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Coffee Smarter: Strength and Freshness · Coffee People Podcast

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Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode
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of the roast West Coast podcast. Each week in our coffee smarter
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series, Chris O'Brien, founder proprietor of coffee, cycle, and
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Pacific Beach, San Diego and coffee cognoscenti, which I
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believe is Italian for someone who knows a whole lot about
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coffee has been helping us. Us get a little bit coffee.
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Smarter this week. He'll explain what it means when
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a coffee is described as light medium or dark and then we'll go
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into coffee freshness and learn how to preserve those precious
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flavors. Just a little bit longer, be
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sure to subscribe to the roast West Coast newsletter with your
0:45
email at roast westcoast.com there.
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You'll find show updates Recaps and a lot more coffee content,
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including links to Coffee cycle and plenty more.
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I'd like to say a, thank you to Chris and the team at Coffee
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cycle, and especially the paid subscribers of the Just
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westcoast.com is bonus content for helping me provide.
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Great coffee to some of the Frontline healthcare workers in
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San Diego, in the spirit of the season and just to end 2020,
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feeling a little bit better about things.
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I'll be using the proceeds of any subscriptions through the
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end of the year to buy coffee for local health, care workers
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around, San Diego County had to roast westcoast.com to
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subscribe. There's a great offer right now
1:22
for a full year of the roast West Coast newsletter and a copy
1:25
of the book, Eli and Jane which has some pretty great coffee
1:28
shop scenes and now, Now it's time to get a little coffee
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smarter and for another cup of coffee Chris welcome back to the
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roast West Coast podcast and help.
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Thank you for helping us get coffee smarter every week I
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appreciate you coming back. Oh man I love this uphill battle
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of trying to get you coffee, smarter Ryan.
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It's it's a good challenge for me and I'm ready for it every
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week. It takes me about a week to
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recharge, but I'm ready this week.
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I feel like I should have some sort of come back to that and I
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just don't. So I'm going to jump into my
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question. I want to focus on the beans
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last week, we talked about how beans are processed, you know
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washed versus natural versus Honey processed and so on and so
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on, if you didn't hear it, you should go back and listen to.
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It was really good but this week, I want to know a little
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bit more about the difference between light medium and dark
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roasted beans. So, after they've been processed
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and sent to a roaster and they work with them, And we go to the
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store and we're looking at the Shell for we're going to our
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roaster and trying to decide what to order our coffee shop.
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What does that mean? Is that how they're grown?
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Is that how the roasted, what's happening?
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Well, as you know, I love helping people think more about
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this drink that we're drinking coffee and about all the steps
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that it takes to get to us. You know, we talked about coffee
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is a fruit. Well, coffee beans.
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Don't start Brown, they don't start black.
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They don't start boilie, they start sort of greenish and Big
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150-pound, burlap sacks of green.
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Beans, get shipped to Coffee Roasters.
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Now, your coffee roaster, might be a giant Warehouse machine
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done by Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, or whoever or it might
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be a small machine that sits on a countertop in someone's home
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or the back of a very small shop where they're roasting one or
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two pounds at a time. But basically, what they're
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doing is they're putting these green beans in a roasting Gene,
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which is really just kind of an oven and they're getting it up
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to a temperature that they think makes the coffee tastes best and
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they're pulling it out. Roasted.
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So you get these green coffee beans, you roast them, and they
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become darker and more brownish, and then you pull them out.
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When you think they're at their best flavor and then you can
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grind them and Brew them and make it into drink.
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We drink some Roasters or roast their coffee darker than others
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and the Darkness. Light medium dark, Thing that we
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were just talking that you were just asking about is really a
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product of how long we left those green beans in the oven in
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the roasting machine, okay? So then if they're in there,
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longer does that? Give it more flavor?
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If it's darker or is it the opposite where shorter will be
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more flavor? Well, that's a great way to
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phrase the question because that doesn't work at all.
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If you roast it, lighter, lighter, roasts are going to the
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heat destroys less compounds. In the coffee.
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So, there's a lot of chemical reactions that happen when we
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heat something up, when we roast something, you'll talk to
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Baker's, or Cooks the talk about the Mets, are reaction, and how
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sugars caramelize? Well, that's just one example of
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chemical reactions that are occurring when something is has
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heat applied to it over time. So because coffee beans have so
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many different tastes table compounds in them.
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That heat can have either a good effect or a bad effect.
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Act or, you know, kind of a an effect that one person might
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like that. Another person doesn't bike.
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So a lighter. Roasted coffee.
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If you get a medium light roast from your local hipster coffee
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shop, you know where they have really good.
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High-quality beans, that they've imported or that their direct
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sourcing from a farm. Those beans at the medium, light
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are going to have a greater complexity of flavor than a
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darker roasted coffee. So when you leave it in the oven
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too long, if you take those really nice fine.
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Direct, imported coffee beans, Farm to cup, whatever you have,
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and you roast them, dark real dark.
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So dark that is start to get sort of oily.
