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

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.

askthecoffeeguy

When I had my cafe I'd run with up to 10 single estate beans at one time, then I'd try them both individually, and as custom blends by combining various components and ratios Some of those combinations ended up becoming custom hose blends that my roaster would then blend and.package for me, and some would only exist in the moment for a day or sometimes even a half day Considering we'd do between 200 to 300 meals per day on the weekend and twice that number of coffees - I'd have to say that his was a pretty winning combination! P

K_Bean_Coffee

askthe coffeeguy wrote:

When I had my cafe I'd run with up to 10 single estate beans at one time, then I'd try them both individually, and as custom blends by combining various components and ratios

That's living the coffee dream. Wow!

askthecoffeeguy

Yep it was pretty funky alright the customers came to know and to expect that there would be two or more espresso blends on offer at any one time and sometimes I'd rotate single origins up to five times per day which is great for regular addicts who wanted to try something different of course you can only really do that if you're moving a bit of volume which I was: a steady 55 sometime 60kg per week which is not bad for a suburban cafe located in a renovated house ! P

K_Bean_Coffee

60kg. Wow! Amazing

askthecoffeeguy

My coffee kiosk at Melbourne Uni used to do 75kg per week across 5 days trading and that was with split shots ! P

Brett_H

askthe coffeeguy wrote:

My coffee kiosk at Melbourne Uni used to do 75kg per week across 5 days trading and that was with split shots ! P

Crikey... how many staff ran the kiosk??

askthecoffeeguy

7 and sometimes 8 over lunch so that we could all take breaks it had outdoor seating for 60 plus the there's lecture halls adjacent had a combined seating capacity in excess of 1500 students so if they all went in at once or out at once it was chaos there were often queues six deep for coffee ! Plus I had an SMS your coffee service that stipulated that your coffee would be ready in less than four minutes from.the time of ordering or your money back! We did between 1000 to 1200 coffees per day during semester and between 300 to 500 coffees per day outside of the semester timetable! It was crazy busy times I owned it for 7 years and sold it in 2009 P

Brett_H

Amazing Pat! Why do they call you Dr Pat? It an an honoraium or did you love Uni life so much you stuck around?

askthecoffeeguy

Brett H wrote:

Amazing Pat! Why do they call you Dr Pat? It an an honoraium or did you love Uni life so much you stuck around?

Finished my arts degree at Melbourne Uni and got offered honors in English literature but I was just glad to finish so I passed on that still it does have a nice ring to it, no? Dr Pat?

Brett_H

I'm sure you've cured a lot of sleep-deprived folks so that must count!

askthecoffeeguy

At last count the cafes Ive owned have made over 2000000 coffees can't say I've made all of them but I've made a.great deal and that doesn't include the places I've worked in and or managed ! P

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