The Coffee Project

Brazen Coffee Brewer Available This Summer

April 13th, 2012

The first automatic home coffee brewer with adjustable temperature and calibration settings- It's an auto drip coffee brewer with full control. www.coffeeproject.com The Brazen Coffee Brewer introduces a revolutionary new vision in coffee brewing – where you, are in total control of the brewing process.

Most coffee makers, including most commercial versions, do not allow the customer to change the brewing temperature of their coffee. Before the Brazen coffee maker, there were no consumer versions available with a pre-soak function, and almost all had poor extraction due to poor design of water dispersion.

One of the key aspects of well brewed coffee is making sure the grounds are evenly saturated. Unlike most home brewers which drip from the middle, Brazen brewers saturate the grounds in a shower of hot water, at the right speed, and the right temperature.

Some of the highly innovative features of the Brazen Coffee maker include:
• Accurate temperature control
• Calibration features including altitude correction
• A pre-soak feature and and adjustable rest time
• Manual water release for teas, also the perfect temperature
• A stainless steel carafe

WHY is Temperature control so important?
Having control over the brew temperature enables you to decide at what temperature you would like your coffee brewed. Different brewing temperatures will extract different flavors from your coffee and can greatly affect the character of the cup. Since no single brewing temperature is ‘right’ or perfect, hotter may not always better. In simple terms; being able to choose the brewing temperature gives you control over the flavor of the coffee because the temperature affect how much is drawn from the grounds. Draw too much and it’s bitter, draw too little and it’s weak. By adjusting the grind, the quantity AND the temperature you have greater control.

The Brazen Brewer is designed to prevent temperature over shoot, and glide.
A common occurrence when heating water to a specific temperature is to ‘overshoot’ this target because the heaters are not turned off until the water is at temperature – unfortunately electric heaters continue to heat the water for some time after that. The idea of a glide is this; once your desired brewing temperature is set in the Brazen’s memory, the Brewer is designed, using patent pending technology, to recognize this set point. Program settings reduce the power to the heaters so that they are almost off when the water is at the temperature you choose. By having the glide feature you minimize missing the water temperature you set. A good analogy is to compare it to driving up to a “STOP” sign with the stop sign being the set point. If you are driving at 60 mph when you come to the stop sign, despite pressure on the brakes, the car WILL runs past the “STOP” sign into the intersection, and potentially into great peril. If you de-accelerate some distance before the “STOP” sign (as I am sure you do) your ability to stop exactly where you want becomes much greater. The same theory is applied to the glide feature. The goal is to hit the set point versus racing past it.

For even MORE information about coffee, visit our website www.CoffeeProject.com

Additional info about the Brazen Brewer can be found here.

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A bunch of Home Roasting startup answers

September 1st, 2011

Yes, Once roasted, the beans do benefit from resting. For two reasons:

First, is out gassing. Freshly roasted beans expel C02 for a period of time which prevent perfect saturation by water. The effect of brewing coffee right out of the roaster is “Bloom”. While the hot water is trying to saturate the grounds, the grounds are simultaneously pushing C02 outward due to the hot water reducing saturation. Resting for a day is fine. (That’s the very short version of that.)

The second reason to let them rest is the same effect that causes leftovers to taste better. Totally empirical and totally personal. But you will find that something like Costa Rica beans are perfect after a day or so, up to a week; while others (Yemen? North African?) tend to start singing after 3-4-5 days. Blending for espresso is a whole range of alchemy and quantum coffee logic of its own, but some blends can be held back for a week or more before they’re just right.

Bottom line is preference.

NEVER put coffee in the freezer or fridge. The reason is condensation. Cold objects exposed to warmer air will attract nasty ambient moisture that settles on your beans. The ONLY way to make that work is to let them reach room temperature before opening up a perfectly sealed container. Its much better to keep them in a sealed at room temperature and use up beans within a week or so.

Keep and treat your green coffee just like dried split peas or lentils. Unless you are storing many thousands of pounds for more than a year, storing tens of pounds in plastic is just fine. Stick them on the shelf away from stinky things like garlic and brand new rubber tires.

Yes, coffee ages, but it’s subtle. Over a VERY long time coffee loses some of its fresh off the farm sparkle, but that is replaced by increased body. Over the course of a year you can tell, but the month to month difference is pretty slight.

