New Work Setup + reformatory Caffeine

New Work Setup

The Breville Bes860  has an inbuilt grinder which is good for convenience but just does not grind fine enough. We finally got the Smart Grinder back and its grinds beautifully. 

Last weekend we went to Focus Melbourne to get a coffee. Ken is a fantastic Barista and knows how to make a awesome cup of coffee. He used to use Monk coffee but now uses Reformatory Caffeine Lab. The Reformatory Caffeine lab is in my top 10 Cafe's for its spectacular filter coffee's,  Ken made us some coffee's and i bought a 250gram bag. 

  

My Latte art skills have really gown down but this bag of beans have really lifted my spirit. The coffee is so sweet and fruity, it tastes like apricots and oranges. Its not cheap beans but worth the price. I know Cote Terra in Oakleigh has it or make your way to to Balwyn.

If you find it give it a try.

Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Community Roasters

Community Roasters

Over the last few years i have tried a variety of different beans thanks to Tess. She is amazing addict( Coffee Addict ;) ) and  tells me where all the amazing coffee is at. She suggested Cote Terra and they generally use Reformatory Coffee for their espresso based drinks and i think the Community Roasters Beans for Milk based drinks. I ran out of coffee and grabbed a bag while in the area.

The milk blend is a great smooth blend with light fruity notes. Its great with a 3/4 Latte.
Its worth a try.
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Wise Old Goat Latte Coffee

Wise Old Goat Latte Coffee

Time has now become a valuable necessity, i don't have much spare time anymore so i have been getting my coffee from North East Precinct. They are about 15 minutes from our place and they roast onsite. I love supporting my local roasters as it usually fresher and tastier, It is more expensive but worth it. I saw a new roaster on Instagram a few months ago and wanted to give it a try. I ran out my coffee and had a chat to Andy from Wise Old Goat and i asked if he could deliver it to me. He roasts the next suburb from where i work. I ordered the coffee online and started work on Tuesday, he delivered it on Wednesday. I am so happy with the strength of the coffee and the flavours, it has a beautiful cocoa/ chocolate flavour. No bitterness which is great as well. I highly recommend giving it ago. Have a look at his Instagram account.
I get to try his filter coffee today so i hope that is just as amazing.
Kind E-gards
Dale    

Commonfolk and Mornington Market

Commonfolk and Mornington Market

We have been to Commonfolk Coffee once before and the service was slow but i wanted to give it another go. Like the other Cafe's we like it is in an industrial area so it is a large place and they do all the roasting on site. It is light and airy and the staff are friendly.

It was a beautiful day so we all sat outside and watched the children run around and play. Its good to see a place that has space for children to run around.

They only use skim milk for all their coffees which i did not know. The coffee's are smooth and sweet but i still prefer full cream milk.

 I had the pikelets which had five of them with bacon and blueberry . The pikelets are light and fluffy, the bacon was not crispy so i was happy and they went well with the fresh blueberries.

Kim had the breakfast which had bacon, eggs, hashbrowns and a mushroom with some veggies. She really enjoyed it.

After Brunch we headed to the market and when we arrived it was still very quiet.

It had plenty of food stalls and bands playing in different corners. They do this market once a year so it was good to experience it.
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Cafflano Klassic - My New Travel Buddy

Cafflano Klassic - My New Travel Buddy

When i go on holiday i would normally take my Hario v60 or Aeropress,  my hand grinder and my scale but this time it was different as i had seen the Cafflano online and i really wanted one so i contacted them and found out i could get some in Seoul.  The company was amazing and organised some to get delivered to my accommodation as i was buying a few for friends and family The unit ways about 600 grams so it is light. The great thing is it is B.P.A free so you won't get all those nasty chemicals from plastic bottles.  I did not know what to expect from this unit as i read and watched some reviews on it. I used it everyday for 3 weeks and was happy with the results.  I will also do a video in coming weeks but i wanted to do this one now.

The thing i love about this is it is a all-in-one unit which there is no other like it.

The lid is the pourer and it has a removable lid in the top. Under the lid is the grinder which folds into itself and locks into the tumbler for easy grinding.

Under the grinder is the mesh filter.

The filter sits in the tumbler. I tried using it without filter paper but cleaning it took a while so i use a paper filter in it.  I put the filter in it then rinse it with hot water. After it is wet the paper folds down the side then the grinder twists and locks in place and holds the paper down.

I used 13 grams of coffee but there is lines on the side as measurements.

It takes a few minutes to grind but the burr grinder does a good job and i am happy with its consistency.

I am still working on the grams to seconds but it is roughly 30 grams of water to 30 seconds. If there is any water at the 2 minute mark i use the rest.  I use 250mls of water in total.

It takes about 3 minutes to do the full filter but i am extremely happy with the results.

The coffee was full bodied and had no bitterness.

It is such a great little unit and i will take it overseas from now on.

Do you have one and what do you think?

Kind regards

Dale Stewart

Common Ground

Common Ground

I know this makes no difference to my wonderful readers but my little Acer laptop that has traveled overseas had a malfunction so i had to format and reinstall everything and i installed Ubuntu. It has been one of those weeks as i needed to reinstall the operating system for my phone as well. The reason why i mention about my laptop as this is the first Blog it will do. I will try to do a blog daily when we are on holiday.

I love trying different Cafe's as it is always good to support other places not just your usuals. It was a cold and rainy day so we did not even leave the house until 2:30pm. It is a cute little cafe that serves a lot of gluten free food.

