Yesterday was my first day to work for 2011. The roastery looks great. Over the holidays I reorganized and de-cluttered. I put up new shelves and moved my existing ones around to make room for new coffees! I got some great new beans in and lots more to come. Right now the new Yigacheffe Koke and the Congo Kivu are rocking my boat.
So yesterday was interesting for a few reasons. The first was simply because it felt so good to come into a newly organized shop. I redid quite a few of my profiles. I was focused on smoothing out the profile curves, saving them in the RoastLog system and reloading them to be my main profiles. I also worked on developing my new roast curves for half batches of quite a few of my coffees. A new year – new and better profiles! The other reason it was such a cool day was that I was roasting for two of my favourite companies and products. I am very pleased to be involved again in the making of Phillip’s Espresso Stout! Many of you know that one of my passions is craft beer. I like it as much as I do specialty coffee (only I can’t drink as much of it). One of my favourite all time breweries if Victoria’s own Phillips Brewery. Matt is a bright star in the sometimes ordinary Victoria business scene. His dedication to his craft and business is second to none. Together we have created a coffee beer that has been coming out now for near 12 years! I think that that puts it as one of the original coffee beers. When Drew Carry was joking around with his Buzz Beer concept, we were actually making it work. So I had Matt down to the cafe for a cupping of three coffees that I thought would all work well for this years batch. He chose my first pick, Ethiopia Harrar. Matt wants the sweetness and body of the Harrar and he is hoping that the blueberry will come through in both aroma and taste. I think that he made the right choice. So yesterday I roasted the first 20 pound addition. There will be another addition of coffee a little further on in the process. We have come up with a unique and complex way of adding the coffee to the beer to make sure we are treating the coffee right! I love a brewer that listens to the needs of the roaster. A match made in heaven!
The other product placement roasting that I did yesterday was equally as exciting for me! Those that know me are a ware that I have an extensive collection of hot sauce. Not the ones with the crazy labels that threaten to set your ass on fire, but real high quality sauces that are stupid hot, but that have great flavour as well. My favourite hot sauce company has always been Denzel’s Gourmet Foods in Enderby BC! Denzel is a character. Always on the cutting edge of the chilli world, he consistently comes out with new award winning sauces. I have been private labelling hot sauce with Denzel for a long time now. As he began to develop a line of BBQ sauces our collective brains began to think about how to put coffee into it. After a few trial runs and private experimentation we have come up with the 2%Jazz Coffee BBQ Sauce. It is available in regular and in Chipotle. So yesterday I roasted up the richest tasting batch of my special Denzel’s blend to date! I cant wait to taste the new batch. To follow up on the day, all coffee was delivered today.
I love the product placement! i’m always thinking about new ways to combine coffee with other things that I love. Some ideas are Curry, Steak Rub, Gin, Smoked Meats and Cheese. If anyone has any great ideas please share.

http://phillipsbeer.com/

http://www.denzelshotsauce.com/