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Intro To Total Hardness

12/7/2017

By: Jon Clutton

Okay. I take responsibility. I took us straight into the deep end last week. We dove right into molecules that look like this. That can be confusing AF for those of us who haven't taken a science class since high school. 
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I might have been a bit overzealous. But I swear it was with good intentions. 

You see, I LOVE science and I feel it gets a bad rap. People think it's reserved only for the nerds, the PhDs, and the liberals. When really, ALL people need science and can learn a lot from it. I want the science section of this blog to be one where we all feel comfortable looking at data. I want us to look, understand, and not be intimidated by the data. Being able to look at data and not be intimidated is a great skill. It's a real skill that we can use every single day - sourcing foods, whether or not to trust online articles, and analyzing the latest documentary you watched on netflix. We should make decisions based on the weight of the evidence. 

So, on this blog, I want to be grounded in data. I don't want there to be conjecture or philosophizing. I don't want things to be dumbed down. I don't want to "interpret" anything. I want for all of us to look at a study, look at the crazy graphs, and be like "ya, I understand that." Because we can. We can in coffee. We can in health. We can in climate change. We are capable. We can look at the data for ourselves and find answers. The only places we can't are in subjects like biophysics and complicated materials sciences. . . but we have friends for that. Or at least Christine and I do. If you need some of those friends, we can share them with you. They're real nice. (Jose Luis Olmos Jr.,  Adrianne Spencer, and David Spencer).  #scienceforeveryone #dataisreal #scienceisreal 

With my small rant being out of the way, let's take a step back and actually build a foundation so that we can all think about coffee a little bit differently and a little more sciencey. Here's the plan for the next four weeks. 
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Week 1 - Introduce General Hardness (this one) 
Week 2 - Introduce Alkalinity
Week 3 - Put It All Together
Week 4 - Collect Our Own Data


I want to just put a little bit of data in front of you. 
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Let's just let that marinate for a few seconds.

(Pause for marinating). 
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You might be thinking, "what the heck even is this?" 

This is a graph of how the relationship between water alkalinity and total hardness impacts the quality of a brewed cup of coffee. In other words, this is a graph describing the important relationship between extraction capacity and buffering capacity. In other, other words, this graph explains how to make good coffee based on lots of data. By the end of the four weeks we will be able to understand this graph and how it can help us. Keep this in the back of your mind. 

Ion Intro

An ion is a charged particle. Table salt is composed of sodium and chloride (NaCl). When you salt your water before making your pasta, the NaCl is dissolved into water and it splits into Na+ and Cl- molecules. Na+ and Cl- are ions. They are positively and negatively charged, respectively. If you were to take a super duty microscope and zoom in on the water in your pot, it would look something like this, with the charged ions being surrounded by the water. 
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There are many different ions present in water. The few that we care about for today are magnesium (Mg2+), calcium (Ca2+), and forms of carbonate (H2CO3, HCO3-, CO32-). 

Total Hardness

If you remember back to our last blog, magnesium and calcium are the ions responsible for extracting a lot of the good stuff out of the coffee bean. They are important for making coffee tasty. When we refer to total hardness, we refer to calcium and magnesium, as you can see on this handy chart below. The amount of dissolved calcium and magnesium make up the total hardness. 
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So, let's go back to the graph that we showed earlier. 
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Plotted on the y-axis (vertical axis) is total hardness (think magnesium and calcium). We can think of total hardness as the extraction capacity of the water. The higher the total hardness, the more the water can pull from the coffee bean. In the top left corner of the image the tasting notes are overextracted, heavy, dull, and sour. The key there is overextracted. That's why I bolded it. Christine probably would have even made it a different color altogether. So I'm going to do that too. OVEREXTRACTED. At those higher ranges of total hardness, the water is pulling TOO MUCH from the coffee beans. It's even pulling the molecules that do not taste good. When you taste coffee that has been overextracted, it has a linger on your tongue. It has a heavy mouth feel to it because of the high number of dissolved solutes the total hardness pulled. 

You will also notice another tasting note in the top right hand corner - sour. That comes from the acids. The high total hardness pulled all of the acids into the cup of coffee, leading to a very acidic cup. Think sour patch kids in coffee form. It's not great. There was no buffer to help balance out the acidity. This is where the alkalinity comes in. We will get into that next week.

