The inaugural BAC brewing competition

Events

Mar 4

Our first brewing competition! In the Bae Area Coffee (BAC) club, we have no shortage of meetups and events to get together, brew, and share knowledge. When thinking about what’s next, someone suggested a brew competition. So here we are - no governing bodies, no protocols, no routines; grab some provided beans and brew into a carefe, served blind to the judges.

We often get asked about logistics and planning for our events. For better or worse, it is entirely home-grown - there is no formal organizing committee responsible besides folks who want it, making it happen. It took about 4 months from proposal to execution, with the first hurdle being a venue. While we often have larger meetups at rented spaces, we pack in and out our own water and mess, a tall order to keep things moving along between rounds. Moonwake graciously let us take up half of the shop for the event, while maintaining regular business hours; a testament to their staff and management for not buckling under the chaos we brought in.

So what’s the event? We’d do what we usually do together, but in a more organized fashion. Thomas took lead to write out a ruleset with 5min prep time, 10min brew time, and a minimum volume of brewed liquid out. A panel of judges would be kept in the roastery area to maintain anonymity in the brews. Working backwards from the duration of each round, a bracket structure was drawn to define our maximum participant count. Given the space available, participants could plug in their own kettle, but not utilize other electric items that would potentially overload the circuit; no EK43 per competitor here. And for the same reason, we did not want people to try to bring their own espresso machine.

An entrance fees would cover cost of beans and logistical expenses, but really the beans.

Beans were provided and roasted by Moonwake, a natural sidra by Cafe La Granja Esperanza (CGLE).

From their site:
Finca Potosi is regarded as the birthplace of Cafe Granja la Esperanza in 1945. It was on this farm that most of the renowned Herrera family was born and trained in the ways of growing high quality coffee. Rigoberto and Luis Herrerra took particular interest in producing stellar lots of coffee and have won multiple awards from the SCAA.

From Café Granja La Esperanza:
The cherries were fermented for about 3 days in anaerobic tanks, after that they were depulped, and fermented for about 4 days with the mucilage. The coffee is dried in mechanical dryers for 3 to 5 days. Once dried, the coffee is stored in climate-controlled rooms at consistent temperatures between 18-19°C to preserve its quality. The quality of our regional coffees is supervised by the community program of Café Granja La Esperanza (CGLE). They transfer knowledge and good production practices to their associated suppliers, guaranteeing cups of 84 points and higher. They can guarantee unique profiles, which can be exclusive according to the requirements of their clients.

From Moonwake:

Why we selected this coffee: For our second CGLE offering, we wanted to highlight an incredible coffee from the birthplace of CGLE. This coffee is one that could be pushed in many different directions depending on brewing method. At the cupping table we noticed that this coffee had both tart red fruits and florals along with some slight yellow tropicals in a cleanly processed package. We designed our roast profile around these flavor notes to create a nice balance of both red and yellow fruits. This highly flexible coffee features red fruit notes of cranberry and strawberry while also containing the florality displayed by red hibiscus. The tropical side of this Sidra is reminiscent of mangosteen, a very complex fruit itself, typically characterized by a yellow citrus acidity complemented by hints of mango, lychee, and peach all with a nice creamy mouth feel. As part of the first brewing competition at Moonwake, we felt this coffee is complex enough to really test the brewing skills of our competitors so we've selected it as the competition coffee. We are very excited to see all the different ways this coffee can be prepared and hope you enjoy its expansive flavors too!

I suppose this technically counts as Moonwake’s first competition coffee.

We saw a variety of grinders used, including 1Zpresso Q2 and ZP6, Comandantes, Pietros, Kinus, Turins. Drippers were varied too - V60, Origami, Pulsar, Switch, VT62, Graycano, April, Orea, Cafec Deep Dripper Pro. I saw some sifters as well. Absent were WWDT, Melodrips, flow control meshes, and extract chilling. Quite a few folks preheated their carafes or worked backwards on when to time their brew so it would be a certain temp by the time the round is over and drinks are served at once to judges.

For judges, we had Ming from Moonwake, Janesh and Thomas representing BAC, and Mitchell from the local coffee scene. Kept away from the brew area, they would be presented with carafes from each competitor that they’d take blind notes on. Over the ~6hr event, they were strongly beaned out by the end.

*Every meetup is an opportunity to share beans*

I wasn’t a competitor, so what did I do? I walked around taking some photos, threw some beans at folks, and took in some passive feedback and thoughts. For example, one person asked if they could get a list of the shops where each competitor came from and represents; they had assumed this was a professional event and that there were backing entities behind them. Another asked if this was for professionals only. Nope, they’re mostly just some coffee nerds.

Feedback was overwhelmingly positive and there were great vibes throughout. Though it was a competition, you’d hardly be able to tell during the actual rounds, as competitors casually chatted with eachother as if it were a regular brewing event. I was surprised by the number of participants taking detailed notes during their practice rounds and throughout their sessions.

This being the first time handling this kind of event, there’s plenty for us to do as an organization to improve for the next event. Time management, optimizing the space, streamlining logistics; these are things we get better at. But we accomplished what we set out to do - to validate that there’s appetite for more of this kind of event.

