Coffee Appreciation

The porlex and hario arms end up getting rounded. I know this from 2 years of hand grinding.

Plus 2 years of hand grinding. Fuck that shit anymore.

Baratza Encore, £140, perfect for filter.

Though looking at those cdget links...

this did happen to my porlex, but the hario skerton has a better arm interface which doesn't have the same issues.

Another grinder suggestion: Gaggia MDF for around the £140 mark. Use mine for espresso and filter. Not that noisey and mine has been going strong for about 15 years.

our new coffee machine is going to be the nuts

it will look like this

but with these laser etched side panels

are you going to sell the old one?

Not sure. I probably ought to sell it.

pls let me know; I desperately need coffee :___(

When our new machine arrives from Italy, Silvia and Rocky are yours.

Silvia with Auber PID modification, double spout portafilter, naked portafilter, spare gaskets.
Rocky is standard but missing the hopper lid.

pm-ing now

No pm yet. Have sent you sms

Did you do the PID tuning yourself?

Yep

How did you go about it? One of the standard algorithms, like Ziegler-Nichols?

I bought the Auber instruments PID for rancilio Silvia.

PID temperature controller with parameters set for the machine

Aha it's a pre-tuned unit, neat.

I quite fancy one or these; is it hard to dial in? and I presume you need to do that for every different type of beans you use?

To make good coffee you first need to be able to make consistent coffee. Assuming your coffee machine gives consistent temperature and pressure for the water then you have control on the amount of coffee and grind size going into the portafilter, the distribution of th grounds and the tamp.

I was taught to aim for a 1:2 ratio so 18g of coffee grounds should go to make a 36g shot of espresso and this should take about 30s.

Ideally you want to consistently distribute the grounds in the portafilter and tamp evenly.

This then leaves grind size and weight of grounds as the variables to fiddle with so your extraction takes 30s to produce a shot that weighs twice the weight of the grounds in the portafilter.

Generally once I get the weight and grind size dialled in I keep on monitoring the weight and time of the output. As atmospheric temperature, pressure and humidity vary this will have an impact on the shots produced. So I then decide on whether I want to change the ground size or weight of grounds to accommodate the atmospheric variables.

So for me each coffee needs to be dialled in and then monitored. As such 250g bags are too small to actually get much enjoyment, as by the time I have got consistency I am already 4 shots into the bag.

Once you can produce consistent shots you can then start tweaking parameters to get better shots of coffee. Though having said that I just had a batch of coffee that I could never get control of. It appears the beans did not grind consistently as I kept getting chanelling effects and variable extraction rates even when I used the same weight and grind setting.

^srs bsns right there.

I'm worried I'm going to run out of Hario 02 filters over christmas. Have ordered some from my usual supply but may not make it in time. Stockists in central/norf area that'll be open over the next few days?

Monmouth in Borough and LMNH both stock them if my memory is correct

Bulldog Edition at the Ace Hotel usually have some, and they'll be open all through Christmas.

Notes on St Martin's Lane have them. I imagine most 'proper' (trying to avoid the term 'artisan' here) will have a pack

Prufrock too

Got my cold brew on as it's warming up here.
Using a hario mizudashi and its so easy and delicious.
I recommend lots of ice and a bit of half and half.