My wife found a good metaphor for total hardness.

Christine's Interpretation: Pie is fantastic. Delicious pie is just unmatched. I mean, who doesn't want to eat pie? I can't name anyone. Seriously. Not a single human. My grandma makes a mean rhubarb pie. You would think, because pie is so damn good, you could eat a crap ton of pie (any flavor - pick your favorite) and never get tired of it.  But we all know that's not true. There's a point, maybe it's your third, maybe fourth, or maybe your fifth slice when you no longer want to take another bite. It's just too heavy. You start to pick up on weird flavors in the filling. The perfection of the crust no longer seems ideal. All you want is a piece of kale and a nice nap. That's when you know you've past your ideal total pie level. In the same way, we want magnesium and calcium, but at some point, you get too much of a good thing, and it turns bad. That's when you've past your ideal Total Hardness Level. 

Key TakeawayS

We are building a foundation, so let's talk about the key takeaways from this first foundation level. 

Total hardness refers to the amount of magnesium and calcium in water, which we can think of as the water's extraction capacity.

Total hardness = extraction capacity. 


Too much of a good thing, can be a bad thing. 

And, perhaps most importantly, 

If you don't like pie, then something may be wrong with you. 

Jon Clutton
Coffee scientist/barista 

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An Ion Took A Compound on A Date

11/30/2017

By Jon Clutton

One of my goals as a barista and scientist is to be able to encourage creative and curious minds in coffee to read the science behind what makes their drinks taste incredible. Ultimately, our goal is to craft incredible coffee. Looking into the science helps us do just that.

There are two ingredients in all coffee drinks. Coffee beans and water. But mostly, it's just water. So I am going to write the next few blogs on water. I figured we could start by building a foundation on water by reviewing an article by an incredible mind in the coffee world, Christian Hendon et al. (2014). There may only be two ingredients to coffee, but when you break down each of those ingredients into their molecular level, then things can get real interesting.

If things get too "heady" feel free to read Christine's interpretations at the bottom of each section in orange. This is her explaining the science in her own words.  

Background 

"The Role of Dissolved Cations in Coffee Extraction" by Hendon et al (2014) was the paper that sparked a lot of the interest in how water impacts spro and joe. It is the reason companies like Third Wave Water can do what they do and the reason you see a bunch of blog posts popping up about homemade water recipes i.e this one from Matt Perger at Barista Hustle. Dr. Christopher Hendon, the author of this paper, is an assistant professor in computational chemistry at the University of Oregon. So in other words, he smart. In these last few years he has spearheaded some serious coffee science innovation, both with his book, Water for Coffee, which expands on the topics covered in his 2014 paper and with a paper on grinding temperature published in Nature Scientific Reports - Uman et al. (2016).

Coffee is just water and coffee beans. That’s it. By mixing water and coffee beans, whatever the brewing device might be, you pull stuff from the coffee beans into the water, and BOOM, coffee. Our ability to pull stuff is called extraction. I think that this concept is pretty easy to understand using tea. Think about when you steep a tea bag. The longer you leave the tea bag steeping in the water, the stronger the tea, i.e. the more stuff you’ve pulled out, i.e. the higher the extraction. Same thing goes for a french press or a cold brew. The longer you leave it brewing, the higher the extraction. However, not everything in coffee beans tastes good. You don’t want to pull out everything. So the battle for roasters is, how do I roast to accentuate the good stuff in this coffee, and the battle for baristas is, how do I brew so that I extract the good stuff from this coffee. This is what Hendon tackles. What does water extract and how? 

Hendon et al. (2014) proposes looking at the interactions between molecules commonly found in coffee and ions in water through computational chemistry. He narrows his focus down to three ions - calcium, magnesium and sodium - and seven compounds - lactic acid, malic acid, citric acid, quinic acid, chlorogenic acid, caffeine, and eugenol. (See Hendon et al. 2014 Table 1 below)

Below is a fancy scientific way of showing these compounds. If it looks confusing, just pretend they are drawings of partial honeycombs for now. 
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Christine's Interpretation: Coffee is mostly water. "Extraction" is a term that means "pulling things out of the coffee bean into the water". You can over and under extract coffee leaving not so pleasant tastes. You're looking to create the perfect cup by extracting the good, and leaving out the bad. 

