espresso making mags?

[jm2e]

Is a needle better than the dinner fork I’m using?
I figured the OCD (knock) would help me with consistent flatness & depth of tamp. I lack confidence in my tamp. .........


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[tgapp]

Is a needle better than the dinner fork I’m using?
I figured the OCD (knock) would help me with consistent flatness & depth of tamp. I lack confidence in my tamp. .........


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Yeah way better

Also if you're getting tons of clumping and retention try using a tiny spray bottle to spritz the beans before grinding. Grind into something you can close tightly and shake the grounds up. Dump into basket, wiggle the needle around a ton, level, and tamp.

Chances are the problem is your grinder though. It's just gonna be more likely to channel because of uneven particulate size. Sorry mang.

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[jm2e]

I can live with it. Buying some cheap toys is much less burden than getting a new grinder, even if it doesn’t get me all the way there. 🤣


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[Doremite]

FKNA tgapp! Appreciated, man. The Gesha too of course. Haven’t gotten into that yet but the knobs fit perfectly.

[bennymac]

Nice knobs!

[tgapp]

FKNA tgapp! Appreciated, man. The Gesha too of course. Haven’t gotten into that yet but the knobs fit perfectly.

fuck yeah!! those knobs look great, i'm stoked to see them in use again.

that gesha is our favorite at the moment. tastes like strawberry and honeysuckle. pretty amazing.

[tgapp]

espresso is back on the menu, boys. this is how you want your shot to look when using a bottomless portafilter - this is called tiger striping, and you can tell that the shot is almost ready to be killed because the stripes aren't super apparent anymore, and the cone is a little big too.



18g in, 40 out. total shot time of 58 seconds. if you're using a non profiling machine, this same shot should have taken between 30 and 40 seconds. honestly i'm not picky about shot weights either, if it's good it's good. in this case this shot was close, but not perfect. i want it a touch longer running and a touch smaller, so i already bumped the grinder setting a bit. pro-tip, if you're only pulling a few shots a day, make an adjustment after you pull a shot to where you think it should be. usually it takes me about 4 shots to really get into a groove, more if the weather is fucky.



crikey, look at the spots on that fellow! this shot was pulled from a SUPER light roasted coffee, which means that it produces less fines (fines = tiny baby particles that make dark spots - light coffee tends to produce less fines, which you can tell because the leopard spots aren't as dark). you can also see where this shot just started to blond, and you can also tell that the espresso is a LITTLE young... young coffee will have big spritzy bubbles in it. old coffee will have little to no crema. in this case, those bigger bubbles means that this coffee will be perfect in a day or so.

some will say that you want a hair of blonding because it adds depth of flavor/bitterness, but ymmv. i drink pretty bright/light espresso.

[rod9301]

Fwiw, using danessi beans, and 18g in, 20 out, and get a really good ristretto in about 30 seconds after the first drip comes out.

Mazer mini grinder plus a lucca m58

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[cravenmorhead]

I've been in the process of getting my Flair dialed-in. Getting pretty close at 5,000' of altitude. Spending Christmas Week at 9,000' and I feel like I'm starting back at square one. Hard to get my water hot enough to avoid under-extracting.

[tgapp]

I've been in the process of getting my Flair dialed-in. Getting pretty close at 5,000' of altitude. Spending Christmas Week at 9,000' and I feel like I'm starting back at square one. Hard to get my water hot enough to avoid under-extracting.

are you preheating the cylinder once or twice?

you should be doing it twice. or literally just throw it in a pot of boiling water. get that thing scorching hot before you try to pull a shot from it, otherwise, it sucks out way too much heat

the goal should be to have everything prepped and ready to go before you take your cylinder out of whatever preheat process you do (either throwing it in a pot and boiling it or pouring boiling water twice into it), so that way, you push the basket in, load the cylinder, and fill with water within seconds of it getting out of preheat

[cravenmorhead]

are you preheating the cylinder once or twice?

you should be doing it twice. or literally just throw it in a pot of boiling water. get that thing scorching hot before you try to pull a shot from it, otherwise, it sucks out way too much heat

the goal should be to have everything prepped and ready to go before you take your cylinder out of whatever preheat process you do (either throwing it in a pot and boiling it or pouring boiling water twice into it), so that way, you push the basket in, load the cylinder, and fill with water within seconds of it getting out of preheat

I've been preheating into a small Yeti, so that I can surround the cylinder with hot water rather than just heating it from the inside. And yeah, current workflow is to pull the cylinder out of preheat immediately before loading it with water and pulling a shot.

[tgapp]

I've been preheating into a small Yeti, so that I can surround the cylinder with hot water rather than just heating it from the inside. And yeah, current workflow is to pull the cylinder out of preheat immediately before loading it with water and pulling a shot.

