Creating New Coffee Blends on-the-run with Dynamic Blending

K_Bean_Coffee

Hi all,

I have been using a technique I'm calling dynamic blending.

What does this mean? ...well, I have a 2 grinder setup.

The LHS grinder if full of a killer bean. That's the bean with punch and unique characteristics. Right now that's Yemen Mocha Ismaili.

The RHS grinder is full of my single origin of the week.

So what's the dynamic part? Basically, I grind different ratios every day.

For example, this morning I ground approx 10g for the RHS grinder, then 5g from the LHS grinder, then another 5g from the RHS grinder.

Tomorrow I will try another ratio. I get a different blend every day 🙂

You don't need 2 big grinders for this. Try the same, but use a hand grinder for your middle "killer bean" layer.

readeral

Out of all the people that make up terms for things, whether they have a term or not, I declare you the king Paul 🙂 😛 But to the topic at hand.. given you have a killer bean - what are you hoping to gain by this process?

Koffee_Kosmo

Looking at it from a roasters perspective In the past I roasted several small batches of green beans I had on hand I would blend roasted beans in a similar fashion and grind them together This is how I developed my own blend preferences But I'm sure that this method was used well before I was born - but it's a very sensible approach to blending KK

readeral

Yeah so I'm wondering not if Paul is advocating a way of determining a good ratio to stick to in the future, but a means of exploring beans this way all the time. Hence the question 🙂

Koffee_Kosmo

readeral wrote:

Yeah so I'm wondering not if Paul is advocating a way of determining a good ratio to stick to in the future, but a means of exploring beans this way all the time. Hence the question 🙂

Bean flavours change daily so it's a changing proposition no matter what ratio one uses KK

readeral

Exactly.

Brett_H

How do you maintain the consistency of your extraction if two grinders with different beans, different coarseness and different amounts are constantly changing? You are blowing my mind with your cavalier disregard of the sacred laws of coffee. :thumb:

K_Bean_Coffee

Good points guys. There are 2 reasons for this approach. The main reason is to get a little more variation in the daily espresso. eg, no Yemen one day, 10% another day and 30% another, and so on. The second reason it that I don't want to waste my Yemen on latte drinkers, so when I have visitors wanting lattes they get just my SO. I find that if I get the get the grind size for the Yemen in the LHS hopper just right for full Yemen extraction, I can leave it as is and control the back pressure using the SO RHS beans. I hope that all makes sense 🙂 Cheers, Paul

askthecoffeeguy

I can bend spoons with my mind ...

askthecoffeeguy

Oh sorry, I misread the name of the read ... P

K_Bean_Coffee

....that was a bit of a riddle above ACG 😉

Brett_H

K_Bean_Coffee wrote:

Good points guys. There are 2 reasons for this approach. The main reason is to get a little more variation in the daily espresso. eg, no Yemen one day, 10% another day and 30% another, and so on. The second reason it that I don't want to waste my Yemen on latte drinkers, so when I have visitors wanting lattes they get just my SO. I find that if I get the get the grind size for the Yemen in the LHS hopper just right for full Yemen extraction, I can leave it as is and control the back pressure using the SO RHS beans. I hope that all makes sense 🙂 Cheers, Paul

Makes sense! Two semi-commercial grinders eh... been there, wife said no, I'm done with that.... apparently..... I'm one of those people for whom grinders must be able to be swept clean. The idea of having grinds left in the grind path is for me anathema to optimal flavour. What are your grinders and do they allow you to sweep out the chute? Is there a grinder on the market that allows a single dose without leaving grinds in the chute or the chamber?? My modded K10 allows sweeping and runs very clean but my dream is a Versalab that can grind lighter roasts without jamming... oh, and is 240v!

mycuppa

I'll be a contrarian grenade thrower and say it does not always work properly because of the stratification of the disparate sized particles being unevenly distributed, leading to micro-channeling. Reason I believe this is because I've got 2 large grinders side by side on my kitchen with a Speedster and the same at work on the bench with a GS3.......for years I played this game until I stopped and realized the results were just actually quite mediocre. By all means if it works for you then good luck and keep on keeping on.

K_Bean_Coffee

mycuppa wrote:

I'll be a contrarian grenade thrower and say it does not always work properly because of the stratification of the disparate sized particles being unevenly distributed, leading to micro-channeling.

No grenade there - just a great thread with different views and opinions - love it! I guess there's science and art at work here. The stratification and micro-channeling makes sense to my scientific mind but I'm using a naked PF and I'm not seeing and evidence of channelling and the results are great. Might be because I take care to get the middle layer thickness reasonable consistent across the PF. I'll keep playing 🙂 Cheers, Paul

K_Bean_Coffee

Brett raised a good point re grind retention. Personally, I don't worry too much about retention. I have done back to back testing in the past and found that several grams of day old grind in a 24g dose isn't noticeable to my palate.

dlight

How about getting a Monolith Conical and a Monolith Flat. You can single dose each with (almost) no grind retention. You can achieve whatever ratio you want by weighing the dose ratio required into each. And they'd look quite something as a pair on the bench. A different sort of bling... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

dlight

And, of course, you'd get the benefit of both a Conical and a Flat in the same dose. Brightness and depth at the same time. I think we're getting to utopia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Brett_H

dlight wrote:

And, of course, you'd get the benefit of both a Conical and a Flat in the same dose. Brightness and depth at the same time. I think we're getting to utopia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Brilliant and welcome! There was.a Cimbali grinder that had a flat and conical burr working together in the grind chamber and belt driven too from memory. I used one and it was disasterous for consist but that may have Ben the well-used model to which I was subjected 🙂

vyapada

mycuppa wrote:

[...]because of the stratification of the disparate sized particles being unevenly distributed, leading to micro-channeling.

I would be interested if there's much of a taste difference between layering as described and whisking the grinds together. I notice a difference in my single dosing routine where the unwhisked results taste more harsh that I tentatively attribute to the poor homogenisation/agglomeration of the particles (a la The Craft and Science of Coffee).

K_Bean_Coffee

....I thought about the above posts and decided to change from having the LHS grinder layer in the centre to having the LHS grinder layer on the top. This makes mores sense as having 2 layers instead of 3 means less variation. Today I blew a customer away when he experienced shots with 0%, 15% and 30% Yemen.