Methods 

Hendon uses software to model the environment of brewing coffee at a molecular molecular level. (Hendon goes into his methods in the paper, and he goes into the basic science behind those methods in his book Water for Coffee. If you're interested I'd suggest reading him for more information). Using this model, Hendon determines the strength of the interaction between each ion, the seven chosen coffee compounds, and water. You can think of the interaction as the pull. The stronger the interaction, the stronger the pull. With this information Hendon can discuss the extraction capacity of each ion. The stronger an ion interacts with a coffee compound, the more likely it is to pull the compound into the cup of coffee. . . the higher the extraction. 

Christine's interpretation: Imagine you have three female roommates and you want to set them up with one of your seven guy friends. You'd put each roommate together with each guy and see how they interact. The stronger a roommate interacts with one of the guy friends, the more likely the relationship would actually work and produce something good. So homeboy Hendon just set up three ions on a date with seven compounds to see which compounds would work together strongly enough to extract into the coffee. 

DATA!

Hendon displays his data in two ways - interaction lengths between ion and coffee compound and the relative binding energy between ion and coffee compound.

Christine's Interpretation: You decide to chart your friends dates because it's getting complicated to keep all your info in multiple group texts. You notice that the shorter the date was, the better it went because they knew so quickly they liked each other they didn't even need to continue the first date (not real life, trying to make the metaphor work here people). So you chart the interaction length between friend and roommate. You also chart their "binding energy" with one another. . . I'll let you fill in the blanks on what that might mean.

These results are shown below. (I took these data straight from Hendon et al., 2014 so mad credit and thanks).
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The simplest and most straightforward way to think about these data is that the shorter the interaction length, the stronger the pull. Similarly, the stronger the relative binding energy, the stronger the pull. When looking at table 1 and figure 3, the data are consistent. You can see that magnesium has both the shorter interaction length and the stronger relative binding energy across all coffee compounds. Magnesium has the best pull. This suggests that if we want to improve extraction then our water should have a higher proportion of magnesium. We've seen the data. We know that magnesium is going to improve our extraction Let's talk about how we can actually apply this data to making a better cup of coffee.

Christine's interpretation: You realize your roommate Magnesium connected super well with all seven guy friends and now they all want to date her. 

Summary 

There's a few things we can take from Hendon et al. (2014), some of which couldn't be implied with the data shown in the paper.

1) Magnesium is favorable for extraction. 
  • Hendon notes that not only does magnesium seem to have a stronger pull with the coffee compounds, but it also seems to have a selectively favorable pull with the right compounds. Quinic acid and chlorogenic acid have been known to bring some yucky tastes to a cup of coffee.  Magnesium has a higher binding energy to lactic acid, malic acid, and citric acid relative to quinic acid and chlorogenic acid when compared to calcium (if only by approximately 5%). So magnesium relatively extracts more of the good stuff. I think that there is room for argument with Hendon's logic here, but we will wait to make those arguments until I have aged past baby barista and baby scientist. Note to file for later.
2) If you want caffeinated coffee, don't use sodium rich water (btw Kansas City tap water tends to be sodium rich. Here's a link to the 2017 KC water report)
  • Hendon remarks that sodium is about as good at water at pulling the acidic coffee compounds and actually is worse than water at pulling caffeine and eugenol. Sodium will not improve extraction relative to plain water. If you want a flavorful cup of coffee Hendon wouldn't suggest using sodium rich water. This is important to take into consideration if you use a sodium-exchange filter system (some filter cartridges will exchange sodium for calcium) or if you are like us and you live in Kansas City. 
3) This paper only tells us that magnesium is better for extracting compared to calcium and sodium. It doesn't specifically tell us how much magnesium is good, nor does it get into the other variables that affect the final cup of coffee like buffers and total hardness. We will get into these later, but for now we know that....

RESEARCH SHOWS MAGNESIUM IS GOOD FOR SPRO. 
Happy Brewing, 
​Jon Clutton
Coffee Scientist/Barista
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A Wild Adventure

11/16/2017

Jon Clutton

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I had intended to write this week's blog about baskets. The espresso kind of basket. The silver one that holds coffee grounds and sits in an espresso machine. Because, let's be honest .... they are riveting. But, during the time that I had set aside to write what would have probably been (okay, let's be honest) a pretty boring blog about baskets, I found myself driving to Cadiz, Kentucky in a rescue mission of sorts. 

