Going Naked

[JimWright]

Did my first couple of shots with the naked PF this morning, and wow, is this an eye opener.

My first attempt was uuuug-ly, but #2, with more focus and a little extra NSEW tamping for evenness, was worlds better with a single nicely striped pour after the initial and relatively even saturation. If you have not tried one of these, and can get a hold of one, do - it's a revelation. Heck, I'm not sure why you'd go back...?

[CoffeeOwl]

<whisper>much better title would be 'walking naked' </whisper>

...an eye opener.

tried one of these, and can get a hold of one, do - it's a revelation.

+1
It is indeed, however there are people who claim having untasty good looking shots - I don't know how comes.

[JimWright]

Interesting, thanks!

Perhaps there's something to be said for experimenting outside the boundaries of what you think of as "normal" when searching for ideal taste, and that looks alone cannot guide you.

Now I'm going OT only two posts into the thread, but while I'm sure there's something to the oft-stated correlation between crema and good taste, you can obviously go overboard with or be misled by this (e.g., the use of crema enhancing devices), and I wonder if people wouldn't be better off just working through a pound of a new coffee in a sitting doing finer/coarser grind, up/down dose, up/down temp, longer/shorter pulls, etc., looks of the shot be damned. I myself don't typically try aiming outside the usual ranges and wonder if I wouldn't find some interesting and cool results if I did. (I'm sure there are beans out there that brew great espresso at 185, only no one's trying it...)

[cannonfodder]

A shot can look good and still taste like road tar. Bad beans, bad temperature are the two biggest culprits.

[Marshall]

Yes, but a bad-looking shot rarely reaches the coffee's potential. I have recently noticed that drop offs in shot quality can come back incrementally, so that you convince yourself "it's not really that bad," or "something is off with the roast this week." "Certainly there can't be any problem with my well-honed technique!" Ha!

I went without mine for several months while a friend had it. Apparently I got increasingly lazy in my technique while it was on its little vacation. When it returned, I checked my shots and found some pretty gross channeling. Now I remember what these coffees used to taste like. So, yes, I think it's a good idea to pull the little devil out once in a while, if only to prevent backsliding.