A lot of folks didn’t realize there were prizes involved, they’d seemingly come for the love of the hobby. By the time our semifinalists were locked in and guaranteed a prize, that’s when they realized that we’d gotten sponsored items to reward. Apax Labs provided their water mineral kits. Weber Workshops sent a kit of bean dosing cellars. And for our winner, an Option-O Lagom Casa grinder. These came from our event organizers reaching out to their existing relations to call in the favor, and no commitments or expectations were made in exchange; thanks to them for supporting the event. Onto the results:

3rd place: Aaron (@hawaiiancowboy.dng)

From Aaron, who took such detailed notes:

“Equipment I brought: Glass Hario V60 // Glass Hario Switch // EKG Pro Kettle // Sibarist Filters // 1zpresso K-Ultra // C40 Comandante Nitro Blade

I brought two grinders because I like to dial in my coffee with the 1zpresso for the clarity, but I like how the Comandante blends the flavor notes more. Before the competition and the dial-in period, I had to ensure that all my grinders were clean because I was grinding some gnarly, funky coffee with them. If you noticed, during the beginning, when I was cleaning my comandante, I sliced my thumb; let’s just say I had to clean my comandante a little extra. After I cleaned them, I made sure that I seasoned the burrs again, and that is why I used my trusty Hawaiian Coffee roaster White Nene. Shoutout to Delvin Navarro for making such a great coffee.

Dial-In (30 Mins): I’m kinda weird with my Dial-Ins with my coffee; I typically like to eat the beans to see what the coffee tastes like. While chewing on the bean, I tasted a lot of juicy and sweet flavor notes, and I know that is what I wanted to focus on with my presentation. Fun Fact: Your saliva makes your food taste sweeter the longer you chew it. Since I knew many Q-Graders were judging, I had to think like one. Chew, Slurp, and repeat. With that in mind, the first dial-in with the coffee that K-Ultra at 7.5 with 10 grams at a 1:17 ratio with 3 pours. This is my traditional recipe for dialing in coffee for sweet notes.

1st Recipe: K-Ultra 7.5 Clicks, 10 grams @ 1:17 ratio, bloom 1:3 ~ 30 grams 30-45s, 2nd pour of 70 grams aiming for 90 grams, 3rd pour of 70 grams aiming for 170 grams

But I always separate my pours when I dial in. So, I taste every pour I brew at each stage of the pour. The bloom gave me most of the fruit flavor note, followed by the 2nd pour, giving me a lot of sweet notes, and the final pour gave my coffee its body. I'm not going to lie; this first recipe was very watery and bland. But I already have a framework for what I’m going to present. For my 2nd recipe, I started using the comandante since I know that 7.5 with the K-Ultra is roughly 23-25 clicks on the comandante, and personally, the coffee was pretty bland at that ballpark, so I chose to go for 21 clicks, which was what I stuck with.

2st Recipe: Comandante, 10 grams @ 1:17 ratio, bloom 1:3 ~ 30 grams 45s, 2nd pour of 70 grams aiming for 90 grams, 3rd pour of 70 grams aiming for 170 grams

I got more juicy notes from pushing the bloom to 45 seconds and kept the same ratio with the other pours. Again, it was a super sweet 2nd pour and a full-body 3rd pour. From here, I focused more on the volume needed to be presented. I didn’t know if there would be a super strict cap on the volume of coffee because I know it’s between 160ml to 200ml, so I wanted to be on the safe side and aim for 200ml. So, I did the basic math conversion.

Final Recipe: Comandante 21 clicks, 13.5 grams @ 1:17 ratio, bloom 1:3 ~ 39grams 45s, 2nd pour 91 grams, aiming for 130 grams, 3rd pour 91 grams, aiming for 221 grams

Now, this is the recipe I liked most. I didn’t have time to brew another batch at 20 clicks and thought it was too astringent, so this was my final recipe. I stuck to 93 Celsius. Also, I typically don’t aim for times on my pours; I just try my best to hit 5ml per second, but that isn’t what I look for. Traditional, I always start with a center pour till I hear a good flow rate, then I start making the spiral motion for agitation, then a center pour again, then let it drain again, and repeat for the final pour. Typically, I was done around 2:45 for my brews.

Competition: Honestly, I didn’t think I would get past 1st round because I was too anxious. If you saw me round 1, I was so nervous that I brewed two batches within my allowed time and chose the one that was sweetest to me. Then I got past round 1. I didn’t hear much about my brew until the finals because I was super anxious. But I did hear that my flavor notes were weaker during warm/cooler temps with my recipe. That is why I started brewing my coffee around 5 minutes before the deadline for my other rounds. Making sure my carafes were hot gave me time to grind my coffee slowly. But, if people noticed at the finals, my kettle wasn’t working, and my water temp wasn’t accurate.

But overall, it was a fantastic experience.”

