Hi all, last weekend I picked up some Street Level from Verve in Santa Cruz. The place is well regarded and I've even seen their beans on the shelf at Grumpy in NY. The trouble is, I've had great difficulty getting anything I like out of them - a lot of ash and burnt toast, and some other more tart and acidic flavors as well, but nothing that stands out to me as compared to other local offerings (including their own), or is even really to my liking. (Right now I'm drinking an Americano from an Ethiopian SO I picked up at Verve at the same time, the "Dale", which is excellent.)

I've tried the Street Level pulled long, pulled short, tight grind, looser grind, level dosed and overdosed, at temps from 199-205, and never gotten anything I really enjoyed, the closest being a ristretto pulled over 40 seconds, and at one point when I actually pulled a normale and swapped cups mid-shot, for which the first part of the shot was substantially better. The beans had a roast date of the 7th, so I'm wondering if this is, perhaps, just a blend I don't particularly enjoy, or whether I'm missing the boat on brewing parameters.

The barista at the shop said a 42 second ristretto from an LM double basket at 202. He said 25 grams in the LM double, which I'm pretty sure is not possible, but I've tried it at a wide range of doses. How are other people pulling this?

Hi,

I haven't tried pulling Street Level at home. The first question I'd ask is whether you liked the shot you had at the café? While I love many of their coffees, the shots I've had at the café often have the sour cherry finish common to a lot of updosed ristretti, and it's not to my taste. If I go by there, I'll pick up some and see what I can get out of it at home, and report back if I find something I like.

Best,
David

Funnily enough, Matthew Williams from Verve emailed me this morning after I posted a Q to another local who goes there on CG. Big props to Matthew for the courtesy and instructiveness!

His stated extraction parameters (which he said I should feel free to repost) were consistent with what I was told by the barista on the first day:

> > 24.5-25g in a standard ridged LM double basket
> > 1.25 oz.
> > 42 seconds
> > Our GB/5 is set at 202 F

When I asked further about what seemed to me like an extraordinarily high dosage for a double basket, he said they do multiple taps of the PF to settle during dosing, and then some Baristas add a Stockfleth's move as well. So this morning I set off trying to duplicate this, and didn't quite get there (the GS/3 cuts me off at 40 seconds in any case...), but I think I get where they are going. Once I was getting an ounce and a quarter or so at 35 seconds, with a basket so overdosed that I could barely get the PF into the head, the shots started to come into shape a little more. (The bag may also actually have improved a little with age.) I will buy another bag and continue to experiment!

In fairness though, I've only been there the once, and you're right that I should see what their own output is like - I'll be back sooner than later not only for another bag, but to try a few shots from the bar and confirm my findings.

Hi,

Still haven't gotten any Street Level, but I did pick up some of their "The Sermon" organic espresso blend, which they put together for a café that's in a church called The Abbey. It's deliciously fruity pulled as a 14 gram normale at a slightly higher than normal temperature. The fruit seems to fade within a few days, as that sort of flavor tends to do.

Best,
David

25 grams in a double basket? That's a bit extreme or so it seems to me. I'm wondering why they don't just use a "triple" - which is rated at 21 grams and would be far more accommodating to trying to put 25 grams into it. Have you been able to determine the rationale for using a double basket with such a large dose?

Phaelon56 wrote:25 grams in a double basket? That's a bit extreme or so it seems to me. I'm wondering why they don't just use a "triple" - which is rated at 21 grams and would be far more accommodating to trying to put 25 grams into it. Have you been able to determine the rationale for using a double basket with such a large dose?

Yeah, I asked about that actually to confirm (or, to be more precise, I paraphrase): "Barista: {Summarized dosing} Me: 25 grams? Wait, did you say a double or are you using a triple basket? Barista: No, it's a ridged LM double basket. Me: Really? I'm surprised you can even fit 25 grams in there. Barista: Yep."

Not sure of the rationale, but I speculate that perhaps to the extent they're both (a) going for a really tight ristretto, 1.25 oz in over 40 seconds, and (b) want to extract a lower than typical amount from the coffee, maybe overdosing the basket a lot helps more than tightening the grind. I think the triple baskets actually flow more coffee (more holes), so maybe the triple basket would overextract, comparatively, and to compensate you'd have to tighten the grind even more and perhaps choke the machine if you didn't get it spot on? (Doesn't really make sense to me either, but we've vastly exceeded my knowledge of extraction dynamics here... perhaps a coffee luminary who better grasps such things might comment...?)

"Face Melter" I believe this is called. It's certainly a memorable shot.

Hello - Matthew from Verve here.

With regards to the rationale of putting 25 grams in a double basket, there's a very good reason for it: it just tastes good, and it's not the same in a triple. Streetlevel wasn't born out of preconceived notions of unconventional extraction parameters... it just happened that the sweet spot was well out of the accepted norm. Your palate, and not the numbers, should dictate your approach.

There is a youtube video available:



The parameters given indicate 24g; I, and a couple other baristas, push that closer to 25 for super melty goodness. When I started on bar, I had trouble dosing as much as I do now - I kept running into a 23.5g wall. The trick is to settle repeatedly while dosing.

For those that prefer a more conventional shot, we offer our organic espresso blend: The Sermon, which is named for a Jimmy Smith album on the Blue Note (and not Verve!) label.

Hi Matt,

I may be one of the people who just prefers The Sermon; I found it delicious. I'd add one note. I recently had some of the only espressi I've had that I really enjoyed in the updosed ristretto style. They were at a shop called Mecca in Sydney, and stylistically I think they take from Stumptown, where a lot of them had gone to train. They had two machines in the store, one an LM Mistral 3-group, and the other a Kees Mistral 3-group. I asked them one day whether working with the two was very different, and was told it was hugely different. The Kees machine, specifically, allowed them to get a ten-second preinfusion, which he said they'd found critical to avoid the sour cherry finish that I happen to dislike about many shots in that style. I noticed in the video that Ryan's shot started within about three seconds at most of hitting the button. I'm not suggesting, of course, that you tear your machine apart to accommodate my taste, it's just one more data point.

Best,
David

David, that's definitely some food for thought. I'll add some more -

By my count, the first drop hits the cup in 8 seconds, which is on par with how my shots perform. Additionally, there is really no visible acceleration of flow even though pressure remains constant... In my mind, the triple basket would exhibit an acceleration of flow during the shot, probably due to increased cake expansion because of greater available headspace (I'll have to experiment to confirm). It's quite possible that the constant flowrate that the canonical facemelter parameters provide contributes to the unique characteristics of Streetlevel and the difficulty of repeating these results in a domestic setting.