At 4:54 PM Tuesday evening I received a call from my incredible wife. By 6:05 PM I was on the road in a white pickup truck, owned by her father, that, luckily, is as reliable as her father. Christine's car had broken down in the hills of Tennessee trying to tow our new coffee trailer. Which, by the way, has been affectionately named Stella and is often referred to by my wife as "our baby". So I took off to St. Louis to stay the night with friends, and then finished the rest of the seven hour drive to our rescue point, Cadiz, Kentucky.

In lieu of this adventure, this week's blog will not be about baskets, but instead it will be a short photo story of all our adventures in the past two weeks. There have been some momentous milestones. 

We pulled our first shot. 
Had our first customer. 
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Christine's friend and former co-worker, Deidre, drove 12 hours here and back from Austin to help with out first pop-up shop. 
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Christine's friend, Adri Guyer, took incredible photos of our pop-up, making us look professional AF. 
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Christine's Dad drove 1000 miles, braved the Tennessee hills, and kept the trailer and Christine safe and sound.
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We met Jerry, who is a master at making custom trailers from the ground up and, who we found out, does not like taking photos. Luckily, Christine has a way of wooing people into things.
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And . . . we made it home safely (with our baby). 
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We are two weeks in, and I have learned that our friends are more reliable than our car. That Nashville is a great weekend trip destination from Kansas City. And that 15 year old cars pry aren't the safest bet when traveling with a 1200 lb trailer attached to it.

​Thank you to everyone who is making this dream come true. It's way more possible with you, and it's way more fun too. 

Here's my favorite picture of Christine. Enjoy the pure joy radiating from her. 
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Best,

​Jon Clutton
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why your home coffee tastes like shit (Part 3)

11/9/2017

Part 3 of 3
By: Christine Clutton​

We’ve come to our final blog in the series, Why Your Home Coffee Tastes Like Shit. This blog series was inspired by the many mornings in the past few months where I have stared into my full cup of coffee trying to figure out why I didn't want to drink it. 

I had an identity crisis there for a bit. Do I even like coffee? Why am I starting a coffee shop if I can't drink coffee? Who am I? What do I believe? Am I even real? Is this all a dream? To be or not to be . . . IS that the real question? It was cyclical. 


It's painful when you spend five minutes crafting a cup of coffee and then don’t want to drink it. I’m talking, Episode-VII-Han-Solo-death, painful. Ice-cream-falling-off-cone, painful. Phone-died-on-road-trip, painful.

You get the picture. It’s not fun.
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The first thing we tried fixing was our water. We had just moved to Kansas City and the water was radically different from Austin’s water. Blog one explains what we did to improve the quality. After we switched our water quality, our coffee became drinkable again. #PTL. Now to be honest, we still have our little bodum burr grinder, but Jon and I are about to take our own advice and get a Baratza grinder for the sake of our sanity. Read all about burr grinders in our second blog. So we’ve come to our last blog. Where we discuss brewing devices and their effects on coffee.
Brewing Devices
​Photo Cred: Prima Coffee 
As many of you know, I work at Thou Mayest part-time and the other day this sweet human/customer was asking me if a coffee she wanted to buy was acidic. I told her it wasn’t very acidic at all. She looked puzzled and pointed to another one that wasn’t very acidic and asked me again. Turns out, her husband had been buying all these coffees from us, wanting to get one that she liked, but she always thought they were too acidic. But seriously, none of our coffees are THAT acidic. So I thought for a second.
​

Bing. Bing. Bing. Light went off. I asked her how her husband brewed the coffee for her.

Chemex.
Chemex pouring into

​That made sense. The Chemex is known to bring out more acidity in coffee than other brewing devices. I told her to try using a home coffee machine, kalita wave, or a french press instead and see if she liked the results better. That’s exactly what Jon and I did early this fall too. We switched from a chemex to a kalita wave and I’m LOVING LIFE. Sometimes my stomach just can't handle acidic coffee so early in the morning. 

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So our final point is . . .

your home coffee might taste like shit because of: Your Brewing Device

There are plenty of brewing devices out there to try. Each will slightly vary the final cup of coffee you drink. Depending on what kind of coffee you like, one particular brewer may be your ticket to coffee-drinking success.

