What a surprise i had when cleaning out and replacing my grind burrs on the Mazzer jolly timer.
After a good vacume cleaning and some toothbrushing on the mazzer parts I unscrewed the dose dispenser in the dose chamber, lifted the dispenser out found to my surprise five perfect round coffee marbles… They first thing i thougt “chocolate truffels” ?? what the f***…..
It seams the fine espresso grind accumalated underneed the dispenser as it turns with every click it pushes some coffee underneeth the dispenser via the aluminium dose pokets, as it turns the grinds can’t go anyware so they are turned over And over much like Rolling à giant snowball
The cavity underneeth the dispenser is aprox. 1cm.

My other grinder with a coarser setting and less oiley coffee
Didn’t have them so i think the darker roasted coffee helped them to stick together….. Lol

I know this is due To poor maintanace on my part but still they are beautifull…

I wonder now how many turns/ click’s are needed to create them. So i reset the counter and In 3 weeks time i’ll unscrew it again and we’ll see….

Lessen learned: regular maintanace is a must. : )

I wonder now:
most cafe’s restaurant’s bar’s have a maintanace contract for their espresso machine’s, they come by 4 times a year to replace; screens, filter baskets, group rings, etc and check pump funtion, temperature and some times even the grind settings and dose amount …
But never have i seen them replace grindburs, clean grinders etc. still they charge about €300 To €400 per year for maintanace…..
Only those who really care about coffee quality and freshness do their daily/weekly maintanace or replace parts To get the max out of their coffee.
Common knowlidge on maintanace or cleaning are below par for may establishments.
It would be great to see espresso machine suppliers supply maintanance list and cleaning guides with their machines as this would solve some basic coffee quality for many places Selling espresso coffee.
(more pics soon on flickr)
Friso
Mr. yirgachief

THE creation of the DCP www
a new dutch blog: www.koffiegek.nl

Many national and international champioships
Even more New espresso bars, coffee website’s, new dutch coffee forums, many new dutch barista’s, and so on…

I thougt about starting a new blog but since this blog is a team effort i’ll just keep posting some New stuff here….

I’ll post my personal vindings en questions, maybe some pics and video’s….

C U soon…

first of all I would like to take this moment to wish all of u a healty and fun 2008 and that u may enjoy beautifull coffee’s and coffee moment for times to come……

Posting has been slow the last months of 2007, as u may know we have 2 Family owned restaurants and the last months of the year (oktober,nov,dec) are extreamly busy months, but also a lot of fun.

We have 2 new espresso machine’s hand made by kees van de Westen….. i’ll post some piture’s and background info soon!

greetings

Friso van der Mei

http://www.genecafe.co.kr/

Bought from: ongebrand B.V. ( € 335,- )

http://www.ongebrand.nl/

Last week i got in my home-roaster…… it’s nice!

Its an korean built home (hot air drum) roaster, called the Gene-cafe roaster! the firtst reaults are amazing.

Every body knows the fresher the better so after months of research i found this cool home-roaster and a long awaited dream come tru. As a passionate barista and hospitality entrepeneur you alway’s want what’s best for everybody. I wanted to learn more about coffee atributes in relation to origin and proccesing, evantualy taste and comfort in presenting a quality product. In essential it is our quest for understanding and ”feeling” coffee that drives us to investigate the “becomming”of the bean. for ethiopia being to far away (yet) I decided to start roasting my own beans (for experimental use only,not commercially). When i first came in to contact with espresso and the art of preparing speciality coffee, i trained and trained and read and read all about it i could in a time span of 3 years, now withe a little expertise i got about preparing the differtent brew methods i wanted to start and acces a new level of “coffee awarenes” by really looking in to the bean. So finaly i am learing to roast differtent origins and need to learn munch more about it and about categorizing roast profiles and origing specifics, time, temperature, cooling, storing etc.. It’s a faccinating world out there in roasting land…..a lot of info on the net and quality papers written a bout it.from pan or oven roasting to BBQ and home made popcorn roastes to openfire roasting……but eventualy we would like to go for quality roasting so I decided om the small (300gram) Gene-cafe coffe roaster.

With my roaster I orderd five kilo’s of origin green jewels. Washed Kenya AA, semi-washed Sumatra Mandhelling, Ethiopia washed yrgacheffe and unwashed Harrar longberry, Guatamala SHB antigua pastoral, Washed Costa rica SHB Terrazu and Monsoond india malabar AA. because i’m so eager to try them as espresso I wil roast them for espresso shots and analyse their behaivior in milk and skip the cupping theory for just know.

Last Sunday i started my first ever roast and selected yrgacheffe ……150 grams…..250 c…….18 minutes…….

Beautiful procces and smell…..  a joy for every passionate barista……  but my roast was a bit to dark (oops) due to the slow (5min.) cool process on the roaster and my lack of experience : ). Let it cool down and afte4 hours gring it to bits and started tasting…….. a bit burned (ofcourse) bit still a bit sweet! Not all to bad for a first batch!

Since my first attemt I started roasting according to some roast profile’s found on sweetmaria’s home roasting website.

I like darker fullcity+ or light and french roastes (for my espresso). Cool the beans down using an household cooling fan. I grind them with a mazzer mini and pul the shots on a la marzocco Linea v2 and a lever pavoni one group.

So far so good i roasted indian Malabar to full french roast and it’s macig to see the beans transform in to shiney,oiley,sugar coated beans (almost to dark though) if you could only smell them!!!!

I wrote down all the roast times and temperatures( air temp. not bean temp.)  at differente stages of the roast(s). I tend to roast as dark a possible on so i can alway’s eas up on my next batch to experience the changes in flavour and find the “right”balance.(this is subject to my prefferd taste of course).

I’ll hope to post the roast times and some pictures any time soon, for know I must get a couple ours of sleep before a new day cracks!!!

one4all all4 espresso.

FRISO

With their master roster Chris and some super baristas are they one of the most popular bars in Chicago.

Tony also showed me de roasting plant of Inteligentsia coffee. This ‘orange’ place also rocks. Lots of people with tattoos, piercings and other hipster items work with passion and dedication. Result is perfect coffee which they serve in one of the three espresso bars. In that bars also lots of passionate barista with tattoos.  I was very lucky to find 2006 champ Matt Riddle and 2007 finalist Amber Sather in one of the bars near Belmont. They had a wonderful initiative. They gave customers the change to taste their signature drinks they served the judges in the US championships. Those signatures where really good. Probably the best I have ever tasted. Matt’s was with ginger and lime. Ambers with cherry and white chocolate. Both perfect balanced and a smooth finish.

After Tony helped me with the presentation we went to the famous bar Greenmill. This was the favorite bar of All Capone.

We had fun and spoke about coffee all night. Tony thanks for all your help.

Jeroen

sitting here on O’Hare Airport I like to tell you that Chicao really rocks.

The quantitiy of the bars isnt as big as Seattle, Portland or Sydney. But the the quality deff. is.

I spend some great hours at my friend Tony’s Metropolis coffee and with the rockstars from Inteligentsia coffee. They really gave me energy!

in my next post I sent you the details and photo’s. I have to go and board now,

Jeroen

Next tuesday I have the opportunity to fly to Chicago. I’m looking forward to it because of the Chicago article I saw in the last Barista Magazine. I’m doing a demonstration on Wednesday evening, and that give me the change to experience the barista culture in Chicago on thursday. I can’t wait to drink my espressi at Intelligentsia and Metropolis!A

As soon as I have story’s and pictures I’ll post them here!

Jeroen 

find more pics at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8463748@N08/

good luck gettin shop2 up and running!

Onno, Jeroen, Friso, Jasper, and many more