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Any thoughts on usefulness of coffee leveller/distributors for espresso - yay or nay? I usually just palm tap but that isn't always super effective and can be a bit faffy tilting it back and forth to get something roughly even and seems a lot easier to just put the thing down, spin it, and done in 2 seconds.

Might crowdfunding liability insurance work? I imagine might not be expensive for an organisation with 0 turnover.. also I’m pretty sure that’s what companies do for their directors when it comes to potential breaches of directors’ duties etc so it’s not like it’s an uncommon insurance product.

For what it's worth they've got a consultation doc out specifying that "the actual penalty amount that we impose in a given case within the penalty maximum is calculated in line with our Penalty Guidelines and must be appropriate and proportionate" so I'm sure there's no intent to get rid of that approach.

The list of criminal offences out also doesn't seem to be the sort of thing you might inadvertently trip, so it may be worth exploring what the risk of disproportionate civil liabilities/Ofcom penalties may be?

Text of the legislation unfortunately very unhelpful and far broader than what the summary doc you're reading says if you're coming at things from a risk minimisation perspective. Dialogue with ofcom may only do so much if you are technically in noncompliance because you simply don't have the resources, and even if you are trying to be compliant this act opens far more spurious heads of liability for people with a bone to pick to cause a lot of trouble which may not be entirely dependent on regulator action alone.

I think @aggi has a point though and there may still be around this? If you incorporate a Ltd company then risks to you as shareholder should be minimal and it's just the issue of what risks you face as director. Will have a more detailed read through the act when I have the time (bloody hell it's long) but if the main issue is, as aggi has flagged, a failure to comply with Ofcom notices under s109 and the transmission of false, threatening, flashing or self-harm messages by the company (ss179, 181, 183 or 184), this seems to minimise the risk quite a bit?

Edit: Just saw the width of Schedule 15 and s202. Fucking nuts - how is the internet going to work in the UK.

my least awful choice is Singapore Airlines

FC-09, I believe. I got FC-08 with my 6800 replacement.

Fair enough. I generally find it less faff to hit the timer manually after I start preinfusion rather than install something on the machine and mess around with wiring, but do admit that I often forget to hit stop once the shot is done..

I ride 80GI most of the time

Why do you not use the one on your scales? The Timemore black mirror/Acaia definitely have auto timers.

Thanks all for the suggestions! Once had to bail on a ride and walk to the nearest train for this very reason because my ride partner did not take my advice to 'check your tyres' seriously, and riding with a 4 inch section of tyre sounds like genius. Now to wait for the next time I wear out a pair..

Post up top amended - dropped a bottle of chain lube and the nozzle snapped off, anyone happen to have an empty one lying around?

Thank you - any recommendations on brands etc? I see restrap do a set for 10 quid but I so rarely need these I'm not sure I need so many.

I just happen to have seen a pound note/toothpaste tube being recommended as a bootleg repair option when on the go/touring before!

What's the best way to reinforce a tyre that's got some glass through it? Got a puncture the other day and have been riding around with an approx 0.5cm gash perpendicular to the casing threads (tyres are the supple kind so not a lot of those) from a glass shard that feels like it's just waiting to get something else through it.. Will an inner tube patch do or is there something more hardy (toothpaste tube?) that I can stick in there permanently?

i used to work with her. hope her life as a dictators wife has been a happy and profitable one.

Could always try with your next coffee.. though change one variable at a time so you know which one is making the difference.

Got a MW Monty off someone here and love it to bits. Chromes come up quite frequently here which also work well? Just have a less structured shape and they don't sit on my back nearly as nicely but marginal gains really.

When they get to consultant level and go private/half and half that's where the dough really starts coming in though.

Agreed that looks like it needs a finer grind; how much espresso did you get in those 27s? Seemed like a lot. Don't think it'd be the tamping that's the issue. You sometimes can get less channelling if you pre-infuse (I think the Mr Shades PID - which I recall you have? - has that functionality?) because the puck is given some time to expand evenly before being hit with the full 9bars of pressure. I might disagree with @jonny69 and think that WDT is probably the best thing you can do to distribute and break up clumps, and I think the leveller is pretty efficient to use if you've got it (does the same thing as tapping against the palm but faster). Although I never bothered with either myself because the Sette made fluffy grinds and I preferred to live with the occasional spurt out than increase prep time by 30s per coffee/get all the extra tools.

All you can do is look at the roast and try to guess what sort of fineness you're going to need. My rule of thumb is the lighter the finer. After a while you get to the point where you'll get drinkable shots even if wrong, particularly if you're on a lever machine which is way more forgiving. Agree with @Ptown on taking note of roast level and origin for a better ballpark to take the guesswork out of it! I get a different coffee every 250g but that still means 13 coffees with 1 for dialling in. But agree that coffee advent calendar with single dose per day seems like a bad idea for espresso.

My steaming is over in 10s (machine is small but powerful) so no issues there with steam volume or pressure. And isn't the point of microfoam that your froth should be constantly mixed into the milk underneath (and the process of incorporation breaks down the size of the bubbles each time)? So ideally the less 'pure' liquid the better, though I am well aware the froth separates over time and fairly quickly.

Is the pouring into another jug necessary/contributes to incorporation of microfoam?

Yes it's practice either way, but I do want to figure out what is going on with the offset nozzles. My starting assumption is that the technique is different for each type of nozzle; I've found I've hit a rough ceiling of technique when I use one type, and in chasing very marginal gains I would like to try another to see if I can get a better hang of it.

@hangedup commercial machines usually have larger boilers with more volume of steam so there's less of a pressure (and hence velocity) drop from wands with more holes - smaller boilers can't maintain pressure for too long so they compensate by decreasing volume of steam that comes out of the wand by reducing the number of holes.

My issue is usually the mixing of the air in the bubbles at the surface into the rest of the liquid milk underneath it - without the right angle you're heating the milk without actually incorporating the air and breaking up the larger bubbles. I struggle particularly with avoiding inadvertent incorporation of more air halfway through the process as the surface of the milk starts moving up and down more; if I go the other way I inadvertently overcompensate by putting the tip too low below the surface and I get foam at the top and liquid at the bottom.

Have a question for any milk-drinking enthusiasts who also happen to be massive nerds (and hopefully in the area of fluid dynamics in particular). I'm convinced that a multi-directional steam tip (like the one on the GS3) incorporates air into milk better than a single-directional one (like, say, the one on the Breville), from which I can get workable but not homogenous microfoam - it always separates into a head at the top pretty quickly. I have gone and gotten a three-hole tip to replace my stock tip (which has two holes which are pretty much vertically oriented), but am completely struggling to figure out what angle of insertion works best for steaming. This
seems to be quite true to my experience (my two-hole tip behaves like his single-hole one) but can't for the life of me figure out the 3 hole angle, which doesn't create the same 'vortex' that I'm used to from single-directional steam tips.

Anywhere decent in the vicinity of Victoria/Westminster/Waterloo that won't run to more than 20pp for food? My usual go-to there is the pizza chains (can't go too wrong) and current frontrunner is Bapjo but just wondering if there's anything I'm missing.

Used to use a Nuova Simonelli grinder like this (MDX) but you'll need a lot more than just a funnel to single dose - it'll clump, be staticky, and generally retains about 1-2g of grounds give or take. If you're happy living with that (I used a brush to sweep out retained grounds/used a camera lens hood as a bellows) then it does what it needs to do! Ended up selling it and paying a bit more for a proper single doser when funds allowed. DF54 isn't too far from 150squids and the sette can be had for that secondhand..