2nd place: Ben (@ben.shepard_)

From Ben:

“Firstly, a huge congrats to Jacob on his brew comp victory and to Aaron as well for coming in third. I had an amazing time competing against everyone, but most importantly getting more insight into their brewing processes. I remember for Jacob’s recipe specifically, half the Moonwake crew was in the roastery after the competition marveling at how unique his brew recipe was. I honestly didn’t know Jacob even made pour overs at home. I only previously knew him as a really sweet guy that I’d occasionally run into at Kaizen & Coffee in San Mateo. Loved spending time with him on Friday. Aaron as well was real fun to compete against. He told me that he had to call out of work because he didn’t even think he’d get past the first round which I thought was hilarious. Both those guys had some killer brews. During the first dial in round, I was going around to everyone’s stations tasting their brews to get a baseline for my competition and found very quickly that the bar was HIGH. I have no idea how I got so far in the competition.

For my brew recipe: Ceramic CT62 | Sibarist Conical Filters | Fellow EKG | 1Zpresso Q Air Moonwake Blue Recipe: 12g 200mL 85C 4 pour Fine grind

I followed a four pour structure for a 12g/200mL brew ratio where I poured 40-100-150-200 with a total brew time of around 2:15 each time. I chose to use a larger ratio to extract more florals from this coffee as it was already bound to come with a lot of sweetness naturally and then complimented that with a very fine grind on my Q Air courtesy of Mabel and Ming. I used sibarist filters, which required me to pour hard for as much vibrancy and agitation as possible in the ultra fast flow rate the filters provide.

Additionally, I used a CT62 dripper my girlfriend, Perrine got for me in Taipei which complimented the fast flow of the sibarist filters. Truly though, I only use the dripper because my girlfriend got it for me. I don’t really know anything else about it besides those two things. I also want to note that my brew style is heavily influenced by the brew style Josh and Kieran employ at Komakase. I love the way they brew, so I wanted to stem in the same direction. Lastly, shoutout to Harry for sourcing this comp coffee and Ming for roasting it— easily my favorite Moonwake coffee I’ve had yet.”

1st place: Jacob (@breathe_and_ski)

From Jacob:

“So first of all I got kind of lucky here. I don't normally sieve my coffee, but given that my grinder produces a lot of fines I decided to sieve for this one. I dialed in outside, and my recipe was decent but I wasn't super impressed with it. Contact time was closer to 3 minutes. For the first round, being indoors, the grind changed somehow and it got a lot faster. I was really worried (you can see that in my face in the BAC IG post) and because it was so hot my first 2 sips didn't taste that good. I almost redid it but just decided to roll with it. After I got feedback on it on the first round I tightened up the grind a few clicks. However, I shook the sieve for a lot longer than in the first round. It gained vibrancy but lost body and sweetness. Nick suggested that I add fines back in vs trying to shake the sieve less. I did that in the 3rd round, and just kind of went based on vibes. I think the slightly finer grind plus the fines resulted in the slightly longer brew time. My thought process around water height is that the lower height means less heat loss so you're just putting hot water right on the grounds. With the Orea + Sibarist filter I don't think bypass is something to worry about. I wish I could say I engineered this recipe by knowing why everything worked, but a lot of it was just based on feel and getting detailed feedback from the judges and kind of making some educated guesses about how to get more balance. These friendly competitions are actually a great way to learn a LOT, both by watching other people and by getting lots of feedback in real time on your coffee.

I had an amazing time and just wanna thank Moonwake and everyone at BAC for a really fun event!

My final recipe was something like this: Glass Orea V4 w/ Sibarist fast filter, Millabs portable grinder, coffee sieve, 20g coffee, 300g water. Sieve the coffee pretty well, then add back in a pinch (0.1g) of fines, mix in the grounds Water temp: 97C (during brewing cooled to around 96C) 50g water, bloom 30s After 30s I was pouring almost continuously, very slowly (2g/s) not allowing standing water on the bed surface. Full draw-down happened at around 2:15.”

A couple judges left notes on Jacob’s progression as well

From Judge 1:

“This is what I scribbled down for your cups :

Round 1: very tart, clean, heavy acid
Semis Round 1: thinnest fast finish, most dynamic acidity, mouth watering acid, harsher finish, clean, less sweet
Finals: florals +++, sparkly white wine acidity, airy, super high clarity, gentle tea like body, most dilute”

From Judge 2:

“After reviewing notes, this is the diff that was noticed:

Brew 1 -> 2 : Body decreased, thinner brew, higher acidity, and better defintion, particularly in acidity, finish more drying/astringent in 2, less sweetness and less rounded
Brew 2 -> 3 : aroma increased in intensity, more floral definition, florality increased quite a bit, acidity decreased, including in complexity but buoyed the acidity
Round 3 (finals cup): the most unique cup in terms of florality out of the comp”

*Congrats to our inaugural competition winners!*

Thanks to Moonwake for hosting and the staff for working around our chaos, Guy and Josh for coordinating prizes, Janesh, Mitchell, Thomas, and Ming for being judges, Thomas again for proposing the competition and writing up the format, Kieran and Harry for coordinating in the background, and Mabel for being the primary coordinator through the rounds
Thanks to sponsors Option-O, Weber, Apax
Thanks to CGLE for producing a coffee worth showcasing across so many brew styles

And a photodump: