Our Pre Order offer has ended. We are now holding stock in Sydney and you can click here to purchase ($70 +p&h)

We had the privilege of hosting Scott Rao for some workshops earlier in the year on Roasting. The information he shared was an advanced preview of the content of his new book The Coffee Roaster’s Companion. In this book Scott has distilled the experience and knowledge gained from 19 years as a roaster and a consultant into 88 pages. We are offering the opportunity to pre-order a copy of this book to ensure you get a copy from the shipment which  was sent on Monday the 11th of August. If you take advantage of the pre-order offer you will also receive free shipping within Australia.

Here are some excerpts from the book, click on the photos for a larger image:

The book covers everything from Green Coffee Chemistry to Roast Machine Design, Planning a Roast Batch to Measuring Results. The book also reveals Scott’s Three Commandments of Roasting  that he introduces in this way.

As a roaster and a consultant over the past nineteen years, I’ve had the opportunity to cup and view the roast data for each of more than 20,000 batches roasted on a variety of machines by various methods. About five years ago, I spent several days poring over reams of roast data in an attempt to find the common elements in the best batches I’d ever tasted.* To be clear, I’m not referring to “really good” batches. I focused only on the data from batches so special that I could “taste” them in my memory months or years after physically tasting them. That effort yielded what I think of as the “commandments of roasting.”

PRE ORDER Coffee Roaster’s Companion by Scott Rao

$70 (includes free shipping Australia wide)

Our Pre Order offer has ended. 

Science of Flavour and the Critical Evaluation of Coffee. Presented by Sam Sgambellone

We have been invited to present Science of Flavour as part of the 2014 Aroma Festival. In this class we will take a look at what is happening on a scientific level when we assess the flavour of Coffee. Through a series of tests and demonstrations, we will give you a better understanding how you perceive tastes, aromas and flavour. Especially for those who love coffee, or otherwise for anyone who would like to further their sensory skills. Being able to assess coffee accurately and confidently is now a pre-requisite for any specialty barista. Without formal training, the process of becoming a good “taster” can take many years. This course is designed to provide a clear foundation and help lay the first building block. A little like learning a language, you will learn from this course the structure and grammar, so each time you taste afterwards you are adding words to your flavour vocabulary and moving towards being able to speak the language fluently.

The class will begin with an overview of the biology of the senses then move to practical exercises with Basic Tastes. The session will then move onto aromas and using the Le Nez du Cafe aroma kit we will explore what part aroma plays in flavour and how to build the associated skills. Finally we will assess a selection of coffees using the principles we have just learned.

Time: 6pm Thursday 17th of July (2 hours)

Cost: $165 per person

Capacity: maximum 12 people

Register Now

Sam Sgambellone is the founder of Coffee Kaizen and a partner in Mecca Espresso. He is dedicated to education and development of his staff, other coffee professionals and the general public. Sam has been heavily involved with the NSW Barista Guild, has won the NSW Cup Tasting Championship twice and is an AASCA Accredited Judge.

Coffee Kaizen is committed to disseminating the most progressive coffee knowledge and techniques currently available to a broader audience.

After my post V60: Drip or Immersion on VST Coffee Tools? questioning which settings to use on the VST App, I thought i’d take it one step further and develop a calculator that would allow users to work out the settings for their particular brew method.

You can find the calculator here. This calculator works best for Pour Overs and Batch Brewers. It allows you to pop in the particulars of your brew and it will spit out an Adjusted LRR that will give you the most accurate EXT %. 

All you need to do is prepare a brew using your technique and measure the following:

Dose (g) – Mass of the dry grounds in grams.

Brew Water Weight (g) – The weight of the water you are starting with. This calculator is assuming its at 90+ degrees, similar to the app.

Beverage Weight (g) – The weight of the final beverage.

Beverage TDS (%) – The TDS first part of the beverage

End portion TDS (%) – as you get to the end of your brew, capture the last 5-10g or so to come through and take a measurement using the Refractometer.

End Weight (g) – The weight of the last part of the brew that was captured.

