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S6:E18 - Coffee Smarter: Water! Recap Episode · Coffee People Podcast

0:10
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to season 6, episode. 18
0:13
of the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:17
I'm Ryan Walt. And this is the show where I
0:19
bring you the stories of coffee professionals entrepreneurship
0:23
and coffee education. Today I'm airing, a special
0:26
coffee, smarter recap episode. I'm actually out of town acting.
0:30
As a guest Barista at Trail Fest, a San Diego mountain,
0:33
biking Association, fundraiser and camp out here in Southern
0:36
California. I had planned on just taking a
0:39
week off from the show. We're near the end of the season
0:42
and frankly, a break sounded pretty good to me.
0:44
But while I was hosting an event last weekend, a listener came up
0:47
and said, I wish you would do a show about water, which got me a
0:52
little confused because I was pretty sure that I had.
0:56
I came home, check the archives. And you know what?
0:58
I was right. We've done.
1:00
To water heavy episodes on this show.
1:02
Including the second coffee smarter session ever way.
1:05
Back in season one. And I know that was a long time
1:08
ago and we have new listeners now and so much content to work
1:12
through the archives. So instead of taking the week
1:14
off completely, I cut together this episode featuring
1:17
conversations, with both Chris O'Brien of coffee cycle,
1:21
roasting and series simran Khalsa of lofty coffee in the
1:25
First with Chris, we cover some very basic topics like how hot
1:29
water should be. Be what ratio of water to coffee
1:31
should we use and so on in the second with Siri we go deeper
1:36
into what is happening in the coffee blooming phase of Brewing
1:39
which is the moment when the water and coffee interact for
1:41
the very first time, then we go a little bit more in-depth in,
1:45
what the specialty coffee Association.
1:47
Says, about water for coffee, these conversations will sound a
1:51
bit different from each other and probably, from this
1:53
recording right now. For the first, I wasn't
1:55
recording in the closet Studio back then, and I certainly
1:59
wasn't as Probably in podcast smart as I am now, or at least I
2:03
am aspiring to be now. But what, our coffee smarter
2:07
experts are sharing is still great information.
2:11
And I hope you enjoyed this coffee smarter session with
2:14
coffee expert, series, simran Khalsa, executive, director of
2:17
lofty, coffee company, and Chris O'Brien, founder and head
2:21
roaster of coffee cycle. Roasting
2:43
Chris, welcome back to Rose West Coast and I'm excited and
2:46
shocked that you came back. I am to honestly I'm a little
2:50
shocked but I just I just couldn't help myself.
2:53
I had to I had to help educate You about coffee.
2:56
It was like a moral imperative. I feel like you saw what a lost
3:00
cause I was on the first one and you thought this will be the
3:02
thing that gets me some like Good Karma points for the week.
3:06
Ryan, I've known you were a lost cause for a long time.
3:10
Moving on this week, I want to ask you three, things about
3:14
water, because water is water is essential to everything.
3:18
But especially to coffee when we're brewing coffee, in the
3:21
morning, does the ratio of water to Coffee Beans matter.
3:25
The length that the beans sit in that water matter.
3:29
And is there a rule about how hot that water should be?
3:32
Well, this is a great set of questions because as you pointed
3:35
out, water is most of what we're drinking.
3:38
When we drink coffee, that being said, drink water with your
3:41
coffee, too, because you do need to stay hydrated and coffee and
3:46
alone will not do it. But yes, water is the most
3:49
important thing other than coffee that you're putting into
3:52
the drink. So, to answer your questions,
3:55
It's the ratio of water to coffee beans, doesn't matter?
3:59
Absolutely. There are organizations out
4:03
there that do nothing but coffee, and the main one that we
4:06
talked about in the coffee business, is the specialty
4:09
coffee Association. Specialty coffee Association,
4:12
has a specific ratio of coffee to water that they say is ideal.
4:18
That ratio is 16 to 116 grams of water for every 1 G of coffee
4:24
beans. Most people at home, probably
4:26
aren't weighing their water, or weighing their coffee, maybe
4:29
they are. That's great.
4:30
People, do it with tablespoons, tea, spoons, cups, courts,
4:35
whatever it is, the lines on your coffee maker.
4:39
But yes, basically, you don't have to be the sca 12:44,
4:43
perfect. I even prefer my coffee often at
4:47
a 15 21 2016, 21, but basically find a ratio that you like and
4:52
stick with it as with anything only.
4:55
Change one variable at a time. So if you're changing your
4:58
ratio, don't mess with your length of Brewing time or
5:03
temperature of water, which were the other two questions you ask
5:06
me so ratio, does it matter? Yes.
