Latest / Coffee People Podcast / S5:E4 - Coffee Smarter: Cleaning Your Coffee Equipment

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S5:E4 - Coffee Smarter: Cleaning Your Coffee Equipment · Coffee People Podcast

0:10
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to season 5 episode 4 on
0:14
the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:17
I'm Ryan Walton. This is the show where I bring
0:19
you the stories of coffee professionals entrepreneurship
0:23
and coffee education, Chris O'Brien, founder and head
0:26
roaster of coffee cycle, roasting his back this week to
0:29
talk about. Out cleaning, the common coffee
0:31
equipment, you might have at home.
0:33
I'm talking about cleaning the scales off your Kettle or the
0:36
inside of your coffee grinder. It can seem a bit daunting,
0:39
sometimes, especially early, in the morning, when you're making
0:42
your cup of coffee. But after today's episode, it
0:46
will be a much easier challenge to tackle.
0:49
If you are in San Diego, this week, head over to Pacific Beach
0:52
in order coffee Cycles, house, Costa Rica roast.
0:56
I know that they are on their last few batches of that
0:58
particular coffee. And after working with the green
1:01
beans, for the past several months, they've really dialed it
1:04
into Perfection coffee. Really represents a moment in
1:08
time for all the work that Chris and his fellow rostered, Tim
1:11
have put into the Costa Rica in very short order, it will be
1:15
gone forever. There will be future, green
1:17
coffee beans, from Costa Rica, and even beans from that
1:20
particular Farm Cafe Corazon. But this experience with coffee
1:24
this batch, which was impacted by the weather, the farmer, the
1:28
shipping Logistics Storage roasting machine and the
1:31
capabilities of all the hands that touched it along the way
1:35
will never exist again. That makes coffee both tangible
1:39
and yet something that will disappear into history.
1:42
Leaving nothing more than a collective memory of its
1:45
existence which I think is a really cool thought to hang on
1:49
to this morning. Also really cool is subscribing
1:53
to the roast West Coast coffee newsletter, which you can find
1:56
online at roast westcoast.com. And the link is in this shows
2:00
notes today. I'm drinking that very Costa
2:03
Rica Coffey from Coffey cycle that I told you to go try
2:06
earlier. It is a Bold, dark chocolate and
2:09
caramel flavor. And I think I taste an
2:11
underlying note of fig. I've been drinking the same
2:14
coffee for several months and the recent roasts seem to have a
2:18
complexity. And the sweeter finish that I
2:20
wasn't tasting early on. Like I said, head to the shop to
2:24
try it or if you're not in the area, you can still order this
2:27
coffee for a very short time on Coffee, cycle roasting.com.
2:33
Right now, I hope that you have your own cup of coffee or you're
2:36
about to slurp an espresso or you are sitting in the sun
2:40
sipping on a flash chilled coffee because it is time for
2:43
yet. Another coffee smarter session,
2:45
with my coffee Sensei, Chris O'Brien of coffee cycle.
2:48
Roasting all about cleaning, your at-home coffee equipment.
3:03
Mr. O'Brien welcome back to the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
3:07
We are in season to season to season 5, season 5.
3:13
This is our second coffee smarter episode of the Year.
3:17
Obviously, I'm still trying to get caught up.
3:20
I do need more coffee. I have been drinking, a lot of
3:25
coffee lately. I've got a new car.
3:27
Column with the coast news where I go around drinking coffee and
3:30
then writing about it. So if anyone is listening, look
3:33
for the Bean journal, on the coast news, I came up with the
3:36
name of very proud of it, but I wanted to have you back to talk
3:41
about something really important today is that column written by
3:46
a has-been. Ha ha.
3:51
No, it's a no, it's a bot. It's a Twitter bot that retired.
3:55
After the recent sale of Twitter, I want to ask you about
4:02
something really important today.
4:04
Which is cleanliness, how we clean our coffee equipment,
4:09
things like our coffee grinder, our pot or Brewer, you know, and
4:13
how that cleaning can positively or improper cleaning can
4:17
negatively impact. Impact, our coffee experience.
4:20
This is something I struggle with because I never really
4:23
know. For sure how to to clean my
4:27
grinder in particular because it seems like grinds get caught in
4:31
there. One of the side effects of
4:33
having kind of a lower-end burr grinder, but it's a little
4:37
messy. And, and also, I guess cleaning
4:41
in between, I switched from one being, you know, one coffee to
4:44
the next, sometimes it daily. Should I be cleaning that every
4:47
single time? Is it going to leave?
4:49
There's a Jules. I'm expanding the scope of this
4:52
question. So let's start with something
4:54
more specific. How do I clean?
4:56
My coffee equipment? Chris.
4:58
All right. So there's a bunch of coffee
5:00
equipment, we use and it all needs to be cleaned with the ink
5:03
on our first episode this season.
5:05
We had kind of a short episode. I'm going to warn you right now.
5:09
This this there's a lot to cover here because, you know, each
5:12
different piece of your coffee equipment, requires different
5:14
cleaning. And if this is intimidating
5:17
anybody listening, including you Ryan, don't worry, that's
5:20
actually all pretty simple and pretty easy and it's even easier
5:24
if you do it. More often.
5:25
And, you know, I'm looking around at my desk right now
5:28
which is like covered in for lack of a better word crap.
