I have strong suspicion majority on here are not good at sharpening.
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I have strong suspicion majority on here are not good at sharpening.
It's amazing, and pretty sought after. I think you are probably imagining is something like starbucks, or dunkin with artificial blueberry flavoring. The coffees I am describing are very different, and usually roasted quite lightly. They don't have any of those roasted darker notes you might traditionally associate with coffee. It really does almost taste like a blueberry tea. Made in a milk drink is one of my favorites. Just really smooth with a background of fruit and no bitterness.blueberry flavored coffee sounds awful lol
I didn't want to say it, but a barattza is probably not the best setup for those kinds of coffees. It's not a hard and fast rule, but conical grinders usually favor body and more traditional dark, italian style espressos. Big flat burrs bring the clarity and flavor separation.Unpopular opinion: When most of the specialty coffee one buys tastes like the same swamp water, perhaps it's not the coffee at fault.
Post the exact recipe and I'm sure the resident coffee nerds can make suggestions. Brewing light roasted specialty coffee is tough, requires good equipment, precision by weight, and a lot of trial and error. Any Baratza should be capable of producing a decent grind for non-espresso brewing methods, but I've never been able to brew a great cup with Aeropress and their brewing instructions suck imo. There are a ton of ways to use them and I prefer the inverted method with a longer steep time. They're travel friendly and can be quick, but outside of that I don't see a reason to use one at home as the main brewing method. I'd rather have a pourover, french press, or a good drip brewer.
I agree tasting notes can be overly ambitious and marketing sleight of hand. Maybe it's all in my head, but I feel like I can discern broader notes like citrus/stone fruit (sour/tart), other fruit (lightly acidic and sweet), chocolate, dark chocolate (bitterness), and floral (perfumy, tea like) notes. Anything woody I would call bad recipe/grind/technique, truly bad coffee, or really old. When roasters put really specific stuff on the label I group them into my categories and have an idea of whether I want to try it. The main flavor will always be coffee, but the tasting notes are the subtleties that differentiate them so you can pick one that suits your taste. The only roaster I know of that puts (and quantifies) "coffee" in the tasting notes is George Howell.
I'd say that's true with the majority yeah, but that's one of the reasons people come here: to learn.I have strong suspicion majority on here are not good at sharpening.
Go for more medium roasts, with an aeropress depending on grind size you get something like a coffee/spresso...without boiler pressure you probably are looking at adding water at the boiling point to alleviate the pretty large initial temp drop after pouring water in.I do aeropress brewing and have a baratza grinder. My primary gripe is I dislike acidic coffees. I also dislike burnt coffees but thats better than sour. I just want clear labels so I can sort out sour, medium, burnt and buy what I like.
I’ll pass.light roast coffee makes passable tea.
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I don't have a ton of experience with different grinders, but comparing my DF64 to Sette 270 for espresso and DF64 to Baratza Virtuoso for pourover didn't leave me feeling like flat > conical. Differences in taste were so minor that it could have been variation in that specific shot or brew, and the DF64 had so much variation I went back to the Sette. I'd say most conical Baratza grinders are totally serviceable for brew methods, even for light roasts. Could be a totally different story at the high end of grinders.I didn't want to say it, but a barattza is probably not the best setup for those kinds of coffees. It's not a hard and fast rule, but conical grinders usually favor body and more traditional dark, italian style espressos. Big flat burrs bring the clarity and flavor separation.
Nono cream or sugar
Hmm maybe it's just me, my df83 with ssp burrs is a massive improvement over my old conical and mignon. But I only do espresso.I don't have a ton of experience with different grinders, but comparing my DF64 to Sette 270 for espresso and DF64 to Baratza Virtuoso for pourover didn't leave me feeling like flat > conical. Differences in taste were so minor that it could have been variation in that specific shot or brew, and the DF64 had so much variation I went back to the Sette. I'd say most conical Baratza grinders are totally serviceable for brew methods, even for light roasts. Could be a totally different story at the high end of grinders.