5:09
Is there a perfect ideal ratio? SCA says, yes and it's 12:44.
5:15
But really what matters most is? Do you like it?
5:17
If you do stick to that ratio and I'll say, I'll just jump in
5:21
and say that when you talk about most people maybe not measuring
5:24
at home, I never measured. Home until I learned that I
5:27
bought like a ten dollar kitchen scale off at Amazon which kind
5:30
of felt guilty about because I'd rather go to the local hardware
5:33
store, but we're in a pandemic. So I ordered it and I measured
5:36
basically once and just made some little marks, Michael my
5:40
different on my French press and on my thing.
5:42
And so now I just dump it into that so I know what I'm doing.
5:45
I love it. Sounds great.
5:47
Yeah, I would I would eyeball it back before I owned a scale.
5:50
I'd look at the level of your French Press was what I used to
5:52
use and I'd say okay, if I fill it up the Depth of my thumb
5:56
knuckle, you know, and then fill it up to the top, you know?
5:59
And that was, that was how I did it back then.
6:01
But but yeah, you just find some way to be consistent about it,
6:04
and that's your ratio. Okay.
6:05
So, we still have the length of brewing and the temperature to
6:08
talk about exactly. So, the length of Brewing,
6:10
doesn't matter? Yes, it does Ryan.
6:13
You like to belittle your own coffee knowledge, but obviously
6:16
if you set me up some good questions here, so the length of
6:19
Brewing matters, it will change a bit depending on your Brewing
6:24
method and how Much, you're Brewing.
6:26
So if you're Brewing, two gallons for your local church
6:30
Gathering, or if you're at a shop and you're brewing and
6:33
gallon and a half, or if you run, just a cup for yourself,
6:36
those might change a little bit but generally if you want to
6:40
simplify it, you always want to be Brewing somewhere between
6:42
three and six minutes. That's pretty good up to like a
6:46
gallon or so. So 3 to 6 minutes.
6:48
So a French press, you're doing like four to six minutes if you
6:52
have one of those little pour over things like you know, the
6:55
Malik Taccone that your grandma had or the Hari o V60 or Chemex
6:59
that your hipster friend has down the hallway.
7:01
That's going to be three to four minutes, maybe five.
7:04
But yeah, three to six minutes is a great Brewing time.
7:07
It does relate to how fine you grind the coffee, how small the
7:11
pieces of particles of coffee are, but it's nice to simplify
7:14
and just say hey three to six minutes find the time that you
7:18
like best for the thing that you do consistently every day.
7:21
Find that time and stick with it and again, only mess with one.
7:25
A lot of time and can I assume that leaving it in for longer on
7:28
the 6-minute side? It's going to?
7:30
What how does that affect the flavored versus shorter?
7:33
No, that's great. When you brew it for, Too Short.
7:36
It can often tastes sour or metallic.
7:39
When you brew it for too long, it tastes usually people
7:43
describe it as tasting too. Bitter.
7:45
It's a funny thing to say, because all coffee tastes
7:48
bitter, but there's good bitter, right?
7:50
Like dark. Chocolate is bitter, but we like
7:52
dark chocolate. I mean, maybe you're more of a
7:53
milk chocolate guy. I'm not here to To judge bitter
7:56
is not not necessarily a bad flavor, but there are, there are
8:00
flavors that come out that people tend to describe as
8:03
bitter when you brew it for too long, you wrote it, seven
8:06
minutes or eight minutes. A lot of those flavors are
8:09
better. Described as stringent, which
8:12
can be like, drying in your mouth, like 10:00.
8:15
I really 10:00 wine, or just kind of mouth puckery.
8:18
Not, not sour. But, you know, there's, there's
8:20
a bunch of ways that coffee contains bad if you've ever
8:23
gotten that diner coffee, Probably have experimented with
8:26
some of them but yeah, if you want to make the best cup of
8:29
coffee possible, you just stick that 3 to 6 minutes, you go too
8:32
far. It tastes rubbery.
8:35
Bitter astringent asphalt e. However you want to describe it
8:39
if you do too short, a Time Less Than 3 minutes, it might taste
8:43
sour and my taste salty. It might taste metallic got it.
8:46
Okay, so last thing was temperature temperature, all
8:50
right, temperature is one of my favorites because, you know,
8:53
coffee science, kind of changed a little bit.
8:55
It in the last decade or two, we started using tools in the
8:59
coffee industry that other Industries have had access to
9:02
that. We didn't have access to but
9:04
again, just to simplify it down and not get too into it.