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Looking on the outside, you've lost some of the complexity of
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flavor. You've lost the Nuance, you've
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lost the subtlety but you gained an intensity.
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So you get a smokiness at an intensity of flavor.
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So the comparison I like to use a lot doesn't apply to everyone.
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I'm pretty sure you're you're vegetarian.
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In or a pescetarian if I remember, right?
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I'm actually a vegan, these days, sorry to hear that, but I
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also respect it, but the comparison I like to use is
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steak. So, some people like their steak
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or their burger cooked medium rare, and other people like
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their steak cooked. Well done.
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Well, if you have a really nice cut of steak and you cook, it
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medium rare and then you have a really nasty cut of steak and
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you cook it medium-rare. You're gonna be able to taste
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the difference really easily. But if you took those two cuts
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of steak really well done, you're not going to taste the
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difference as well. Now, you might still be able to
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taste the difference but the same kind of thing applies to
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coffee. So this is really interesting
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because coffee has improved over the last 10, 20, 30 years a lot.
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So it used to be back in our parents day that, you know, who
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had better coffee, Maxwell House or Folgers.
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And the answer is they both were not good nowadays, we have a lot
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of different coffees out there. Whatever a lot of different
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qualities. So if you look at older coffees
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like from our parents era or from 20, 30 years ago, you're
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going to find that they're all roasted pretty dark, and that
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dark was actually something that they would advertise as a
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quality. Because when you roast it, it
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dark you roast, it out those imperfect flavors that were
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present in the green coffee. You destroyed Them In The Heat
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Of The Roasting process. And so that, all you could taste
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was the roast and it didn't matter as much.
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Whether you got better green coffee from this farmer that far
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more this country or that country.
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What you're tasting is you're tasting the product of the
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roasting so dark roast. Totally fine.
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If you like it, I prefer medium roast personally because I like
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a coffee to have a depth and a complexity of flavor to it.
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I like to be able to think about, do I taste blueberry in
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this coffee? Well, blueberry as a tasting
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note, which we talked about in a previous episode is is Comprised
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of some pretty delicate compounds inside a cup of coffee
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inside a coffee bean and so you're never going to taste
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blueberry in a dark roasted coffee.
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Because those compounds. Those delicate organic acids and
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sugars will have been destroyed or Modified by the chemical
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reactions that occur during the roasting process.
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So most Roasters their goal is to take all the good stuff that
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is in the green coffee and roast the coffee.
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To the point where you can taste, all the good stuff.
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And none of the bad stuff because all coffee has such a
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depth of complexity that there's going to be flaws and there's
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going to be things that we like and we really want to highlight
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all the good things and cover up all the bad things, the rose can
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really affect what we're tasting.
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The generally speaking, I tend to prefer medium light roast,
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because it means that the roaster has decided that the
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coffee is good enough to show off at a medium to light
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profile. There's so much science and Yet
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kind of so much, Alchemy and Magic to it.
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You know, with this trying to imagine the flavors that are
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inside the bean and then pulling them out and I just have to
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imagine there's so much trial and error.
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That's why I don't roast coffee. I know people that roast coffee.
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I know some people that are very good at it, I let them handle
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that part with, that was fantastic.
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And before we go today I'm gonna ask you another question.
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It's gonna be a big episode. What about freshness is it
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better to make coffee with beans that have just been roasted?
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Can the beans be too fresh? Do they age?
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Out. Can we keep them fresh by
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throwing them in the refrigerator?
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All right, so coffee freshness is one of my favorite favorite
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favorite topics because there's so much misinformation out there
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and so many assumptions that we have.
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But I'm going to boil it down to a super nut shell for you.
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It's real simple. You want to wait three to seven
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days after coffee, has been roasted before you drink it,
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three to seven days. Coffee is actually not at its
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best when it's fresh. Roasted, that being said, you
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have, About two weeks from that point from those three to seven
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days to drink your coffee at its peak of Flavor.
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Now, that being said, most people can't detect the
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difference after two weeks. So some people will tell you,
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you have four weeks other normal, people who say you have
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three other people will say you have to, I say wait, those
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three, four, five six or seven days.
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Start drinking your coffee and then after maybe a month.
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Yeah, you should probably retire.
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That bag and look for a different one.
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So it's not good to buy a pandemic or a supply of coffee.
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We want to buy two weeks, supply of coffee, one week's supply of
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coffee, and I'm not just saying that to get you in my shop every
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week. I'm saying it because some of
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the things that are in the coffee being do degrade and it
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does become a little flat tasting over time.
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So that gal, or that carton of Maxwell House.
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That my dad has in the freezer that is there every year when I
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go back, but it's the same one. Probably not like at its peak
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freshness anymore, you know, I am going to have a nightmare
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about that, Kevin Maxwell House but now that you mention that,
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that is, that is going to stick with me.
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Well, he doesn't drink coffee so he saves it for me, which is
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very nice of him. I think, does he love you?
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Don't answer that. Um, not around, not around the
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election season, he doesn't, but all the rest of the year.
