We're moving to Denmark from the US soon, and are going to be (of course) selling our 120V setup and buying a whole new one. It's pretty exciting to be able to re-shop for things.

We currently have a Profitec GO and a Eureka Mignon Silencio grinder. I'd say my big want that we don't have is having warm water from the espresso machine easier to dispense (without small grounds in it) to pre warm cups, to make Americanos.

Either way, if you had the opportunity to do it all over again, would you change anything?

Do you guys, who have a espresso machine at home, really want to drink a espresso late in the evening, or night for that matter?

Had my espresso machine for a week now and still have no clue if I'm doing it right... lol

A follow up to my survey posted last week. Thank you to everyone who responded. Hope you enjoy. I have some ideas on how I could follow up on this with additional surveys, so if you want to see more let me know.

I was inspired by Hoffman's survey on the state of espresso to create my own survey about the price of coffee. I grew up thinking all coffee was the same then I had "good" coffee and realized it was worth it to pay more. Please take a moment to respond, if I get enough data I'll post the results and findings.

Added a pressure gauge, pump dimmer switch, upgraded steam wand, and sawed off portafilter to my cheap DeLonghi a while ago. Works good enough and definitely learned a lot about how espresso machines work. Let me know if you'd be interested in a guide on how to perform the pressure gauge dimmer switch mod.

Latte art is all the rage for social media, but do people order them for the taste or just the clout? At home I find steaming milk annoying and then it just feels like I'm sitting down to a glass of hot milk when I'm finally done. What are other people's thoughts? Do you like milk drinks? Do you make them at home?

I like this bean. It's smooth, and I usually like roasts with chocolate notes.

I'm also cheap. This is around .50 cents US per once.

Do you have a favorite bean that's medium/smooth, and also in the .50 range that can be ordered online?

My local roasters are all around a dollar per once and I haven't found anything that was so good, I couldn't go back to this for half the cost, so I do them as a special occasion.

On a quick glance this community looks dead because of the pinned posts taking up a lot of space.

I’m still working on consistency, but I just made a nice washed columbian on my gcp

• Manual WDT is a perfectly valid method.
• If you're chasing the pinnacle of Blind Shakers is certainly worth a try.
  • Yield - This one is pretty clear for the most part.
  • Workflow - As someone that owns that 2 different Duomo I can say I'm not a huge fan of the manual WDT. That said the clanging some metal together in the morning is also not ideal
  • Consistency - I think this one I have the most significant difference in opinion. While calling the Blind shaker method the most consistent is valid my interpretation is WDT could also be called more consistent baring some wild outliers 13% of the time.

Possible difference makers between the two:

• Conical vs Flat burr
• Modern precision basket
• Extraction method with machine(Lance had a rather specific per-infusion method on a Decent)

 

Sources:

The Real Sprometheus- ESPRESSO ANATOMY - Which Distribution Tool Is Most Effective?

!

Lance Hedrick - BEST WAY TO PREP ESPRESSO?: The Finale (WDT, WW Blind Shaker, Autocomb, NCD

! ----

Feature packed espresso scale that lacks intangibles. At the current price of $50 CDN certainly worth a try if you get it from somewhere with easy returns, probably should get a extra 3rd party warranty if you can.

For espresso I think this scale does everything that most people would want out of a scale. The shortcomings is really how well it does those things and how long it will work.

Pro's: - Auto turn on at 100g (Favorite feature) - Fairly bright display - Relatively reliable espresso auto timing - Notably loud - Flat bottom. e.g. No foot nubs

Con's: - Durability - What seems like zero post sales support - Responsiveness - 0.2g off calibration out of box

Responsiveness measurements in seconds. !Repsoniveless numbers

!

Per title: apparently there's no way to set the water volume used by my DeLonghi espresso machine on the TM BM 2...??

I saw one of the YouTube baristas use the Timemore BM 2 to dial in his espressos. I found the pour over option an extra bonus for when the mood hits so I saved up and bought it.

Primarily, I want to dial in espresso. But I can't figure out how it determines extraction ratios if it doesn't know how much water was used (and thus, how much water is retained). I can set EVERYTHING it feels, but the water volume or weight I used...

Help? 😅

Edit: The scale and app show a lot of variables, like extraction rate. Yes, I'm just starting out so I could be asking very dumb questions here.

I can set some variables like grams of coffee used, temperature, etc. But I cannot set how much water was used. Say, my De'longhi La Specialista uses 30ml of water for each shot. Is there an option to enter that in the black mirror app? That way, it could give the correct extraction ratios, no? Now, to me, it feels like it's just throwing out numbers. Of course, flow rate graphs and total weight etc are correct.

