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Espresso Enthusiasts
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Good news! The juju machine must have worked this time."Rosebud" is one thing; let's just hope he doesn't start whispering "...Londinium..."
I fear he was probably whispering that even before he bought it!
Ah, yes, poor Dr Shrink. I am delighted to learn that he is on the road to beginning to commence the process of recuperation and recovery - this takes time, and rest, and TLC
We will know that he is well on the mend when he no longer whispers 'Londinium' but starts discussing and upgrade to a HG burr grinder, instead ..
Good news. Feel better, Shrink.
++++++
Methinks there are some new elephants hereabouts.
Well, you are forgiven for posting what can only be described as pure coffee pornography; it was a wonderful post, and left me in a state of (helpless is not a word I normally associate with my good self ..) .of no small .longing ..along with an insane desire to learn more ..
Hmmmm, something is afoot. I haven't changed my avatar in nearly 6 years.
I hope you have taught your avatar safe avataring.....because it reproduced!
Hmmmmm....that gives me an idea. You may have heard of the bat signal, for Batman? There is a secret codicil in the constitution of this thread that provides for The Shrink Signal. Let's give it a shot (pun intended....):
I really think conical burr, low RPM grinders are overrated. Any blade grinder purchased from Walmart will give you all you need.
Forgive me, uh, Mother, for I have sinned; it is 49 years since my last Confession. I accuse myself of the following sins.......
Well, there will be more.....I haven't even really started talking about the coffee yet!
That's funny! Had me chuckling quite well I must admit. Let's see if it works.
Shrink, should be about to call and see if his doctor's office is open and trying to get in this morning. If they're open, they should be open in the next few minutes, at the top of the hour. This was in my inbox from him this morning...
Shrink, should be about to call and see if his doctor's office is open and trying to get in this morning. If they're open, they should be open in the next few minutes, at the top of the hour. This was in my inbox from him this morning...
By the way, has anyone here used a Chemex coffeemaker? I've heard that it makes some of the best coffee around.
Just to mark the moment:
Post The First: by Eric/ (guest), January 23, 2013
Post 1,000: by mobilehaathi, August 5, 2013
Post 2,000: by mobilehaathi, January 25, 2014
Post 3,000: by mobilehaathi, June 26, 2014
Post 4,000: by mobilehaathi, August 30, 2014
The Thread has become more caffeinated over the summer, it would appear. And someone has a flair for timing.....
Post The First: by Eric/ (guest), January 23, 2013
Post 1,000: by mobilehaathi, August 5, 2013
Post 2,000: by mobilehaathi, January 25, 2014
Post 3,000: by mobilehaathi, June 26, 2014
Post 4,000: by mobilehaathi, August 30, 2014
The Thread has become more caffeinated over the summer, it would appear. And someone has a flair for timing.....
Wow, I noticed he had post #4000 last night, but never noticed he had every thousandth mark too. Amazing!
Ahem, Shrink, I don't think it is polite to talk about my first shot this morning like that, and especially using a Mod as a surrogate (although the description is eerily accurate).
Love my Chemex. A very smooth, balanced evening cup. Do you have one, or are you considering buying one?
Oh my, I hope you're prepared for the consequences of such an utterance!
Hehehe, wow I have quite the knack for hitting those milestones.
And woah what an acceleration in posting rate for the thread!
Hehehe, wow I have quite the knack for hitting those milestones.
Your penance is several posts this week about your new kit.....
Hmmm, just a hunch....perhaps the post rate varies with the new kit purchase rate.
+++++
Speaking of new equipment....
I have been very curious to play with the "gruppo saturo," or saturated brew group, from which the GS/3 takes its name. In a nutshell, with other brew groups, including the E61, the heated water moves from the boiler into the brew group, and eventually the brew head, through tubes, and the water in those tubes most often is heated indirectly, by the large thermal blocks you read so much about (usually brass, or, on lower-end machines, something else). With the saturated brew group, however, the brew group is actually part of and an extension of the boiler itself. (Just to make it more confusing, some machines use the E61 brew head but not the E61 brew group, usually by swapping out the E61 brew group's manual lever and valve for an electric solenoid valve.)
La Marzocco's saturated brew group was the original claim-to-fame of this machine line. The GS/3 extended that concept by putting into a "home use" machine La Marzocco's entire professional thermal stability system, originally developed on the Strada line, and which includes the saturated brew group, a beefed-up dual boiler system, a separate pre-heating system, and a PID.
So, what's the point? Fanatical consistency. Once it heats up to temperature, the GS/3 stays there, even when you start pulling shots. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable change is that there is no need to pre-heat the brew group, by running heated water through it before pulling a shot. The boiler extends into the brew group, so the brew head is quite literally sitting on the boiler. The entire brew group is plenty hot, in fact you have to be careful with it. The machine gives off a ton of heat (there you go, Scepticalscribe, another reason not to buy one).
Pulling shots, it feels "wrong" to not pre-heat the brew head, and I will admit to pre-heating at times. And, I do run water through after a shot, to help clean the screen. But, unlike the E61, there is no risk of overheating as the water passes through the heating block, and so there is no reason to do a "cooling flush" to get to the right temperature before pulling a shot. It's very weird.
So, what's the point: a perfectly flat temperature curve, both during a shot and over several shots. Almost exact thermal stability. It's pretty cool to learn about this, and I look forward to having the chance to play with it more over the next few months, as it starts to cool off outside and my coffee intake increases. Unfortunately, though, in reading around on sites and the like to learn about all of this, I happened to run across this page........ah oh.
You can be sure I'll be asking plenty of questions.
Actually, I'll start now. Asking about grind is silly, so that'll just be trial and error. So, for a double shot, I should be grinding 18-21g, correct? And since my incoming Gaggia Baby Class is a manual machine, I seem to recall you mentioning I should be completing a shot in .....28 seconds?
How about proper cleaning and maintenance?
Okay you don't have to write it all yourself, if you simply have a guide I can refer to....
However, you seem far more well informed and experienced than most.
You can be sure I'll be asking plenty of questions.
Actually, I'll start now. Asking about grind is silly, so that'll just be trial and error. So, for a double shot, I should be grinding 18-21g, correct? And since my incoming Gaggia Baby Class is a manual machine, I seem to recall you mentioning I should be completing a shot in .....28 seconds?
How about proper cleaning and maintenance?
Okay you don't have to write it all yourself, if you simply have a guide I can refer to....
However, you seem far more well informed and experienced than most.
Despite what I write here, if Mr. Kurwenal says otherwise, defer to his wisdom over my tomfoolery!
I usually dump about 4 scoops of beans into the grinder and go until I get about 19 grams of ground coffee in the PF. If done right, I get an extraction for a double between 23-25 seconds.
For cleaning, follow this guide that Shrink wrote for me.
Great, thanks! So back flush six times with the Cafiza, and then rinse six times while brushing? Not...repeat 1-10 six times, correct?
I brush the shower head after the end of six Cafiza runs and then again after six water only runs.
I keep forgetting you and Shrinky own/have owned the Baby Class. I feel in good company. (Okay I already did but.....)
Your first shot will be better than the shots I was pulling in my 10th year of this madness, oh so long ago.....
Here are my suggestions.
1. Don't overthink it. You know coffee. Let the taste be your guide.
2. Vary only one variable at a time.
3. Aside from the obvious stuff like good water, clean machines, dose (weight it, don't guess!), fresh coffee, etc., it comes down to grind, time, tamp. (there's more, like water temp, but hold off on that for a bit).
So, you will play with the grind, the time, and your tamp.
4. I assume you will be pulling doubles. The so-called "Golden Rule" of espresso is a good place to start: covert 14g of ground coffee into 60mL in 25 seconds. Anywhere from 20-30 seconds can produce a good shot. You will figure out over time what you like. For example, I tend to pull longer shots, and I am for 28-30 seconds with most roasts. Some people will tell you that will produce sludge, and, for their tastes, they are right.
5. Pick up something SandboxGeneral said: do not keep your coffee in the grinder. Single dose it, meaning keep your coffee in a proper container and add approx. enough to pull your shot. Then clean the dregs out of your grinder.....absolutely every time you pull a shot. Otherwise, those now-stale dregs will be in your cup tomorrow.
That's it. So:
1. Start with clean everything.
2. Heat up everything that will touch the coffee. I don't know your machine, but typically you can do this with water out of your machine.
3. Tare the portafilter on your scale.
4. Add coffee to your grinder. Grind into the pre-heated PF.
5. Weigh the PF. Get to 14g (to start with, pretty soon you will be up to 16 or maybe even more). Remove or add coffee as necessary to hit exactly 14.0.
5. Level, tamp and polish (I wrote a post on this a while back for SG, I will find it).
6. Insert the PF into your pre-heated machine.
7. Run your shot. My advice, at first, is to watch the volume. Shut it off when you hit 60mL. (Later on, volume will become a very bad signal of when to stop the shot....but for now it is a good way to maintain consistency so you can vary other things.)
8. Taste immediately.
Diagnose the shot. At first (your first 10 shots), do this ONLY by looking at the volume. Did you get 60ML in 10 seconds? Grind finer. Did you get 60mL in 45 seconds? Grind coarser. Keep doing that, making tiny little adjustments, until you get within the ballpark of 25 seconds, 60mL, and 14 dry grams.
Cleaning is an incredibly important subject....but I am sitting in my home office whilst we have many guests over for a holiday party and if Mrs. Kurwenal finds me, I am a dead man. So I will cover that subject later. Srhink knows this machine, as I recall, so I would be inclined to follow the directions SG posted. You will end up with cleaning routines after every shot, daily, weekly, monthly and some tasks every quarter or annually.