5:34
And so, you know, regular maintenance and cleanliness is
5:39
not always my strong suit, but in coffee equipment, it is easy
5:43
enough. That I'm actually good at pretty
5:44
good at keeping my coffee equipment, clean, and doing a
5:48
good job, and it's important, and it's important.
5:50
Because if you have really good coffee or using good water using
5:54
good equipment. Well, if you don't keep it
5:56
clean, you know, you're still going to be contaminating, the
5:59
taste of your final product with old.
6:01
Crappy stuff. You know, if you drink really
6:04
dark roasted coffee and you can see sometimes in like the hopper
6:08
or around the the the ground, the grinder, you'll see some of
6:13
that residue kind of build up from the oils and that darker
6:16
roast. Those oils can go rancid.
6:19
You can actually be putting like rancid like, like gross, sour,
6:22
bitter, like awful stuff into your coffee by not cleaning it.
6:27
A lot of people use, you know, reusable coffee, mugs and at the
6:30
bottom of a reusable coffee mug, you know, it starts out.
6:33
This beautiful shiny silver and eventually it turns this kind of
6:36
black. And it's, you can't just scrub
6:39
it out with like soap and water. Doesn't scrub out what that
6:42
stuff does affect the taste of your coffee and so if you can
6:46
clean it out, which is actually really easy.
6:48
It goes a long way to making sure your cup always tastes at
6:51
its best. Because the best way to do this
6:54
is to kind of break it down from will start at the grinder and
6:58
will move through to the Brewer and then we'll move through to
7:00
the cup. So coffee grinder first.
7:03
The contact for your beings can develop, you know, those rancid
7:08
oils if you're drinking something really dark.
7:09
But if you're not worried about that, you're probably still
7:12
worried about, you know, stale coffee grounds, getting in there
7:15
and just kind of old stuff in there.
7:18
Ideally, you can open up your grinder.
7:20
You can take one burner off of the other bird, there's usually
7:24
a stationary Burr, it doesn't move, and one bird that moves
7:28
and Spins and you can take one burner off and you can just
7:32
clean it and you can Clean it with, you know, a rag towels,
7:36
you know, an old paintbrush old toothbrush, something like that
7:39
just to kind of get in all the little nooks and crannies and
7:42
it's usually not too hard. You said that you had an old
7:45
crappy you know, low-end grinder, right?
7:48
Well it's not oil but it's just it feels like the way that it's
7:51
designed it's functional and does a great job grinding but
7:56
maybe doesn't worry so much about the cleanliness or about
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making it easy to get in and clean it.
8:00
So I can pull out the top part of the bear set.
8:03
Up and clean that or I can take the hopper off and I can clean
8:06
that separately. What there's always grinds that
8:09
gets stuck kind of on the interior of the system that I
8:12
really can't get to totally fit. Because I think it was just
8:15
designed to be, you know all in all enclosed.
8:18
Totally fair. And you know, one of the nice
8:20
thing is I tap on it, sorry to interrupt but yeah, but if I tap
8:25
on it, you know, with my finger, those grinds will start dropping
8:27
out underneath. So I know they're in there,
8:30
right? So you know, the nice thing
8:32
about those Those Lauren Grinders that they are actually
8:35
pretty easy, usually to open up and take the topper off, and
8:38
that's that's the main step. That makes it really easy.
8:41
And then from there, you know, the best thing to do is just to
8:43
stick vacuum cleaner to bond there.
8:46
You know, if you have a shop that great, but if not most
8:49
vacuum cleaners, you can just take the tube and, you know, and
8:53
just suck out some of those grounds.
8:55
When you're doing that. You know, you want to be careful
8:56
to make sure there aren't any small pieces little springs or
8:59
screws or anything that are loose.
9:01
That could potentially be vacuumed in.
9:03
Have you taken our brush or paper towel or rag?
9:06
Any kind of loosen up, all the stuff that you can in there and
9:10
then you just hit it with the vacuum real quick.
9:13
You'll get a lot of stuff out of there and clean up a lot of it.
9:16
Not everybody that wants to Tinker that much.
9:18
Not everybody is like, this isn't, you know, worth it for
9:21
me. And then just as far as like
9:23
day-to-day stuff, you know, you might be worried that if you
9:26
grind coffee one day the next day, you know, there's coffee
9:30
grounds, stuck in the grinder. So am I serving?
9:33
Being myself coffee that I ground yesterday today and
9:38
there's a good chance that you are especially with espresso
9:41
Grinders, the traditional design of espresso Grinders have a lot
9:45
of, we called retention coffee grounds, to get retained between
9:51
the grinding Burrs and the shoot that they come out of the spout.
9:56
And those coffee grounds that are retained.
9:57
The retention get old and stale and they don't taste as good as
10:02
delicious fresh. Coffee, which is the whole point
10:04
of owning of verteron. And so to get rid of that, what
10:08
you can do is you can kind of person beans you take a pinch
10:12
for a handful of beans, and you grind it in there.
10:14
So you have fresh grounds being retained and obviously this is
10:18
not ideal. You're wasting coffee, just to
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ensure that you have freshly ground coffee but with a lot of
10:25
grinder designs that's really your only option, I there are a
10:30
lot of cool Grinders out now that socialize and having zero
10:35
or near zero retention and they're especially useful for
10:39
what we call single dosing. When you're weighing at your
10:42
beans and then grinding, those beans immediately, as opposed to
10:46
filling a hopper full of beans and grinding for 5 seconds
10:50
because you know that 10 grams grind in five seconds or
10:54
whatever, whatever the equivalency is.
