Espresso nerds in the house?

[harken]

My set up.

Profitec Go
Niche grinder

 

[ethompson]

Going to echo this %100. Plus I like that they are local to me black and white has some of the best, most interesting roasts I’ve ever tried. Big fan of the cinnamon ferments.

If you're ever in, please ask them to bring Tiki back. @Illyria and I are gonna start a petition soon haha

It was the perfect blend of wild tropical fruit flavors and use enough baking spice (the cinnamon conferment was one of the components of the blend) to keep it grounded. It absolutely sung in espresso too.

One thing I think Black & White does really really well are these novel process Latin American coffees. They take their roasts just a hair darker than most places using similar beans and I find it creates really well behaved and balanced espressos. They did a peach gesha recently that, even though I got mine nearly a month off roast thanks to USPS, was mind blowingly good as a filter brew

 

[harken]

Haha honestly, I bet you could send them an email and ask. They are always coming out with new roasts and would probably entertain recreating Tiki or replicating it (if they didn’t have the exact beans on hand). It’s one of the reasons I buy a couple lbs at a time when I find a roast I love, then squirrel it away in the freezer haha.

When started with them, I had a French press with a holiday blend of theirs and it changed my whole perspective on coffee. So dynamic with so much flavor. Still probably the best roaster I’ve tried to date. Though it’s hard not to order from them these days anyway ha.

 

[ethompson]

Haha honestly, I bet you could send them an email and ask. They are always coming out with new roasts and would probably entertain recreating Tiki or replicating it (if they didn’t have the exact beans on hand). It’s one of the reasons I buy a couple lbs at a time when I find a roast I love, then squirrel it away in the freezer haha.

When started with them, I had a French press with a holiday blend of theirs and it changed my whole perspective on coffee. So dynamic with so much flavor. Still probably the best roaster I’ve tried to date. Though it’s hard not to order from them these days anyway ha.

I’ve tried emailing… a few times actually.

Yeah, I bought 10lbs after my first sample bag. Vac seal and freeze. But I’m out now sadly.

 

[MarcelNL]

Try roasting you'r own, not going to say it's very easy but it sure is rewarding

 

[ethompson]

Try roasting youre own, not going to say it's very easy but it sure is rewarding

Someday… but right now I haven’t the space, time, or money for another hobby haha

 

[harken]

I’ve tried emailing… a few times actually.

Yeah, I bought 10lbs after my first sample bag. Vac seal and freeze. But I’m out now sadly.

I’ll add my voice to the chorus for Tiki next time I visit the B&W store

 

[MarcelNL]

what you need to understand is that any roaster is dependant on the greens they can buy, one can for sure kill a great green during roasting but a roaster can never add flavors not present in a green.
Currently I'm enjoying a batch of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Adado, I suspect some fermentation as the winey flavors are quite strong in the greens.

 

[thebradleycrew]

Off topic, but great coffee nerd poster here - I personally like the style but folks mileage may vary.
https://www.notneutral.com/dept-of-brewology-lino-print.htmlAlso, love their vero glasses...amazing stuff for espresso nerds

 

[Naftoor]

Didn’t realize there was an espresso thread (let’s see you do that, r/chefknives!)

Fell into the espresso rabbit hole recently. Going to see how far it goes, but honestly I am moderately surprised given my previously experiences with espresso. I was previously a sous vide coffee die hard, and that’s still a staple in the caffeine stable. Naturally, this will not be good for my wallet.

Started off with a 9barista, because that and the Weber BIRD are what started my recent coffee interest just based on the mechanical design of both. The bird is 1) never available since it sell out in 2-10 minutes and 2) not espresso for this threads purposes.

The 9barista has been a ton of fun though. 43 shots through it so far. Doses ranging from 18-20g. Shot times ranging from 15-45 seconds as I’ve experimented with the heat and grind settings. It’s as much an engineering marvel as it is a solid espresso maker. I’ve found the folks online talking about how bad it is for back to back shots overblow the issue for my own use case. I do 2-5 shots a day, but generally closer to two which I’ll pull back to back. First shot from the second I touch anything to espresso in cup in 5 minutes. Second takes 30-60 seconds to set it back up so including cleanup it’s about 12 minutes for both shots. Most double boiler units on single phase power were in the 20-40 minute range from my searching so even if it involves a little more work it’s still faster for my use case since I don’t make coffee at a set time. Espresso may be done at 9AM, or PM, and sometimes both when the mood suits.