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Absolutely, well, I I admire your tenacity for a sticking
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through a whole election season. Anyway, freezer refrigerator
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freshness, Even in there, if you want to preserve your coffee for
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longer, let's say you had a bag of the coffee, really loved.
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You know, they're going to run out of it soon, and they might
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not even get it again next year. So, you want to stock up and you
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want to save it for later for a special occasion.
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Yes, you can put it in your freezer and it will be good
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later. But most of the time, when you
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put something in, your freezer ends up tasting, like your
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freezer. So if you want to freeze your
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coffee, you have to really make sure that there is almost no air
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in the The bag that's in there and then that it's super, super
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well sealed. Most people the best way to do
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that is to vacuum seal your coffee and most people don't
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have a vacuum sealer or it's not worth it to them to vacuum seal.
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A coffee to pull out later. So generally speaking, we don't
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recommend storing it in the fridge or freezer the
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compensation of the moisture of the air that's in there, the
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flavors and tastes that are already in your refrigerator or
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freezer. Those can seep into the bag and
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the coffee can kind of absorb And then you're tasting this
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stale freezer taste or stale refrigerator taste.
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That's not what we want. We want from our really top.
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High-end coffees, we want something that's tastes like
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when we bought it. So the best way to do that, just
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for General storage is just to leave it in the bag.
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You bought it in and if you want to get real fancy, you can put
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another plastic bag around that. When you're done measuring out
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your coffee everyday, you squeeze the air out and roll
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that bag. Nice and tight and close.
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Squeeze the air out of that other plastic bag nice and Tight
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and closed and then you leave it in the back of a cool dark
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cupboard. We say coffee freshness is
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degraded by four things, light are heat and moisture.
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And if you look at other Industries, beer wine, any kind
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of food really those? Same four.
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Things tend to be the things that really degrade freshness in
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culinary products, light are heat, and moisture.
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So we just try to eliminate those as best.
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We can light, isn't a huge issue.
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Coffee, most of the time but it can contribute to the degree
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that your nation heat. You don't want to store it above
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your oven. It's just going to make its tail
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faster, or above a toaster oven or anything like that.
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Just going to make its tail faster.
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Moisture, squeeze that air out of the bag.
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Don't let any any moisture get in there.
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And squeezing the air out of it because the air will have a
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little bit of latent. What's your to it?
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And are just in general, you want to remove all the air from
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it so that that doesn't contribute to pulling coffee
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flavor out of the beans. Okay, well, you're going to have
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to excuse me, because I have to go get some beans out of my
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fridge and at least you're leaving them as beans and not
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grounds. I'm proud of you.
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This is the appreciate that. Chris, it was great to have you
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back on the show? I'm looking forward to getting
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coffee Smarter with you again next week.
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All right, we'll do it. I'll try to make sure that I
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have coffee ready. For me, thank you for listening
14:19
to the roast West Coast podcast and for getting a little coffee
14:23
Smarter with me today. We'll be back next week to talk
14:25
to me all about Grinders, grind size and consistency of the
14:29
grind. If you are craving some coffee
14:31
right now, go to coffee Dash. Cycle.com to learn more about
14:35
Chris's shop and order some coffee online or you can follow
14:38
at Coffee Dash cycle on Instagram.
14:41
If you're just going to keep letting this podcast stream in
14:43
your computer, or on your phone, you'll hear my conversation with
14:46
Breanna Briggs. She's the director of coffee and
14:49
head Roaster at leap coffee and Carlsbad, California.
14:51
And recently, she and I talked about the representation of
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Women and coffee, and how she ended up in the coffee business,
14:57
to begin with head, to www.leadpages.net Coffee ASAP?
15:01
Because for this week, only for every bag of coffee, purchased
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customers are entered into a drawing to win, a free V60 pour
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over set and a bag of their sugar and spice holiday blend,
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which is available only for a limited time order for pickup or
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delivery online at www.ppsd.com, a fee, they'll announce the
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winner of the drawing on Monday. December 21st.
15:22
This show will actually be back on.
15:24
December 22nd just before the holiday with an interview with
15:27
the irrepressible couple behind the growing Manzanita Roasters
15:30
Samantha and Weston. Nawrocki, look for that show.
15:33
Wherever you're listening to Great podcasts, including Apple
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Spotify YouTube. And basically anywhere else, you
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can find a great podcast just search for roast West Coast.
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If you are listening to the show for the first time, we are more
15:46
than halfway through season one and episodes with great, local
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Founders and Roasters from zoom bar, coffee and tea
15:52
steady-state, roasting and ironsmith.
15:54
Coffee. Plus a bunch of coffee smarter
15:55
shows are already out, be sure to go back and listen to them.
15:59
If you're listening to this show, I know you can find them.
16:01
And I know you're excited about coffee.
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Thank you for listening. If you can, please review the
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show. It really helps us get found by
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new listeners, especially on Apple.
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Then feel free to share it with a coffee drinking friend.
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This episode of the roast West Coast podcast has been produced
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and recorded by me Ryan Walt. And I'll end today.
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As I always do with a word of advice, always be sure to drink.
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Good coffee.