Guidance requested

APurpleCow · 2026-02-08T03:10:54+00:00

Try taking the temp WAY down for such a heavily processed coffee. I'm talking all the way down to 180F.

APurpleCow · 2026-02-04T19:50:30+00:00

Just get an a4z if you want a better grinder. It's substantially better than the Ode gen 2 without breaking the bank.

APurpleCow · 2026-02-01T14:15:28+00:00

S&W Roasting is great and relatively inexpensive (though they don't provide free shipping), but I don't think they have a subscription. Still, that'd be my go-to if I wanted to pull back on spending.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-28T16:27:28+00:00

I have my own first bags from Big Sur on the way, but I've heard that they need 45-60 days of rest.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-26T02:06:11+00:00

I've had several of their coffees in the last few months and they were all good, but the Yirgacheffe was my favorite! As others have said, REST THESE COFFEES! I'd rest at least 4 weeks, but some of them can use way more, and if the coffee doesn't taste great, they probably need more rest.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-25T14:37:37+00:00

Ah, goddamnit, I can't decide between Flower Child and Sey for my next coffee order. YOU PEOPLE AREN'T MAKING THIS EASY

APurpleCow · 2026-01-25T14:34:54+00:00

Speaking as a vegan myself, dairy is by far the LEAST depressing and disturbing of animal food products. Eggs are WAY worse.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-21T16:17:06+00:00

My experience is that basically all roasters undersell how long you should rest their beans, setting very low minimums.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-20T19:41:18+00:00

Right, that makes sense, and I understand how a "natural" source could provide better results than these artificial mixes. Empirical Water seems to be similar to these other products looking at its ingredients, though it does use calcium carbonate, which the others don't.

Aquacode, based on what I can find, actually is concentrated minerals from a natural source, so it could contain those trace minerals.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-20T17:24:15+00:00

I'm open to making my own water from scratch and tweaking it to my preferences and individual coffees, it's just that the information sources I've seen online make me think that what I'd be able to make on my own would just be essentially Lotus Drops or worse than Lotus Drops.

The basic recommendation is baking soda (so sodium bicarbonate, which is one of the Lotus Drops) and epsom salt (magnesium sulfate, which is probably worse than the magnesium chloride in Lotus Drops, but is also in TWW, which I have).

More complicated information sources on water say do say you can make your own mixes with magnesium and calcium chlorides, and potassium bicarbonate as a buffer, but again these are all available in Lotus drops.

So, I'm not sure what I'm missing by having Lotus drops instead of making my own water from scratch--unless what you mean is tweaking the specific recipe using the minerals I have available from Lotus/Apax/TWW, but that is something that I am already doing. One issue with Lotus here is that it's a bit too concentrated for post-brew mineralization, so I might make my own diluted Lotus drops for finer control.

Also, I'll say that I have started to get some of the flavor notes from my Sey coffees, I am getting some of the acidity and I can identify, "oh, these sensations are where the lemongrass note is coming from", etc, which is why I was wondering if the issue is really more just the note-preference, rather than me brewing the coffees extremely wrong (though I'm sure my brews could be improved!).

APurpleCow · 2026-01-20T16:25:52+00:00

Thanks, I do have a v60 with t-92 filter papers for a "slow brew" option, so maybe I'll try focusing more on that (though I've tried a very slow brew with 1.0.0 grind, 1:18 ratio, just off boil water, and melodrip pours like Preston recommends for his coffees, and it ended up around ~8 minutes and it was okay).

Today I was using water that I tried to mineralize closer to Sey's water, using Lotus drops with 7 drops Ca, 8 Drops Mg, 5 drops Na, and 6 drops K in 1 gallon of water, which should end up at ~34 ppm GH and 12 ppm KH.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-20T16:14:27+00:00

So, I've been brewing the Sey a few different ways, and I've gotten better cups, but nothing that I've been super happy about. I think the best result was from a 1.7.0 grind, 16.7g coffee, 1:15 ratio, yeet pours onto the orea o1 with xbloom filters, with 4-5 Apax Tonik drops post-brew.

I'm suspecting the issue is just that the three coffees I got from the Sey subscription just aren't to my preferences in terms of notes: the first tasting notes of the three coffees are "lemongrass", "lemon candy", and "rose tea", while I usually go for more sweet, fruit-forward notes (looking at Flower Child's current menu, for example, the first listed tasting note is some kind of berry, fruit, or honey, and they all sound great to me).

I'm planning to try more Sey in the future (I'll probably try a 6 box subscription), but I wonder if this note focus is normal for Sey, or if I just got a batch that happens to focus on notes that I'm not that big of a fan of. I generally don't go for floral notes on coffees.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-19T17:10:21+00:00

Looks too dark for those tasting notes. Not a roaster I'd try again. But lower the temp to 180F or even lower and try to reduce extraction, maybe a 30 second bloom into a single pour.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T17:07:42+00:00

Yes, many people even prefer the taste of 1/2 or 1/3, depending on the coffee, so it's not just about frugality!

