InVinoVeriMuch

I haven't posted in quite a while. It's been really hectic getting my project finished and up and running. Otherwise, spending a lot of time on the SF Job Hunt and massaging my contacts as well as having a great time with the SCTO. We did a roast of some Zimbabwe AAA. A nice slow ramp and stopped the roast just right after 1st crack. The beans were beautifully even at a lovely city roast. A couple of days rest and they tasted even better than they looked. Think I am getting the hang of this setup, there definitely is a learning curve. Matt has taken the plunge too and has taken an even more tricky approach - stove-top popper! Welcome to the dark side Matt!

Well I have been remiss about blogging. It was a stressfull weekend. Ordered some very interesting books from Amazon on Thursday for next day delivery. They screwed it up and so I finally got them yesterday at 4:30.

Got started on the one, Kathleen Dollard's Code Generation in .NET and I have some interesting months ahead of me (750 pages), wish I could have had it over the weekend. Despite her wonderful writing style it is some difficult stuff, but should prove to be very, very useful and is proving to be very, very interesting.

Had some problems with the first two SCCO roasts, if they went past 2nd Crack they came out bitter. CoffeeGeek to the rescue. Found out what was going wrong and corrected it and last weekend's roasts (3/4lb PNG and 3/4lb Harar) came out wonderfully. It was such a relief to have coffee that wasn't bitter again.

For this weeks roasts I ordered a thermocouple, to better manage the roast profile (one has such tremendous control with this system) . I also order 5lbs Zimbabwe AAA+ Dandoni Estate and 5lbs Brazil Fazenda Ipanema "Dulce". So this weekend will be fun. Wanna come over for a roast Matt?

My Swiss friends are going up in the world! Brownnosing with the rich and infamous:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image 

Nothing much happening this week. Still working on deploying the project. Still enjoying the coffees we roasted last weekend and still enjoying the food I cooked last weekend. It is nice to have all this coffee around, don't have to ration myself. Looking forward to tomorrow, going to roast a full pound! Sulawesi Toraja and then 3/4lb of that beautiful Yemen. Still working on my contacts in SF. Nothing yet, it will come.

This is a resumption of my previous blog. I left off there having roasted 3/4lb each of Brazilian Carmo Estate Peaberry and PNG Arokara Estate AA. Had the PNG today and it was an eye-opener. We had had it not long ago roasted on the Z&D but it was much more dramatic this time. My first comment to Cynthia was that it had a beautifully complex floral component that I had not noticed before. Upon checking Thom's description at SM he confirmed it describing a "wonderful aromatic component". And it was only a day old, having been roasted yesterday.

The Brazilian was now 2 days after roast, and was also much better. Thom's description "It has a very mild brightness, but is in perspective a very low acidity coffee. It's the roast tastes I love so much, milk chocolate, spice, wood, rich humus (good earth, not dirty)." became totally clear.

Haven't talked about food much lately but we've been eating well:)

Osso Bucco Milanaise with a Risotto Milanaise on Saturday and last night a wonderful

Chicken Forestiere with a little twist - the first Basil of the year has just appeared in stores and I added a little both during the cooking and at the end to get that nice fresh basil flavor. Beautiful.