Monday, March 14, 2005

 

Closing Down

This is the last post to this blog. I started this blog as, (I hoped), an opportunity to communicate with far flung friends. It seems that communication is not very high on their list, but I am enjoying blogging so much I thought I'd start another.

There is a nother reason. The blog was called "Home at the Hendels" and I hoped that Cynthia would participate. Well, while trying to leave a comment on Karen's blog she inadvertently created her own. Well, surprise, surprise. She too decided it would be fun. So she is actually going to post too. So if Cyntia is going to have a blog, then calling mine "Home at the Hendels" is redundant and "Home of a Hendel" doesn't have the same ring to it, in fact it sounds rather silly. Hence, it's time to start a new blog.

A more serious note about blogging. When I started using the Web in the 80s, little did I imagine how it would change the world. It started out pretty lame. Blogging is at the same stage. It will become a wildfire.

Blogging has several positive contributions to make to our society. Most, such as its use in politics(the Dean campaign), world events (the Ukraine revolution) have been well documented. Others such as the Iranian and Iraqi bloggers haven't. But there is another contribution that bloggers are making. The diaries of Samuel Pepys have provided historians with a unique perspective into life in his day. Correspondence between famous figures in history have provided insights into the thought processes that contributed to world changing events. Today there is a lamenting that historians of the future won't have letters or diaries to draw upon since nobody writes letters or diaries anymore. Well they can stop worrying. Thanks to bloggers they will have more than they could have wished for!

There is another facet to this. While academics bewail the death of conversation and community, lost to television and the tendency, at least in this country to isolate themselves as much as possible in their homes. Blogging is recreating the opportunity for conversation and community. I have been made especially aware of that at the CoffeeGeek forums. It really is a community of like minded people.


For those who care to have my new blog address just email me and I'll be happy to send it to you, but only if you promise to leave a comment; it is quite annoying the number of people I know that have visited this blog and never once left a comment. I'll leave this up since there is some material worth keeping and thanks to Google gigabytes are cheap:)

Sunday, March 13, 2005

 

My wife the roaster!

Cynthia the Roaster(just full of beans!) Posted by Hello

Cynthia just did her first roast on the SCCO (see yesterday's post). Yesterday she kept the log and I did the roasting, today it was the reverse. We didn't go anywhere near second crack, so no smoke and sparks!. She did a beautiful roast of 341gms of PNG. Stopped it at City+ cannot wait to try it
Baked Beans Posted by Hello

 

SCCO SUCCESS

I said in yesterdays post that there were some exciting developments on the coffee front. Well they were even more exciting than I anticipated. First of all some background:

I bought the Z&D roaster largely because it would be ideal for a beginner and that over time I would be able to learn more about the roasting process. It was successful in that, however a few weeks ago it broke down and I was without a roaster until it came back last week. I had become increasingly interested in the talk on CoffeeGeek about the SCCO and was looking forward to moving to that. Originally I had planned to make that move when we moved back to SF, but I now felt it would be a good time to do it.

Firstly, what is an SCCO. It was originally invented by Ryuji Suzuki and called the SCGG. It comprised an amalgam of a Stir Crazy Poppcorn Popper and a Galloping Gourmet convection oven. These could be bought cheaply and adapted to the process quite easily. Eventually the GG, no longer manufactured, became more and more expensive on EBay, (all those CoffeeGeeks buying them up?), so other ovens were used. I ordered a Sunpentown at NewEgg.com and bought the SC at Target. Cost: CO $59 plus shipping, SC $29, misc materials $5. $93, not bad for a coffee roaster.+

Secondly, what are the advantages of an SCCO? Look at a comparisone with the Z&D:
------------------Z&D----------------SCCO
Batch Size--------1/4lb--------------Upto 1.5lbs
Control of Roast--None---------------Complete
Ability to
Profile Roast-----None---------------Complete
Cost--------------$99----------------$89

So, last week I spent much of my time modding the SC. Below you can see the results. Clockwise from top left:An unmodded SC, Replace plastic nut with metal nut and washer,bottom of SC, bottom with heater disconnected, and taped,mods to stirring arms to improve bean movement, copper cap to protect shaft (Thanks Joe Chloupek), and the CO on top of the SC.
SC Mods Posted by Hello


Now the fun starts...Drum Roll! With Cynthia keeping the roasting log, a record of minute by minute progress of the roast, and I, having spent hours figuring out what profile I wanted to use, we set about roasting 3/4lb (hear that 3/4lb!!!) of Brazilian Carmo Estate Peaberry, on the porch - no catalytic converter on this as you will see.

