Big Steves Blend of the Week

[Big_Steve]

This week I roasted up (separately):-

150g Guatemalan
150g Kenya AA
150g Ethiopian Harar
100g Columbian

I roasted all of these bean fairly dark except the Columbian which seems to really like the heat and roasts for a lot longer than all the other beans.

After sampling them all separately I blended them all together which resulted in an extremely tasty – well balanced coffee if I do say so myself (as well as the taste testing guinea pigs I gave samples to at work).

Has anyone tried blending anything similar?

I had thought about changing the percentages to make things interesting but I am very new to blending (and roasting) so any tips on what percentage of each bean would be really helpful.

If only I could get my hands on some more Ethiopian Harar :

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Gday Steve,

Ive not tried a blend like yours above with the most recent Guatemalan, but one a lot simpler which seems to be working to some degree. The constituents are....

54% - Guatemala Huehuetenango SHB... Roasted to start of Rolling 2nd-Crack.
31% - Bali Gunung Batur... Pulled before 2nd-Crack to a CS Card 9-10.
15% - Yemen Ban Mattari... Roasted 20-30 seconds in to Rolling 2nd-Crack.

This has produced a brew that is quite unusual, dominated mainly by the Huehue which seems to have very light body, a broad nutty, piquant flavour with quite high acidity. This is balanced in the main by the full body of the Bali content with additional spiciness and dried fruit flavours from the Yemen. I use a Plunger to brew with so dont know how this will perform in an espresso but in the plunger there is very little "head" produced compared to all my previous experiments with blends, so it is possible that minimum crema will be produced as the end result in the cup is quite flat.

I was hoping that the Bali bean would pick up the body and mid-palate somewhat but this hasnt happened and all in all, I wouldnt recommend this particular blend to anyone, as it currently stands.... needs some more experimenting as the Huehue bean is very, very dominant.

Cheers,
Mal.

[Thundergod]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Strange percentages Mal.
54 and 31?
Do tell.

[GrindOnDemand]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Ive found 56 and 29 works better for my palate ...

Only joshing, Im not even roasting yet!

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Strange percentages Mal.
54 and 31?
Do tell.

LOL .... Thats just what it works out to be when weights are converted to percentages :. I spose I could have rounded the numbers up or down but then thought.... What the heck ,

Mal.

[hazbean]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Mal, do you think reversing the percentages of Huehue and Bali
would get closer to what you wanted?

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Yes HB,

That is definitely worth a go 8-), so will put a batch together tomorrow along those lines. Will let you know how it turns out towards the end of next week ,

Cheers mate,
Mal.

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Might have been a bit quick to condemn the Huehue blend above :-[.... Its now about day 14 post roast and only a very small amount left but it is really starting to generate a very nice brew now. Still leaves an after-taste that I find difficult to describe but otherwise, it is now very spicy, sweet and fruity, with a kind of persimmon background to it. Quite unusual but very nice.....

Mal.

[Big_Steve]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Thanks for the comments all, I am really going to have to get my hands on some of the Guatemala Huehuetenango SHB.

Mal, just out of interest - how many varieties of green bean do you have at any one time? I thought I had a lot at 10 different types!

Cheers

Steve

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Gday Steve,

Hmmm, thats a hard one.... I dont keep an inventory record as such though I probably should but Id reckon it would be close to 20 varieties in a stash of between 60-80Kgs. Ill have to get my A into gear one of these days and sort through it properly I spose but that takes away from the time I spend roasting, brewing and drinking my favourite beverage .....

Cheers Steve,
Mal.

[nunu]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

I have about 33 varieties currently in my 70+kg stash. This of course is built up over several years.

[decafsux]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

do you notice much difference in flavour with green bean youve had stored for a while?

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

do you notice much difference in flavour with green bean youve had stored for a while?

Hmmm,

Nor really Steve..... I think that provided you store your green beans in a good storage environment the flavour profiles wont change much over time, if at all. Theres lots of info in the forums about what makes an ideal storage system so will leave that up to you to search out for yourself. To site an example, I had some really, really nice Mandheling stored away since 2003 and have been meting this out over the time since. Basically, from my original taste notes, the flavour remained quite constant over all that time and maybe in only the last couple of months before I finished them off did the flavour start to diminish a little.

This is a pretty extreme example though as most of my beans get used up inside two years but it just goes to show you, given the right environment you can expect to achieve pretty good results for quite some time. All the best,

Mal.

[Big_Steve]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

That sounds like the best argument I can think of to start stocking up big time on my green beans... I cannot believe you guys keep 70Kgs stashed away, the blending possibilities must be endless.

Is keeping this amount of green bean a common thing amongst CSers Im wondering?

Cant wait for the next Beanbay now .

[Dimal]

Re: Big Steves Blend of the Week

Check this link out Steve..... We definitely have a LOT of hoarders within our membership

Mal.