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To be fair I think all the extra equipment people name as essentials like scales/times/naked PF etc etc are not essential at all, and if you know how to make coffee, you will make a good coffee without any of that, especially with a machine/bean combo you know.
They are useful tools that can help you guide your way through the process (though I think it can be quite distracting as well) or give you some pointers as you learn, but ultimately not something anyone who's made a fair few coffees should need to pour a decent one.
alex_s-
To be fair I think all the extra equipment people name as essentials like scales/times/naked PF etc etc are not essential at all
I'd argue that scales and shot timing essential if you want consistent results with espresso. I couldn't eyeball the difference between 14 & 15 grams of beans. But I could certainly taste the difference. Naked portafilters I agree are not essential, but are useful to spot issues when tamping. I imagine they're mainly purchased because they look great when being used.
Filter is obviously a lot more forgiving and you could probably get away without the scales and timing. But given a decent set of scales can be had for £10, and most people have a timer on their person. It seems a shame not to take advantage of using them.
You can easily have an excellent filter set-up for around £50 (decent hand grinder + V60/aeropress/French press etc.), I'd argue it's tricky to get a decent espresso set up (new) for around £6-700. At that point, spending an extra £10 for a set of scales to give you consistent results seems like a no-brainer.
Also, if you're making lattes/flat whites or whatever, you very easily mask a bad espresso with some well textured milk.
I'd honestly be surprised if someone could make a decent run of espressos without measurement of dosage and monitoring of shot times, especially the former.
mmccarthy
What’s my takeaway from the first Hoffman Aeropress video?
So I’m interested to see what the next couple of videos come up with, but I think I’m unsubscribing after those. I found his early videos quite enlightening but, longer term, I feel like he’s spoiling my enjoyment of coffee. For best part of a decade I’ve been making perfectly good espresso drinks by eye, without a grinder and without scales. I feel like I’ve been maybe goaded into messing with that process and it’s broken something somewhere. I sometimes flick over to another forum I used to use a lot (where they’re not generally Hoffman watchers) and it’s interesting to see that they’re mostly using more traditional machines and not spending £££ trying to chase things down to the nth degree. It’s been interesting learning from him about grind, roast, pressure and water etc but maybe I’m done with that now.