-
You must choose your coffee shops wisely!
-
Just upped the coffee making facilities in the flat to 5 methods.
Its a little excessive as we have no space.
Testing the Sage Brewer (because I like a brewed coffee first thing).
Completely in love with the Flair.
18g of China Lafu from Coffee Factory (a local roaster to family in Devon- who's 'Daily Brew' Blend is utterly fantastic).
Happy with the Sage Oracle for simplicity, but the espresso is not as nice as the Flair produces- really excellent for my wife who loves the push button nature of it once I've got it all set up.
Aeropress and Cafetiere from the good old days/ travel/ days at work. -
James Hoffman did a video earlier this year along those lines, high extraction through a filter in the portafilter. He looked at it in terms of drinking it as an espresso shot but I guess it would work to turn it into a longer americano style drink. Bit too much faff for me but it's an interesting watch.
-
Difficult to say, domestic espresso machines generally struggle with temperature stability, so temperature from the boiler is often lost on its way to the shower screen and that rate of loss varies according to how well pre-heated the machine is, how long it’s been idle, etc. Add to that the variation in starting temp at the boiler depending on where the pressurestat is in its cycle if it’s not PID controlled, plus not knowing what temp it’s been setup for from the factory or if you’ve adjusted the pstat or PID, and it’s not really under your own control. The only way to know is to get hold of a Scace meter which is not really within reach of the home user.
Basically hotter water gives more extraction because it is more effective as a solvent at higher temperatures. If you can’t fully control the temperature then you can increase extraction by other means like grinding finer and increasing contact time.
That was a long answer.
-
Accuracy isn't going to be the problem, sealing in the pressure is. A waterproof DS18B20 will cost you pennies, is quite easy to use with an Arduino and shouldn't be too hard to incorporate in a portafilter. Maybe buy separate sensor sleeves, see if you can bond (or braze?) them into a portafilter with an airtight seal and then insert the sensor afterwards.
-
Yeah people have made their own versions of the Scace on coffee forums, plenty of knowledge available there. Just depends whether you’re wired that way to put yourself through it, my inclination would be to just work within the limitations of the equipment and adjust grind/dose/time according to taste and just follow general temperature management good practice.
-
Concerned less about pressure and more about temperature. I've retrofitted a PID thermocouple to my gaggia classic, and would be fascinated to know how accurate my offset is for boiler temp vs brew temp. Is there any need for the basket to be pressured if I just want to measure temperature?
-
Not quite that fancy. Considering the Flair because my NY sized apartment doesn’t have much counter space and being able to assemble and disassemble it is really handy.
Or I would reaaalllyy like a Cafelat Robot because it doesn’t require pre-heating and there’s no thermal loss and it looks awesome, but again, I don’t have much counter space to play with.
-
Actually the only thing that pisses me off to no end is that an awful lot of shops have their automatic machines dialed in wrong / just dialled in for cappuchino etc., so the cup is only 2/3 full, then they just switch it on again on manual mode once more to top up.
I actually more than once yelled "please just leave it like that", haha
: ] -
On the flip side, any of those machines should last a lifetime. So also worth spending a bit extra for something reliable.
I'm not that knowledgeable about how long the Flair or Robot are going to be around for, but if you think they might be relatively limited, might be worth getting some sets of gaskets for the inevitable servicing.
I've yet to need anything done with mine, but I can rely on the gaskets being available when I need them!
-
Any one have any experience of this? Mainly for espresso.
Thanks -
It's a scam.
The real Niche costs £500 and is very good.
-
Having a clear out - anybody after a "Alpu" moka pot? £3 collected from Kings Cross / Highbury and Islington around work hours.
Picked it up a while back after a trip to Italy, replaced the seal with a new Bialetti part and has only had a few shots run through it since. Hoping link to pictures below works:
-
I can see it.
kkg337
Stevethecoffee
birofunk
deleted
Colonel_of_Truth
Tijmen
mmccarthy
JB
Levitz
salad
andy.w
Bainbridge
tomatoe
withered_preacher-
Post a reply
About
Coffee Appreciation
Posted by
@justMouse
WRT making americanos more like filter I’m with the gently facetious comment above that you just make filter, but I guess you only have an espresso grinder and don’t want to make big adjustments. In that case, you can get all the complexity out of an espresso by going for lots of extraction, you can sacrifice most of the body you’re usually trying to preserve too. Choose a coffee which is recommended for filter brewing.
Reduce your dose, try going down by 3 or 4 grams. Grind significantly finer. Extract more volume, try 45ml. Aim for 30-35 seconds for the shot.
We just put a light roasted acidic Kenya on guest espresso, and to balance it we ended up at 95deg, 17g, 45ml yield, 35 secs. Tastes detailed and delicate when served with water.