I was looking at the decent, and while I like the speed, data and form factor every video I’ve heard it in sounds AWFUL and the materials and build used just remind me of a chintzy Tesla. I got under a coffeetubers skin by insinuating they had paid him for a positive review when his stance on what is a nearly $4000 machine was essentially “it’s designed to allow you to have ultimate control” followed by “I cannot get it to properly control variables and the company refuses to help” which he finished by recommending the freaking thing. They have the bengle coming out that looks much more premium, but it’s designed around 2ph power (the single phase option just seems like a sad compromise given the massive price tag), I’ll definitely look at it in the future but until I’m in a kitchen with more power I’m going to continue passing on it. The odyssey argos is the next machine for me though. Tiny form factor. Let’s you experiment with spring and levers respectively, has steam capabilities and heats up incredibly fast. Planning on that in a month or two if the preorder is still open then.

Dark roast since that’s what I can find locally in whole bean form. Now that I think I’ve got a handle on dialing it in and experimenting with it, I’m planning on picking some higher quality beans more towards the medium end. The folks on homebarista make coffee roasting sound like it’s possible to do and end up with good results at home, so I’m sure I might end up looking more into that…

Had originally ordered a niche duo, but I realized upgradeitis would bite if I did that so I ended up cancelling that. Been using a 1zpresso k ultra, which from folks with better palates and more grinder than I seems to perform admirably even against grinders 10x it’s cost. The 9baristas main variable is grind fineness though, so I don’t find the 20 microns of the k ultra quite fine enough to allow dialing in as easy as I’d like. If I were to do it again, I’d grab the j ultra which has much smaller steps since I don’t really have any interest in pour over anyways.

In an ideal world, I think I’d have the Craig Lyn hg1 prime with kafateks shurikone burrs installed, since nobody else really makes high end hand grinders and I don’t really want a powered grinder as I find the manual process therapeutic. Kafatek won’t sell those however, so I’m probably gonna try to land a MC6 later this year even if it’s one of the ugliest coffee grinders outside of commercial machines or Titus’s…

Outside of the glorious 200+V our European brothers have as standard. I’m also finding I’m incredibly jealous of them having access to this guys cups. Probably the prettiest ceramics I’ve seen and they come in sizes appropriate for both espresso and milk drinks but he apparently doesn’t ship to this side of the pond

 

[superworrier]

People whine too much about the Decent. The only thing that's lacking is the sound (not a big deal to me, but it's no rotary pump, and still quieter than a regular vibe pump), and the software is not ideal. Materials are actually super nice (drip tray is literally loveramics).The Argos does look pretty sick though.

 

[jedy617]

Messy countertop but I recently upgraded my grinder to a DF83 V2 with SSP HU burrs. Pretty close to endgame for me in the grinder department. Some of the best burrs you can buy, with 550w of power, and almost no retention. For value per dollar I would for sure recommend a df64 or df83 over the niche duo. The new upgraded stock DLC espresso burrs are supposed to be quite good as well

 

[WPerry]

My friend recently bought a 3D printer, so I massaged him in to making my latest coffee counter addition - a planetary WDT tool. "I dunno man, it seems kind of like a complicated print job - I'm not sure you could manage it..."

Works nicely! I've been doing the manual WDT thing for a few years and, while this lacks some of the Zen ritual, uniform, repeatable results are faster and easier.

 

[jedy617]

My friend recently bought a 3D printer, so I massaged him in to making my latest coffee counter addition - a planetary WDT tool. "I dunno man, it seems kind of like a complicated print job - I'm not sure you could manage it..."

Works nicely! I've been doing the manual WDT thing for a few years and, while this lacks some of the Zen ritual, uniform, repeatable results are faster and easier.

Yeah I have a 3D printed orbital. Love it

 

[ZeeVee]

Umikot is a very cool piece of coffee tech. Love all of the updates the creator has been putting out, iterating based on user feedback.

Lance Hedrick kind of created a bit of controversy regarding puck prep best practices a month or two ago. There are a couple of videos on his youtube channel if you'd like to take a look. The original video created quite a stir on coffee discords, reddit, home-barista, what have you. So much so that he created a follow-up video after consulting statistical experts.

long story short: of all prep techniques and tools he tested, a blind shaker consistently produced a higher extraction yield in the shots he pulled.

Neat stuff.

 

[WPerry]

Yeah, I saw the initial video (but not the follow-up) and thought that it was interesting, but my workflow has long been to grind directly in to the portafilter, so I took it with a grain of salt. If the price of decent blind shakers comes down a bit, I'll be tempted to give it a try, but I'm a creature of habit ('specially pre-caffeine) that's otherwise comfy in my routine.

 

[jedy617]

Yeah I'm way too lazy to use that shaker. And I have heard bad things from lots of others who have tried it funny enough. WDT has served me well

 

[ethompson]

I’ve been shaking ever since I got my Craig Lynn grinder which came with a shaker. Noticed no real change when adding WDT to the shaker so stopped bothering with WDT.

 

[MarcelNL]

guys, since I had a double caffe at a road side cafe in Italy where a tiny lady behind the counter was slamming out 4 espresso's a minute without even tamping I stopped fuzzing about puck prep...IMHO it;s WAY overrated and perhaps at best a way to let the OCD out. BTW, the software was some regular big brand bled with plenty Robusta in it.....