10:57
Single dosing has become much more popular.
10:59
As we are all more aware of the importance of accuracy in
11:06
weighing out our grounds and precision and being consistent
11:10
with that. So, getting rid of that
11:13
retention. Yes, you can, you can waste some
11:15
coffee to get rid of that retention.
11:16
If your grinder is designed that way, which it probably is, but
11:20
if you don't want to open up your coffee grinder, to give it
11:22
a deep clean, every now and then, you can still do some good
11:25
in terms of cleaning it and making Sure that no, you know,
11:28
oils are building up and nothing to gross is getting in there and
11:32
you can throw a cleaning product in there.
11:35
They make, they make grinds is as a brand of a cleaning
11:38
product. Gri ND Z by the brand, her
11:41
necks, I think. And if you throw grinds in your
11:45
grinder and grind it, it will help clean off The Cutting Edge
11:49
of the, the Burrs, and kind of push through some stuff and
11:53
loosen loosen up. Anything that might be kind of
11:55
sticking to the inside of the grinder.
11:57
ER and then of course, when you're done, putting the grinds
11:59
in there, you have to put some Purge beans in there.
12:02
So you're not drinking the grinds cleaner product just to
12:08
clarify because I might not have known this had I not known you.
12:12
Purge beans are just like, you're literally throw away
12:14
beans that you throw in. They might be good beans.
12:17
But their beans, you're putting into the grinder and running
12:19
them through and throwing them away because they're just kind
12:22
of pulling whatever's in there. We're with, they're pushing
12:25
through that, that retention, they're pushing pushing Anything
12:27
that would be stuck in that grinder through and replacing it
12:31
with these Purge beans that have become Purge grounds.
12:34
So you know that there's something halfway decent in
12:37
there instead of cleaner and then some people and I've never
12:40
actually done this. But I've definitely heard of it
12:42
often enough that I'm sure it's viable is to just clean your
12:46
grinder by throwing rice in there and the grind rice as
12:49
opposed to an actual cleaning product and that Rice will.
12:53
And I assume I assume you mean dried rice, not cook rice.
12:57
Yes. Yes, dried rice is not cooked
12:59
rice clarify. Well, that's a good idea.
13:01
I mean, you don't want anyone comment on the show.
13:03
Be like, I don't know why it's all steamy in there and it's not
13:09
grinding coffee anymore. Yeah, definitely dry rolls.
13:13
Yeah, I don't worry about people calling in to complain that much
13:16
because I've listed your phone number at the shop as the show's
13:19
number You know, that explains some very interesting phone
13:23
calls. I've gone, I won't go into more
13:26
detail on that, but they've been interesting.
13:32
Okay, so throwing rice, dry rice into the grinder, is another
13:35
option. Yeah, suppose, I can't say, I've
13:39
actually tried it myself, but I do assume that it works.
13:44
So after you're done, cleaning your grinder with grinds or rice
13:50
or a few, vacuumed it out and brushed it out and all that
13:54
you're Grinders should be in pretty good shape.
13:56
That being said, every now and then, we do need to maintain the
13:59
grinder by replacing the birds, most people in those Grinders.
14:03
They don't need to replace the birds more than ever, you know,
14:06
Fair number of years and sometimes it's actually even
14:10
more worthwhile to replace the grinder than the burrs.
14:14
I don't love replacing the grinder instead of the Burrs
14:16
because that's wasteful and I don't like to waste things like
14:20
that and create more electronic waste, but it is an option for
14:23
people. If you've really cheaped out on
14:25
the grinder and it might be a good excuse to upgrade your
14:27
grinder. If you feel like the birds have
14:30
worn out due to age, but if you have a halfway decent grinder,
14:34
it's usually very easy to get replacement Burrs and it's not
14:36
that hard. If you're already opening up the
14:38
grinder to clean the Brewers, it's just another couple screws
14:42
to remove the Burrs from You know what you've opened up
14:45
already and to just screw in some new burgers.
14:49
I think the hardest thing about that, the hardest thing about
14:52
that process is like remembering to keep the manual and where you
14:56
put it in like some random drawer somewhere, so you can
14:59
guess look up what screws to remove?
15:02
Well, thankfully you know YouTube is full of things like
15:04
that and the internet has full is full of things like that.
15:08
There's some brands of grinder that are actually really
15:10
excellent. For things like that Barraza is
15:12
very well known for making Grinders that are user-friendly
15:18
in terms of of modifications repairs and replacing parts and
15:24
they will actually help you do it.
15:26
Whereas most manufacturers say, oh you open-loop you void the
15:29
warranty of all the companies out there brats actually, will
15:34
will help you open it up and fix stuff.
15:37
They have a whole model that says repair, don't replace.
15:40
And while a lot of their Grinders are not necessarily my
15:42
favorites on the market that had such value that I really respect
15:48
them as a any and their, and their products.
15:50
Therefore, and I've used, I've used a number of them, but we've
15:53
got our grinder pretty clean. We've even touched on
15:55
potentially replacing the Burrs. So, now we got to look at the
15:58
next stage in the process, which is your Brewer, and whether
16:01
using a drip coffee maker or a pour-over maker, there's some
16:06
things that are the same and some things that are different.
