In todays mail I received my new Bodum Venice hand grinder from Sweet
Maria's Sale Page. I had expected it to be a little smaller and was
looking for something more compact than my wooden Zassenhaus grinders to
take on a cruise next month. (I guess the Zass Turkish grinder is going
to sea with me). I did a quick disassembly to check the Bodum out. The
ceramic burrs are rather neat. They appear similar to the Zassenhaus
steel ones but made of brown ceramic material instead. I reassembled
the grinder and set it about 1/3 turn from the burrs touching for my
first test.
I found a vac sealed jar of Mexican decaf that I had roasted on June 14
sitting in the back of the cupboard. (Who wants to waste good stuff on
grind adjustments?) It took about 3 tries to get the grind set to what
I thought was right for the Aeropress. This grinder won't drift while
grinding because it has a tab that fits into a slot that locks the
setting that you select, but it also makes it a bit of a pain to adjust.
Well, after all this messing around, I decided to make a cup of coffee
from the stale decaf. This little machine is easy to crank, but it took
me almost 5 minutes to grind two Aeropress scoops. I was impressed with
the clean grind. The resulting grind seems extremely even with no
visible dust.
Meantime back at the ranch, my water had come to a boil and was now
cooling in the pot. I used the inverted method of Aeropress brewing,
and surprisingly made a GOOD cup of coffee. This coffee was amazingly
good - better than I remember it tasting when it was fresh. But then
this is the 1st time I have used the Aeropress to brew decaf. I don't
know what to think. I don't normally keep roasted coffee more than
about 10 days. Is it normal for decaf to still taste good 2 months post
roast?
JavaJerry
RK Drum roasting in CHesapeake, VA |