Coffee Appreciation

Full descale and Puly Caff session tonight. You know that feeling after you floss when you haven’t flossed for a while - that.

Had a similar feeling having replaced my shower screen today, feels good!

I need to replace some o-rings in my S24. It's too fucking big to deconstruct though so I think I'll wait until Covid is over and pay for it to be taken away and serviced. Might swap out the filter too which I've basically forgotten about so is probably killing us.

They do, Stephen is a great toaster

Wilfa Svart maybe? Think the newer Wilfa Uniform is over budget.

I’d add Crankhouse to that list. Had some great coffee from Extract too.

I’ve tried all of those roasters but never heard of James Gourmet before, think I’ll place an order if you rate as high as Assembly and Round Hill!

I love coffee but lately (and following an IBS diagnosis) I'm questioning the trade-off from the inevitable instant and profound arsegrief which follows the morning cup. Are there any beans or roasts which are more or less prone to causing coffee related squitters?

sorry if you're still eating breakfast btw.

swallows mouthful of porridge

Do you eat first? I’ve never been able to handle coffee in the morning, always messes my stomach up in a similarly brutal way if I haven’t had a good amount of food and water.

Same applies if I have more than 2 cups a day.

Today is a very good day, should keep the wife and I happy for a few more weeks.

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what type of coffee do you drink? I have found that less filtered drinks (espresso, french press, etc) can cause more upset than more filtered (paper filter pourover, paper filter aeropress)

Ha! God yes don't go there!

Mignon seconded though, they're excellent I find.

Enjoy!

Some folks are having delays with the postage. There are no tracking details available for RM 1st class I'm afraid, and its the only service which we can offer economically - we're not big enough to get scale discounts with the courier firms. Your packages will be with you shortly.

I currently have a Gaggia MDF, is the Mignon Eureka a step up or not?

I dunno whether its worth upgrading from one to the other, are you happy with the espresso you're getting? I mean its not a big enough step to really notice subtle improvements in flavour. I think the MDF is generally capable enough when the blades are good.

I think a cheapo grinder or no grinder to a Mignon is a good idea.

Happy yes, but WFH has caused me to suffer from upgradeitas. TBH I thing my money would be better spent on the PiD for the Classic rather than a grinder. Just interested for future reference.

Out of interest what would the next step be ? It’s quite scary how you can go from a £3-500 machine / grinder to £1k plus....

I don't have experience with the Gaggia MDF but I've used a Eurika Mignon quite a lot and from watching a youtube video they looks very similar in performance. It's possible to get grinders with some extra features like the Rocket Fausto but I honestly don't think it's worth buying anything more expensive than those for home use, they'll both happily do espresso grind, the areas they fall down is things like the quality of the adjustment system and heat dissipation if using continuously.

The next real step up would be something like a Mazzer Super Jolly, which costs about £1k or just under, which you could definitely use in a commercial set up, just not constantly mainly because of the heat build up, but would be overkill for home use.

Above that are grinders with much larger and better blades, way better adjustment, consistency, and deals better with heat build up. Ones like the Mahlkonig Peak, but you're looking at about £2k and only worth while in a high volume commercial setting.

Out of interest when was the last time you took your MDF apart and cleaned the blades? If it's been a while then try your hand at that because it'll help with grind consistency.

Understandable. My advice would be not to upgrade anything, but that's easy for me to say. I would get something like a Wilfa Svart so you can leave the Gaggia ready for espresso, a few manual brewing gadgets and then start exploring all the experiences you get from coffee of different origins.

Brilliant, thanks both

Your packages will be with you shortly.

Bought a heat gun and everything.

Coming back to this, very happy with mine, but have a question re quantity. The smallest portion setting on the grinder is '2' which I assume means two servings, but I'm just using all of that at once because it seems too little to split. Is this similar to your experience? Hopeful I'm not going through my coffee at double the suggested rate.

You're going to tell me to use scales aren't you?

I took it apart about 12m ago when I serviced the classic. Prior to that I’d not done anything to it since I bought it from @Clever_Pun 6 years prior.

It might be worth replacing the blades just to be safe
https://www.theespressoshop.co.uk/en/GB/Gaggia-MDF-Compatible-Grinder-Burrs-Pair-RH-%C3%B8-50x30x75mm---MDF0029/m-3666.aspx

I also read something about doing a calibration but didn't look for istructions on how to do it

Brewing by weight is the best way to get good repeatable results. I wouldn't trust whatever the machine thinks is 2 cups worth when it doesn't know my brew method or the ratio I'm going for. It's worth doing things by weight at least the first couple of times to get an idea of what it should look like, then you can probably get by eyeballing it if you don't want to faff about each time.

You're going to tell me to use scales aren't you?

Yep! One proper cup of coffee should be about 15g with 250ml of water. You'll get less coffee out into the cup as some water is held in grounds.

I've never really used the timer. Just tare my scales to the empty grind pot, grind a bit, weigh, grind a bit more till i've got the right amount. Doesn't take long to work out how much comes out with a quick press.

For a pour over you don't need to be mega accurate. just try and get within a gram or so.

Also, different beans grind at different rates, so a given grind time on some "harder" beans will be a different weight to softer ones.