9:07
As you know, that I am prone to do temperature.
9:10
There's a minimum temperature that we like, for brewing
9:12
coffee, it's 195 degrees. Some people will tell you that
9:16
you don't want to go over 20 for or over 2008.
9:21
I say screw that anywhere from 195 to 212 is going to be Is
9:25
fine. All right, the only complication
9:27
that you get from temperature is people talk about cold brew.
9:31
Well, I want to brew cold brew in my refrigerator or on my
9:34
countertop and that's great. If you want to do it in your
9:38
refrigerator on your countertop, you're going to need a lot more
9:41
time. So I said three to six minutes
9:45
if you're doing it with cold water, that ain't gonna cut it,
9:48
you're gonna want 12 to 24 hours.
9:51
So yeah, you want to stick to that 195 11:58 you're brewing
9:54
anything hot. Hot.
9:55
And if you're trying to do some sort of cold brew method, then
9:58
you're going to want 12 to 24 hours because the water
10:00
temperature isn't hot enough to to get everything in the that
10:04
short amount of time you need a lot more time.
10:06
Well, I think that's going to take us right up to the limit
10:09
for today. Chris, thank you again for
10:11
joining me. Thank you for coming back and I
10:12
look forward to chatting. You chatting with you again next
10:15
week. It's always a treat Ryan.
10:17
I'm always so happy to share This coffee's coffee knowledge
10:19
with you and talk about coffee. And heck, I'm even drinking
10:22
coffee right now. Talk to you soon but That sounds
10:32
wonderful. Thank you.
10:35
I like to I like when things sound wonderful to you and I'm
10:38
glad that you're back here on the show, the roast West Coast
10:41
coffee podcast, which I'm obligated to say 25 times in
10:44
every episode. I promised you last time that we
10:47
talked that we would get a little coffee nerdy today.
10:50
So I'm going to ask you a more sciency question today.
10:54
What happens during the bloom during the Brewing process?
10:59
And for anyone listening my understanding of the bloom is if
11:04
I grew up fine, grind some coffee to do a pour-over, like
11:08
when the water, the hot water first, hits it, and it kind of
11:11
starts to bubble and it kind of crust over a little bit.
11:14
That's what I can, I think, is the bloom, but maybe correct me
11:17
if I'm wrong and and what is happening in that process.
11:22
Yeah, so to my understanding and how I would be, you know,
11:26
teaching or training, someone in the cafe setting, or in a
11:29
podcast setting about what, what blue mean your coffee is.
11:33
So, what we can step back into the previous stage before coffee
11:38
is even breathable, and that's being the roasting process.
11:41
So, as we're roasting the coffee, there is going, as the
11:45
like material, the matter within the coffee starts to expand and
11:50
change in the heat application. Ocean roasting process.
11:54
There is a buildup of CO2 in the coffee beans.
11:58
And from the moment the coffee is roasted to, about some people
12:04
say, like, 10 to 14 days. Some may say even longer on like
12:09
lighter roast coffee is going to become more porous and it will
12:13
actually start to D gas and release those that CO2 build-up.
12:18
And you that's why some people say, you know, let your coffee
12:21
rest. D gas before you brew it.
12:24
So that there is a let off of the built up carbon dioxide.
12:29
And that's there. I'm like some coffee bags.
12:32
There's like a little vent is that is kind of the same thing.
12:35
I always wondered this is that because that gas is being
12:38
released from those beans. Is there sitting?
12:40
The bag is that's what the bag doesn't explode.
12:43
Yeah, so actually we that's funny.
12:45
You ask me his lofty. There was a there was a period
12:48
we had like some faulty bags and that we would you know bag
12:52
Freshly roasted coffee and the bags of balloon up because so,
12:56
but they were faulty in the sense that they had this one-way
13:00
valve on it. And so that valve that you see,
13:03
it allows air and gas out, but doesn't allow it in because we
13:09
can talk about that too but coffee being in contact with
13:12
oxygen starts to oxidize and also in ways candy-ass quicker.
13:20
And with that it essentially will Is some of its nuances more
13:24
quickly. So it allows that CO2 and guests
13:27
to release, but it doesn't allow any are back in, got it.
13:32
So that, but that kind of brings me what we're doing.
13:35
So once we've have that roasted coffee, maybe it's degassed a
13:38
little bit, we're going to grind that coffee, you know, to brew.
13:42
So you mentioned and actually, in the grinding process, we also
13:46
have a lot of like off the gases kind of releasing and oxidize it
13:50
oxidization happening happening. Ting.
13:53
And this can go you know we're creating more surface area and
13:56
more area for that oxygen to income in into contact with.