16:09
So a lot of the time, if you have like a glass coffee pot,
16:12
You'll see at the bottom of the pot starts to get kind of little
16:15
brownish and some people, you know, will scrub and scrub away
16:19
at that and it won't come off kind of like at the bottom of
16:22
your mug, but there are some products that I should take that
16:25
off really easily as well. You know, some people are used
16:29
to cleaning things with vinegar and vinegar as an acid with a
16:35
low ph is going to be great at cleaning some things off.
16:39
But one of the things that's really terrible at cleaning off,
16:41
is that coffee? Be residue because what you
16:44
really want for cleaning off, that coffee residue is an
16:46
alkaline as a base. And so the most of the popular
16:50
cleaning products out there for cleaning off, coffee residue
16:54
like that are based on sodium carbonate.
16:59
Sodium carbonate is basically a white powder that can, you know,
17:03
make effective cleaning solution when you add some hot water to
17:07
it, and you put, you know, a tablespoon or two of that and
17:10
kind of anything and add some Boiling water and let it sit for
17:14
a little while, then when you empty that, and, and scrub it
17:18
with soap and water, all that brown stuff is gone.
17:21
If you try it on your crusty old coffee mug, that you then leave
17:26
it in the truck for, you know, a couple of years.
17:29
It'll make it look brand new and it's really incredible and it
17:31
works really well. As a hack, you can use sodium,
17:35
bicarbonate. You can use baking soda but it's
17:39
definitely not as effective. You know, you might have to do a
17:43
couple runs on it with with baking soda or use hot water in
17:46
the baking soda and kind of let it soak for a little bit and
17:48
scrub it out and try it again. But these products that are
17:52
sodium, carbonate are very accessible.
17:55
They're very reasonably priced for some reason, every coffee
17:59
shop. I've worked at the management,
18:01
always tells us how expensive this stuff is.
18:04
And now that I've been running a coffee shop for five years, it's
18:07
not that expensive. Especially the user equipment.
18:10
Clanging. I don't know why this has been
18:12
handed down to me for so many years, but everybody's stuff
18:15
ever talk to us at the same thing.
18:17
This does not that expensive and it's, there's a ton of brands of
18:20
it out there. There's Joe glow, there's
18:21
cathedra, there's earn acts. There's all these different
18:24
brands of it, they're all competing with each other.
18:26
It's all basically one atom away from being baking soda, which
18:31
everyone has in their fridge anyway.
18:34
So it's really clean. Your coffee stuff is all I'm
18:37
saying, clean your coffee stuff, please.
18:38
He's could it's not that hard, but there's one other aspect of
18:41
coffee equipment cleanliness that really should be touched on
18:44
and that is scale buildup. The scale buildup is really
18:48
important for mainly for espresso machines, but really,
18:51
for any kind of drift machine. And even for a kettle, if you're
18:55
doing pour overs at home, our water in San Diego, is very
19:00
hard. And when we say hard water, it
19:03
means as a lot of minerals in it.
19:04
And the mineral, we're really worried most about is, is To and
19:10
calcium. When you have hot boiling hot
19:13
water. Calcium likes to precipitate out
19:15
of the water and stick onto, you know, some metal nearby, some
19:19
steel nearby and it forms this kind of white crusty substance
19:24
that we call scale buildup and it's really just calcium lime
19:27
deposits. And you can imagine that in a
19:31
small metal tube, that might be running through your coffee
19:36
brewer or your espresso machine to bring.
19:38
Boiling water from point. A to point B to get it closer to
19:41
your coffee to brew your coffee. As that scale.
19:45
Buildup occurs, is that calcium gets deposited on the walls of
19:48
this thin steel tube, the diameter of the tube gets
19:52
smaller and smaller and eventually gets clogged and will
19:55
no longer allow water to flow to your coffee, which means your
19:59
coffee machine is broken. So if you don't do this kind of
20:02
preventive maintenance, cleaning on your coffee brewer,
20:05
especially your espresso machine, Your coffee maker will
20:09
break and then you have to buy a new one because at a certain
20:12
point scale buildup will destroy the machine, but if you get to
20:16
it early enough, you won't need to totally replace your machine.
20:20
And the best way to handle it is to of course, use filtered water
20:24
first so that you have less scale buildup or no scale
20:27
buildup, but depending on the hardness of your water and your
20:30
type of filtration you might not be removing all of the calcium
20:35
from the water and in a place like San No, it's actually
20:38
really hard to remove all the calcium from the water.
20:41
The only really ways to do it is to use reverse osmosis which is
20:45
very wasteful. And then you're going to remove
20:48
enough other minerals from the water that your coffee won't
20:51
taste as good. Unless you put some minerals
20:53
back into the water. That's an interesting statement,
20:56
just to say that one you and I can have the exact same coffee
21:01
being exact same grinder process, everything.
21:04
But if you use water from where you're located and I'm using
21:06
water from where I'm located, it might, it would there would be
21:09
differences in the in the final product because of that water, I
21:14
wanted to touch on two things. First hard water is also a
21:19
fantastic old Christian Slater movie in which he fights the
21:22
rain. So check that out.
21:24
Wow, I'm in school, and it's mostly him running around in the
21:29
rain in a white T-shirt. I think a lot if I recall, but
21:33
also, we're talking about the brewing and, and scale buildup
21:36
in particular because I have that problem with my Kettle at
21:39
home. Just seems like I can never
21:41
really get it clean. Are there are there materials of
21:45
Brewer or Kettle or whatever that scale less if that makes
21:51
sense. So, like glass versus stainless
21:54
steel, like I have a Amos steel, French Press, which I bought
21:58
because I kept breaking the glass ones because I'm three
22:01
dimensional but I forget him three-dimensional often times.
