HV wrote:Hello Tony,
"Long shots" don't have a good reputation on this forum. The opinio
communis seems to be that a café crema is a stomach-turning drink that
deserves zero respect, and is, in general, a drink to disapprove of.
Most people here seem to think they know when an espresso is well-timed,
and are more inclined to dillute a good espresso with hot water, rather
than try a long shot that, according to some, cannot be "well-timed".
This side of the ocean (Europe), people don't drink Americanos. If you
can pour out an excellent espresso, why on earth would you want to
dillute it? And a decent espresso dilluted with 100ml of hot water -
that is *weak*?
By comparison, a good café crema is sweet and strong, has a nice smooth
body, a rich flavour, and works fine with bright beans. And it is not
that hard to make on an espresso machine...
Anyway, I'm not going to speculate on the differences in opinion. IMVHO,
americanos, and café cremas are simply different beverages.
Both can taste very good, and both can be enjoyed in their own right.
Of course, both can also taste quite awful. An overextracted espresso
will never make a good americano, and, similarly, there is definitely
such a thing as a terribly bad café crema.
Further comments added inline...
Tony wrote:
> My wife had what she describes as "the best coffe she has ever had" at
> a friends house not too long ago... it was from a Capresso C1000
> superauto which after pressing a button, made her a regular size mug
> (8-10oz?) of "cafe crema".
> Can this be duplicated on Silvia?
Yes - 'least, sort of.
> I have read that a Cafe Crema is really just an increased amount of
> water passed through the puck in the same 25 second duration as a
> normal espresso.. so in reality it's an 8-10oz shot of espresso from a
> single or double size dose of coffe right?
Hmmm, not quite: longer shot (volumewise) = shorter time.
As to the question of proper timing, and whether a long shot can be
"well-timed", here's a few accepted definitions. Hmmm, maybe that's
"accepted" outside this forum
A caffè lungo is (according to Illy:) a 50-ish ml shot pulled in around
22-25 seconds, using ca. 7g of coffee.
Café crema, or café Suisse (or wotyacallit), as prepared in these areas,
are usually a bit taller (100-150 ml range), with corresponding shorter
extraction times (22-ish sec.).
My usual morning coffee is a 150ml café crema, pulled in 22 seconds,
using 16g of coffee. Easy to make on my machine.
The 8-10 oz. shot (about 230 to 300 ml, for the metrics minds here) you
mention would be a "double café crema". That is one very long shot. I'm
not sure how to make that, but here's a few general guidelines for
getting tall cups from an espresso machine.
A first key factor in making a *good* long shot, such as a café
crema, is proper shot timing, which, in this case, means *shorter*.
Volume and shot time are negatively correlated, because the increased
flow through the coffee extracts more substances in the same time. To
prevent extracting the components from the coffee (especially caffeine,
and the bitter stuff that is extracted towards the end of the shot), you
need to stop the pump sooner.
So, if you want a tall cup, you'll have to aim for a shorter shot.
Another important element is a grinding coarser. You can't make a proper
long shot with espresso grind (trust me, it'll taste bl&&dy awful), you
need to adjust the grinder.
A first reason for choosing a coarser grind is getting the proper flow
rate - it's simply very hard to pump the preferred amount of water
through a bed of very fine grinds. This is mainly related to the
dillution part of the process.
Another argument is "slowing down" extraction in this pressurized
brewing cycle. Here we are trying to strike a balance between flow rate,
and grind size. This is the extraction part of the brewing process.
> So I'm thinking, does a superauto adjust grind and tamp to allow more
> ounces of water through in 20-30 seconds, or does it just keep pushing
> water through the same grind and tamp as a regular espresso over say
> (estimating) 60 seconds until the volume requested is accomplished?
Superautos (at least, home machines) are not capable of adjusting grind
or tamp. The amount of coffee and water are adjustable/programmable, but
the grind settings, and, to my knowledge, is the amount of force for
compacting the coffee are fixed variables.
That means that, depending on how the grinder is set, a superauto will
either make you decent-ish espressos and slightly overextracted lungos,
or (more likely) underextracted espressos, but quite decent lungos. The
latter case is more usual because superautos are a bit challenged in the
grinding/tamping department.
> If the latter is true, and my wife thought that was great coffee.. it
> should have been quite bitter and overextracted yes? If that's the
> case, I can probably make much better Cafe Crema from Silvia with a
> shorter extraction time of 20-30 seconds for the same 8-10 oz. true?
> Also, with Silvia only having a 10 oz boiler, is it possible to even
> accomplish this feat? Will I run the boiler dry if I go over 10 oz or
> does it fill as I pour, resulting in cooler water by the end as it
> does not get a chance to fully heat up as I continue the pour?
The first two issues, shot timing (shorter!), and grind size (coarser!),
have already been addressed in the above. We're now hitting a third
problem: brew water temperature...