Here are my suggestions.
1. Don't overthink it. You know coffee. Let the taste be your guide.
2. Vary only one variable at a time.
3. Aside from the obvious stuff like good water, clean machines, dose (weight it, don't guess!), fresh coffee, etc., it comes down to grind, time, tamp. (there's more, like water temp, but hold off on that for a bit).
So, you will play with the grind, the time, and your tamp.
4. I assume you will be pulling doubles. The so-called "Golden Rule" of espresso is a good place to start: covert 14g of ground coffee into 60mL in 25 seconds. Anywhere from 20-30 seconds can produce a good shot. You will figure out over time what you like. For example, I tend to pull longer shots, and I am for 28-30 seconds with most roasts. Some people will tell you that will produce sludge, and, for their tastes, they are right.
5. Pick up something SandboxGeneral said: do not keep your coffee in the grinder. Single dose it, meaning keep your coffee in a proper container and add approx. enough to pull your shot. Then clean the dregs out of your grinder.....absolutely every time you pull a shot. Otherwise, those now-stale dregs will be in your cup tomorrow.
That's it. So:
1. Start with clean everything.
2. Heat up everything that will touch the coffee. I don't know your machine, but typically you can do this with water out of your machine.
3. Tare the portafilter on your scale.
4. Add coffee to your grinder. Grind into the pre-heated PF.
5. Weigh the PF. Get to 14g (to start with, pretty soon you will be up to 16 or maybe even more). Remove or add coffee as necessary to hit exactly 14.0.
5. Level, tamp and polish (I wrote a post on this a while back for SG, I will find it).
6. Insert the PF into your pre-heated machine.
7. Run your shot. My advice, at first, is to watch the volume. Shut it off when you hit 60mL. (Later on, volume will become a very bad signal of when to stop the shot....but for now it is a good way to maintain consistency so you can vary other things.)
8. Taste immediately.
Diagnose the shot. At first (your first 10 shots), do this ONLY by looking at the volume. Did you get 60ML in 10 seconds? Grind finer. Did you get 60mL in 45 seconds? Grind coarser. Keep doing that, making tiny little adjustments, until you get within the ballpark of 25 seconds, 60mL, and 14 dry grams.
Cleaning is an incredibly important subject....but I am sitting in my home office whilst we have many guests over for a holiday party and if Mrs. Kurwenal finds me, I am a dead man. So I will cover that subject later. Srhink knows this machine, as I recall, so I would be inclined to follow the directions SG posted. You will end up with cleaning routines after every shot, daily, weekly, monthly and some tasks every quarter or annually.
I'm scheduled to land at 4:20pm tomorrow. Assuming I catch the right trains, I just might be able to get home before 6:30pm. In that case, I will certainly be un-boxing and pulling a shot.
The bolded part is important. I use Friis Containers to store my beans in and only scoop out what I need to grind for any shot or press. No one wants stale coffee!
Yes, you can get water from it via the showerhead (with no PF in place) or from the frothing wand by pressing both the 'coffee' and 'steam' buttons together and opening (turning) the steam dial.
An important note with this particular machine is to make sure you prime it after frothing. Once you use the steam wand, press the coffee button with no PF in place, to get the steam out of the brew group and water back in. If you choose to steam milk before pulling a shot of espresso and forget to prime it, you'll be pulling a shot with steam instead of water - not a good thing!
Forgot a few things. Sorry for typos in my prior post.
1. Your rocky may produce very inconsistent coffee, even major clumping, until it gets seasoned in a bit. No worries.
2. Remember: the grind is what matters. Your Gaggia has only one job: to push water through the puck, in exactly the same way every time. Your Rocky is what makes the drink.
3. Just a reminder to me to offer a few comments on crema.
bye.
1. Your rocky may produce very inconsistent coffee, even major clumping, until it gets seasoned in a bit. No worries.
2. Remember: the grind is what matters. Your Gaggia has only one job: to push water through the puck, in exactly the same way every time. Your Rocky is what makes the drink.
3. Just a reminder to me to offer a few comments on crema.
bye.
Surely she understands the importance of coffee tutoring, instruction and collaboration!
Be careful and enjoy the party!
Ahhh, well I'll be grinding with a Baratza Virtuoso w/ the Precisio burrs. I had considered the Rocky, but I wanted something with more range for my pour over.
Surely she understands the importance of coffee tutoring, instruction and collaboration!
Be careful and enjoy the party!
Yes, precisely!
I am so excited for you I can hardly stand it. Pulling your first shot! For the rest of your life, there will be before, and after.
You are about to take your first step into a larger world.....
Apologies, I was confused. Yes, walking both pour and espresso lines is a challenge, but rewarding in my view. Relatively early on, you will figure out how many seconds one "click" on the grinder will give you, up or down. It looks like a very nice grinder.
Just a little Star Wars humor.....