Of all my grinders (Sette, DF64, Virtuoso, Kinu M47), the Virtuoso makes the best pourover. I find espresso much more demanding on the equipment, so I don't bother with light roasts or single origins with my Sette + PID Gaggia Classic setup.
Baratza catches a lot of flak for using a lot of plastic, but for home use they make good equipment at reasonable prices. I did replace my plastic Virtuoso burr carrier once because it developed a small crack, otherwise they've both served me well for 4+ years each making 1-2 coffees daily, and their customer service is great.
light roast coffee makes passable tea.
The picture is a lot more complex that flat = clarity, conical = body. All else equal a unimodal flat could have greater clarity and separation than a conical, but overall grinder and burr quality also plays a role. I don't think switching from a Weber Key or Monolith conical to a DF54 would yield increased clarity for instance.Hmm maybe it's just me, my df83 with ssp burrs is a massive improvement over my old conical and mignon. But I only do espresso.
Timemore 078 has been my first flat burr grinder and whilst I still really like the 1ZPresso K Plus I had as my daily driver before that, the clarity of flavour I get from the former is awesome.Hmm maybe it's just me, my df83 with ssp burrs is a massive improvement over my old conical and mignon. But I only do espresso.
Well of course, in the post before I said it's not a hard and fast rule. But in general, I am of the opinion that bigger flat burrs does better with lighter specialty roasts, but that is my preference. It is a rabbit hole, have gone through 3 different burr sets with my grinderThe picture is a lot more complex that flat = clarity, conical = body. All else equal a unimodal flat could have greater clarity and separation than a conical, but overall grinder and burr quality also plays a role. I don't think switching from a Weber Key or Monolith conical to a DF54 would yield increased clarity for instance.
But yeah, the lighter the roast and finer the grind needs to be, the more grinder quality is at a premium. Nordic roast espresso requires a totally different level of grinder compared to a dark roast in a drip machine. Aeropress and to a lesser extend v60 are probably more in line with espresso than a dripper in terms of the demands placed on a grinder.
Truth be told, if money was no object I'd probably get a Monolith Max to keep alongside my HG1, but until such a time comes I'm more than satisfied with the conical burr-set I have and I primarily drink funky lighter roast modern coffees. Plenty of clarity and flavor separation. If I drink primarily washed African v60 I'd probably want something different though.Well of course, in the post before I said it's not a hard and fast rule. But in general, I am of the opinion that bigger flat burrs does better with lighter specialty roasts, but that is my preference. It is a rabbit hole, have gone through 3 different burr sets with my grinder
It's about the uniformity of the grind. The more uniform the grind the more even and also higher extraction can be. There are a few reasons for that, but for starters smaller pieces extract faster than larger pieces as there is greater surface area for a given weight. You can grind finer with a better grinder because there are less "fines" (hyper-pulverized bean bits) produced and those fines clog up filters and limit rate. With more consistent particle size you also have more even extraction in that you don't have over extracted fines creating bitterness and under extracted boulders making things overly sour. Everything from burr size, shape, geometry, alignment, flex, etc lead to the resulting grind quality.I like coffee, but I don't have the palette some do I can just tell if it is good, meaning I like it or bad I don't. I can't tell fine nuance though. I generally don't like sour coffees that some enjoy. It is pretty universally believed that grinder makes a huge difference, but I could never find an explanation that made sense to me. Why does the way you grind make a difference? All you are doing is braking a bean into powder why does the way you get there makes a difference. I could understand if for example one method broke it in one step vs taking more time and processing, but that's not really even the case. So what is it that makes it so?