Preheat twice. The cold cylinder will drop the yeti to like 170 and then that will under extract your shot. Hot water in yeti > cylinder > let it sit for however long > refresh the hot water > take it out and pull the shot.

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[tgapp]

sorry for spamming this thread, tell me to shut the fuck up if this isn't useful. i feel like my calling in life is to evangelize the holy word of good coffee drinking, even if i myself am a sinner and fall short of the glory of bean

today i had a distribution problem and i thought it would be worthwhile to capture it and share so y'all can see how i fucked up:



see that little bubble towards the back of the portafilter? i've got a gusher here, meaning the coffee is flowing way faster through that section of the puck than the rest of it. this is because i fucked up my distribution, since i was trying to make a shot in like 3 minutes before a meeting. i still got up to pressure and still had a decent shot, but not as good as it could have been.




you can see - the area where this shot gushed is white, meaning the shot blonded prematurely. it's even on only one side of the crema, towards the "problem area" visible from the bottomless pf in my earlier shot.

the shot still tasted great - no surprise lattes here - but i wonder if it could have been better.

anyway, hope that is helpful, thanks for coming to my ted talk

[zion zig zag]

What can you tell about this shot based on the photo? If I remember right it tasted a little bitter to me, but I’ve learned that I very easily confuse bitter with sour.

[tgapp]

What can you tell about this shot based on the photo? If I remember right it tasted a little bitter to me, but I’ve learned that I very easily confuse bitter with sour.

those two blond spots right there are problematic, that means the shot is overextracting (blonding, which is the same problem i posted about today)

imo this is probably a distribution issue, which is common. lord knows i struggle with them.

shots can be bitter or sour or also bitter and sour. bitter = overextracted (blond) sour = underextracted. so when you have a channeling issue it means that part of the puck is overextracted (where the flow rate is higher than average) - creating some bitter flavors - and part of the puck is underextracted, because all the water is going through the channel - creating sour flavors.

[cravenmorhead]

Sitrep: double-heating the Flair cylinder solved my underextraction-at-altitude problem.

Next up: any advice on getting a tamp consistent?

[tgapp]

Sitrep: double-heating the Flair cylinder solved my underextraction-at-altitude problem.

Next up: any advice on getting a tamp consistent?

99% chance the problem isn't your tamp, it's your distribution.

Just push the thing into the thing until you feel the thing compact. You'll feel it tighten down and press in, and you don't need to go any further. Then 'polish' the puck by twisting it under half pressure.

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[cravenmorhead]

Ok, so how do I improve my distribution?

[tgapp]

Ok, so how do I improve my distribution?

$2 dissection needle

Use it to bust up clumps and distribute everything really well before tamping.

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[PowderAlltheTime]

I got the flow control for the e61. It very interesting to use so far. I'm trying to dial in how best to use it. There are a few blog posts/vids on the internet, but they are little all over the board on how to use it for the best results. I dialed in the flow rate for my machine, but trying to get the right flow control profile is a little confusing. Do I start on slow, big flow in the middle and finish slow; start big go slow to the end; or one of the endless variations in between? Also, with the flow control, do you even need to tamp any more? Just distribute and pull a shot? Also, how does the flow control what how you roast? Do you roast to your flow control or just let her rip; because you can cover up your roasting mistakes with flow control?

One more question, TGAPP i noticed the scale you use is an Amazon $15 coupon special; Is there any reason to spend $200 on a Chris' Coffee special? Other than Chris likes to have his kids teeth worked on by the dentists that read TGR forums.

[tgapp]

I got the flow control for the e61. It very interesting to use so far. I'm trying to dial in how best to use it. There are a few blog posts/vids on the internet, but they are little all over the board on how to use it for the best results. I dialed in the flow rate for my machine, but trying to get the right flow control profile is a little confusing. Do I start on slow, big flow in the middle and finish slow; start big go slow to the end; or one of the endless variations in between? Also, with the flow control, do you even need to tamp any more? Just distribute and pull a shot? Also, how does the flow control what how you roast? Do you roast to your flow control or just let her rip; because you can cover up your roasting mistakes with flow control?

