Everything we know may be wrong

[Marshall]

I feel like I'm living in the British "new techniques" video Sweaner posted, except it's been a weekend with some very reliable baristas and roasters at SCAA in Minneapolis. Fresh coffee? Forget it. They're using 8 to 10 day old roasts. Kyle Glanville was recommending leaving the bag open a while before putting it in a container with an inch or two of air space to accelerate the aging.

25-second pour? Nah. 8 seconds after preinfusion works great on one blend I was given. Much to think about and experiment with after this trip.

[BobS]

Tom of Sweet Marias has been saying for several years now that there are espressos that he likes better aged towards the end of two weeks. And at a talk I attended at this years WBC, Heather Perry's Dad stated that they typically aim many of their espresso blends to have a peak flavor from 7 to 10 days after roasting.

Bob

[miKe mcKoffee]

I've been roasting only a scant 8 years but have been saying since shortly after beginning the roasting journey experiencing coffee from right out the roaster on out most coffees don't really come alive until at least 4 or 5 days rest. And target roasts for my Kafe grinders to hit at 1 week earliest.

Haven't experienced a good 8 second pull myself, yet. But then, haven't tried to either... I do know my main Ohana blend less than 25sec and risking sour, target 27.

[howard seth]

Good lord! an 8 second pour boggles the mind. I never made an espresso that was drinkable under 15 seconds on any machine I have tried. I rather drink a minute pour. Was it called H. 'Houdini's Magic Blend'?

Howard

[luca]

The idea of using coffee at older than 7 days is hardly news. For example, I *think* that Paul Bassett won the WBC in 2003 with 28 day old coffee. Klaus' was certainly older than 10 days at the '06 WBC ... I seem to remember 21 days being the figure.

8 seconds after preinfusion ... are we talking about an 18 second pour here?

Cheers,

Luca

[cannonfodder]

So Starbucks coffee is now fresh? 8 second extractions? If it were not coming from you, I would call you nuts.

[seacliff dweller]

I feel like I'm living in the British "new techniques" video Sweazer poster, except it's been a weekend with some very reliable baristas and roasters at SCAA in Minneapolis. Fresh coffee? Forget it. They're using 8 to 10 day old roasts. Kyle Glanville was recommending leaving the bag open a while before putting it in a container with an inch or two of air space to accelerate the aging.

25-second pour? Nah. 8 seconds after preinfusion works great on one blend I was given. Much to think about and experiment with after this trip.

So true, I think SCAA should revise 2 of their specialty coffee facts:
1. Specialty coffee is defined as a coffee that has no defects - unless you are talking about Simon Hsieh's zero defect beans.
2. To be considered truly fresh, coffee should be ground right before brewing and brewed within three to seven days of roasting - but controlled aging is quite common these days. Maybe the next thing is collecting grinder gas and pump it into the bean container under pressure!

[VS_DoubleShot]

On a dark roast the oils come to the surface of the beans...if you have a lighter roast perhaps it makes sense that the oils take longer to dry out since they remain mostly within the bean.



8 seconds after preinfusion - how long was preinfusion? Makes sense if preinfusion lasted a few seconds.

[DigMe]

On a dark roast the oils come to the surface of the beans...if you have a lighter roast perhaps it makes sense that the oils take longer to dry out since they remain mostly within the bean.



8 seconds after preinfusion - how long was preinfusion? Makes sense if preinfusion lasted a few seconds.

I don't see any espresso coming out of the spout until 8 to 10 seconds in so 16 to 18 second pour would be much more believable as possibly producing a good shot than the 8 second pour that some were reading it as. I've always timed my shots from the moment the pump comes on and shot for 25 to 30 seconds if I'm doing a normale.

And since when is 8 to 10 days not considered fresh??

brad

[Marshall]

And since when is 8 to 10 days not considered fresh??

brad

Read the home roaster boards, where freshness is God. Some home roasters consider anything over 4 days "undrinkable."

[Marshall]

So true, I think SCAA should revise 2 of their specialty coffee facts:
1. Specialty coffee is defined as a coffee that has no defects - unless you are talking about Simon Hsieh's zero defect beans.
2. To be considered truly fresh, coffee should be ground right before brewing and brewed within three to seven days of roasting - but controlled aging is quite common these days. Maybe the next thing is collecting grinder gas and pump it into the bean container under pressure!

