Coffee Appreciation

I get great crema out of my Gaggia Classic, a bit of research on how to dial in your setup and some practice pulling shots will get you there... It's mainly window dressing tho', crema actually makes you're coffee taste bitter!

Since I use sugar in my espresso, bitter taste is something I default to over acidic. I find that a dark roast on the bitter side can be very drinkable either with or without sugar, but the acidic stuff (fruity) will only be barely palatable (to me) sans sugar.

And now I want one of these.

I assume the top bit would be a bad place to store 250g worth of beans for the week it takes to get drunk in our house?

It’s an airtight rubber seal on top not a loose plastic lid, I just dump 350g bags of Red Brick in mine and that does 10 days.

Review: Whittard Ethiopia Yirgacheffe - ground as espresso.
Very light roast. Slightly too coarse grind as is typical with a light roast but can work around by using a big dose in the Classic. Light flavour with a bit of muscovado but no excessive acid. No lingering aftertaste. Pleasant background bitterness. Small milk drink needed. Not good as espresso, may have needed a bit of water added to reveal the flavour. May have benefited from a longer extraction as James Hoffmann has commented on in the past with lighter roasts.

Overall: would recommend. It’s an approachable light roast and after a couple of cups into the bag I’m not feeling like I’ve got to move on like I do with some light roasts.

You could look at second hand on whispers another forum...

Coffee forums usually has some good starter grinders which new are probably £200-300

Yeah like dubtap said it's got a rubber seal and the plastic is smoked (anti UV?) so it's going to be better than the tweety pie tin I've been using until now. At a guess I'd say it would hold 500-700g of beans. It's a little bigger than the wilfa svart and maybe not quite as good as the mc2 if you're doing espresso based on the things I've read but it'll do fine for me. I think the espresso grumbles were because the grind setting is detented not continuous although the steps seem pretty small. I'm not a home espresso nerd though so I didn't pay that much attention.

Edit: attached a photo showing 250g of beans in the hopper

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Oh and the picture shows me using the portafilter holder to hold the stovetop basket. That works, although the grounds get deposited towards the rear of the basket so tend to spill over a bit. Doesn't bother me - the tray underneath is removable so you can just tip them in

Will airtight seals make much of a difference in a grinder lid when the bottom is presumably still exposed?

Not much but airflow is at least restricted a bit

To be honest I have no idea of how quickly whole beans go off in a hopper regardless. My only experience has been with loading from a hopper in a coffee shop or single dosing at home.

I'd only be using it to make filter not espresso. My question of freshness comes from laziness. Hence wanting to upgrade from a hand grinder in a ridiculous way. Sounds like it's probably fine.

upgrade from a hand grinder in a ridiculous way

I was going to suggest hooking the hand grinder up to a turbo trainer

I think this is maybe more on-brand for lfgss: https://dailycoffeenews.com/2013/12/27/fixie-grinder-inventor-this-is-right-up-there-with-the-discovery-of-fire/

“I also believe that hand or foot grinding is better than machine grinding because the imperfections in the ‘analogue’ grinding process creates an unevenness which adds to the subtle notes of the coffee flavour.”

NJS burrs?

On a Unipak no less, yum!

Just thought I'd throw my thoughts down on the Peak Water jug as I've had it for a bout 4 months.

The filter itself seems great, it definitely improves the taste of tea and coffee and filtration is pretty quick. The jug itself though is pretty crap, like others have said the build quality and finish isn't great and if I pour too quickly water leaks out of the handle. The fact that the jug is opaque and there's no indicator for the water level is also annoying as I'm never sure how much is in there.

With the fish smell, it does happen when the filter is dead but the two filters I've gone through have both lasted 2 months and have had very heavy usage. I keep the jug in the fridge so I don't know if that helps prolong the filter?

TLDR - filter great, jug shit.

Need to market a bullshit product on a 'fixie'? Accept no substitute!

At some point there will be an espresso machine too (for my wife's preferred coffee based drinks) so the Sage probably is a good idea.

Drill seems more fun though, ha.

What's a good starting point for coffee-to-water ratio for V60?

60g/l

Thanks, first attempt this morning was around 72g/l. Still buzzing!

Helpfully most mugs fit about 250ml too so aim for 15 grams to start, depending on the beans sometimes I go up to about 18 grams.