I also wanted to dive just a bit into roast profiles, origins and coffee processes and how they can also affect the taste of your cup of coffee. These topics could be individual blog posts themselves, but I want to keep my suggestions short and sweet because the focus of this blog post is simply on brewing devices. I know for a fact you can put a fruit-bomb, highly acidic, natural Ethiopian into a French Press and it will mute the acidity and the flavor. That’s why my customer at Thou Mayest could take the same coffee and enjoy it more in a different brewing device.  
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So my advice; first, analyze your brewing device; second, change your roast profile if you still aren’t happy; third, switch up your coffee origins; lastly, pay attention to the coffee process. That sounds like a lot of things to change, so I strongly suggest just paying attention to brewing devices, get that on lock down, then move forward with the other variables if you still aren’t happy or just want to tinker.
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our brewing device guide: 

Do you like bold, heavy, non-acidic and dense coffee?
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>> Try a french press, a coffee brewer, or just eating the beans straight. <<
Pair with a medium to dark roast coffee.
Try a Sumatra single origin.
​Look for a natural processed coffee.

Do you like smooth, balanced, less acidic coffee?

>> Try a kalita wave pour over, coffee brewer, cold brew, aeropress, or any flat bottom filter brewing device. <<
Pair with a medium roast coffee.
Try a Brazilian or Colombian single origin or blend.
Look for a natural or pulp-natural process.

Do you like high acidity, big aromatics, and light silky coffee?

>> Try a chemex, V60, clever, or any conical shaped filter brewing device <<
Pair with a light or medium-light coffee.
Try Ethiopian or Kenyan single origin.
Look for a washed processed coffee.
Check out THIS Eater article if you want more information on the three coffee processes: washed, natural, pulp-natural.

Ultimately, your home coffee might taste like shit some days, but that’s okay. It’s about experimenting, tinkering, and tasting. It’s part of the fun. So if one morning your coffee tastes bad, or not up to your standards, be okay with it. Dare I even suggest adding some cream to make it easier to drink. Or you can water your plants with it. That’s fine. But don’t get discouraged. Try again tomorrow.

Right now I’m drinking a natural Ethiopian from Cuvee Coffee, brewed in a kalita wave pour-over and I’m delighted. The acidity and taste are pronounced but not overbearing. It tastes like sweet peach and my grandma’s strawberry jam.

Cheers to the pursuit of brewing coffee that doesn’t taste like shit. It can be a long road, but at least it’s heavily caffeinated and a lot of fun!  

Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you still need additional advice!
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Cheers!
​Christine Clutton
Squirrel drinking coffee
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WHY YOUR HOME COFFEE TASTES LIKE SHIT (PART 2)

11/1/2017

Part 2 of 3

by: Christine clutton

Welcome to part two of our blog, "Why Your Home Coffee Tastes Like Shit." Our first blog was all about water quality. If you haven’t had a chance to read it, here is a short summary of what we said: our advice is to filter your water, add back some minerals, and try out different local roasts until you find the one you like best. 

The water issue is fairly inexpensive to fix, but will change your overall cup of coffee in great ways. This second article might set you back a couple hundies. Not our fault, blame coffee. It’s a tricky little thing this coffee.
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That being said, we do want to remind everyone that if you LOVE the coffee you make at home already, then don’t feel like you have to go changing your grinder, your water source, and your job to enable you to afford all this home brewing stuff. Just enjoy that morning cup of coffee and savor each sip. You’re a winner! Onto our second topic.

YOUR COFFEE MIGHT TASTE LIKE SHIT BECAUSE OF: YOUR GRINDER

Picture of burr grinds v blade grinds
Photo Cred: homegrounds.co
If you haven’t invested in one yet, today may be the day to buy yourself a burr grinder. A burr grinder is different than a typical “blade” grinder you’d be able to buy at Wal Mart, Target, etc. Prima Coffee explains the difference best,

“All burr grinders use the same general principle: they use sharp cutting surfaces and precise adjustment to chop up the coffee in a more controlled manner, like a skilled chef using a sharp knife, resulting in more consistent grinds. Burrs can be flat, conical, or a hybrid of both, and typically come in either steel or ceramic. The two burrs of the set oppose each other so the beans will get stuck in between and cut from both sides.”