Thanks!!

!

Hi fellow espresso aficionados,

I’m thinking to get a nanotech shower screen (IMS BV200NT, for example) for my Breville/Sage Barista Touch Impress and wanted to ask if any of you have any experience with NT shower screens…

Would there be any taste difference between the stock Breville/Sage shower screen?

Also, how tough is the NT coating? Say, if I use a metallic puck screen and it ends up rubbing up against the NT coating on the shower screen, would the NT coating get ruined/damaged?

And as a followup, does the NT coating help repel coffee grounds and distribute water better? I thought the latter would be more influenced by the quality and distribution of holes in the shower head. Also, does having the NT coating mean the puck screen is redundant for both distribution of water and grind sticking to shower screen?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

I felt productive and decided to clean literally everything in my coffee station, including doing a long over-due descale and group head flush.

That Basha Bekele is from CxffeeBlack as part of their coffee subscription from December.

When grinding coffee the vibrations slowly caused the portafilter of my Quick Mill to drift off the (admittedly not great) support fork of my new Eureka Mignion Specialita. In the nook of plastic top holding part sits a screw, so I had the idea to bend a piece of copper wire and mount it under the screw. The piece (image below) hold the sides the of portafilter protrusion. This way it can’t turn away and I don’t have to keep an eye on it constantly. ! !

Hi all, recently I acquired a number of 1kg tubs of Cafetto evo cleaner on sale. I figured since Breville/Sage backflush tablets are the 1.5g Cafetto variety (see photos), I can probably safely replace them with Cafetto powder.

Now, the powder comes with a little scoop. Each scoop of powder is about 3-4g of powder, so a lot more than a standard Breville 1.5g Cafetto tablet (see photo for dimensions of said tablets).

According to the instructions, I need a scoop of powder for each cleaning cycle. That’s at least 2x more mass than a Breville tablet. I wonder why that is…

Is the powder less concentrated than the Breville tablets? Maybe it’s the “evo” brand (certified organic) vs. the regular brand (organic version is “weaker” somehow)?

Or is it likely that the powder instructions are “universal”/generic and apply to all machines, from a tiny Bambino to big ass commercial units?

Most importantly, do you think it’s safe to use “too much” powder (i.e. one full scoop as per directions on the tub)? When I used the 1.5g Breville tablets with my machine, it took 2 cleaning cycles back to back to fully dissolve it, so I worry that if I run the cycle with 4g of powder, it’s gonna take forever to dissolve…

If there’s anyone here using Cafetto, Cafiza or similar powders with their Breville/Sage machine, please let me know your routine (how much powder by weight) and if you do anything else.

P.S. my machine comes with a blind portafilter rubber disc with no hole, so there’s no concern with the powder “squirting out” prematurely through the portafilter.

I appreciate your expertise and feedback on this one. Thanks in advance!!

I got a Baratza Sette 30 from my wife for Christmas. It's replacing my old faithful Baratza Virtuoso+, with which I had been grinding for my Moccamaster Cup-One just fine. I used the Virtuoso+ for espresso, but I was looking for something that could be a little more dialed in than that.

The nicest thing about the Sette series is that most of the parts are interchangeable. I upgraded my new gift with the steel adjustment ring assembly from the Sette 270/270WI, which is a direct replacement, and gives the Sette 30 fully variable micro-adjustable grind capability, just like the 270/270WI models. I did have to add a shim to it, as for some reason, I had to go down to the finest setting to get a decent espresso grind. But, the Sette 30 shipped with two different thickness shims in the box, so I just swapped that in, and now for most beans, I'm between 5 and 7 clicks on the main adjustment ring, and then fine-tune from there with the micro-adjust ring.

I also updated the large hopper with a single-dose hopper with silicone bellows. I went with this model from Cafe Fabrique in Canada. The stock hopper worked just fine, but I like the smaller single-dose hopper a little better. The bellows are nice, but not that necessary, as the Sette series is a very low-retention grinder series by default. I think the bellows pumping may be more of a placebo than a necessary upgrade... ;)

I've even read that you can replace the Sette 30 controls and portafilter holder bits to upgrade to a full 270 or 270WI from the Sette 30, but I don't know if I really need or want to go that far. It IS nice that Baratza sells pretty much any replacement part for the Sette series, though.

I've been able to nail down my espresso grinds very well with the new setup, so I'm quite happy with it so far. The only thing I haven't tried yet was a coarse enough grind for the Moccmaster or standard pourover. For now, the Sette 30 is exclusive to my espresso shots. I highly recommend it for that use, in any case.