14:01
So we're also getting our coffee 2D.
14:04
Gas a lot quicker at that stage. And this is also why you always
14:08
want to brew your coffee? Pretty closely after you've
14:11
ground it. Once you ground, it, it's going
14:14
to start interacting with elements around it, which the
14:18
longer you have ground coffee? Just sitting there, the less
14:21
nuanced. The last Aroma it might have
14:24
because we're letting those gases off really quickly.
14:27
So now getting to the bloom aspect to my understanding Bloom
14:32
is actually a particular way of Brewing.
14:34
You know you might let's say you just pour water on top your
14:37
coffee and you're done. There's going to be a degassing
14:41
period in that but I wouldn't call that the bloom and that the
14:45
bloom is actually a particular thing that you're going to do at
14:47
the very beginning of your brew. And what we're going to do is
14:51
pour water. Just so your coffee grounds are
14:54
saturated but not that the water is like flowing through the
14:57
coffee grounds. So it's just enough to use in
15:01
most recipes. It's about twice as much water
15:04
to Coffee in the bloom. So if we do 20 grams of coffee,
15:08
you might do 40 grams of water. Once that hot water comes in
15:12
contact with that. Those grounds you're going to
15:15
start to it. What's it's very logical in the
15:17
sense. You see bubbles coming up from
15:20
your coffee bed and that CO2, being released from the coffee.
15:25
That water speeds up that degassing process.
15:30
Sorry, I forgot to mention with the bloom usually, you'll pour
15:32
that water and maybe you'll wait for a period of time, maybe I'll
15:35
wait 30 to 45 seconds, to allow those gases to release.
15:39
And some of the reasons we do this is that CO2 let off is
15:44
going to actually push the water away from the coffee grounds,
15:47
which is going to not. It's going to not extract the
15:51
coffee in them. Moment.
15:52
So by by letting those gases kind of come out when we go to
15:58
finally start our pour over or a brew, we've let the lot of those
16:03
gases out. So now the water is going to be
16:05
able to interact with the coffee a bit more which is going to
16:09
allow us to you know extract all those great flavors and Aromas
16:12
and tastes from the coffee. That's so interesting because I
16:17
just assumed that it was a going to be a science thing.
16:19
I wouldn't understand where the Sure.
16:22
Hits the grinds and this chemicals released to create a
16:24
flavor but it's actually because by releasing the when you
16:28
release that gas if you just keep pouring the water into it,
16:31
the gas is actually pushing the water away physically.
16:34
Yeah. Yeah.
16:35
From the grind itself where the flavor is trying to get, you
16:38
know, is that we want to get out?
16:40
Exactly. I feel like I had an aha moment
16:43
right now. That's very cool.
16:47
Yeah, I agree. It's all.
16:48
It's all there. It's all very simple and
16:50
sometimes you just need those like that simple explanation.
16:54
It's not too complicated. One more thing to mention, and I
16:58
would, for those of you Brewing at home, I think it's always
17:01
great to experiment because I dunno like some YouTubers and
17:04
other people who are like, you know what, I actually like my
17:06
coffee better without bloom, or they find a particular Brew
17:10
method is nicer without the bloom.
17:12
And so, you know, maybe if you're a go to Pour over V60
17:16
method. Try try one Brew with a bloom
17:19
and one Brew without a bloom and see what differences you see
17:22
there for us at lofty. We've we did a quite a bit of
17:26
experimentation with with this in particular and we always
17:30
found that we got a bit more nuanced and a bit more sweetness
17:33
and a bit more body from the ones that we did a bloom with.
17:37
So, in our recipes, in our cafes, we use a bloom.
17:41
But one more thing to mention is that typically CO2 may have like
17:47
a bit of a sour flavor to it so you can perhaps get more,
17:53
sweetness and less of like that kind of sour taste from it.
17:57
I don't know if any of you have ever or Ryan if you've ever made
18:02
a pour-over with coffee, like it's like 24 hours after the
18:06
roast or less than like 12 hours.
18:08
Like sometimes in the roasting setting, we're like we gotta
18:10
taste this coffee. Like we need to to taste it and
18:13
see how it is. And so maybe it's Only been 10
18:16
or 12 hours and we'll make a pour-over.
18:17
And even though you do a bloom, you can still you have that like
18:21
little like gassy flavor to it and I would probably attribute
18:26
that to the CO2 in the coffee. Very much, a fresh roasted
18:30
coffee flavor. Yeah.
