Thank you Arpi. It looks this way because in my place, I had to struggle for everything. Nothing has been an easy find, I had to machine a base and a wooden handle for my tamper and to lacquer it myself, and I had to find a manual grinder with excellent conical burrs because I can't afford an electrical one that pleases me (i.e. that meets my will to obtain the absolute best in espresso grinders as I feel that the grinder is the device that "defines" the taste of the extraction). The grinder is stepped but is equipped with machined conical burrs of excellent design and size. As for the classic milk pitcher, finding it was also tedious, so like I said, nothing has been an easy find in my place (I bought the machine used from the German eBay and got it shipped from eastern Germany. It's a pre-millennium gold-plated Professional).

I would be glad to team up with you and to benefit from your rapid progress . I can also help with the photography in case you needed different shots to make descriptions in the manual of more clarity. The foremost concern for me once I started using the machine was the "simplest and easiest way to obtain a bean temperature reading", and whether an environmental temperature reading was still needed in case I had a bean temperature reading. In my case I removed the environmental temperature gauge and inserted a thermocouple in its place in a way that will touch the beans and not get hit by neither the inner blades of the solid drum nor by the supporting rods connecting the drum to the axle (although doing so is somewhat tedious and needs a lot of care. Therefore, I would suggest that a neater and a more reliable solution is developed -which can become a valuable part of the non-official manual).

I roast only around 100 to 150 grams of green beans at a time which may seem too little for someone owning a half-pound roaster but it's because I wanted to learn with lesser taste-bud penalty and lesser wastage. I am currently in the phase of comparing my former results on the modified popper with the results I am now able to obtain on the M3 roaster, which are remarkably dissimilar despite the similarity of the external bean temperature profile.

Orwa, I'll be glad to see what you find and share info. Espresso/coffee is a long journey The good thingy about roasting your own is that you can roast according to your equipment. I have two espresso setups (machine/grinder) and each gives me different flavors with the same beans. What I mean is that the flavors that someone describes may not be reproducible if you don't have the same setup. But if you roast according to your equipment (make decisions based on your setup), you'll achieve excellent results. It is a trial an error process. For example, in my gaggia classic, I get a pure chocolate bomb with sugar crust on top with the brasil beans roasted last weekend, but I don't get the same effect on the expobar BIII. But the BIII is better 95% of the time doing other beans. The gaggia classic excels at making angry bombs, but if you pair it with the right roasted beans it is success.

Cheers

I must say, I really like the 15-year-old Pavoni and the 30-year-old hand grinder (Zass?). It's a sweet-looking setup.

I'm hoping to get a look at a Quest roaster in November at the Coffee and Tea Expo up in Taipei.

SlowRain wrote:I must say, I really like the 15-year-old Pavoni and the 30-year-old hand grinder (Zass?). It's a sweet-looking setup.

Thanks. I am really not sure what brand the grinder is. The brand tag was already removed when I got it from my grandmother's house in Damascus (there has been a number of other interesting things that I collected from that old house; one of them was a good deal of 30-year-old green coffee). The outer conical burr is welded into the metallic cone that serves as a hopper, whereas the inner burr is adjusted using the usual stepped mechanism found on the top of most cheap hand grinders. However, the burrs are sharper than someone would expect which I suppose are machined from iron. I suspect that the grinder was brought from Germany, as my grandmother used to obtain some goods through her sister which was living there at the time (this hypothesis is also supported by the fact that most Damascus residents did not use this type of a grinder at the time for their Turkish coffee but rather used the cylindrical brass grinders usually made in Turkey or Greece). I was not able to tell exactly where the grinder came from or what the brand was, but it was one of the best things that happened to me at the beginning of my espresso hobby. A good grinder is such a bare necessity that I was hopeless without for some time (not realising that what I had was very far from being a good grinder).

Home coffeebar update: Added the GS/3 in place of the Wega Lyra.
(The GS/3 is plumbed in and out using the same bottle+flojet system I already had)

WoW Jon,

congrats on the GS/3

looks great..!

Jon, that Robur makes the doser and hopper look as if they've shrunk. Having the same hoppers on my Majors, (and of course, the same dosers) the Robur just looks like it's bursting!
I likened the Robur, on my first meeting of one, so a German Shepard Military Working Dog. Fierce looking, and more than one person ought to lift alone, but nice to have on your side in a jam.
Probably shouldn't reside in a personal dwelling, though.
Yer a better man than I, Gunga Din... ; >

Psyd wrote:Jon, that Robur makes the doser and hopper look as if they've shrunk.

The hopper on my Robur is a LA Coffee Tweak lead crystal hopper from Orphan Espresso
http://www.orphanespresso.com/index.php ... &cPath=108


(And yes, I hefted that bad boy all by myself....from the car to the bar)

Jon,

Awesome my friend! When I read your post on CG last night about Chris Selling the Paddle Groups, I said to myself.. Hmm... I wonder if he bought a GS/3...Looks like you did!

Having a Robur, a GS/3, AND a K30 is probably like having Ninja Weapons against Upgradeitis! I see you beat me to those super cool 49'th Cups too!

Enjoy the 'spro my friend

P.S.- Is that an EspressoCraft Tamper? Ive been considering getting that handle and a bezel and put it on my EPNW piston... What do you think of it?

JmanEspresso wrote:P.S.- Is that an EspressoCraft Tamper? Ive been considering getting that handle and a bezel and put it on my EPNW piston... What do you think of it?

If you do, get the SHORT Ninth Street (formerly EspressoCraft) handle. The tall one is way too big with the thick EPNW bases. I have a short one with the brass adapter and an EPNW base. It's my favorite tamper. I had a Compressore before that, and also have an aluminum Reg Barber tamper. They're all great, and tampers are indeed just barista jewelry, but Ninth Street gets my vote easy.