22:07
But like for example like I have a REO V60 you know Brewer that
22:11
doesn't seem to scale but it could just because it's white
22:14
and I can't see the scale as much.
22:16
But are there different? Does it, the scaling impact all
22:19
materials kind of similarly or can I avoid that or prevent it
22:23
to some extent simply by choosing I'm a different
22:26
material for my Brewing product that makes sense.
22:30
You know, students are if you're going to be heating up water,
22:32
there's going to be materials in the device.
22:36
You're using the heat up the water that are going to acquire
22:38
scale buildup. So as far as I'm aware of,
22:42
there's no real way to totally avoid it, other than by, you
22:45
know, cleaning up your water in the first place and, you know,
22:48
beyond just scale buildup. I mean, cleaning up your water
22:51
in the first place is gonna make a better cup of coffee.
22:55
So, So you know much as it might be nice to say, oh can I just
22:58
short cut this whole thing and just have something?
23:01
It doesn't have scale buildup. Well you it's good.
23:04
It's a good reason to pay attention to the water in the
23:06
first place. If you weren't doing it already,
23:09
I am guilty of having made my coffee with tap water for many
23:12
years because I sometimes, I'm lazy and I said, you know what,
23:17
I'll get used to the taste and I did and, you know, my coffee
23:21
does taste better. Now that I don't do that.
23:24
Mind blown. Honestly, I just assumed you
23:28
were pouring bottles of Fuji water into your Kettle every
23:31
morning. I just assumed that was kind of
23:33
the what was happening over there.
23:35
You know, that's the second time.
23:36
Fuji water has come up in 48 hours for me.
23:39
And is that even still a thing? I have not seen one of those
23:42
little square bottles and forever.
23:44
I have no idea. I can't honestly say that I
23:46
bought a bottle of water in a long, long time.
23:51
You know, that was always kind of like stopped using body.
23:54
Well water and you'll save the environment, happy Earth Day, by
23:57
the way, everyone was recently and it feels like, I don't know.
24:01
Anyone who's bought a bottle of water in like a decade and yet
24:05
all of our problems are similarly the same.
24:07
It almost feels like we've just kind of gone.
24:09
The other way, we don't make bottles of water anymore, but
24:12
there's a good Jillian, everybody.
24:14
Like I have two or three, like, reusable water bottles and it
24:19
feels like every time I go to the store, I kind of want to buy
24:21
another. Just feel like every place that
24:25
Still two or three is much better than you know hundreds
24:27
and hundreds of year but I don't know who still is buying bottled
24:32
water. I guess emergencies or places.
24:34
Where the water isn't safe? I'm not sure.
24:38
I think you probably live in a very pleasant bubble where
24:41
you're just not encountering the people that are buying, all
24:43
those bottles of water. I'm pretty sure it's still a big
24:45
thing. I do live in a bubble and I do
24:49
think that it is that is very true.
24:51
Like I just it's not something that's been part of my life for
24:53
a long time. And buying bottled water.
24:56
That is I just wouldn't think to do it, but I'm also not
25:00
necessarily out in places where bottled water is readily
25:06
available. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's funny
25:09
how you can kind of find your way into your own, your own
25:11
little little bubble like that. But, yeah, I'm pretty sure, I'm
25:14
pretty sure there's definitely lots of people still doing lots
25:16
of disposable bottled water, which is, you know, are you
25:19
pretty sad? But you know what's fun is, when
25:22
you're looking at sources of water, Either you can buy, you
25:26
can also look up a lot of their mineral content because they
25:29
have to publish that data somewhere.
25:31
Most of the time there are certain Waters that are known to
25:34
be to be better or worse for coffee brewing, either on the
25:38
equipment and or on the taste and or both.
25:41
So, I had a friend who got an espresso machine in town here, a
25:45
number of years ago. And he specialized in water
25:48
chemistry actually well more, the physics of water but Amount
25:52
of hydro Dynamics. Assist, dr.
25:55
Demuth. But, you know, he did research
25:59
to figure out which brand and particular line of bottled water
26:04
would be ideal for his espresso machine both for Taste and for
26:09
equipment sake. But, you know, that's probably
26:12
enough of attention on water quality for the topic, which was
26:15
cleaning because we never talked about how to clean that scale
26:18
off. Oh yeah.
26:19
That's right. And that is actually doable.
26:22
Able. And it's not necessarily that
26:24
hard for an espresso machine, it can be a little tricky depending
26:28
on your espresso machine and generally unless your espresso
26:32
machine has, you know, a specific recipe for how to do
26:37
this at home yourself. And that would be something
26:40
where you'd want to find that manual hidden in that drawer
26:42
somewhere or speak to a representative from the company.
26:46
Generally, if you wanted to descale your espresso machine,
26:49
it's best to have a professional do it because a lot of Time.
26:52
It requires removing the boiler from the espresso machine to
26:56
kind of make sure you get all this stuff off.
26:59
But in more simple terms when you're looking at like your
27:02
kettle that's getting all that scale buildup around the edge,
27:05
we talked about how acids are really good at cleaning some
27:07
things and we use a base and alkaline to clean a lot of this
27:12
coffee residue. Well, one thing that acids are
27:14
pretty good at cleaning is scale buildup.
27:17
And so, you know, simple white vinegar or usually citric acid
27:21
is what's used And usually make a 20% citric acid solution,
27:25
citric acid is very easy to find and buy, you know, you can just
27:28
get them on the internet somewhere or and sometimes you
27:31
can find it in a cleaning, I'll cleaning product dial, but you
27:35
can get it in like a white powder and you add it to hot
27:38
water and you kind of mix it to make a solution and it's
27:40
non-toxic, you know, there's citric acid and all kinds of
27:43
food that we obviously not at the levels of, you know, acidity
27:47
that we use as a cleaning product but you can make it into
27:50
this, you know, a set of cleaning products.
27:53
And you kind of basically soak your product in it and that will
27:57
help the scale separate from the metal that it's attached to.
28:01
And the problem with that is that it doesn't really break
28:05
down the scale, much beyond that.
28:08
So if you let your scale buildup you let that calcium build up a
28:12
lot. And then you try to descale you
28:15
have these large chunks of floating calcium that can still
28:20
Lodge and wedge in. Into tight spaces inside the
28:25
plumbing of your coffee equipment, and it's very
28:28
difficult to break them down from that.
28:30
And so, you often will have to disassemble the machine and, you
28:33
know, poked away at these little tubes and basically, you know,
28:38
they say what is it an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
28:41
cure or something like that. It's definitely better to be
28:44
discounting you know or using good water or both than it is to
28:49
be. Oh crap.
28:50
I have a nice cool down completely.
28:52
I'd better go ahead and do that. You might be getting yourself
28:55
into trouble. If you have waited too long, but
28:58
generally do scaling is pretty easy.
29:00
If you're just doing something like a kettle, even a coffee
29:03
brewer. You can be scale pretty easily.
29:04
You just kind of put that citric acid solution in the water,
29:08
reservoir of your coffee brewer. You brew it through and then you
29:13
brew through a bunch more water. And and then to verify that all
29:16
the citric acid is gone after you brewed through, you know, a
29:19
couple batches of water, you can literally just taste the Water
29:22
after it's done Brewing through and see if it tastes sour at all
29:25
with water tastes sour and all, you still have a little bit of
29:28
citric acid residue in there and you just got to keep running
29:30
water through until it removes all the citric acid from from
29:34
your, from your Brewer. And while you're doing that, all
29:37
that scale, that you've kind of shaken loose will be brewed
29:40
through as well. So if you do that to your coffee
29:43
brewer once a year, once every six months, depending on, you
29:45
know, where what kind of water you're using, you can ensure a
29:49
really long life out of your coffee brewer.
29:51
And of course, Sure that it's a acceptable with the
29:54
manufacturers tolerances or whatever, but there should be no
29:57
reason that a coffee brewer, can't handle some.
29:59
Some citric acid solution going through it to remove that scale.
30:03
So, yeah. Those are, those are methods of
30:05
cleaning, you've got, you know, your grinder, your coffee
30:09
residue, and then you've got your scale buildup.
30:12
And I can avoid all of this work.
30:14
If I just go to the local coffee roaster and buy a cup of coffee,
30:18
well, and hopefully they're doing it.
30:22
Hopefully, hopefully they are. I'm doing some math in my head.
30:28
How much would it cost me to buy coffee everyday at a roaster
30:31
versus buy coffee for home? And then also, the equipment, I
30:36
think over time I'd probably spend a little more at the
30:38
coffee shop because I like to, I like to tip but still certainly
30:44
worth worth thinking about. It's really not that much.
30:50
I think you underestimate the links that I will go to
30:54
procrastinate and avoid something.
30:57
Oh, I'm I'm, I'm the winner and that Erica, you know, if my desk
31:05
looks like this, but my coffee equipment is clean and it is
31:08
pretty clean. Then you know that you can do it
31:11
because if the guy who owns this desk, which I'm not going to
31:14
show you right now. But if the guy wants this desk
31:16
and keep us a copy of government clean, You can do it.
31:18
I swear, I think the last time I was at your house was, I mean
31:23
pre-pandemic for sure but maybe even a year or two before that.
31:28
Well, the whole house look like that.
31:30
Yeah. I remember not because it was
31:32
like dirty but because there was just there was, I think 12
31:36
bicycles in the living room and they were like surrounding a
31:40
couch. So if you sat on the couch,
31:41
there'd be a bike behind you on both sides and the leaned up on
31:44
the table in front of you. It was either bikes Science
31:48
fiction, books coffee equipment. There just was no room and I
31:53
remember that vividly. It's gotten better.
31:57
There are a lot of bikes. You should you should send some
32:02
of those bikes. My way I could use a new bike.
32:05
We did this thing last week where we got to know you a
32:08
little better, and I'd like to continue that Trend.
32:11
Rapid-fire answer of questions? Yes, my theme this week is food.
32:18
So I'm gonna throw these out. You just don't think about it.
32:22
Just answer. Ready.
32:26
I guess so. Lay it on me.
32:27
All right, taco or burrito burrito.
32:31
Salsa are Gua. Gua pizza or pasta pizza, cereal
32:38
or oatmeal, Pizza, favorite former employee.
32:42
That's on this video, chat with you.
