Great, its a nice shop, isn't it? They roast on Wednesdays and I almost always buy on Thursdays and wait five days for their Red Hook Espresso (one of my favorite medium light roasts) and I waited 6 days for the Degrees North, I think day 8 and 9 were better, after I just dosed in bean cellars and put them in the freezer.

I'm in Manhattan, ordered on line for delivery to Long Island. Depending on delivery, maybe I'll give it a first try on Monday and save the rest for the next weekend. I'll let you know how I do. Thanks for the recommendation

I got my bag of Leam Hammer today. It smells great.

FWIW, it measures 64/80 on my RoastRite. As a comparison, I just did this roast and it measures a similar 66/82: