u/mgsecure

I’m curious what folks are doing with decaf beans. I don’t remember where I heard it but I’ve been doing a combo of coarser/lower temp/shorter ratio and really liking the results. But there was one EA decaf coffee I just couldn’t get, which was strange because I really like everything I’ve gotten from the roaster. In a “what do I have to lose” move, I brewed it the same as similar caffeinated beans and voila.

So here’s what I had been doing, though I’ll be checking everything with a more “normal” recipe now.

- Origami S, Cafec Abaca filters
- Kinu M4 @ 3.8.0 (normally 3.2.0-3.6.0)
- TWW diluted 1:1
- 89° C (normally 93-94°)
- 1:14 (normally 1:16)

I’d appreciate suggestions/recommendations.

I’m curious what folks are doing with decaf beans. I don’t remember where I heard it but I’ve been doing a combo of coarser/lower temp/shorter ratio and really liking the results. But there was one EA decaf coffee I just couldn’t get, which was strange because I really like everything I’ve gotten from the roaster. In a “what do I have to lose” move, I brewed it the same as similar caffeinated beans and voila.

So here’s what I had been doing, though I’ll be checking everything with a more “normal” recipe now.

- Origami S, Cafec Abaca filters
- Kinu M4 @ 3.8.0 (normally 3.2.0-3.6.0)
- TWW diluted 1:1
- 89° C (normally 93-94°)
- 1:14 (normally 1:16)

I’d appreciate suggestions/recommendations.

A few days ago, u/NovaForceElite posted about weight reading drift for scales under $100 USD. They specifically mentioned the Hario Polaris, which I use and have never noticed drift on.

I tested with different weights and didn't see any change in the readings at all over 10 minutes, but someone commented that drift is common with these scales when the temperature of the scale changes.

So I did some testing, and definitely see a drop in weight reading due to temperature change for the scale. This isn't an issue for my workflow -- a 0.5g drop over the course of brewing a cup isn't significant -- but I thought I'd share the results.

I tested 93ºC water in a glass beaker directly on the scale, with one of these coasters as insulation, and with a coaster and a ceramic carafe. As you can see in the chart, the coster+ceramic had the least drift (0.5g over five minutes) and the glass directly on the scale was the worst (1g). I also did a test where I 'pre-heated' the scale, and the results were very similar to the coaster+glass one, so that doesn't seem worth the hassle.

https://preview.redd.it/i3l9bjsb2dyg1.png?width=1776&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0d041f0efbe77607d6f0c3410b37096e2af03ed

I'm not sure when this would be an issue tbh, but more insulation is probably the answer if this effects you.

There were a lot of responses to the recent post: Which roasters never miss?. I did a quick and (very) rough pass at summarizing them for folks. It has to be noted that many folks said that even the best roasters aren't 100% fool-proof, but some clearly stood out.

I pulled the number of times an individual roaster was mentioned positively in a comment, and calculated the combined upvote score for each one. I'm sure I missed some roasters or mis-counted which mentions were positive but it should be directionally right. Anyway, I'd think of it more as a list of "Roasters people tend to really like". (Let me know if you want the data to do anything more sophisticated.) Enjoy.

Roaster	Positive Mentions	Combined Score
Sey	13	182
Prodigal	15	131
Aviary	7	88
Onyx	6	84
DAK	3	72
Picky Chemist	2	64
Big Sur	2	59
S&W	7	28
Hydrangea	8	26
La Cabra	7	22
George Howell	3	18
Botz	3	16
Rogue Wave	3	16
Nomad	2	15
Substance	5	13
Moxie	3	13
Datura	4	12
H&S	3	9
B&W	2	7
Brandywine	2	7
Luminous	4	6
LF Coffee	2	6
Little Wolf	2	5
10 Speed Coffee	1	5
Broadsheets	1	5
Cartel	1	5
Tandem	1	5
YellowBrick	1	5
PERC	4	4
September	3	4
Assembly	1	4
Dark Arts	1	4
Driftaway	1	4
Pharmacie	1	4
Tanat	1	4
Wendleboe	1	4
Friedhats	4	3
Barrington Coffee Roasters	2	3
Cloud Cover	1	3
Crude Lab	1	3
Dongze	1	3
Lima	1	3
Minmax	1	3
Moonwake	1	3
Frequent	2	2
Apollon	1	2
Koppi	1	2
Picolot	1	2
Scenery	1	2
Shoelace	1	2
Black Oak	1	1
Ceto	1	1
Coffeeworks	1	1
Color	1	1
Dune	1	1
Flowerchild	1	1
Goldenstate	1	1
Hayb	1	1
Heart Coffee Roasters	1	1
Ilse	1	1
JBC	1	1
Libertario Roasters	1	1
Mirror	1	1
Olympia Coffee Roasters	1	1
Promethium	1	1
Regalia	1	1
Revel	1	1
Strait	1	1