32:54
We're just talking about bicycles and you just had the
33:01
like fifth, I think annual less a pandemic year hypocrite, which
33:08
is a bike ride up and down a nearby.
33:10
I'm going to call it a mountain, but it's a Hill Called Mount
33:13
Soledad through a bunch of different beautiful routes,
33:16
overlooking the ocean and through Pacific Beach, and La
33:20
Jolla. And I'm wondering how how and
33:24
why Why are bicycles kind of important to you and and to the,
33:28
you know, that so much so that you integrated them into the
33:31
brand of your company and which is really a lot of Who You Are.
33:36
well, you know, that's I'll try to be concise, you know, I don't
33:43
drive and I'm not, you know, totally opposed to driving
33:47
necessarily I you know, kind of didn't get around to it and then
33:54
by the time I did I had kind of formed some opinions about it
33:57
that You know, I just thought it would be a good opportunity to
34:03
have discussions like this with people, because it's sort of a
34:07
talking point, right? Like, oh, wow, you're almost 40
34:10
and you don't drive and a lot of it.
34:12
You know, is that I think that we take driving for granted and,
34:19
you know, the use of these vehicles which are very powerful
34:24
potent things that, you know, I think this is wonderful that we
34:27
have that empowerment for For individuals, I think we really
34:30
take it for granted and we take it for granted and the safety
34:34
aspect would take it for granted and the environmental aspect but
34:38
at the end of the day we just take it for granted.
34:40
And you know the question I usually pose people is when
34:43
you're out driving you know from point A to point B, you know, in
34:47
your average daily amount of driving Do you feel like every
34:53
other driver that you've seen on the road during your average
34:56
daily driving? You feel like every other person
34:59
that you've seen driving deserves to have their drivers
35:02
license and be able to drive every day.
35:06
And I've never found anyone who said said, yes.
35:10
And so, you know, it started kind of that way, which was, you
35:14
know, that you don't really hear about people failing their
35:17
driving test and never being able to drive like.
35:19
But at the same time, there are probably more people.
35:24
That do drive, that probably shouldn't be allowed to drive
35:27
all the time, then there than there are right.
35:29
So, It's kind of a thing that I think I want people to think
35:35
about more is the privilege of being able to drive and the
35:41
bicycle for me was this wonderful privilege that.
35:47
The stakes were a lot lower and the the gains were a lot higher.
35:52
And what's very cool is that as I've grown and gotten older, you
35:56
know, still doing this, this this thing I've learned so much
35:59
more about what the bicycle can be and can do for people all
36:03
over the world. So here I am, you know, young
36:06
and I don't have a driver. I'm not a dumb drivers.
36:09
I'm not driving and I'm walking everywhere and I love walking
36:13
and it's great for me and kind of keeps me.
36:17
In my tight little neighborhood and I can use public
36:20
transportation. I can go places and you know, do
36:23
what I need to do and especially nowadays, you know, like Lyft
36:27
and Uber. It's like it's very not limiting
36:29
at all but you know it didn't really feel like I was that
36:32
restricted and it felt like like I kind of have this this good
36:35
life going on and then I got introduced to cycling.
36:39
And it's funny because obviously I'd ridden a bike you know when
36:42
I was a kid a little bit but I never really fell in love with
36:45
it as a kid for who knows what reason because a lot of my
36:49
friends nowadays I've been biking since they were little
36:51
kids and I really just didn't like much until I was you know
36:54
in my mid-20s but as I started by, can I sort of discovered
36:57
this, you know ability to range further under my own power to
37:02
carry my own stuff and you know, to engage socially with people
37:08
in this way. And it just it was kind of like
37:11
in every way I was winning, you know, I was getting this
37:13
exercise. I was getting outside.
37:16
I was having fun. Cool stories about Adventures.
37:19
I was going on I was you know it just really it was very
37:24
life-changing for me to fall in love with cycling and it also
37:28
helped me quit smoking cigarettes.
37:30
I was a big cigarette smoker when I first started getting
37:32
into cycling. So I bought myself a new bike
37:36
that I was waiting on the arrival of his This week lead
37:40
time and I was so excited about the bike for that first week I
37:44
kept checking online and looking at it I'm so excited about the
37:48
day it was going to arrive, you know, it kept, I kept checking
37:51
the arrival date, it was same every time and I was so excited
37:55
about that day that I decided. You know, what if I choose that
37:59
day to quit smoking cigarettes, I'll be excited about the day to
38:03
quit smoking cigarettes rather than dreading it.
38:06
And and that's how that's how I quit.
38:08
Smoking. Cigarettes was being excited,
38:10
about getting a new bike and I'll tell you, it's it's a lot
38:14
easier to bike long distances. When you're not a heavy
38:17
cigarette smoke murmur. It's also easier to afford new
38:22
bicycles when you're not a cigarette smoker.
38:24
Yes. Yes.
38:25
That is definitely been a nice benefit.
38:28
That's definitely, not a cheap habit.
38:30
Well, I know that cycling is something.
38:33
That you're passionate about and there's a great community of
38:37
cyclists. You come to your shop and it's
38:39
actually how you and I met. So I certainly appreciate
38:41
cycling as well. Yeah and I appreciate that you
38:45
were willing to share a little bit more about about your life
38:48
and let us get to know you a little bit better.
38:50
It only took yeah. 200 episodes. How many did I say last week?
38:56
Yeah I think we're on 200. Pretty sure you can tell.