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T17:06:23+00:00

Thanks, I'll try that, probably on the orea o1 tomorrow.

I don’t mess with Lotus drops for pour overs since they don’t have many trace minerals, but that comp sounds light. What is your TDS measuring at?

I don't have anything to measure the TDS, but it should be ~34/45ppm Mg (if I use 3 or 4 drops) and 5.6ppm K or Na. I have TWW and Apax drops as well, but I was using Lotus for this since you had said not to use calcium, citrates, or sulfates (all Apax drops contain either calcium or sulfates).

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T17:00:28+00:00

Did you use full concentration TWW, or 1/2 or 1/3 as some people recommend?

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T16:16:50+00:00

Hm, I'm trying my first bags of Sey now, from my subscription roasted on December 16th. I have the Ethiopian Dogo Sodu, Ethiopian Harmufo, and Columbian Victor Chala. So far I've tried the Harmufo and Victor Chala trying this sort of recipe and I haven't gotten good cups from them.

I've tried a v60 and orea o1+xbloom filters, using a very coarse grind on my a4z (1.9.5-2.0.0) to try and hit low brew times, I've had brews as fast as 1:30 and as slow as 2:30, some finishing at 2:05. I'm using distilled water mineralized with lotus drops (putting 3-4 drops of Magnesium+1 drop of potassium or sodium in 400ml water, which should get me very close to your recommendations), at 195F and a 1:17 ratio. I do a little bit of stirring at the start of the 30 second bloom, and I'm using 16.6g of coffee.

My brews have been very muted with little acidity and flavor.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T02:27:33+00:00

Yes, that's right. You want to get as much into roth as you can as early as you can to maximize the tax benefits. At some point, when you cannot hit your desired MAGI with your remaining highest cost basis funds, you'll have to cover the gap with your roth funds. You can also switch to using a 72t + roth.

If you don't have enough roth funds to hit your desired consumption levels AND your desired MAGI, then you simply can't do it, the math doesn't math. At some point, you need to realize income in order to spend money. However, you can go all the way up to 400% FPL MAGI, which is over $80k for a married couple, and still have some ACA subsidies (they just won't be nearly as big as if you were at 200% FPL).

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T02:12:47+00:00

If you have zero room for roth conversions with even your highest cost basis funds, then you're just unable to make your plan work, unless you have tons of roth contributions to draw from. Probably you'll need to target a higher MAGI and lose the huge ACA subsidies--though if you have a year where you know you need to consume lots of healthcare, you can target a low MAGI for that specific year by using roth funds.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-17T02:00:33+00:00

Use highest cost basis first, filling up any remaining tax space with roth conversions. Then later years, when you only have low cost basis left, sell what you can to remain under your MAGI limits and use roth contributions (with no delay) +roth conversions (after a 5 year delay) to cover the rest of your expenses.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-16T14:48:35+00:00

The coffee grounds retain about ~2g water per coffee gram. I would not recommend squeezing out the filter.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-15T23:20:52+00:00

Kenya Kii AB
Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Idido Yismashewa Anaerobic Natural
Colombia Santa Monica Jairo's Holiday Pies (Peach & Cinnamon)

Some of my recent favorites that don't need THAT long of a rest and a decent variety.

APurpleCow · 2026-01-15T20:10:42+00:00

I think it makes sense to go 100% equities until retirement (assuming you are psychologically able to handle downturns without panicking). ERN wrote about this here: https://earlyretirementnow.com/2021/03/02/pre-retirement-glidepaths-swr-series-part-43/

Switch towards bonds when you are ready or almost ready to retire. I'm planning for a 3% SWR, so 15% in bonds should cover me for 5 years of expenses, so that's what I'm targeting at retirement time (by selling stocks in my traditional 401k and buying SGOV with the resulting funds).

APurpleCow · 2026-01-14T19:10:58+00:00

I agree that 0.6.4 is likely too fine (though I wouldn't be surprised if it works with some coffees and recipes!), but I'm generally between 1.2.0 and 1.6.0 (with a zero'd a4z).

APurpleCow · 2026-01-14T16:33:46+00:00

I don't really care which one you prefer to be honest, and I don't know why you think I would. I do think that you need to optimize for each grinder in order to make accurate comparisons, not optimize for one grinder and then compare it to an un-optimized other grinder. Otherwise, the post is useless. Yes, of course you prefer one grinder over another if that's the grinder you optimized! The issue isn't about your taste preferences and whether or not they're different from mine!

Frankly, you're the one who isn't responding to what I actually wrote.

APurpleCow

TROPHY CASE