This points up the difficulty of establishing technical standards. Someone is always learning something new.

[DigMe]

Read the home roaster boards, where freshness is God. Some home roasters consider anything over 4 days "undrinkable."

Wow...my espresso roasts don't get really good until about 4 days.

brad

[gscace]

On a dark roast the oils come to the surface of the beans...if you have a lighter roast perhaps it makes sense that the oils take longer to dry out since they remain mostly within the bean.



8 seconds after preinfusion - how long was preinfusion? Makes sense if preinfusion lasted a few seconds.

Good observation. The machine used was a 2-group Mistral with individual brew boilers and paddle groups. The paddle groups allowed long pre-infusions with the pre-infusion pressure set by flo-jet pump (bottle-fed because the thing was at a trade show). The combined pre-infusion and extraction times were within the range that we all consider normal. The amount of time at full pressure was around 8 to 10 secs. The shot of Black Cat (yep it was Intelligentsia's booth) I had was phenomenal and the SO espressos that they were pulling were very interesting.

The extraction pressure profile didn't surprise me a whole lot. I have been using long pre-infusions for a while now as I learn more about pressure profiling. What did surprise me was the level of interest in pressure profiling and the amount of exploration already happening at bleeding edge shops.

-Greg

[gscace]

I feel like I'm living in the British "new techniques" video Sweaner posted, except it's been a weekend with some very reliable baristas and roasters at SCAA in Minneapolis. Fresh coffee? Forget it. They're using 8 to 10 day old roasts. Kyle Glanville was recommending leaving the bag open a while before putting it in a container with an inch or two of air space to accelerate the aging.

25-second pour? Nah. 8 seconds after preinfusion works great on one blend I was given. Much to think about and experiment with after this trip.

You are a very smart and observant person. Have you not observed the taste of coffee as it ages and wondered why folks adhered to "gotta be completely fresh" dogma? What I like about the SCAA shows is that you realize that experimentation is alive, folks do taste coffee and are not afraid to let their technique be guided by taste. It's all good and yes, it was very interesting.

-Greg

[seacliff dweller]

This points up the difficulty of establishing technical standards. Someone is always learning something new.

Maybe some oxidation of the volatile aromatics is good? I wish there are research papers out there I can read that will tell me the flavor time curve - when it peaks and start declining. This is pretty interesting. Coffee roasting has been around for ages, maybe from the 10th century but we still don't know much about coffee, or because tastes and preferences changed?

[roblumba]

Each type of coffee bean probably behaves differently and perhaps the flavors that you wanted in one bean in the blend disappear while the flavors you wanted in another bean, arrive. I forget which one, but one of the World Barista Champions had aged his beans for a different length of time. I think one was 7 days old and the other 14 days old. Now that would be some fancy roasting when a roaster starts offering beans with optimized aging. But how long do you let that blend sit on your shelf at home? Practically speaking, it become a bit difficult to manage on a commercial scale or even for the home user.

[CSME9]

I am pulling great 25-40 second shots on 2-3 week old roasts.

WS

[Marshall]

Each type of coffee bean probably behaves differently and perhaps the flavors that you wanted in one bean in the blend disappear while the flavors you wanted in another bean, arrive. I forget which one, but one of the World Barista Champions had aged his beans for a different length of time. I think one was 7 days old and the other 14 days old. Now that would be some fancy roasting when a roaster starts offering beans with optimized aging. But how long do you let that blend sit on your shelf at home? Practically speaking, it become a bit difficult to manage on a commercial scale or even for the home user.

I talked to Kyle Glanville about that. What's the optimum buy/use time for consumers, who may take a week, instead of an hour, to consume a pound? He suggested 7 to 14 days as a good window for brewing the current Black Cat, which is roasted lighter than some previous iterations.

[DigMe]

the current Black Cat, which is roasted lighter than some previous iterations.

Hmm... I thought it was just my faulty memory that the BC was lighter last time I had some but I guess not!

brad

[barry]

The extraction pressure profile didn't surprise me a whole lot. I have been using long pre-infusions for a while now as I learn more about pressure profiling.

I've been using long preinfusions on superautomatics with very good results.