LA Mill Coffee

I saw a show on the local Southern California PBS station last night, KCET, about LA Mill Coffee in Silverlake. It was on the Huell Howser "Visiting" series which is a show that features the places and faces of California.

Seems like this is a place worth checking out, with a big emphasis on quality and standards in food and coffee that would make any coffee snob proud. They don't even have filter coffee which is like a donut without a hole in the U.S. of A. Also did not see any sign of paper cups, another very good indicator of quality and standards. Even filter coffee is made one cup at a time. S

ome of the styles of coffee brewing seemed a little gimmicky, like the Japanese "syphon" method, but a place that's willing to spend about 10 to 15 minutes of a staff time devoting a crew member to brewing your coffee in a chemistry set complete with Bunsen burner shows commitment to the customer. No doubt you pay for it, though.

Espresso shots are made with the care and precision necessary to turn out quality, and no "barista" is permitted to work the espresso machine before they have undertaken 100 hours of training. So next time I'm in the area, I'll check it out. Anyone out there been already and got any comments to post? Go ahead.

The LA Mill Coffee is located at 1636 Silverlake Blvd in Los Angeles, and their website is http://www.lamillcoffee.com/.

Adjust Your Roasting Profiles for Summer

I'm reiterating a previous post I made on this topic - as the temperatures rise going in to summer, you need to adjust your roasting profiles to account for the higher ambient temperatures. It makes a big difference I have found.

All the profiles I saved during my earlier series of posts are way too long now and I have had to start the cool down manually on my i-Roaster to prevent the beans from burning.

I just opened a bag of Ethiopian Natural Harrar beans. These are one of my all-time favorite beans and I don't want to spoil them by over-roasting. I have them on a profile of 385F for 5 minutes, 430F for 2 minutes, and a final 465F for 2 minutes right now. The temperature in the shade of my patio where I do my roasting is currently 77F.

If you find your beans are getting too dark you can interrupt the profile on your i-Roaster at any time by pressing the Roast/Temp button. This will start the 4 minute cool cycle.

One other thing I read some time ago that helps with the cooling cycle is to loosen the top of the roaster (the piece that has the grille that the air is forced to on the top) so that the air can escape more easily and help with the cooling. Don't do this inside, though, as you will get the chaff all over the place. It ends up on my deck but that is easily taken care of with my leaf blower.