18:32
And that kind of leads into the idea that there's kind of a
18:34
window of time where a coffee will be best represent the best
18:38
representation of itself. You know, it's just not the
18:41
first day after Rose. That's a couple of days you
18:43
know, for a period of About a Week.
18:45
Then you're slowly starting to fade away from that.
18:47
But also important, I think to remind people that just because
18:50
a coffee isn't in its peak window.
18:52
Doesn't mean it's not good coffee or it's you shouldn't
18:55
drink it. It just means it may not be the
18:57
very most perfect best representation of itself.
18:59
And that's okay. Yeah, yeah.
19:01
And it kind of goes into the other topics we've talked in
19:04
other episodes, you know about different.
19:07
Instant coffee methods or it's like if you have I mean mind you
19:11
I have a bag of coffee. Probably about four months old
19:15
at this point that's, you know, definitely not what it was when
19:19
I first got it. But if I need a cup of coffee in
19:21
the morning and I still can, it can still Brew it and have a
19:25
half a cup. That's enjoyable, well, that is,
19:28
I think like anyone, when I really first got into craft
19:31
coffee, I was very obnoxious about it.
19:33
I was like, oh well, this isn't in the window.
19:35
I'm not drinking this anymore, you know?
19:37
And I would give it to the neighbors or something.
19:38
Yeah, or make cold. Brew is what I do.
19:42
A lot of times I like All the little bits and ends of coffee
19:45
bags, or people coffee, people get output into one thing and
19:48
I'll make cool proof out of it and like know what this works.
19:54
That's part of that. I'm always amazed.
19:56
I always think it's funny that people who work in coffee or
19:59
generally less peculiar particular about the coffee that
20:04
they're drinking necessarily because they also can
20:06
extrapolate. Like, I think that's part of it.
20:09
Like, I have more of a Ian Nelson you.
20:14
This term recently on the show called pallet vocabulary.
20:18
Where, if I drink a coffee, that's four months old and or
20:22
four weeks old and it isn't, you know, perfect or isn't great.
20:26
I can extrapolate a little bit more what it probably was like.
20:29
And I'm not going to just dismiss that coffee forever
20:32
because I had it out of its perfect window, or whatever I
20:35
can, I can appreciate it and understand based on the timeline
20:40
that I, the little bit of time line that I understand.
20:43
You know where that coffee might have come from and enjoy it for
20:46
what it is today. Yeah.
20:49
As we're talking about the balloon, we're talking about
20:52
kind of the saturation of water. I wanted to ask you today about
20:56
the water itself. I've done shows all about water
20:59
but I kind of specifically wanted to learn more about what
21:03
the specialty coffee Association.
21:05
The sca says about water, I tried to look at the you know
21:09
they have a PDF about water stuff online and it was too
21:12
complicated for Or me. I glazed over real fast, and was
21:15
really bored. So I'm hoping that you can like,
21:18
explain a little bit better for me, what they're thinking about
21:21
coffee, about the water that's going into our coffee and and
21:25
why it matters. I mean, I think I'm gonna ramble
21:29
on for just a second, but I think, you know, we all realized
21:31
that different places in the world have different tasting
21:35
water where, you know, a city. Might have a different water
21:38
source where your water is coming from.
21:40
Is it being processed? How it's being processed?
21:43
I don't know about you but when I was a kid, our elementary
21:45
school went to like a water processing, translate plant to
21:49
like see that. And the, you know, it was mostly
21:53
most kids, kind of remember the part where they see like sewage,
21:56
which is kind of gross. But also like, those are in the
21:58
same place like we are processing water.
22:00
Generally, the same place. So what is the sca saying about
22:04
the water? Going to our coffee and doesn't
22:07
matter for somebody, just at home.
22:10
Yeah, so I love this question and actually.
22:14
So I I do some like, educational virtual classes and this is a
22:20
lot of times, those folks, they don't know anything about
22:24
Brewing, you know, they're either used to instant coffee or
22:27
just like, the auto Brewers or whatnot.
22:29
And so, I definitely, this is something I try to bring a lot
22:33
of attention to because, especially in specialty coffee,
22:37
we bring so much. We do so much for that.
22:40
That perfect delicious cup of coffee and in the sense of
22:43
quality coffee beans, you know, you go to a lot of Specialties
22:47
shops, you know, are selling a twenty five to thirty dollar bag
22:52
of coffee. There is so much being done for
22:55
that. One bag of coffee that if we're
22:59
not, considering the one other ingredient that's going into
23:05
Brewing. We're kind of like not doing
23:08
that coffee Justice, right? Cuz We're brewing, and actually
23:11
at the end of the day, after you brood your espresso, your pore
23:15
over, you know, only about 22 percent.
23:19
To 3 percent of that cup of coffee is actually coffee at
23:23
some point. The majority of it is actually
23:25
water. So if you're thinking about also
23:30
in a culinary sense like you have all these delicious local
23:34
organic ingredients and then you just use the like Factory A farm
23:40
chicken after letting you know, like that's like just not put
23:45
you're putting a lot of emphasis on all these other ingredients
23:48
and then kind of forgetting about a very important
23:50
ingredient. And so it's important that when
23:54
we Brew, we Brew with clean filtered water.
23:58
That's typically where if I'm teaching, people brand new,
24:01
don't know anything. Just use clean filtered water,
24:05
and you'll get a decent result, but we could get further into
24:10
it. And I'd say from my
24:13
understanding, I see a has done a lot of research into knowing
24:19
the exact mineral content and compounds, within water to have
24:25
the optimal extraction. And flavor of coffee, I would, I
24:30
want to interrupt in just say that that that Concept in and of
24:33
itself is one that I don't think people are always thinking about
24:37
and I don't think about when I pour a glass of water.
24:40
ER, I don't think this is actually filled with a whole
24:42
bunch of stuff. I go.
24:43
It's right water and it's, it's clear.
24:45
So there's nothing else in it but that's just not true.
24:49
Yeah, exactly. And you made a great point or
24:52
like it, depending where you are in the world.
24:54
You're going to have different contents or different amounts of
24:59
different contents within that water.
25:01
And so some of the, some of the few things were looking for
25:06
according to, you know, SCA standards as first, of course,
25:10
Source of water. That is odor free.
25:12
So that's a that's an easy one, right?
25:14
We can smell the water. We know there's no its owner
25:18
free maybe it's clean or fresh smelling.
25:22
Second is like looking at the water, right?
25:24
Like can we see that? It is clear and there's no off
25:27
colors in that water and then, I like, in a cafe setting.
25:34
We don't pay attention to this too much, but if we're talking
25:37
about like, SCA standards, they recommend a 7 pH pH of seven of
25:42
your water. And then there's things like
25:45
alkalinity and sodium and calcium and chlorine that are
25:50
are a lot of times in perhaps tap water and SCA has very
25:56
specific standards to how much of each of that is like I have I
26:01
have this written down here for Russ, just so I get it right.
26:04
But there are saying, you know, total chlorine is going to be 0
26:08
and then an alkaline the alkalinity being about 40 mg and
26:14
again, that pH being seven and sodium being about 10 mg 2 L
26:18
we're talking. So that's going to be ideal
26:22
water. One way in a cafe said and we
26:24
kind of maintain that is we use very high-end water filters.
26:30
And again speaking to lofty, Standard we are calibrating and
26:35
testing that filter on a weekly basis and we're keeping the
26:41
water we measure it through parts per million.
26:44
And what that does is it measures the the parts per
26:47
million within the solids within the water.
26:49
And we're aiming for 120 to 130 in our calibration.
26:56
So we're testing that just using a simple water.
27:00
TDS PPM meter reading that and then adjusting us needed.
27:05
But you know something I'm going to backtrack a little bit
27:08
because yes we want really good water to extract but what
27:12
happens to the coffee when it isn't in this range?
27:15
And I think that's something valid to address and that being
27:20
if we have very hard water. So water that has a lot of
27:24
mineral content. Maybe it's a little cloudy
27:27
looking or perhaps it's tap water.
27:30
Um, San Diego, I can speak to our top Waters.
27:32
Not, it's a bit harder on the harder end.
27:35
When we go to brew coffee with that, you can a lot of times,
27:40
especially if that water has like already.
27:42
Like perhaps not the cleanest flavor.
27:45
When we can think of how that would result in the cup of
27:48
coffee is that it might not have a very clean quality to it.
27:52
That maybe the flavors are a little bit muddled and I've even
27:57
found that perhaps with really hard water, you're actually
28:00
going to under extract your coffee because there's already
28:02
so many solids within the water that one that water starts to
28:05
try to extract solids from the coffee.
28:08
You know there, I almost think of it as like there.
28:10
Not being enough room in the water to hold all the solids
28:13
because it's already taken up by all these minerals and so you
28:17
could have a muddled kind of under extracted or like lacking
28:21
Clarity or like Nuance flavors in a in a cup of coffee, that's
28:26
brewed with It's harder water. And on the other hand, if we're
28:30
using water that's very like soft.