Whether you are ordering a bunch of kinds all at one or a lot of one thing all at once, economy will be increased by larger orders. Ordering a single pound of one kind of bean once a week is the most expensive way to go. Twenty pounds of all the same kind would begin the least expensive way to go, and continue getting better from there. Cost effectiveness is in the tiered pricing of some beans as well as being able to ship a lot of coffee all at once to one location.

Our prices fluxuate with the season, and what’s on hand (and what will be on hand due to wars, weather, speculation, government hooha, etc) Sometime you’ll find more bulk pricing options than other times.

DON’T let price be confused with quality. A lot of pricing is about scarcity. Price and quality are totally different. Related, but different. A better prepped coffee will probably taste better and raise the price, but swimming in it probably knock the price right back down again.

Everything we’ve got is good in it’s own way. Like colors, or children, there is no ‘best’, only different. A lot depends on context. And a lot depends on how your day is going.

The Coffee Project has a variety of coupon codes that pop up sometimes. Some of the most common are the birthday codes (tell us your birthday month! orders@coffeeproject.com) and things like “No Rush” for when you’re in no rush to get an order. Our e-newsletter often mentions active codes. But for the most part the prices on the website are pretty much as fair as possible as they are.

The SR500 is currently our favorite roaster. Everything about it is the perfect balance for one or two people’s needs. Function, economy, design, ease of use; all there. After four or five generations it’s just about perfect. It roast about 5 ounces at a time and depending on the effect you want and your conditions, you can overfill or under fill the roaster. Factors include power supply, kinds of beans, amount of chaff, degree of roast. But after a few tries you’ll be an expert at what works.

Roasting coffee is a lot like throwing darts, you get better and better at it the more you do it, And while it’s popular to try and work it all out on paper with a slide rule and computer aided guessing, The Coffee Project’s stance is just relax and have fun with it. No one has to hook their stove or toaster up to a computer to cook an egg or make toast. Bottom line is pay attention. That’s all you need to do.

Coffee is as varied as cheese or wine or bread. There’s a lot of room to be spendy if you want, and a lot of room to experiment with exotica, but there’s also broad and deep availability of comfortable, easy, and familiar goodness. Any doubts in choosing your very first coffee to home roast? Go for our Colombian Patron. It’s got awesome preparation, it’s got a familiar “coffee” taste, it’s easy to roast, the producers are among the most ethical on the PLANET and because the supply is so stable, it’s never that pricey. it’s just a perfect choice to begin exploring from.

Any questions? Just ask.

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Frugal shopping

August 3rd, 2011

On your website and saw that the coffee prices were pretty good. Six dollars for one pound of beans I could roast myself! But shipping cost was as much as the coffee. I was looking for a way to enjoy quality coffee for cheaper but I don’t think this works.

———-

Buying a single pound is definitely not going to be as cost effective as buying multiple pounds all at once. That’s probably true in buying anything. We have a starting point in our shipping structure that makes it worthwhile for us to process and bag a up a single pound. While many customers DO order only one or two pounds at a time, most buy at least 5-10 pounds at a time- especially since raw coffee stores so well. Many also order 10-20 pound bags where available for the price breaks.

If you’re willing to buy a bit more coffee all at once and watch for the coupon codes in our newsletter, you can get the cost per pound down too. First time orders for instance may use the online code “Newcomer” for 5% off beans. We also have birthday codes good during the month you were born for 10% off beans. And in our email newsletter we sometimes have random short time frame promotions.

The very best way to manage the overall cost of an order is to buy a bit more all at once and combine that with the online ordering codes. Ordering a single pound would be the most pricey way to go.

Coffee is a lot like wine in that price is sometimes more about scarcity (and marketing) than quality. So don’t let price be your guide in choosing beans. Instead, let what you like guide you. Colombian (also Mexican, and Brazilian) beans for instance tends to be well priced and terrific quality even though not as expensive as others. Colombian etc are often some of the very best available. Prices are relatively low compared to smaller producers just because Colombia grows so much of it. Also like wine, different regions are going to taste different. For a small difference in price you can have beans that are wilder tasting, fruity, more chocolate, buttery, citrusy; whatever suits your tastes in coffee best. You can even blend coffees to balance what you like most in them.