This precision helps all the tiny little coffee particles be “extracted” at the same rate. In essence that simply means the deliciousness of the coffee is all coming out at the same rate and therefore you’re getting a more cohesive cup. Blade grinders chop up the coffee beans in inconsistent sizes, making your coffee extract at different rates. Think about it like baking french fries in the oven. When you cook various sized potatoes in the oven on the same baking sheet, you’re going to end up with the little potatoes burnt, and the big potatoes soft and squishy, or maybe even still hard. If you put one small and one big french fry in your mouth at the same time, you’re gonna be like “that is not right”. It is just like that with your coffee. Only at the micron level.

Having a burr grinder is single handedly the most important home barista tool, however, it can sometimes be the most expensive. If you haven’t invested in one yet, but find yourself staring longingly into your cup of freshly brewed coffee, disappointed...then the time is nigh. Take the plunge. Get the grinder. Here are a few of our favorites.
Baratza Encore Photo Cred: Baratza.Com
 Baratza Encore (or really any Baratza for that matter): $139
​High level shiz happening in this grinder. Super solid grind size, adjustable burrs, easily cleanable, the list goes on. By turning the hopper you can adjust your grind size in 40 different settings, which is coarse enough for french press and fine enough for espresso. The range is 250 to 1200 microns. Pretty dope. Now if you want to go ALL OUT, you can go with a different version of the Baratza for more cash. I’ve worked with the Baratza Forte before and it pretty much enables you to grind the exact amount of coffee you want just by pushing a button. The scale built in knows when you’ve reached your desired weight and turns off the grinder for you. This is great in cafe settings where weighing out beans constantly into little jars gets annoying.
As a special treat for my readers, please enjoy the photo of me below as a baby barista, circa 2014 at Cuvee Coffee posing with two Baratza Fortes. I took this photo for a Barista Magazine article, "Best Bar Tools 2014". Obviously I'm partial to them.

Christine with Baratza Fortes
Bodum burr coffee grinderPhoto Cred: Amazon.com

​Bodum Burr grinder: $99 
We have seen some inconsistencies in the particle size….BUT, it is better than a blade and a little cheaper than the Baratza. However, it will not last you nearly as long as a Baratza. If you can spare the extra $40, go with the Baratza. (Jon and I bought this a year and a half ago and still use it...BUT half of our coffee headaches are from this machine, not from lack of caffeine). 

Hario Skerton Plus Hand GrinderPhoto Cred: Prima-Coffee.Com
A hand grinder like Vario Skerton Plus: $47.50
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Why not? Especially if you’re the camping type, it will come in handy (pun intended). Now if you brew like ten cups of coffee every day, then you should probably NOT use this. Unless you are wanting to improve your hand strength. Or your muscular physique. In which case this would be perfect for you. For normal humans, not wanting to look like Johnny Bravo, this is perfect for those one cup pour overs. It’s doable and makes delicious coffee. Not to mention, the price is easy to swallow too.

So there you have it folks. Don’t let your coffee resemble inconsistently cooked potatoes! Get the burr grinder if you find yourself disappointed in your morning cup of joe. 

P.S. We will be serving coffee at our first pop-up shop this Sunday 12-6pm at 603 E 31st St. in KCMO. Stop by for delicious shots of spro and seasonal lattes. Follow our insta for more deets!
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Over & Out,
Christine Clutton
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why your home coffee Tastes like shit (part 1)

10/25/2017

Part 1 of 3

by: Christine Clutton

Let’s start by saying that today’s blog post is not for everyone. If you are one of those lucky people who make their coffee in the morning, walk out in your robe to get the paper, wave to the mail man, and then watch the rest of the sun rise as you savor each perfect sip of your delicious drink - then I both admire and envy you, but this blog post is not for you.

If you look like this human in the morning, then disregard this blog post all together.
 
Male model drinking coffee in robe
And no. We did not pay for the rights to this photo. But why should we? I'm bitter about how happy he looks. I wish this were me. Because you coffee-perfecting-people are my inspiration. You people are my muse. How I wish I could like the coffee I brew at home every day so easily, so blissfully. If I just described you, or at least the part about enjoying your morning coffee, then continue to make the coffee just like you do, however you do it, every day. You lucky sons of guns, cherish it. Don’t take that paradise for granted.
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If you happen to be on the other side of the coin. On the side of the coin where I lay,  disenchanted, disillusioned, and distressed by your morning coffee, then this blog...this blog is for you. This blog is for all the geeks and pour over technique freaks out there like me that just HAVE to try every method, every roast, every water source, every grind size, to find the “perfect” cup of coffee.