28:33
They call a soft water like you brewed coffee with just
28:36
distilled water. You know I find that you're
28:40
going to have a lot more like sharper flavors and same thing
28:44
the way I think about it is just like if there's only so much
28:46
water and there's so much room in the water, they're like there
28:49
could be kind of moreover extracted flavors, using a very
28:52
soft coffee or soft water as well in my experience.
28:56
Found, sometimes you get a little bit like a metallic
28:59
flavor from very soft water. So those are things.
29:03
Like if you're finding these kind of qualities in your Brew
29:07
perhaps that's your water quality but then going back to
29:10
that like ideal water. There's also some really cool
29:16
products out on the market. Again, if you're wanting to have
29:19
perfect Brewing water Ryan, have you ever heard of third wave was
29:25
Third Way of water. Have not they're not the only
29:29
ones out there, but there definitely are very popular.
29:32
There were the first that I ever saw but they are essentially
29:34
just like these little packets of minerals that are made to
29:38
have just the right amount kind of, according to that sta
29:41
standard. And you according to whichever
29:44
size packet, you have. You get a certain amount of
29:47
distilled water. You just add the that mineral to
29:50
the distilled water, and that will be an ideal quote, the
29:55
perfect water to Bruce Salty coffee.
29:59
What it's reminding me of is and I know I do this all the time
30:02
everyone. I am sorry, but I refer to the
30:05
Beer industry because it's just something I knew for so long.
30:07
But especially larger, breweries think you're Budweiser's or your
30:11
Miller Lites or Miller's course. A lot of times they'll bring
30:17
water in and then essentially run it through a process where
30:21
they remove all of those minerals out and then they add
30:25
them back in, kind of like, what you're saying with this distal
30:28
Third Way. Like they can take in local
30:30
water and they essentially run it through a process, remove
30:33
everything and then add the minerals back in that they want.
30:36
And that's part of the reason they're able to keep their beer
30:38
consistent, even though it's being produced all over the
30:42
country in different places because their base their
30:45
Foundation ingredient of water, is the same no matter what.
30:50
And that's kind of what that reminded me of was just this
30:53
idea that the kind of strip away all of those local flares.
30:58
And Start with something that they've created, which kind of
31:01
makes me wonder if there's actually a an appeal for some
31:06
coffee people to get coffee and certain regions, because of the
31:10
local, you know, flavor because they, it is unique.
31:14
I do notice sometimes like, if I buy a bag of your say, Morning
31:17
Glory coffee, and I have it at your shop.
31:19
I might love it there and then make it at home, be like, I
31:22
should just go to the show because it's not as good when I
31:25
make it myself and there's a million variables that that
31:28
could be. But it Could be that, maybe my
31:29
water isn't filtered that day or whatever.
31:32
But is there, is there any benefit to say?
31:35
No? Like I'm going to use the local
31:36
water and this particular coffee is better because I'm doing
31:40
that. Or is that just me being
31:42
romantic about it? That's it.
31:44
That's an interesting question. I think that goes into like I
31:49
definitely, I'll admit I don't know the answer to that, but
31:52
it's like, it's a great prompt for like an experiment, like for
31:56
an experiment where I'm wondering, like, perhaps, maybe
31:59
on the roast level, depending on how light or how dark it is,
32:04
maybe like a certain I'm almost thinking like maybe a dark roast
32:11
would maybe do better with like, like a little bit of a harder
32:15
water or like, you know, I think maybe the roast has Going to do
32:18
with it but I'm not sure. I don't know.
32:21
Well, that's that's what I'm going to be marinating.
32:24
I think. Yeah, I don't know that there is
32:26
a right answer to it. I mean, it's, but I'm thinking
32:29
just about like parts of the world that may be gravitated
32:32
towards coffee faster. Maybe it was because it their
32:36
water quality may be a taste of everyone.
32:38
They brewed it and seems like there could be could be a
32:42
correlation, and it could just be me imagining things before I
32:46
let you go today. Because I know we're on a bit of
32:48
Of a tighter timeline than normal.
32:50
I wanted to ask you about lofty. We're we're in fully into summer
32:55
or June Gloom as it's known here.
33:00
What, what's kind of new for you guys?
33:02
What, what's, what have you been building up to what's in line
33:05
for lofty? Anything new and exciting people
33:07
should know about. Yeah, there's a, there's quite a
33:10
lot. Actually, we have The most epic
33:15
single origin lineup of coffee right now that I'm initially
33:20
when we launched it, I was a little nervous because it was
33:23
the most awesome like most single origin options we've ever
33:28
had. Usually we keep it to like three
33:31
to four options and right now we have I'm going to have to
33:35
remember exactly. Then we have seven single origin
33:40
options which it's the most we've ever had.
