Growing coffee

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

Well, I thought I should let TonyT and madpierre06 know that I have had my first cup of home grown coffee! And it was SENSATIONAL!!

yeah, i remember when i had my first. it will probably taste even better if you get a little roaster.

last saturday i picked another 3.9kg of cherries and squeezed and cleaned them. it took from 5pm to midnight, with a 2-hour break for dinner. but its only a few times a year, and most of the rest is easy. picking and pulping are the hard parts. i hate it, but put up with it for the end result. you can enjoy the coffee long after the drudgery is over - unless youre a coffee prince and have to do it every day. but by the pictures on cps link below, you can sometimes get help. no-one wants to help me.

heres a pic of the cleaned beans drying, with a plate of floaters kept separate. there are a lot of floaters that seem to have big seeds. ill see what they taste like.

sorry i missed madpierre - i was off the day you called.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

they dry pretty well in these trays.

[madpierre06]

Re: Growing coffee

Nice looking beans tony. Plus smaller trays mean you have ease of movement if raining. I personally didnt worry if inclement weather came through...just meant it takes a bit longer to dry, I figure the Ethiopians dont bring em inside. I just use an old sheet of masonite for my drying, gives me plenty of room for turning the beans..have bean starting to reconsider though, I was wondering whether there may be some transferrence twixt bean and masonite of any unwanted flavours from the board.

Got your message Tony, its all good mate. Prob. catch you next time.

[Mark_435]

Re: Growing coffee

Thanks for the great comments, I had a good chuckle while reading them as I can see Im in good company here!

"I am not an animal -obsessive compulsive coffee nut"

And Yes I must say that the satisfaction quotient is very very high when Im drinking my very own coffee. I have been taking it to work for my morning plunger and everyone at work has been impressed with the rich aroma the second the lid comes off the container of ground beans. After seeing more of Tonys photos Im tempted to do it again just for the comparison. Ive still got ripe cheries/raisins on the tree..... then again I might not

Mark

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

heres the final pictures of my processing process.
first, the hulling equipment - home brand food processor with a plastic blade.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

in go the dry coffee beans

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

whirl them around for a while

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

voila! hulled coffee beans

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

take em outside, plug in a fan and blow away the chaff. i use a winnowing basket i got from kenya, but you could use any flat tray with a wall round it.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

the beans ready for dechaffing

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

the finished product

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

into the trusty iRoast2 for a little hot air

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

nearly ready. i find there are substantial differences in roasting times needed for different beans (varying degrees of dryness), weather (heat and humidity) and of course the style of coffee you want. i usually like something approaching full city roast or full city roast +.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

ready to grind. i understand its better to leave the roasted beans for a day to vent carbon dioxide before grinding.

[tonyt]

Re: Growing coffee

and thats the end of a good year in a suburban coffee plantation. the pictures for the whole lot are buried in various places in this section: the cherries on the tree, the picking, the pulping, the cleaning, the drying, the hulling, the roasting.
strewth - i need a drink! wheres that beer? I think ill have a fullers ESB.
theres still some work to be done - a few more cherries to pick, then pruning, fertilising and clearing up. but ill have three or four months worth of my own coffee (if i dont gulp it down too fast) and i like it. to be honest, its not up there with the great coffees of the world, or the great coffees of lismore, but it beats the crap out of anything you can buy in a supermarket. and its very fresh.
i kept 500g of last years vintage and have just roasted that and some of this years. ill see how they compare, although i didnt get the two roasts exactly the same.
it seems like a long time ago when i joined coffeesnobs to ask for help in growing and roasting my own coffee - but it was only the beginning of last year. what i have learned since then (with a number of people giving me very useful information) means i am no longer blundering in the dark.
go thou and do likewise.