If it’s ALL about price however, not about regional variations in coffee or consistency, we do have Uncertain Blend
http://coffeeproject.com/shop/magento/raw-coffee-beans/uncertain-blend.html Very inexpensive especially for practicing, and many of our customers are committed to it. It’s all excellent coffee, just mixed up together and without any pedigree.

Using a birthday code, eight pounds Uncertain Blend and shipping works out to only $5.25 to your door.

I hope thats helpful info for when price is a leading factor, and that you do decide to source ALL of your beans via The Coffee Project.

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How do raw coffee prices compare to roasted coffee prices?

July 8th, 2011

A lot of that depends on what scale you’re using. If you are comparing apples to apples raw coffee is normally about half the price of roasted. Coffee pricing is a lot like wine pricing. Rarity or quality both have their influences on price.

Even comparing green coffee against itself, a pound of green microlot Colombian is going to be more expensive than a pound green from a larger commercial farm. So you’d have to compare the rarity of the coffee against each other. Not all wines are the same just as not all coffees are the same.

There’s no comparison AT ALL between fresh roasted coffee and a can of coffee. That’s a quality issue.

If you are comparing whole beans coffee in a grocery store against home roasted coffee the margins may be a little closer, but you are adding in the element of staleness in the store bought coffee. …How long did it take for that coffee to be roasted, packed, get on a truck, get to the front of the shelf, and finally get used up at home?

And, don’t be fooled by the 12 oz pound pricing! a real pound is 16 ounces, so factor that in.

Once you’ve accounted for quality, scarcity, freshness, it’s very close to half the price roasting coffee at home. Its hard to beat the consistency of what a professional roaster can produce from her specialty coffee shop, but, its going to cost you half as much as doing it at home. Its a lot like going out to dinner.

Your friends will also be completely knocked out at how good your coffee is. THEIR coffee will taste like swill while costing twice what yours did. That’s well worth the ten or so minutes at home to roast up a batch or two, just in bragging rights.

Raw coffee beans store well, a year or so. If you buy raw coffee bulk it will always be as fresh as possible once roasted, and always roasted exactly the way you like it best. Store bought coffee has about the same shelf life as bread, or milk. So there’s a big tertiary saving in roasting your own right there.

Currently the market is crazy. Coffee prices are through the roof. The mega-corporations have held back their price increases as much as possible over the last year or so, but they’re also sitting on coffee they bought 3-4-5 years ago. Sooner or later they are going to have to buy current crops and as we’ve seen recently, even the corporate giants will raise their prices and the margins will once again be closer to half the price.

Overall, Its the difference between corporate food and fresh homemade food. Homemade is better, less expensive, and just takes a little love to produce something spectacular. Its worth the effort.

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Nuggets, Nuggets, and Nuggets.

April 30th, 2011

“…since we are fairly newer roasters we’ve really had fun trying different beans. We really like the Indian beans… what is the typical season for buying these? That way I know to stock up. We REALLY like the mysore nuggets!”

A lot of coffee around the globe gets picked and processed around November/ December. Depending on the origin and importer it either dribbles into the US all year or it arrives in chunks.

Last summer we brought in a LOT of different Indian coffee all at once, but at the same time coffee prices have gone kaplooey, so we didn’t bring in as much as we wanted and ended up running out. Especially because these were really yummy examples the long time customers knew to grab a bunch at the bulk prices when they found one they really like; because everyone else will too. Its kind of like wine.

On the other hand there are coffees we always have. Some of those are called CP Select, and some are highly branded like La Minita or Josuma. Those are selections we can pretty much assure will be around all the time at the same quality each time they are ordered.

Then there are the jewels that pass through like some of those Indian beans, Cup of Excellence beans, or something really unique that has a quality deserving a spot light.

Recently the Burundis arrived. Those will eventually run low too but something else will be arriving that’s equally special.

There ARE Nuggets out there now that could go on the menu, the only problem is that we’re swimming in everything else at the moment and just can’t put everything thats ever been grown everywhere on the menu all at once. The biggest problem right now is the price of raw coffee. Every time we restock or try to buy forward into the year our replacement costs have gone up. We’re probably in a bubble, but we’re also in some reality too.