One more question, TGAPP i noticed the scale you use is an Amazon $15 coupon special; Is there any reason to spend $200 on a Chris' Coffee special? Other than Chris likes to have his kids teeth worked on by the dentists that read TGR forums.

lmfao no buy the $15 drug scale, that thing is trucker

one time i thought that i had killed it and it turns out that i just needed to dry out the battery compartment. i now have a fancy(er) hario v60 scale sitting in my cupboard collecting dust because drug scale won't die.

this thing is going on 3 years of daily service with plenty of coffee spills on it. it's fast and accurate and it is backlit

fancy scales are for dentists

--

congrats on the flow profiler, that is a HUGE upgrade. fucking killer man!

so the profile i like most is a super slow pre-infusion for 20-30 seconds, starting at zero bars and then by the end of the preinfusion i know that the puck is saturated when i hit 1-2 bar. then i ramp all the way to 9 bars, but the let the pressure gradually decline, so it's like 5sec@9bars, then let it tick down over another 30-40 seconds. sometimes i slow it down if it's running too fast. total shot time is between 50 and 90 seconds usually, with a mean of 75 or so.

the idea is that this mimics a lever but with super slow pre-infusion, this helps avoid channeling and ensures a much more even extraction. that's my go to, but honestly, i haven't fucked with it much because i get fucking superb coffee 90% of the time, and why would i fix it if it ain't broke?

if you find some resources that show a better way of doing it i'm all ears.

[retirwntm]

I like this game. Tgapp, you may have a biz Future as a coffee consultant:

Judge my shot:




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[tgapp]

are you using a pressurized portafilter? i can't tell but it looks like you might be, and if you are, your coffee is probably too old. ratios look wrong too, way too little crema and way too much espresso. my guess is - pressurized basket that still channeled + old coffee. that shot is going to taste watery, bitter, and acidic.

and re PowderAlltheTime's questions around roasting and flow control... the real cardinal sins of roasting won't ever be covered up by a profiler, all a profiler can really do is help you get a high extraction ratio. i do find myself pulling shots with things i wouldn't be able to otherwise (like super light roasted coffee), but if a coffee flicks or crashes it's gonna be reflected in the taste no matter how well you profile. if anything, a profiler doesn't cover up mistakes as much as it opens up the possibility of having even better coffee. it DOES help you adjust to changing circumstances as the shot progresses, though.

and yeah you still need to tamp, but one fun thing to try is an aeropress style shot with the profiler. grind to a medium fine range, lightly tamp, pre-infuse for 20 seconds, then keep it at 1-2 bars of pressure for another 60-80 seconds until you have reached a 5:1 ratio or so. it's like an aeropress but with a better extraction curve, because you're keeping the coffee saturated at 200f (or whatever) for the entire brew process, rather than a declining temp curve like what you'd get from heat loss on the aeropress.

[jm2e]

Ok, so how do I improve my distribution?

Honestly, the biggest improvement I’ve seen in my espresso “technique” in the last 6 months has been my ghetto distribution attempts over the last 2 weeks.
First I made a cone with some card stock junk mail. Christmas cards would be perfect! Until this addition, all attempts just spilled coffee grinds and left me reluctant to really attack the stuff. I was basically just leveling the top layer before.
Second, I tried using a chopstick. It worked okay, but kind of broke down clumps and made new ones at the same time. Then I moved to a dinner fork. This was a huge move for me. I just poke around a fluff my shit until it looks “good”, which I’m sure is inadequate.
Now I have 100x more consistency. I’m still no good at this, but feel more like I’m not a complete failure.



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[retirwntm]

are you using a pressurized portafilter? i can't tell but it looks like you might be, and if you are, your coffee is probably too old. ratios look wrong too, way too little crema and way too much espresso. my guess is - pressurized basket that still channeled + old coffee. that shot is going to taste watery, bitter, and acidic.

Pressurized = portafilter with a bottom rather than a naked one? If so, yes.

Coffee is sourced from a local shop that then sells to a local store. It is a few weeks old according to what’s written on the bag but they can do that at any time so not sure how old it actually is. I used to go to the shop pre-COVID but it’s only open in short windows these days.

Probably pretty accurate on taste profile. I threw that one out so not sure.

I think I’m at a crossroads where I have a basic machine and burr grinder and I can make a quick cappuccino that works for my life but would like to make better but it seems to require more time, effort and money all to get there.

Can I just start with a naked portafilter and scale and will that at least get me some way further ahead without having to get new equipment. If I do ever have to go back to work I can just stop and get a pretty good coffee drink on the way to drop off kids...though still 6 mos. min until we are back in the office.

Have a gaggia classic and an entry level burr grinder. I’ve read above about upgrades and a few other things but haven’t really done much to get there.

Also have a friend who has a good shop and high end machinery and she’s willing to help with me learning there during non covid non peak hours.

Had access to a guy who owned his own shop and made good coffee and he was knowledgeable and super helpful but more about the recent history and evolution of the business in the US. He would really get into the science part of pulling a good shot but again, for me , I just don’t have the time or interest to get that deeply into it.


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