From these numbers the calculator will work out the Adjusted LRR. You then place the Adjusted LRR into the app under Drip Mode replacing the default 2,1. When you place this Adjusted LRR into the app it will give you an Extraction Yield % that is now accurately taking into account the extracted coffee that still remains in the coffee bed. Both MOIST and CO2 should be returned to Zero, in my view if you can’t measure it you may as well leave it at Zero.

Feel free to shoot across any questions.

Drip, dah! Obvious right? well maybe not.

If you are using a “traditional” technique that calls for staged pours, maybe 50g at a time, then Drip setting will give you the most accurate EXT %. However things are a little more complicated in my experience if you are using a technique advocated by Scott Rao and the likes of Matt Perger (watch video here). This technique in contras involves a small “pre wet” followed by the rest of the water dispensed in one complete pour.

Why the difference?

Well it all comes down to assumptions the app makes regarding the nature of the liquid retained by the coffee bed. With traditional drip coffee, fresh water is always passing through the bed and if one was to measure the liquid coming out of a V60 at the end of a brew, say the last 10g, it would have a very low TDS. It can be assumed then that the liquid retained by the bed is just water and can be discounted. Any calculations need only take into account the Dissolved Solids in the cup.

In a full immersion brew, lets take a plunger, after 5 minutes if one was to pour out the plunger and take a measurement, we’d have to consider not only the liquid in the cup but also the liquid retained by the bed. Why? Well, because the grounds were in contact with the brewed coffee so the liquid in the bed would be saturated with the same amount of dissolved solids (as a %) as the cup.

Lets break this down and take a look at the maths behind the VST App. Below is an example of a V60 using Drip and a Plunger using Immersion. The Liquid Retained Ratio (LRR) is left as the app default, C02 and MOIST are “0” to make the math simpler for this demonstration.

Coffee Kaizen and Small Batch are  pleased to be able to offer the coffee professionals in Melbourne the opportunity to hear Scott Rao present masterclasses on Manual Brewing and Roasting.

Scott has a wealth of information to share from his almost two decades of experience as a barista, roaster and consultant. We really appreciate Scott’s approach to coffee; he has a very deep understanding based on sound investigation yet he is able to distil his findings into simple, useful suggestions that anyone can integrate into their production.

We hope you take the opportunity whilst he is here to come and learn from him, he will be presenting the following sessions:

Scott Rao on Manual Brewing – Masterclass Sunday, 23 March 2014 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (More info)

Scott Rao on Roasting – Masterclass Sunday, 23 March 2014 from 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM (More info)

All the details are on our Eventbrite Page , please email us with any questions.

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Coffee Kaizen and Mecca Espresso Ultimo are  pleased to be able to offer the coffee professionals in Sydney the opportunity to hear Scott Rao present on Espresso, Manual Brewing and Roasting.

Scott has a wealth of information to share from his almost two decades of experience as a barista, roaster and consultant. We really appreciate Scott’s approach to coffee; he has a very deep understanding based on sound investigation yet he is able to distil his findings into simple, useful suggestions that anyone can integrate into their production.

We hope you take the opportunity whilst he is here to come and learn from him, he will be presenting the following sessions:

Scott Rao on Espresso Thursday, 27 March 2014 from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (More info)

Scott Rao on Manual Brewing – Masterclass Sunday, 30 March 2014 from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (More info)

Scott Rao on Roasting – Masterclass Sunday, 30 March 2014 from 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM (More info)

All the details are on our Eventbrite Page , please email us with any questions.

We are honoured to once again be asked to offer a series of classes for the Ultimo Science Festival.

This year we will be presenting The Science of Coffee Extraction, a one hour exploration of the foundations of what is happening when we brew coffee. Through a series of tests and demonstrations, we will give you a better understanding of coffee brewing fundamentals and explore what influences the extraction and most importantly the taste of the beverage

We are honoured to once again be asked to offer a class for the Ultimo Science Festival.

This year we will be presenting The Science of Coffee Flavour, a one hour exploration of the foundations of what is happening when we asses the flavour of coffee. This hands on workshop will feature a series of tests and demonstrations which will give participants a better understanding how they perceive tastes, aromas and flavour.