As we started the roast it was a lot of chaos, but then the supense set in. After about 7 minutes we could see the beans changing color, at 14mins First Crack started, this was the sign to lift the lid for 20secs to slow the roast down then set the lid back on and head to Second Crack (although I think that is a shame to do for a Brazilian, I wanted to see how fast it got to 2nd).

At this point a little explanation is in order. Up until now I had been roasting 1/4lb in the Z&D, and the Z&D has a catalytic converter to get rid of the smoke and the smell. There is a lot of smoke in the coffee roasting process but up until now we had never seen any. Also as you enter 2nd, some of the chaff will ignite (kind of pretty actually, one guy says he like to roast in his garage at night and watch the fireworks!)

Well, here I am now roasting 3/4lb. While there is some smoke emitted at 1st, I had heard that a second puff of smoke signals the onset of 2nd, and indeed, as we approached second, smoke comes billowing out and little pieces of chaff ignite. Cynthia, not having seen this process, thought something was amiss and calls out "My God, It's on Fire! It's on Fire!" and I don't think she was entirely reassured by my insististance that this was normal, because I wasn't entirely sure that it was myself!

So shortly after 2nd we stop the roast and cool the beans. Just had them this morning and they were wonderul. I suspect that the flavor profile was even better than with the Z&D but would have to do some side-by-side tastings to verify.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

 

So much going on

It's been a very full week!

To start with it became obvious that the people I was depending upon in SF were letting me down big-time. So a complete reassessment of my approach was called for. I found the phone number of the owner of the agency I did so much work for and through her got the phone numbers and email addresses of several of her past employees. I proceeded to call them and got some very positive feedback. Upshot of it all is that we have changed our position on looking for a job. Previously we had been against taking a contract position but realized that it might be the easiest way to break back into the SF job market.

This was re-enforced by Thursday's weather. 40mph winds with 50+mph gusts. Truly horrible. We really HAVE to get out of this place.

Installation of the program went on apace despite the continuois FUs by the completely inept IS dept. out there. To top it off they want to offer me another contract, but in their continued inability to do anything efficiently nothing will be finalized until April 12! Actually that suits me fine because by then I should either be out of here or if not I'll have a fall-back position.

On the coffee front there have been some very exciting developments. I'll update the blog on all that tomorrow as it will be a long post. We are doing our first roast with the new setup today and I'll be able to give an update.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

 

22 and counting

Saturday was our 22nd wedding anniversary and we had a lovely time. Even the weather was nice and for the first time since fall we were able to sit outside and have a glass of wine.

Although CoffeeEmergency lived up to their name and Jason did a lovely job, I thought he roasted the Kenya AA Muthiani to perfection, I was very glad to get my roaster back from Z&D and roasted a double batch of Yemen Mokha - Bany Matar. Nice to be roasting again, can't wait to try that Yemen.

Other than that have you seen your "New Features" in your gmail inbox? You can now use Picasa to send up to 10mb of photos. It will even resize and trim them down for emails.

Had a fun time checking the new Firefox extensions. One was a great idea and it's catching on, rightfully. It's called Stumbleupon. The idea is that you express your interests and you become a member of a community that shares good sites. You can either just click on "Stumble" and it will take you to a randomly selected site or you can surf and recommend sites to other people in the Stumble community. Even your blog! In fact I found this great article about Firefox in the HowStuffWorks site. Discovered some hilarious sites.

Which reminds me - have you upgraded your Firefox with the latest security fixes? Firefox is catching on like crazy, only one person I know is not using it. Angela, didn't you check out my Feb 7th post? It was written for you!

Talking of Angela, I have removed a link to her blog because she seems to have done the same thing that Karen did when she set up her blog. I offered to help her correct the mistake but she said she had a "Chilean-American" coming over to fix it. Haven't heard from her since. However did hear from Karen. She has her blog up and running again and it looks really nice. Check out the links section.

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

 

Waiting for the pot to boil

Still haven't fished the project.

The good news is that I had a long talk with Cindy about the SF job situation. It was very interesting and hopefully productive. She also turned me on to some great blogs. We'l see what comes of it all but I am hopefull. Cindy isn't a BS artist. I should get an email today or tomorrow.

No pics today, too gloomy and cold.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Technorati search