In the early 90’s coffee was at an all time low as certain world trade agreements ended. Following that, here was an effort to bolster prices by paying attention to farmer’s quality of life, the coffee’s actual quality!, sustainability, reaching new markets… All that has worked really really well. Farmers are no longer selling the crop before its even flowered just to survive. Established demand has increased overall, brand new markets are creating greater demand, quality is WAY up,

Unfortunately… over the last ten years or so, (whether you believe in climate change or not;) yields have been dropping, there isn’t as much new land to consume, weather patterns have followed drought with floods. So worldwide warehoused supplies are dropping, prices are climbing, and speculators are almost certainly right that prices will continue to climb.

Thats a long answer to a simple question…

Broadly speaking we’ll probably see new crop Nuggets sometime in the summer. Nuggets are definitely on the list to become a CP Select option that we’ll always have. The question right now is only whom to commit to, when to commit to this price or that price. And, buying some of one coffee definitely means we won’t be buying some of some other coffee.

Quality, Price, and Availability- pick any two and it will cost the other.

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Home based coffee business?

April 22nd, 2011

Its common for home roasters to see themselves in business. Here are a few random thoughts…

“I need a big air roaster” “I need a big drum roaster” “I need a wall of home roasters”

If you ever find a used SonoFresco (Syd and Jerry, Coffee Kinetics) roaster super cheap, buy one of those. New, they are pricey, but they are terrific work horses for 1.25 pound batches that end at about a pound. Easy to fix, very little maintenance. Or consider BBQ roasting.

Home machines are intended for home use. You could run a number of Behmors or Gene Roasters simultaneously, but you’ve also got to factor what your time is worth. IF you can sell coffee at $30 a pound you should. If you can’t, then what’s it really worth for you to stand staring at a home machine for 20 minutes? What happens during the holidays when fifteen people all ask for a pound of beans. And do you really want to take money from friends?

Even though home roasting is super fun and great for small batches of a pot or so a day; find a shop that will roast 20 lbs at a time for you. It might cost .80 to 1.10 a pound for the service but roasting even 3 pounds an hour on multiple machines at home will be highly inconsistent, take all day, and eventually kill a home machine. Selecting that coffee, producing a sample and bagging it up after will be plenty of work for you. You’d still the coffee expert! but spend your time selling and reaching that 20 lb minimum asap.

The FIRST thing you need are orders- even before buying beans. If you can settle on a single coffee and know it well, sell the heck out of that first. Get 20 lbs roasted (you’ll wind up with about 17) and shop that around to hair dressers’, small mom n pop groceries, friends, farmers markets, tiny sandwich shops, and groups. Make them an offer they can’t refuse; because they will. You’re going up against, in the very best scenario, Trader Joe’s $4 a can whole beans. What your pitch to make them part with $15 or so?

The concept of custom roasting at home is appealing but there’s a LOT of competition out there where people are selling roasted coffee for almost the price of green. Whatever your concept is, its got to be a twist on what already works, and people will have got to know about it. Having orders and no roasted beans is a far better problem than having roasted beans and no orders. Sell first, roast after.

Keep it simple. Start with a single core coffee. Even that model it will be VERY difficult to get a business going. Yes, since you are a home roaster you can modify it with some additional components… but don’t go committing yourself to roasting 60 lbs of coffee because you suddenly need tens pounds each of your super cool Holiday blend. You also want your coffee to be FRESH. So get the orders first, roast, then deliver. Or you risk sitting on beans that are going stale.

If you want to make blends, think about dolling up the core coffee you’ve had roasted with small amounts of home roasted. That’s within reach.

Familiarity and consistency are your friends. If your customer liked a coffee, they’ll want it again. And again and again, you hope. Its familiarity and consistency that made Starbucks go from known to huge. If a coffee shop never had the same thing twice, or it was radically different than last time, they probably won’t get many repeat orders. If you can produce even ONE good roasted coffee over and over and over you’ll gain a following. Build on that. Question what practices will be sustainable. Keep them simple.

Simplicity is WAY hard enough.