My old boss used to say, “The best cup of coffee is simply the cup of coffee you like best.”  I.e. drink it how you want. Brew it how you want. If you like it, then drink it that way. But what if you DON’T KNOW how to make that “cup of coffee you like best”?

That leaves you in a predicament now doesn’t it? So we decided to create a blog post (actually, a total of three blog posts) to discuss some simple ways to attempt to make that cup of coffee you love best. We thought this blog would really just be a jumping-off point for all other bewildered home baristas to chime in about what they have tried that has helped them perfect (or at least nudged them in perfection’s direction) with their morning cup of coffee.

If you have a tip or trick then PALEASSSSE chime in below in the comments with your advice. For the love of GOD do not keep your coffee secrets to yourself. There are people like us in the world just trying to enjoy our morning coffee and we need as much advice as possible.


Here is what I have found has helped nudge us in the general direction of greatness with morning coffee.

Your coffee might taste like shit because of: your water 

Coffee is 99% water (or something like that, haven’t exactly done the math). And therefore, your water quality, and what minerals are in the water (or not in the water) play a huge part in that finished cup of coffee.

If you are SUPER sensitive to the taste of water, then comment below because I think we should create a support group for this or something. I cannot drink unfiltered water. I simply can’t. In Austin, the water quality is so terrible, I would sometimes triple filter my water. And you know - that helps! It really does. Having nice clean water, truly helps.
BWT water filter
What else helps? Having a filter that ADDS back minerals that help pull and extract the GOOD parts of coffee, out of the bean. An example would be the BWT which you can buy on amazon for $30 (including three filters). This water filtration system adds back magnesium which is an essential mineral in coffee extraction. Jon and I were not happy with our coffee for about two weeks, we got this bad boy in the mail and BAM, we can drink the coffee again with great joy.

Third Wave Water set up
There’s also a new company out there called Third Wave Water that creates little vials of minerals that are perfectly suited to add to one full gallon of filtered water that adds in a precise blend of magnesium, calcium and sodium to bring out your coffee’s natural acidity and sweetness. Jon and I had a sample of this and tried it out recently. We really could tell a difference in the overall cup of coffee. They sell for $15 a 12 pack which gets you a 12 full gallon of filtered and mineral added water ready for brewing.

And if you really want to go on an adventure, you can try making your own water. There are recipes floating all around the internet. For example, THIS.
 Most just require some baking powder, epsom salt, deionized water, and...beer. Because beer improves all science experiments. 
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Another little tidbit we’ve read is that most roasters naturally roast to fit the water profile of their city. Example, if you find THE BEST CUP OF COFFEE EVER on your recent vacation to Amsterdam and come back home all excited to brew that last bag here in the states, you may just be disappointed. But it might not have anything to do with you. That roaster may have roasted their beans to taste AMAZING with the water source they use in their city. Your water may just be different, and therefore, make the coffee taste differently.

​If we are wanting to get really crazy, we could go into discussions about RO systems, and measuring out TDS levels. BUT, the average home barista doesn’t have that luxury. Even the crazy ones like me. So for now, our advice is to filter, add back some minerals, and try out different local roasts until you find the one you like best. More suggestions? Add in the comments below! 

Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 of this blog! 

Cheers,
Christine Clutton

Squirrel drinking coffee
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A Beginning

10/9/2017
By: Jon Clutton 
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Never did I think I’d be writing a blog about coffee. Three years ago I didn’t even like coffee. And I still don’t really like blogs. I thought coffee was just that stuff served in towering silver cylinders at church. I think blogs can be too agenda-pushing. Too sale-sy. Too fake. Yet here I am, drinking coffee and writing a blog.


What. On. Earth. Happened.

