Ethiopian Coffee Roast

Hario Pour Over

          For Christmas this year, I'm introducing my parents to my favorite way to prepare coffee. As part of their gift, I got them this Hario Pour Over.  I have an orange Beehouse myself but I've heard good things about the Hario and wanted to try it out.

          I also roasted some coffee to send along with it.  The pour over allows for a very clear taste, and highlights single-origin coffees.  I chose to roast an Ethiopian Dry Process Yirg Buufata Konga from Sweet Maria's because I've made it before, and it was fantastic. The strawberry notes are easy to pick out, and it has a lot of natural sweetness to it.

          

Green beans

          I use an air-popper, wooden spoon, and candy thermometer for roasting, which works surprisingly well.  This is my typical process, with a few modifications:

My process

          The first time I roasted, I realized that the green beans were too heavy for the capacity I was trying to roast, so I ended up only roasting about 0.25 oz, and ordered an extra long wooden spoon for next time, so I could stir through the butter tray until they were light enough for the popper to take over.  

Post-roast, with chaff everywhere

           The second problem I had was that undercooked beans kept blowing into the chaff bowl.  On a site about home roasting, I saw that one guy had solved this problem by sliding a hard drive under the front end of the popper.  I didn't have a spare hard drive on hand, but I used my scale which has about the same dimensions, and it worked beautifully. 

          I also thought the whole thing seemed a little random, so I ordered a candy thermometer that I jam into the side of the popper so I can monitor the temperatures. 

          A problem I haven't solved yet is that it seems to cook them a little too quickly.  I've read that plugging the popper into a power strip can help with that, so I'll give that a shot next time. 

Finished product - Full city?

          Even though it's traditional to roast Ethiopian coffees a little lighter, my parents seem to be bigger fans of darker roasts, so I aimed for Full City.  At a coffee expo in Milwaukee last summer, I heard a guy speaking about how it's actually nice to roast them a little darker, because the typical sweetness caramelizes creating a unique flavor.  

          Hopefully they enjoy it - I didn't have any myself, so I'll have to get some feedback from them.  In the meantime, hopefully I can get another roast in for my own use.

All the best,