Fullsack wrote:Okay Jm, I'm a convert, had a shot of Ritual's Snow Cone at lunch. It was a milk chocolate delight!

LOL... Happy to hear it, for you and for them! Always good to have more sources, esp. given how few decent ones there actually are.

michael wrote:does anyone have dosing and temperature recommendations on the current ritual sweet tooth and snow cone

My T1 is 202° at the portafilter, the temp that produced the terrific Snow Cone and Sweet Tooth shots. From my very limited experience with Snow Cone, I've noticed the coarser pulls accentuate the tangerine and lime, shots closer to ristretto than normale bring out the milk chocolate.

Did follow Chris' suggestion and took BART to 4 Barrel and Ritual. Had a cappuccino and espresso at both. Really liked 4 Barrel, not so much Ritual. Of the 4 places I tried (Blue Bottle, Sightglass, 4 Barrel and Ritual) I preferred Sightglass. Got some reasonable results with their coffee when I got back home, but not the equal of the shot there. How much the Slayer contributed, and how much the skill of a very talented barista, I'm not sure. I'm really appreciative of the San Fransisco suggestions. Added a lot to the trip.

Not espresso... but part 1 of 3 of a cupping evaluation of top SF area roasters is here. (pimping my own blog)

michael wrote:does anyone have dosing and temperature recommendations on the current ritual sweet tooth and snow cone

This is the advice I got on pulling Snow Cone from a Dalla Corte shop:

Flavors: Lime, Tangerine, Cherry, Sweet Finish @ 20 g, 24 - 25 sec.

at 95.4 C you get Brighter, fruity notes on finish (Preferred)

at 94.1 C you get more chocolate, significantly cooler.

I much prefer the higher temp to bring out the fruit, but was only able to brutally insult this bean on my home machine. (enjoyed it nonetheless)

-Chris

Would sure like to know how they got the 20 G in that Dalla Corte .

try 93 C; i thought 94 was a bit too bright

hperry wrote:Would sure like to know how they got the 20 G in that Dalla Corte .

I'm not sure if the 20 G was for my home machine, but I thought I'd mention the Dalla Corte since that was the machine that he was pulling the espresso on. He had each group PID'd to these temps and pulled me a hotter, fruiter shot and then a cooler, more chocolate shot. Both were very nice, but I preferred the hotter shot.

Since I'm temperature surfing on a low-end machine, hotter and cooler are about all I can manage, I can't really dial it in any closer, but I thought this might be helpful for those out there with PID'd machines.

I see from the Ritual site that they recommend 20 grams, but not a temp, maybe that's where that came from. Love the picture of that cat. They also recommend the same dosing for Sweet Tooth, which I haven't tried. I ran out of Snow Cone and now I'm really missing it, although I've been really enjoying my roast of Sweet Maria's New Classic Espresso.

-Chris

Thanks for the update. My understanding is that all Dalla Corte groups are the same. On my unit more than 18 grams makes it impossible to engage the portafilter with the machine - which was what made me marvel at the 20 gram load.

A lot of how many grams you can pack into a portafilter has to do with technique, and this is elemental so forgive me if I am repeating myself or others, but it seemed semi-appropriate.

First the measuring, is the scale accurate, have you accounted for the empty/tare weight of the basket correctly? Baskets can vary by a few grams even if they look identical.

The coffee used, how fresh it is, how finely it is ground -- all make a difference. In loading your basket, are you tapping the sides to settle the grounds? What is you tamping technique? Again all things will impact how much coffee you can pack in to a basket. Not that you necessarily want to be able to cram in 20 grams, you know.