What could have prompted me to drink coffee and write a blog about it? As most things go… it was a girl. A girl I have a crush on. This girl to be exact. ​
Christine drinking flight of beer
She force fed me coffee, made me a world-shattering pour-over, and I was hooked. Both on the girl and on this whole coffee thing. I married this girl two years ago, and we’ve been saving to start our own coffee shop ever since. Now I sit watching her plan our first coffee shop endeavor while I start the endeavor of writing this blog.
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 So, that answers the coffee part. What about the blog part?
 
Well, It turns out that coffee is this incredible medium through which to explore Life. Let me delve into this a bit more.

I’m a science guy. And coffee is basically just a mix of acid/base equilibria, organic chemistry, and physics, so ya...science.

Coffee creates a lot of friendships. And marriages apparently. But it doesn’t just create new friendships and strengthen existing ones in the cafe-customer setting alone, but also behind the bar, behind the roaster, behind the tiny bean itself. Relationships between barista and customer, between owner and lead barista, between coffee shop and coffee roaster, and between coffee roaster and coffee farmer. I got to see this first hand as I watched my wife lead a team of ten incredible people at Cuvee Coffee. Those baristas turned into family. When done well, coffee creates more than a caffeine buzz, it can create an incredible community.
Cuvee Coffee family photo
Christine's last family photo with Cuvee Coffee baristas

​Sustainability and ethics. Coffee is a global business with challenges facing it, many of which we deal with every day. Global warming, fair wages, sustainable farming practices, and creating a work environment people actually like showing up to. 

Coffee sums up some of the things that are pretty dear to me and that I’d like to spend more time researching, thinking through, and discussing with a community of people. This is what led me to the blog. 

So every week we will be posting a blog pertaining to one of these three discussions: 

Coffee Science: experimentation and innovation to create bomb drinks
Friendships: aspiring to be good humans to each other in all aspects of the coffee industry
Sustainability: discussing how to do mother earth a solid and giving all humans fair wages

Given Christine’s background in both ethical business and in coffee shop management, she will primarily be blogging about the friendship & sustainability topics. Whereas, I will lean into the science topics. Our hope is this blog will be a place to explore these areas with an inclusive online community with whom we can dialog, discuss, and act together. 

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SCIENCE DISCLAIMER

In case you are like my wife, who self admittedly tunes out 40% of what I am saying when I start speaking “science”, this disclaimer is for you. 

Coffee is pretty straightforward. It’s just beans and water. And we plan to keep it that simple. Christine proof reads all my blogs (and I, hers) in order to make sure everyone can understand, AND enjoy them. There is this great Einstein quote my organic chemistry professor use to say, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” 

This is our hope for the science topic on the blog. We want to make coffee as simple as possible, but no simpler. We want to dive into the science of coffee without sounding like 80-year-old-tenured-professors. Science is sometimes an unapproachable topic for baristas and home brewers, but our intent is to make it as simple as possible, without doing the injustice of dumbing it down.

When it comes to amazing science-based coffee communities, there are already many people who do this well: baristahustle.com
jimseven.com
strivefortone.com
sprudge.com
r/coffee
socraticcoffee.com
and KC's very own kccoffeegeek.com.


​We hope that we can bring this level of passion and inclusivity too.

By day, I work in Alzheimer’s research at KU Med. Recently, there has been a lot of innovation in the field. Scientists have been able to look at the data in new ways. There is a lot of evidence hinting that Alzheimer’s is a metabolic issue (i.e. our ability to use and store energy). This is a novel idea because for 30 years they thought it was caused by proteins called Amyloid and Tau. This fresh look at age-old diseases isn’t just confined to Alzheimer’s. It’s endemic in the science community, especially among ordinary people sifting through the literature in new ways completely on their own. From sugar, to fats, to cancer, autoimmune issues, and cardiovascular health. There is a revival in the evidence-based approach to science. My hope is that we can do something similar in coffee.

This is what I hope to do with the science aspect to this blog. Provide evidence-based research behind coffee and let YOU ALL, be my peer-reviewers.

Christine and I look forward to writing about topics that puzzle, excite, and challenge us and to hear your responses. 

Best,
Jon Clutton
Albert Einstein drinking coffee
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    THE WILD WAY CONTRIBUTING WRITERS:

    CHRISTINE CLUTTON 

    boss lady
    JON CLUTTON
    coffee scientist

    ​Science meets creativity in our coffee blog written by The Wild Way owners

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Serving   KC   COFFEE //  Stay Wild  //  Kansas City

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