Another approach is to start with BREWED coffee instead, and hit all those locations mentioned. A couple new / used air pots will cost about $30 each. Make the daily rounds swapping out 2.2 liters of awesome coffee at $1.50 a cup ( fifty 6 oz cups per pound minus supplies) vs trying to move roasted coffee by the pound. Sure. leave a few $5 half pounds of that batch on hand, but don’t plan on it flying off the shelf. Be very conservative with expectations. …Be VERY conservative with expectations.

You may need to make friends with a commercial kitchen to work out of if things get serious. DON’T go buying a kitchen!! just borrow one from a friend. Maybe cross market your coffee to pay for the space…

Learn from others… There are plenty of coffee businesses that no longer exist, simply because they spent more than they made. Those cheap air pots are available out there for a reason. Before you spend anything, think hard about what the net cash in pocket will be in the end. Think about scale… where do things begin to work? Where do they cease working?

… The Coffee Project STILL has stuff on the shelves from the very first home roasting kit produced in Spring 1997.

Listen to your significant other, your parents, people who have success in what THEY do. Listen to your mentors. Work it out on paper (really!) before you go spending. Take your expectations and cut them in half. Take your expected costs and double them. If its still a good idea, go for it!

Even at that, no matter how perfect the plan is, its still not perfect. Plan on a lot of misses before things start to work as first imagined. Have an escape plan too. There really is a LOT of value in taking a concept (buy low, sell high) and creating that whole virtual world on paper first.

Taking a hobby into being a business is a big deal. It’s doable, but it will take commitment and a lot of work.

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Hi Sweetness

March 29th, 2011

We were asked, “Is there a simple formula to maximize sweetness for these coffees?” “I can control time between cracks easily, but not temperature”

—

… No, not a formula – maybe a rule of thumb. Just don’t roast too darkly. easy as that. You want to hit second crack so the sugars caramelize just a little but not so much that you burn them up. The rule of thumb to hang on to the sweetness is, err light.

Another rule of thumb is in the timing mentioned in the question, between 1st and 2nd, if you can extend that a little you gain a bit of body at the expense of snappiness in the cup. But, extend it too long and you wind up with flat tasting coffee.

Working it the other way, if you’ve got a naturally big bodied coffee you can get more brightness out of it by going hot and fast, but at the cost of some of that body.

We’re not a fan of recipes with numbers attached. They’re not real. They are not easily reproducible in home machines and far too subjective. You’d need to have a NASA lab to do something the same way twice roasting by numbers (or at least a $10,000 roaster with data logging.) The very best thing you’ve got going are your own senses and that’s FREE. Use your eyes, ears and nose, and just pay attention. Thats better than an army of number crunchers. With a few iterations you’ll hit on what you like and be able to get pretty close time after time.

It all comes down to “more of this is less of that.” and “Less of that is more of this.” Its actually all pretty easy. Rule of thumb: just pay attention.

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Yay Us!

March 13th, 2011

Just got this from a happy customer (unedited):

“Comment: Dear Coffee Project,
I never do this so excuse me if I ramble but I just wanted to write you a bit about my experience with your company. Here goes:
I began roasting in 2003. I saw Kenneth Davids’ book on coffee roasting in a used book store and thought, “For a buck, how wrong can I go?” I ordered a Freshroast plus 8 from Sweet Maria’s which ended up being defective and I had to get another. Soon after I introduced roasting to my brother who found you guys online. We opted to chip in together to buy 100$ worth of beans to get a free Freshroast for him. We were so happy with the coffee and the roaster that we promptly bought 100$ more and gave the Freshroast to a friend and got him into home roasting! Over the years since we’ve home roasted on and off, always purchasing from you and always pleased! Recently I decided to get back into it when I found an old box of beans I’d gotten from 2006. I was worried since I’ve always heard that beans are only good for 2 years. I decided to try emailing you guys and received a prompt response about the beans. The response was essentially, “Go ahead and roast but forget the decaf it’s too old.” That made my day (week really)! I immediately got to roasting and was glad I did (turns out the older Yemen Mocha was pretty choice). After that I decided to take a look at what’s out there for roasters… I bought a SR500 (with 5 pounds free!!!) and have been working through that as well! Believe it or not I’m already putting together another order.
All this to say every time I’ve called, emailed or contacted you guys in any way I’ve been pleased. I love your philosophy of trying to get new people into roasting. I’ve never had any complaints. I look forward to ordering from you guys for years to come!”

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