Cheers, all.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/20255211 >I'm sur a lot of you have seen this video from James Hoffmann discussing the massive differences observed when spritzing some water on the beans before grinding. > > So I took the plunge and bought a spray bottle, and tested it immediately on my mildly-disappointing, home-roasted medium-light Yrgacheffe in my Mythos-modded DF64. > > Of course I don't have a particle analyzer to replicate the results, but I can still count on my senses to see if there is an actual difference between dry and spritzed beans. > > The beans were dialed-in at 18g in, 45g out, 30s when dry. > > Then, the 3s-spritz beans went in. I didn't see much difference when grinding (maybe a bit less retention), but when pulling the shot, wow. It started to drip much later and slower, and took around 42s to complete the shot. There was a bit of spraying so channeling may still be happening though. The taste was incredible compared to the baseline. Every flavor was turned up to 11, with much more body, sweetness and complexity, with still a clear acidity cutting through the syrupy goodness, and a taste that lingered in my mouth for a very long time. > > I dialed back the grinder for a 30s shot. This one was very disappointing and obviously under-extracted: sour, with a lingering astringency, and the flavors were kind of muted. So the beans really seem to benefit from extra contact time with seemingly no drawbacks in terms of overextraction, or the initial delay acted as a sort of preinfusion. > > So my takeway is this: invest in a $£2€ spray bottle, either dial-in with dry beans or aim for a 35-45% longer extraction compared to your baseline, and enjoy! > > Have you tested it? What are your results?

> High pressure, high forces, long lever arms...all of that meant heavy and strong (read: expensive) parts which I was not looking forward to having to fabricate. Instead, I settled on the simpler idea of harnessing the power of compressed gas. Instead of using a high mechanical advantage lever to push a piston, compressed CO2 would be dispensed from a small and inexpensive 12g or 16g cartridge which would then generate the requisite pressure to properly extract espresso. This concept is not actually novel; both an unsuccessful kickstarter and a now-defunct handheld espresso maker (with a fanatical user base) employed this mechanism.

Just copying my post from R/Espresso last year for context. I'll add another posts for my one year update.

------------------------------

Seen a lot of posts on this grinder and machine. Just wanted to add my notes as a new coffee drinker/maker

I started my search with the GCP but decided that the Profitec was the way to go given that it was similar price of a fully modded GCP without looking like it has been modded out. Overall I'm pretty happy with the Profitec Go it's pretty feature packed and well built at the price point, but there is a list of things I'd look for if I was looking for a new machine.

Profitec Go

• Really short working area. There's 74.68mm/2.94in clearance when using a bottomless Portafilter
• PID and Pressure gauge location. Being closer to the top and outside would be nice.
• No Preinfusion
• Knob placement for steamer would be more ergonomic on the side. Lever would be better than the knob
• Steam wand is not insulated
• The way the drip tray scrapes metal when pulling it out. Would be nice if one of the surfaces was lined with plastic.
• How the water refilled. This one is mostly due to the placement of the machine for me.

If I was buying a machine again at a similar price point again I'd take closer look at these:

• Ascaso Steel Uno Professional w/ PID V4
• Bellezza Bellona Dual Boiler

Was mostly a toss between Sette 270, DF64 and DF64P. Ended up with the DF64P since it seemed to be the better single dose grinder.

DF64P Grinder

• The way you have to zero it out.
• Drifting zero issue.
• The funnel rattling on the dosing cup
• Fork angle should be what the 3d printed mod is.
• Adjustment dial should be closer to the numbers.

I'll probably be swapping the DF64P out with a Niche zero, Timemore Sculptor, Lagom P64 or Kafatek Monolith Max. Would probably get the latter two used.

Been going to this place for about a year, and they offered to let me try a new contender they have for a possible "evening menu". Consisted of cooled Espresso, Tonic water, simple syrup, muddled lime, and a slice of grapefruit. Insanely good, would recommend trying!

I have the Delonghi Dedica EC680M, recently swapped the stock steam wand for the Rancilio wand. I have pretty much 0 experience steaming milk, and this is the first time I've been able to have milk lay on top without being a formless blob! Just super excited and wanted to share lol

Gotta love my click-bait title. And if you are reading this, ha! it worked. FWIW, his is the real title:

Drinking coffee daily is associated with less gray matter in the brain

(tip: if you view that in Lynx there is no popup nag… hey, at least it’s not a Cloudflare site)

cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/3784040

> After working on a bicycle or an engine, hands covered in grease, I can confirm that coffee does the job. Spent coffee grounds are gritty like sand so they work amazingly well to get the grease off. I use a bar of soap at the same time which causes coffee grounds to get embedded in the bar. It’s a good thing too because it always helps to have the soap bar a bit gritty. > > That much is proven for me.. been using coffee for years to wash greasy hands instead of buying the special purpose heavy-duty hand cleaners. > > Coffee is now being used to make clothing and one of the claims is that it gives odor control. I’ve cut back to showering once per WEEK (a pandemic side-effect that became a habit). Even though I’m back to leaving the house regularly the shower habit did not change. So my armpits get quite rank after a week. 💡 If coffee grounds have a deodorizing effect, why not use them on arm pits? I’ve not heard of anyone doing this but thought it’d be worth a test. > > So I brought spent coffee grounds into the shower and after one scrubbing with them my armpit odor was gone. Coffee grounds work better than shower gel. Normally I scrub with shower gel, rinse, & sniff. The first iteration is usually not enough.. I have to repeat that process 2 or 3 times with shower gel to get the stink off. Coffee grounds worked on just one iteration. I think what happens is the deodorant is sticky & waxy which then gets coated with sweat then the sweat-loving bacteria. The abrasive grit from the coffee grounds scrapes the sticky waxy nasties away faster than soap can dissolve it. > > Coffee seems to work on its own but I only did this experiment once so far so I followed with shower gel anyway for good measure. > > (stop reading at this point) > > nsfw begin > > Of course arm pits aren’t the only area that stinks after a week. The groin doesn’t smell too good either. What develops to maturity is what’s called cock cheese¹. I’m not flexible enough to do a proper scientific test. The nose-crotch proximity is what it is. It stunk before the coffee treatment but not after. So it worked at least to the extent that I could confirm. I guess my next partner will have the noble scientific task of assisting with the close proximity sniff test mid-shower and indicate whether shower gel is still needed. > > footnotes: > > 1. Sorry folks. Indeed it’s not the most elegant nomenclature. IMO there’s a language deficiency here. That’s the only name the stuff has AFAIK. Be sure to forget that term whenever you’re eating cheese. Or alternatively it may not be a bad idea to just cut cheese out of your diet at this point.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ You were warned. > > nsfw end

I usually make doubles, but often split them to make a milk drink for my partner and have a single for myself. For some reason, those split singles tend to taste better. Same weight in, same time, same yield, just half the coffee.

Do I just like less coffee? Is it a temperature thing? Am I missing something here? Does anybody have a similar experience?

Happy International Coffee Day, everyone!

I'm relatively new to the espresso game and my espresso always tastes a bit sour... please help! I'm using a Breville Barista Express. From what I understand, the sourness is generally because of under extraction. The water seems to be at around 190-200 degrees, so I don't think that's the issue. I've tried to dial in the grind size so that pulling a shot takes around 25-30 seconds. At that grind size, the pressure gauge is at the very top of the range. I believe if I go finer with the grind, then it'll take longer to brew and push the pressure up higher. I'm not sure exactly what to do to address this. Could it be that I'm tamping too hard? I push relatively firm, aiming for about 30 lbs of pressure. Thanks for the help!

Started a few years ago with a Stilosa and cheap burr grinder from Amazon. This hobby got me good 😅

Black tea is strong, as are fruity notes (blackberry, maybe?). The acidity of the kiwi is there somewhat, but mostly, I taste its sweetness. I'm not sure I taste the lemongrass at all, but that's not saying much, as it could just be masked by the other notes. Overall, this is a very nice roast.

So I put the steel burrs in my Vario, hoping for more clarity in my espresso and a much improved V60. The pourovers are indeed a lot better than with the ceramic burrs, but for espresso... it's complicated.

It's calibrated for chirp at 2Q, and I'm down at 1A, the absolute finest it goes, and the shortest ratio shot I can do is 1:2.5 (17g -> 42g, 25sec)

This is fine for light roast single origins, altho it's a little scary being at the extreme end of the grind setting range. But I feel like I should still be able to pull a 1:2 shot from more traditional darker blends when I want to, without dismantling the grinder to swap the burrs back to ceramic.

Can I safely calibrate it finer?

Is it more likely the alignment?

I did attempt the "alicorn" hyper-alignment procedure after swapping the burrs, but since then it's been sent off to repair the electronics, so the alignment may be suspect again.

Are there any better resources or guides for the hyper-alignment these days? The two YouTube videos I followed were very confusing and seemed more of a proof of concept than a how-to guide. I don't really have the patience for multiple go-rounds of assemble/disassemble to wipe-check the alignment then adjust again. And I suspect doing this the first time was how the grinder electronics got killed.

Any help or advice gratefully received.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/coffee@lemmy.world/t/431650

> Hope you all find this interesting, delighted I got the chance to have a play with the machine!