Baseline Tests
BH Unlimited Update, Mar. 27th, 2021.
Have you ever tested the consistency and precision of your hand brewing? Anyone who has competed in a barista competition will know what it’s like, looking over the judges’ comments on the scoresheets after an event. But as beneficial to your development as competition settings can be, they are undoubtedly intimidating. To take some of the terror out of the experience, we’ve got a bunch of new scoresheets, free to download, that will help you practice all the wide array of immersion methods we cover in our latest online course.
With the help of the global network of BH Coaches, the scoresheets have been designed to assess your practical skill and efficiency in immersion brewing. Because many of the brew methods covered in the Immersion course are so complex and nuanced, we designed a unique scoresheet for each category of immersion brewing. With Percolation , two scoresheets were all that was needed to get a thorough impression of a barista’s command of pour-over and batchbrew. But for the Immersion course we needed five! We hope you find these useful for your own practice and as staff training aids… And when you’re feeling ready, you can find a coach and get certified.
Static Immersion (i.e. French Press, Jug Method, and Cupping)
Aeropress
Cezve / Ibrik
Syphon
Steep-and-Release
Comprehension Test
We have published the last lessons and final assessment in the Coffee Buyer’s Guide to Guatemala . This short–ish course (with a final word count of 21K, it’s turned out to be very detailed, though about a third shorter than most of our other course) is the first part of a new series of online courses intended to provide notes to green buyers, roasters, and baristas on all the important specialty coffee origins. As you can imagine, we’ll be adding to this body of work for some time to come. But it was irresistible to start the journey off with Guatemala, not only because of how consistently awesome Guatemalan coffee is to drink, but because of the country’s fascinating history, and its breathtaking beauty. Deciding what origin to do next has not been easy, but at this point it’s a tie between Brazil and Colombia. Stay tuned for the next update to find out which way the balance tips.
Unlimited subscribers can now head in and attempt the final certification . And for anyone curious to get a taste of what a BH quiz is like, we’ve made the Comprehension Test at the end of Chapter 1 freely accessible for the next few weeks.
The Yo-Yo Pour
While Italy has been in lock down, Jessica Sartiani has been busy running an experiment looking into the difference between two common approaches to using a pouring kettle. The goal was to test two things: what effect the yo-yo pour (where the spout moves up and down like there was a string tied to the end) has on a brew, and what effect pouring from different heights has on extraction yield, flavour and drawdown times. The first very surprising finding Jessica came up with was that the yo-yo pour and the more conventional round-and-round approach were consistently achieving almost exactly the same extraction yields.
Both sets of results were contrary to what we expected to see. The yo-yo pouring didn’t affect extraction, but resulted in a faster drawdown than pouring from a steady height. We assume that increased drawdown time results from increased agitation, which causes fines to clog the filter paper. This suggests that the yo-yo motion doesn’t significantly increase agitation, and that the overall pour height is the most important factor. In this white paper there are some complexities to wade through; the best theory we’ve come across on how the physics of kettle streams applies to pour-over doesn’t appear to play out in the way we expected it to.
Quick Links
- After 14 years, James Hoffmann finally shares his recipe on how to make the Kreme of all signature beverages.
- Interesting article here on how Probat are using AI to help us ‘roast ahead of the curve’.
CBG Guatemala - New Lessons!
Notes for Green Buyers:
CBG 4.06 • Recap and Glossary
CBG 4.07 • Comprehension Test — Chapter 4
CBG Final Assessment
Immersion - New Lessons!
As always, we're just an email away if you have any queries! Have great weekends and we look forward to seeing you next time.
To the Boundaries of Coffee,
Team BH
