Blending Dept: What's it all about?

Coffee, cigars and rum go togther like priests and choirboys. Indeed the brothers are known to have a tipple now and then. Oh and some rum, cigars and Belgian beer as well, lol...
Post Reply
User avatar
Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
Posts: 3550
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: Paradise: Fort Lauderdale of course...
Contact:

Blending Dept: What's it all about?

Post by Capn Jimbo »

More about the joy of rolling yer own...


By now perhaps a few of you have decided to take up the very easy but very rewarding hobby of buying and roasting your own coffee. You realize this can be done quite effectively with a used popcorn air popper requiring only a simple modification (to disarm the thermostat). You realize the cost of green beans is actually less than buying far inferior commercial coffee.

In sum: better and really delicious coffee that anyone can do and for less cost. So if you're not, why not? Darned if I know. But let me add another twist, namely you can also blend your own for even better and more interesting aromas and flavors...


Blending 101

Once you have learned how easy it is to roast your own coffee to the levels suggested by Sweet Maria (City, City+, Full City and Full City+) you begin to wonder - what can I do to improve the flavor. In answer please reflect on the roast levels:

1. City Roast - this is a light roast, terminated just after "first crack" is over.
2. City + is a medium roast achieved by extending the roast for perhaps another minute or two.
3. Full City refers to an even darker roast, terminated at or just before "second crack". At this point the beans begin to glow or shine, due to the internal oils coming to the surface. And last -
3. Full City +, which extends into second crack to some degree. Beyond that level you get into the very dark French and Italian roasts.

So what's the big deal? According to Sweet Maria, different coffees seem to have different ranges of roasts recommended for the best flavor. Some coffees do well at almost any level, but in general the lighter roasts are more floral or fruity, while the darker roasts also taste darker with more chocolate and carmelized and/or "roasty" tones. The darkest roasts have lost all of the earlier tones, but deliver a kind of heavy punch that some coffee drinkers love.


How blending works..

The first step for most home roasters goes like this: Sweet Maria's may recommend a roast range of say City to Full City for a particular coffee. It is natural then to say do three roasts of this coffee: one light (City), one medium (City +) and one darker (Full City), then to mix/blend these three together. The result: a blend which is more complex and presents a broader range of flavors.

As a rum drinker, complexity is my middle name so doing this was quite natural.

The next step should have been obvious. We'd run out of our favorite Columbian coffee (a Supremo) and darned if Maria's was out of Columbian. Drat! A hurried review of my coffee roasting book revealed that Guatemalan coffee delivered the same kind of balanced punch of a Columbia Supremo, and thus was often used as the stronger element of a two bean blend. So what to mix with it?

A review at Maria's made clear that Ethiopian coffees are among the more interesting, light and flavorful coffees available; indeed they recommended one of them as a great blenders. Thus the die was cast:

We ordered two pound of each: the Guatemalan and the Ethiopian. The recommended ranges were City to City + for the Ethiopian, and City+ to Full City+ for the Guatemalan. This came to fruition by doing two different roasts for each bean for a total of four different roast levels of two different profiles. Our hope was to achieve a complexity and balance simply not available from a single source.

Did it work?

In a word, yes! Our first taste of this two bean, four roast level coffee blend was terrific. Sue Sea loves it and so did I. Still, the question remains - did our amateur blend stand up to our favorite single bean (Columbian) blend? Survey sez... we don't know yet and will have to wait until we get our hands on some more Columbian.

Maria's is still out of them. Stay tuned...
User avatar
Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
Posts: 3550
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: Paradise: Fort Lauderdale of course...
Contact:

Post by Capn Jimbo »

An experiment...


The above leads to two different kinds of blending: the first simply a single source bean roasted to different levels, and the second being a two source blend (in this case also to different levels of roast). It is natural to wonder whether commercial coffees are also blended? How 'bout it, Sleepy? What do you know?

As for now though it occurred to me that those of us who buy whole bean roasted coffee should be able to make their own judgement. If you see two (or more) groups of different sized beans, this is likely a blend. And - if you note different colors (from light to dark brown, or even an oily very dark brown/black) then likewise, this is no doubt a blend as well.

Sleepy?
User avatar
Capn Jimbo
Rum Evangelisti and Compleat Idiot
Posts: 3550
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:53 pm
Location: Paradise: Fort Lauderdale of course...
Contact:

Post by Capn Jimbo »

What does Sweet Maria say?


Until Sleepy shows up, I did a little doo-doo diligence and discovered the following, per Sweet Marias...

1. Although some might think, as I did, that blending ought to be done to create new and interesting flavors, that is not necessarily so.

Just as in the new "NAS" rum blends, or like Canadian "whiskey", coffee too is "blended" to make a cheaper product taste better. A bit of pot stilled rum (or more likely some unlabeled flavorings) is added to a mostly flavorless column stilled rum. Most Canadian whisky is based on near neutral, vodka-like spirit (called "Canadian Whiskey Spirit, or CWS), made tasty by a bit of what is euphemistically called "flavouring whisky). And cheap coffee is made palatable by blending in a more robust and flavorful coffee.

2. Some coffees are blends designed to provide a "signature taste". For example Starbucks (called "Charbucks" by home roasters) is known for their extremely dark, almost burnt roasts and blends.

3. Some "blends" - think Eight O'Clock Coffee blend to maintain consistency from year to year. Their appeal is based on consistency, and not necessarily quality.

Maria called all of these "lowest common denominator" blends which are designed to create and maintain a following for what are really lower quality coffees. It is not a coincidence that this applies equally - and for the same reason of profits - to most spirits, not least rum and Canadian whisky.

To be fair, most large producers have a vested interest in avoiding real quality - heaven forbid their customers discover the difference and stop buying their minimally acceptable products.


Next up? Maria covers a couple kinds of blends...
Last edited by Capn Jimbo on Wed Nov 20, 2013 9:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
sleepy
King of Koffee
Posts: 156
Joined: Tue Nov 13, 2012 7:23 pm
Location: Atlanta and points south

Post by sleepy »

Back when I had a working small batch roaster, I used to blend lighter and darker roasts of the same bean to get a cup with the full range of flavors that that crop had to offer. I usually went back to just roasting to the level that we liked the best.

With the larger roasts I make now (1lb. beans/batch - usually 3 batches of different beans), I usually try to roast an Ethiopian or Yemeni (true Mocha) in the same group as Sumatra/Sulawesi/Indonesia beans. I love a classic Mocha-Java - I blend it at the grinder. That usually works well - the African brightness offsetting the earth funk of island coffee resulting in a cup with a full range of flavors from bright to funky bass :)

I'm afraid that you may be overreaching - blending itself is not necessarily a gain. Why not try going pairwise - test a blend of two in your collection, then, is the blend better than either individual contributor? "Batch A has these great flavors, but lacks... Oh wait! Batch, um, oh yeah, L was really good at that. Let's blend them!"


*******
Capn's Log: good stuff from a beaner who knows the drill, thanks Sleepy. Oddly enough I still have a bit of Sumatran left, plus a LOT of some Ethiopian. Shame on me, but I never really understood what was meant by "Mocha Java" - or why some coffee drinkers spoke so positively of it.

Now I do, and will give it a go in the next day or so. Again, thanks.
Post Reply