Good People

Sunday February 24, 2008.

In the far back lot of a warehouse complex now sits the Muddydog Roasting Co. Sunday was its Grand Opening and in celebration Jim and his family threw a “Brew-In”; a gathering of local home-brewers of beer and coffee lovers. Immediately upon entering we were each handed a shot of espresso while Jim showed us around his warehouse and introduced us to his eco-friendly roasting machine (named Rosie). While Sara stayed indoors learning more about the roaster and coffee, Melanie, a micro-brew fan, used the opportunity to pick the brains of some very knowledgeable home-brewers: Jason, Brice, Mark, Bruce, and Aaron.

Melanie:
A few months back I had the chance to home-brew beer for the first time, I was immediately hooked wanting to know as much as I could, but my obsession with another brown liquid has been occupying all my time. As I delve deeper into the coffee world, learning about the process, the flavors, and the art/science of it I find myself asking similar questions about two other interests: Beer and Chocolate. I have been conducting an informal survey on the matter and it seems many people who begin to learn about one of these three also increase their knowledge about the other two; a delicious trifecta.

Eventually conversation turned to the international hops shortage. Did you know there is an international hops shortage? Me neither. Apparently, the combination of a warehouse fire in the US, a series of floods in Europe and a plague of poor quality crops has caused prices to soar and near panic in the micro- and home-brew worlds. My coffee-focused mind immediately related this to aspects that affect the price of coffee such as bad crop, political unrest, and global trade patterns. Staying with the hops theme, we talked about how genetic varietals of hops produce different flavors, much like each family of grapes will produce different wine, or coffee plant lineage can determine coffee flavor.

Having Sara learn to sample roast while the guys were teaching me to brew, I was also struck by the similarly of the preparation process. Sara and I would scurry back-and-forth,

“Did you know…..”

“No, but I just……..”

“Wow, I didn’t realise….”

“Ok, I have to get back to…..”

smelling the beginning product, weighing things out, adding heat, measuring, tracking times, gauging temperature, mixing, checking, smelling, waiting, smelling, check the temps, check the times, check the temps again, a little bit of instinct and voila – Beer or Coffee.

Jennifer brought some Amish apple muffins to help celebrate the Grand Opening of Muddy Dog Roasting Co. While eating our Pennsylvanian treats more brewers arrived, as well as Jim’s wife Debbie and his twin daughters; Courtney and Emily.

As the espresso high wore off Jim suggested we roast up some coffee in his sample roaster. He said he would let Sara do the work!

Sara Rose:
I picked out something I had never tasted before, a coffee from Bali. This was my first roasting experience and I felt quite excited about the whole process. The process of weighing out the beans that you personally are going to pour into the roaster, lifting the lever that allows those beans to fall into the roasting chamber and watching the beans spin in the viewing window is so tangible, it is hard to explain.

I carefully pulled out a few beans before the first crack to better understand what happens as they heat up. The color had changed only slightly at this point, giving the green beans a brown undertone. Jim helped me listen for the first crack (think popcorn beginning to pop in a pot on the stove) and I pulled out a few more beans. Now they were a definite brown, with a green undertone. Finally, after the second crack, I pulled out a few more beans that were dark brown in color. Checking with Jim to establish the finality of my roast, I turned off the heat, lifted the trap door at the bottom of the roasting chamber, and let the feisty fellas fly. After giving them some space to cool off we stuck a bunch in the grinder, added some hot water, and 4 minutes later had a French press full of Bali coffee. DE-licious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Denali made friends with Courtney and Emily’s Hawaiian donkey and felt right at home with the roasting machine. Having spent the day sampling a variety of coffee and beer we left the “good people party” to cook dinner with our Couch Surfing host.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can read Jim’s account of the day on his Coffee-blog.

Thanks Muddydog,

- Sara Rose and Melanie