I'm not convinced a 10 oz boiler can be used to make a 10 oz drink. I
don't know how it compares to a superauto with a 1200+ W alu t-block,
but I've a feeling the Silvia's brass boiler with its 800 W (?) boiler
heating element won't be able to keep up with the flow.
Although it will be pretty difficult to get a 10 oz shot from a home
machine, it's possible to get a 150ml shot, and the small boiler size
may not the limiting factor here. The brew water will definitely
decrease in temperature while pulling a long shot, but, in a way that is
"good", since this too slows down extraction.
(Aside, Illy actually patented a system for making caffè lungos. The
patent describes the use of a control system that reduces the
temperature of a t-block over time to prevent overextraction.)
The fourth, and possibly biggest question, is how much water your
espresso machine can squeeze through the required amount of coffee.
It was difficult to get a good 150-ish ml lungo from my old Gaggia, but
I find that I can pull a very decent 200 ml shot on my current gear. I'm
now using a Reneka Techno machine with a volumetric pump.
Chris Beck, who recently dropped by (hiya Chris!), hypothesized that
vibe pumps have difficulties coping with long shots. It's basically a
flow rate problem, because flow and pressure are interrelated; high flow
rate = low pressure, and vice versa.
In short, it's difficult to get a vibe pump to push the large volumes of
water needed for a lungo, at a sufficiently high pressure to get a good
head of crema.
I find Chris' hypothesis very compelling. His suggestion of using less
than the common amount of 14g of coffee, to reduce the strain on the
pump, is a solution worth trying, and does correspond with my esperience
is that a lighter tamp helps a bit.
To get the desired high flow rate from a vibe pump, my advice is to
change the variables in the following order 1) use a light, leveling
tamp, 2) grind coarser, and 3) use less coffee.
To sum up the above, if you want to pull a good long shot on a vibe pump
machine, you might as well forget everything you know about espresso;
you've got *all* the variables to experiment and play with - shot size,
shot time, amount of coffee, grind, and tamp.
A difficult equation...
So, let me throw in a handful of "benchmark points" from personal
experience:
1. aim for a 150ml shot,
2. pulled in 22s,
3. using 12-14g of coffee in the double basket, and
4. a casual, levelling tamp.
Although slightly off-hand, and most definitely not intended as "rules",
I do think these are decent starting points.
If you can get an acceptable or even good café crema from a superauto,
you should be able to get a fairly decent shot from your machine by
using the above as "fixed values" and just tweaking the grinder setting
a bit.
Start off using the normal dose of 14g of coffee. Simply back off on the
grinder a bit (adjust to a coarser grind), and, keeping everything else
constant, pull your shots.
A 150ml/22s shot is _probably_ doable on most machines, but if you can't
get it to work, try a little less coffee, and start over again.
Once you're on the right track, and are getting consistently decent
shots, you can start optimizing the above values to your own machine,
and your own taste. Maybe a 160ml/21s shot will be a huge improvement,
maybe using 15g of coffee gets you a lot more flavour in the cup, or
perhaps a really firm tamp is the way to go about it.
Don't think of me as the expert. Just try.
Back to your initial question, how to churn out even taller shots - the
8 to 10oz you mentioned. That'll be difficult, but if a superauto can do
it, why not...?
Shots of this size would require an even higher flow rate, Chris'
suggestion is very probably the solution: reduce the amount of coffee.
The mentioned 12g of coffee in the double basket _may_ still work (if at
a pinch), but I wouldn't go much lower. Remember, that's already below
the 13g lower limit recommended for espresso.
Of course, you would need to find the balance again between amount of
coffee, and grind coarseness.
You will also need to be adjust the timing, and I haven't the foggiest
about how an "extraction curve" might look like in this range.
From what I've read (and tasted), though, I wouldn't try shots shorter
than 18-ish seconds. If you're using less than 14g of coffee, the
under-extraction/over-extraction bandwidth is probably already getting
narrow in the 150ml/22s range, and it may be tricky to get an acceptable
200+ ml shot.
Wrt to boiler size, and temperature problem, I've no idea what the
"ideal" temp/time curve would look like, but there is probably some
breaking point in the temperature/time curve after which you'll only be
dilluting the shot with "cold" water, and not extracting anything.
IIRC, extraction drops off rather quickly below 85-ish degrees C, so
that might be another "benchmark points" for you. Question then is, how
much water can you draw from the group before the water temperature hits
that 85 degrees Celsius point? That would give you some clue of the max.
shot size you can get from your machine.
> So in short... can it be done?
I short... yes. Sort of.
> Thanks in advance..
> Tony B.
Hope this is a slightly more practical follow-up on an earlier (much
earlier!) post of mine on the subject.
For reference, check groups.google.com for the various threads on cafe
crema - a lot of interesting stuff has been posted. In particular, look
for threads with subjects "Illy and Espresso Lungo" (excellent comments
by Anthony Rawson), "Secret Cabal Message", and "Allowing an 'espresso'
to fill a normally-sized cup"...
Cheers,
HV