They do all the roasting on site so at least you know the beans are fresh.  They have a good selection of beans. Single Origin as well as your normal blends. I needed more beans so that was the reason we came.

We had some coffee that was smooth and a little bit fruity. Not as sweet as some other beans but not bad.

Some people hate latte art but i love how fun it is and not easy to do. If you follow me on Instagram you know how much i try and still don't get it right.

Kim had a chocolate walnut slice (it was gluten free). It was chocolaty and crunchy and was tasty. Sometimes gluten free products have a strange taste but it was perfect.

I had a yogurt muffin and it was light and fluffy for a gluten free desert. I know you might think why do i go on about gluten free. I know what it tasted like as i worked at a gluten free bakery for a few years as a baker.

In the last 5 years gluten free has changed so much in price and taste.
It is a good little Cafe and we we will be back  soon.
Follow them on Instagram if you like.
Thank you for reading
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Pour Over Instructions

Pour Over Instructions

Normally i do pictures for my blog but i wanted to do a video for a change.



I recorded it by myself so it is a little shaky and editing takes ages. I spent about 4 hours editing and putting it together,
But here are my instruction.

1. Put filter into the pour over.
2. Rinse the filter with hot water.
3.Weigh out 13 grams of coffee.
4. Empty out cup with rinsed water.
5. Pour ground coffee into the pour over
6. Pour in 45 grams of hot water and let bloom for 30 seconds
7. Pour another 45 grams of hot water and let it sit for another 30 seconds.
8. Pour 80 grams of water for 30 seconds.
9. Pour the last 80 grams of water.
10.The coffee Should finish pouring in about 3 minutes in total.

If you like the copper stand here are my instructions Copper Stand.

I will do a few more videos over the next few weeks and hopefully i will have a tripod to do smoother videos.

Thank you for watching.
Leave a comment if you would like to help me improve.
Kind E-gards
Dale Stewart

Working Interstate

Working  Interstate 

In all my jobs I have had, I've never been fortunate to go interstate and I know a lot of people hate it. For me it is more of a privilege as it never happens so as soon as i was offered the opportunity to go to Sydney and Newcastle for four days i jumped to the opportunity. I got to pick where I stayed and who i saw and what i did. I  clocked close to 950km  (590miles) in those few days. I was really concerned about the coffee as had been told it was not that good. I found out that they had been wrong. We arrived on Sunday afternoon at 12;00 pm and picked up the car and i learned something valuable when hiring a car make sure it is in the airport not a local suburb that you need to catch their taxi service. They had poor instructions so it took longer to get a car than it should. We picked up the car and then headed to meet my cousin for lunch, on the way to go meet her we drove past a brewery and popped in and got some ales to take with me.  The brewery is called Batch Brewery and the staff are friendly and it is a bit of a hipster place but if I go back to Sydney I will go back.

My cousin told us that there is a good Cafe that she has wanted to try called Brewistas but when we arrived they had already closed the kitchen. They used coffee from Melbourne's cafe Proud Mary (I have done blogs about this place). We started talking and I found out he is good friends with Nolan (Proud Mary owner). He made the coffee well but we had not eaten so we walked around for a while until we found a lovely cafe'.

 The Wedge Espresso is a small cafe that has a nice selection of food and coffee's

We ordered some sandwiches and coffee's, i wanted a filter coffee but they had run out but what i was told to have was the Elixir coffee that's brewed over 17 hours.

The coffee  has the colour of whisky, texture of a light tea but a sweet coffee and i loved it. It was a cold brew so they are more fruity and no bitterness.

The meals we ordered was the roast beef sandwich and the cheeseburgwich. They tasted amazing, the beef was cooked so it melted in your mouth. I bought some beans so i could make coffee in the hotel.

.

 After lunch we went for a walk around, we walked to the fish market.

We got to the hotel and unpacked, but that stage it was about 5pm so we relaxed for a while then went to find dinner.

We decided on Thai, I am not normally one to say if i don't like a place but this place was nice with decor' but terrible food.

 It was so sweet and the beef in the Pad Thai was so tough i struggled to eat it. Very disappointing as we have had amazing Thai before .

Monday was a very busy day so for dinner we decided to go to Din Tai Fung and it was really fresh and tasty.

 They had little bowls with ginger, i added soy sauce, vinegar and chili of course.

For starters we had cucumber salad in vinaigrette salad, it was a bit spicy but sweet with an aftertaste of sourness with being crunchy.

The dumplings we ordered was the spicy vegetable and pork dumplings and this what you come for at Din Tai Fung. The dumplings are amazing and all made fresh in store. Din Tai Fung is the first dumpling restuarant to get a  Michelin star.

The next dish is Spicy pork mince noodles and it was hard to share once it was mixed together, but was different.

 We ordered the Shrimp and Pork Wonton with tangy sauce so it was not spicy. We never order shrimp wontons so it was nice for a change.

 For desert i ordered the Ice Mango desert, i was told to order the small one and it was still big.

We really enjoyed our meal here and went for a walk after  eating all this food, the center that Din Tai Fung was in is a pretty place.

On Tuesday we drove to New Castle to stay at a beautiful B'n'B called overnight reflections. It was so peaceful.

For a busy week with lots of driving it was nice to get home.  i got to try a few different cafe's and restaurants which is always nice to do. I really enjoyed Sydney and hopefully will go back.
Thanks you for reading
Kind E-Gards
Dale Stewart