I stick to redbull
Agreed. I was spending days trying to get my new burrs perfectly aligned and I just said screw it, it's good enough and I don't think about it anymore. It does feel foreign to me weighing doses even, I used to just go by time and approximate lol. Never had a problem with that.With espresso, I found, one can also definitely get to a point where measuring particle distributions, extraction yields, pressure curves, etc etc suddenly becomes more of the obsession than taste. I’m always down to nerd out over some extraction theory, but my espresso got a lot better when I started focusing on taste and adjusting from there and stop worrying about brewing to numbers
This is exactly my set up at home too with similar preferences and I've been pretty damn satisfied lately. I still lust after a few grinders if budget was no option but the more I taste from different "end game" I do think they might be reaching past the point of diminishing returns for me (Lagom 01 for example).Timemore 078 has been my first flat burr grinder and whilst I still really like the 1ZPresso K Plus I had as my daily driver before that, the clarity of flavour I get from the former is awesome.
I quite like the higher acidity and clarity, lower body styles most of the time though, and I only brew pourover at home.
I think our hard London water is probably the single biggest limiting factor at this point, even when filtered through a BWT.I still lust after a few grinders if budget was no option but the more I taste from different "end game" I do think they might be reaching past the point of diminishing returns for me (Lagom 01 for example).
To be fair, I also had an early version of the DF64, which was horribly inconsistent until I got an antipopcorning insert, and is still pretty bad after that with the stock clump crusher that creates a ton of fines from regrinding. It may not be the fairest comparison for flat vs conical burrs when it's these other flaws that were the problem. That kind of turned me off from their other offerings to be honest, even though the DF83 seems like a great price for what it is. Even on the newer versions the bellows are still on the upper burr carrier that uses a spring for spacing, meaning when you press the bellows, you also press the burrs closer together.Hmm maybe it's just me, my df83 with ssp burrs is a massive improvement over my old conical and mignon. But I only do espresso.
Thank you. Uniformity of the grind and its size make sense and it also makes sense that there could be an optimal size for extraction with given pressure, flow. I am still not sure it matters how you get there conical vs flat vs jumping on it as long as the end result is uniform, correct size and you get there in reasonable time.It's about the uniformity of the grind. The more uniform the grind the more even and also higher extraction can be. There are a few reasons for that, but for starters smaller pieces extract faster than larger pieces as there is greater surface area for a given weight. You can grind finer with a better grinder because there are less "fines" (hyper-pulverized bean bits) produced and those fines clog up filters and limit rate. With more consistent particle size you also have more even extraction in that you don't have over extracted fines creating bitterness and under extracted boulders making things overly sour. Everything from burr size, shape, geometry, alignment, flex, etc lead to the resulting grind quality.
Nope, doesn’t really matter - just the result. All else equal unimodal flats have more uniformity than conicals and bigger burrs are more uniform than smaller burrs. As always though the statement “all else equal” is implying a lot.Thank you. Uniformity of the grind and its size make sense and it also makes sense that there could be an optimal size for extraction with given pressure, flow. I am still not sure it matters how you get there conical vs flat vs jumping on it as long as the end result is uniform, correct size and you get there in reasonable time.
I think our hard London water is probably the single biggest limiting factor at this point, even when filtered through a BWT.
I don’t like the hassle/environmental impact of buying bottled water.
The Timemore is my first electric grinder after 10 years of coffee herders, and I’m pretty content. Part of the enjoyment of pour over for me is that once you have a good grinder, inoffensive water, and good beans, that’s kind of it in terms of reasonable upgrades.
The coffee I make at home improved the most when I was bored over COVID and became slightly neurotic about developing my palette, jotting down flavour notes and getting more familiar with what under and over extraction tastes like, versus when I’ve ever bought new kit.
With espresso, I found, one can also definitely get to a point where measuring particle distributions, extraction yields, pressure curves, etc etc suddenly becomes more of the obsession than taste. I’m always down to nerd out over some extraction theory, but my espresso got a lot better when I started focusing on taste and adjusting from there and stop worrying about brewing to numbers
This is the bag of square mile I tried earlier this year. Awesome bag. For people who don’t like sourness or fruity coffee though, I imagine this would be undrinkable. I don’t think you need a crazy nose to detect the pineapple note in here.Hacienda La Esmeralda - Coffee Collective does a super light roast that has so much bergamotte flavor that you think it's tea.
On the other hand I've never had a light roast from Square Mile that didn't make decent espresso![]()
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