38:58
How much more nervous I am to talk about myself and that Fee.
39:04
Well, I'm always pushing your boundaries Chris but I do
39:07
appreciate the coffee knowledge as well.
39:09
And I think you for coming back and helping us get coffee
39:12
smarter. I know we're going to do it at
39:14
least one more time this season, and I'm really looking forward
39:16
to it. And thanks for being here and
39:18
I'll see you soon about. Thank you to recap, not cleaning
39:31
your coffee brewing and grinding.
39:33
Equipment can put you at risk of drinking unnecessarily.
39:36
Bad Coffee, still coffee grounds, caught in the grinder,
39:40
or leftover oils from previous Brews contained.
39:43
The coffee that you're planning on drinking today.
39:46
Luckily, with some very chill effort.
39:48
Like, purging your grinder shoot with fresh beans, or using a
39:52
cleaning product, like grinds or rice for those who are like me
39:56
looking for alternative cleaning options can make a huge
39:59
difference. I learned today that you need a
40:01
base or an alkaline chemical like sodium carbonate and not an
40:05
acid like vinegar. If you want to clean coffee
40:08
stains from your mug or Brewer, another option is sodium
40:11
bicarbonate or baking soda with hot water.
40:14
When you're brewing your coffee, keep in mind that the mineral
40:18
content in the water will impact the flavor that ends up in your
40:21
mug. So if you decide to use filtered
40:23
water, one morning, and tap water, the next your coffee
40:27
might taste differently, even if you do everything else.
40:30
Exactly the same. I also learned that Chris does
40:33
not as I expected dump. Fancy bottled waters into his
40:37
cattle every morning, he sticks with water from the tap.
40:40
Mostly I do too, although sometimes I up my game with
40:44
water from the Brita filter in our refrigerator.
40:46
And I, for one am glad that Chris doesn't use bottled water
40:49
for more than just coffee reasons.
40:52
Based on recent studies only about five to six percent of the
40:56
46 million tons of plastic discarded in the United States
40:59
annually gets recycled. That's 46 million tons every
41:04
single year. Bottled water makes up a decent
41:07
chunk of that. I was way way wrong about people
41:10
not drinking it anymore. Apparently bottled water sales
41:13
have been going up every year since basically, since the day,
41:16
they were introduced more than 60 million empty bottles of
41:20
water are thrown away worldwide. Every day, every day that is
41:26
insane more than 35 billion bottles of water were thrown
41:30
away just in the United States in 2020.
41:33
So, please skip the bottled water.
41:36
Finally, that movie, I mentioned with Christian Slater was called
41:39
hard rain, not hard water. And it also starred Morgan
41:43
Freeman. Dennis Quaid and Minnie Driver.
41:45
I'm going to post the trailer in the newsletter on roast
41:48
westcoast.com because I believe that it might be a reflection of
41:51
art in its purest form. If you have questions that you'd
41:56
like answered on a future coffee smarter episode, please send
41:59
them to the show on Instagram at roast West Coast and if you want
42:04
to see what coffee is Chris's serving at, Fe cycle head to
42:07
Coffee, cycle roasting.com, or follow the shop on Instagram at
42:11
Coffee cycle. Roasting Chris will be back next
42:14
week to tackle Cowboy Coffee, and to make some suggestions for
42:19
improving your coffee experience at the campsite this summer.
42:23
And later this season series simran, Khalsa of lofty coffee
42:26
Jared, Hales of Hosea, coffee source, and Ryan.
42:29
Sullivan of moisture coffee will be joining the show as coffee
42:32
smarter experts. Later this week, I'll drop the
42:35
third interview of the season with Ian, Nelson of Doma,
42:38
coffee-based up in Post Falls Idaho.
42:41
And if you missed it, go back and listen to the last episode
42:44
with Carol. And Eric Blanche, a of talking
42:46
Crow, Coffee Roasters, talking Crow features decaf coffee as
42:50
their primary offering. And on that show, we get into
42:53
the reasons why you can find that episode where ever you
42:57
listen to this show or you can stream it at roast westcoast.com
43:01
and paid subscribers. Can check out the new column,
43:03
the beans. No.
43:04
Which details? What?
43:05
And where I'm drinking coffee. Last week, I featured the
43:08
experience at communal coffee in Oceanside, California.
43:12
Thank you for listening to the show today and thanks to my
43:15
industry Partners. Many of whom will be making many
43:18
more guest appearances on this show in the near future ignite
43:21
Coffee Company. Most your coffee company
43:24
steady-state coffee, roasting coffee cycle, roasting Camp
43:27
Coffee Company. First light whiskey, zoom bar,
43:30
Coffee and Tea Cafe litter. Maria coffee.
43:34
And Cape Horn coffee importers this episode of the roast West
43:38
Coast coffee. Podcast is was has been written
43:42
produced and recorded by me Ryan Walt.
43:45
I hope this show is found you happy healthy and with at least
43:48
enough sanity and coffee to make it through the day.
43:52
And please always tip your Baristas and be sure to drink
43:56
good coffee. Hey there, if you liked this
44:27
episode of the roast West Coast coffee podcast, and you want
44:31
more and more of this coffee content, please consider buying
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44:40
That'd be really cool and with enough subscribers, like you
44:44
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44:47
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44:50
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44:53
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44:56
The tip. Thanks for listening, everyone.
44:59
Hey everyone. If you like the roast West Coast
45:02
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