;-)

 

[Naftoor]

Been meaning to get one of the orbitals printed up. Need to parse it into chunks suitable for the county 3D printer service.

I’ve heard that espresso in Italy, ironically is by and large meh. Lot of robusta, incredibly dark roasts, lack of care in puck prep which results in shots that need sugar to be palatable which is why they add sugar to their shots. No doubt they have quality establishments that care about the craft, the same as any country, but the main palate isn’t far off from Starbucks in the states as far as coffee quality. I will excuse myself before that comment summons angry Italians.

 

[ZeeVee]

Been meaning to get one of the orbitals printed up. Need to parse it into chunks suitable for the county 3D printer service.

I’ve heard that espresso in Italy, ironically is by and large meh. Lot of robusta, incredibly dark roasts, lack of care in puck prep which results in shots that need sugar to be palatable which is why they add sugar to their shots. No doubt they have quality establishments that care about the craft, the same as any country, but the main palate isn’t far off from Starbucks in the states as far as coffee quality. I will excuse myself before that comment summons angry Italians.

 

[OkayMode]

I’ve heard that espresso in Italy, ironically is by and large meh.

And France too - you get way better quality coffee in European countries that aren't so tightly woven to first wave coffee culture.

 

[MarcelNL]

Starbucks redefined bad coffee for me lately...the taste of charcoal mixed with creosote, only palatable with heavy sirup and a gallon of half and half.

Sure, you can find horrible espresso in Italy, yet much of it is pretty decent...stellar coffee is rare in Italy but the average is beyond comparison to what is served in the US...(I'd call that dishwater when served as pour over and battery acid when served as espresso)

 

[superworrier]

Yeah, I saw the initial video (but not the follow-up) and thought that it was interesting, but my workflow has long been to grind directly in to the portafilter, so I took it with a grain of salt. If the price of decent blind shakers comes down a bit, I'll be tempted to give it a try, but I'm a creature of habit ('specially pre-caffeine) that's otherwise comfy in my routine.

MHW3bomber is like 15 bucks shipped on AliExpress

 

[jedy617]

guys, since I had a double caffe at a road side cafe in Italy where a tiny lady behind the counter was slamming out 4 espresso's a minute without even tamping I stopped fuzzing about puck prep...IMHO it;s WAY overrated and perhaps at best a way to let the OCD out. BTW, the software was some regular big brand bled with plenty Robusta in it.....

;-)

Puck prep really matters for light roasts. Darker is so much more forgiving

 

[Naftoor]

Has anyone managed to wear out (through use not by accidentally grinding a screw or rock) burrs? They all seem to be rated for hundreds of kgs, even thousands for some. Even found some solid tungsten carbide burrs that are rated for tens of thousands of kgs. Did some math and even with my k ultra that’s rated on the low end of things at 100-200kg I could expect 4-8 years, that’s assuming that I’m making coffee every day which is unlikely, and never using other grinders during that time which seems as unlikely. Reminds me of my concerns of sharpening through knives, a non-issue with my rate of usage.

 

[jedy617]

Most home users are never going to wear out their burrs. Regardless, cheaper plain steel burrs are usually less than $50 to replace. I have SSP red speeds which are rated for like 5000kg I believe? It's more of a worry for cafes. SSP resharpens burrs which is cool.

I just calculated, if a cafe does 300, 18g double shots a day (not sure how accurate that would be, I assume a pretty busy cafe), they would wear through those burrs in 925 days, so for sure something to consider, although in the long run, not a big problem for a few hundred bucks.

The biggest benefit would probably be a larger scale operation selling pre-ground coffee.

 

[ZeeVee]

Well if your business is specifically selling pre-ground coffee, I'd think you'd want to invest in an industrial roller mill. Much higher ability to control particle size. I believe the almighty James Hoffmann did a video on coffee pods where he visited a company doing "high end" coffee pods where he touched on the giant roller mill grinders they were using.

On an entirely different topic: who has heard of quakers? Am I dumb for never hearing about these? I've been in the coffee hobby for YEARS and this is the first time I've read about them. And after reading about them, they're EVERYWHERE. Even in the high end coffee. I was able to pick out several from an 19g dose this morning. And sure enough! Crush them up, take a whiff... peanuts! In my citrusy, floral Ethiopian?! Ahhh hell no!

Anyway. I was kind of blown away. But then again maybe I'm totally out of the loop and this has been common knowledge since the dawn of time.

 

[MarcelNL]

A decent roaster takes out quakers post roast, good greens produce fewer quakers than other picks.

 

[MarcelNL]

Puck prep really matters for light roasts. Darker is so much more forgiving

it does, however I roast fairly light (206 'C drop temp) and do not diddle with puck prep a lot.