Making pour over coffee with the Forge?

Yes, it can be done. I preheated the Forge while grinding 22 grams of coffee with my Lido 2. I used the same grind that I use in the Trifecta MB, a fairly fine drip grind. I used a triple basket.

Heated 10 oz water in the Nuke, using a glass measuring cup. about 2:30 worked well on out Nuke.

Then, I just slowly poured the coffee into the Forge and let it drip. This worked well and I got a very nice cup. It ended up a bit cooler than usual, so heating the mug would help. The coffee was very good.

So, the EspressoForge can do it all...almost.

I too would like to see temperature measurements. Ie, how sensitive is it to the initial temperature of tube (probably room temp) and timing?

As one of the earlier ones who were seeking temperature measurement, now that I have the device on hand, I can offer some experience/opinion - in brief, it's a bad news with many good news.

Due to the design of Forge (tall and narrow), it's hard to measure the water temp directly. If you put in a bead thermocuple probe, the probe may end up touching the side wall and thus giving inaccurate readings. I have gotten a few measurements myself, but they're nothing conclusive due to that reason. If everything goes well, Andre may get some Scace reading.

As to what I have observed, the numbers I'm seeing are *drum roll...* in the range of 80-85 Celsius (176-185F), depends on where/how you measure. If my measurements were correct, I have a bad news for you in that it's very difficult to brew at 200F on the Forge (if that is what you absolutely insist). However, that's as far as the bad news goes.

If I'm allowed to draw a conclusion from those numbers, the Forge has an equilibrium tendency to be at +-180F. Meaning that if I try to preheat it many times, vs non-preheated, the device will always stay near that 180F. It's almost as if the Forge is intentionally designed to brew at 180F. This is actually a good news because you don't have to be fussy with the preheat regime and it'll stay at the proper (probably open to intepretation) extraction temperature, almost idiot proof if you will. The sweetspot for extraction is also broadened at that lower temperature (see the thread linked below). For someone who has been using Portaspresso (which requires 2 preheats and a final water fill), this is actually quite liberating and made the Forge super easy to use. It generates much less waste water too.

As far as the taste goes, it is surprisingly very good, much more than I expected. In fact, I would consider it to be on par (but two very different styles) to the Portaspresso. The shots resulted from the Forge is soft and comforting(no harshness) with a lot of pleasant flavors, whereas the Portaspresso shots are probably a tad more flavorful but of higher notes (acidity). A lot like the flat vs conical burrs taste comparison. If you were to score that solely based on enjoyment level, I had to say I actually enjoy the shot more from Forge because it's more comfort and less challenging/harsh to your palate .

Other than taste, the difference in acidity also affects me physically. For some reasons, if I have more than 2 shots from the Portaspresso (especially with half-empty stomach), I can have bad feeling in the stomach. Whereas with the Forge, it doesn't do that at all. Due to that reason and because Forge has an easier workflow for back-to-back shots, I made and drank more espresso than I was with the Portaspresso (this can be good or bad news for you). 3-4 shots in and you're still wanting more!

For those who're interested, there's this HB thread which I find interesting and informative about brewing at lower temperature sweetspot (but not quite the same because Forge brews longer with longer preinfusion).
Espresso low brew temperatures ON PURPOSE!

For the shot quality/price, I really think Forge is a superb value for money, more so if you're a shot drinker. Why bother with Silvia(and the like) with all those temp surfing, backflushing, noisy pump, xxx not working etc ? If all you need to do on the Forge is pour the hot water in and push it through, literally? ;P Quoting someone, Aeropress on steroid is almost the right description, except that it makes real espresso and is 100% stainless steel. The only downside is that if you insist that a good espresso can only be had at a flat lined 200.00F, then Forge definitely can't do that.

Let me end this post with another tiger stripe picture (not that we're short of them). This is a daily (or shotly?) occurance - a very forgiving device.


p/s: For reference, I'm using medium-light home roasted(City+) beans and above pic was ground with Lido 3. Will try it on some commercially roasted beans soon.

These results are also similar to what I've measured on both the ROK and the Forge. I tend to heat up the water to 205° F. This gives me brew temperature that starts around 190° F and settles around 180°/185°F for most of the shot time.

I personally don't like very hot drinks in general. With the Forge, I get to enjoy the espresso right after I make the shot. With the Breville, I have to wait a few minutes for the coffee to cool down, which I think negatively affects the flavor.

I wonder what the output water temperature is on a traditional lever machine like La Pavoni or Cremina. It should be easy to just flush water from the group and measure the temperature.

As someone who has owned 4 Pavoni's all from various generations, Pavoni's are dragons who like to start flashboiling after about the second shot. This is a panic point for Pavoni newbies and a never-ending nuisance for pros who have to constantly manage the temperature to keep in an acceptable range.

A "Pavoni vs Forge" thread could be useful since they are actually similar in many ways and the price for a used Pavoni is near enough to the price of a new Forge.

So is this why the Forge requires a finer grind? Lower brew temp means reduced extraction rate. Which means you need a finer grind to compensate for the reduced extraction rate as compared to a 200F shot. This would also explain why, even though the temp is well below 200F, the Forge shots aren't sour.

Anyone with an Aeropress knows you can use really low temps (175F to 185F range) and not get sour coffee, if the grind is finer.

Am I explaining this right?

Also, what would happen if the Forge's piston was shorter, but wider. Would the water stay hotter, longer? And would it be too hard to push down?

It's still early days but has anyone tried filling the Forge inverted with a plug stopper on the top end? Something like a wine bottle plug or similar that would fit snug. Then after filling, screw in coffee/portafilter, flip, remove plug, extract?

I wonder if this will make filling easier or harder.

FWIW I have found, with all my pour over, non-electric, espresso devices (Presso, Handpresso, mypressi, Portaspresso), somewhat exacerbated at 5000' elevation and up, Full City/Full City + roasts provide consistently better overall in the cup taste results with a much larger sweet spot/target. And I'm perfectly A-OK with this "limitation"

I am very interested to try an EspressoForge from the next production run. I think, just from the water savings (this is a HUGE factor when boobdocking/dry camping), and workflow improvement compared to my Portaspresso, would be well worth the price of entry...assuming the cup results are similar

Dan

So is this why the Forge requires a finer grind? Lower brew temp means reduced extraction rate. Which means you need a finer grind to compensate for the reduced extraction rate as compared to a 200F shot. This would also explain why, even though the temp is well below 200F, the Forge shots aren't sour.

I'm not sure if this has been scientifically proved. Al the variables would need to be constant, including tamping force, and then change the brewing temperature for the experiment.

I just measured the water temperature coming out of the Breville group. The temperature was 173° F.

Based on my experience, the design of the basket has a tremendous effect on brewing time. There is a brewing time difference between the ROK basket and the La Pavoni basket when using the ROK. The La Pavoni basket always needs a finer grind to achieve the same brewing time as when using the ROK basket.

BTW, this is a shot of Espresso Nuevo :



The pressure was increased slowly to 8 bar, then held there for most of the shot, then brought down to 6 bars until the end. I used the Lido 3 set to 1.5 marks from 0 to yield this ristretto.

This was an amazing tasting shot. I have to yet produce a bad shot with the Forge!

kofi wrote:The pressure was increased slowly to 8 bar, then held there for most of the shot, then brought down to 6 bars until the end. I used the Lido 3 set to 1.5 marks from 0 to yield this ristretto.

This was an amazing tasting shot. I have to yet produce a bad shot with the Forge!

Have you tried a shot or two with the HG-One on the EsppressoForge?