33:44
And again I was a little nervous initially like you know, how is
33:47
our customer base, going to respond to so many options and
33:52
it has been going really well. And I was wondering, you know,
33:55
seeing you know, with more options are we going to start to
33:58
like sell less coffee in the sense like move through our
34:01
coffee more slowly and I will say, I don't, I don't think
34:04
that's been the case. And it's it's been interesting
34:07
to see. See how having those options for
34:10
a wider set of tastes has done us an amazing.
34:15
It's been amazing. And it's also fun in the cafes.
34:17
I think because there's just so many options that you can have a
34:19
different coffee all the time. You know, I can run us through.
34:22
We have two coffees from Ethiopia and I love doing like
34:26
one washed and one natural because it's a great way of
34:29
being like, hey, these are two coffees from the same or similar
34:32
regions but they're just processed differently.
34:35
So you can kind of do like a little tasty.
34:38
The friend if you wanted and kind of see how the processing
34:41
method affects the flavor, then we have one of the coffee's I'm
34:45
the most excited about is a coffee from Papua New Guinea,
34:49
which I find that coffee origin to be fascinating.
34:53
And this coffee is so delightful.
34:56
It tastes like grilled pineapple and brown sugar.
34:59
It's just delicious. Then we have a coffee from
35:04
longtime Partners there. The Chacon, there's your Khan
35:08
family from Costa Rica from a farm called Las lajas, and we
35:12
have a natural process, coffee from them.
35:15
And then we have a delightful approachable, wash Peruvian
35:22
coffee. We have a wash Guatemalan from
35:29
the Prentiss family. I was telling you about the
35:32
Farms, called Finca de dios and what else?
35:38
I think well what it's like yeah this is why we need to have a
35:44
like coffee passport or like an untapped but for coffee where
35:48
all of these are collated somewhere.
35:51
Quite is not the right word but they're all collected and we can
35:55
go and start checking them off and like yeah I don't use yeah I
35:59
don't use untapped which is like a beer rating app to track what
36:04
you do because I find that I get competitive and I just To try
36:08
more things instead of actually, like really it's more about
36:10
quantity than quality for me, that's just me nothing against
36:13
the app, but I feel like with coffee, it would be, that would
36:17
be a great way to start learning Origins and also start learning
36:22
like what it is that I'm finding a peeling like do, I notice that
36:27
I start rating this origin, like, you know, Ethiopia coffees
36:31
this way more consistently versus this way, which is hard
36:34
to track. You know, if you're just when
36:36
you buy a bag of coffee, Drink a bag a week, or you go to a
36:39
couple, yeah, jobs. Yeah, definitely takes a lot of
36:42
notation. Yes, I have so many notepads
36:47
now. Siri, thank you so much for
36:51
coming back and talking coffee with us.
36:53
I am always so grateful for your time and just your knowledge and
36:57
and and thank you. That's all.
36:59
Thank you. Thank you.
37:01
I like I said, it's always a delightful way to spend my
37:05
weekend chatting with you about the thing that I Love and
37:08
totally nerding out and coming. You know, you always have
37:14
amazing questions that I feel like I don't always ask myself
37:17
and so I always find our conversations to be very
37:20
thought-provoking and keep me on my toes which I'm is is
37:26
important for me in where I'm at in my journey through coffee.
37:29
So thank you so much. Well I'm glad I could I could be
37:34
in service. You're welcome.
37:53
Okay, to recap water is the main ingredient in coffee and very
37:58
important to the end result. Kristen Syria are both much
38:01
smarter about coffee than I and finally, I'm still out in the
38:04
woods instead of being home in the closet podcast Studio.
38:08
Thanks for listening to this water recap and for going to
38:10
roast westcoast.com and signing up for this shows newsletter.
38:14
If you find Value there, please subscribe, free or paid,
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although paid subscriptions are how we grow this podcast.
38:21
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38:23
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38:26
I also need to thank cafe lechera steady-state, coffee,
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roasting Camp, Coffee Company, coffee cycle, roasting ignite,
38:32
Coffee Company, Maria coffee, Cape Horn coffee, importer zoom
38:36
bar, Coffee and Tea. Most your coffee company and
38:39
Ascend Coffee Roasters, all great industry Partners, thank
38:43
you for listening and supporting to show this episode of the
38:46
roast West Coast coffee. Podcast is was has been written
38:50
produced and recorded by me. Ryan won't I hope that this
38:54
episode is found you happy healthy and with at least enough
38:57
sanity to make it through the day, always tip your Baristas
39:01
and be sure to drink. Good coffee.