Nick wrote:When the grinder seems slow... make up for it by grinding earlier.

In which case the coffee will start to stale.


Keep in mind - the value of the practice of leaving the portafilter in the group and tamping into the basket will differ from one style of group to another.

Also - if you choose to "overheat" the portafilter with your hot water - keep in mind you'll need to completely dry the basket after doing so, which will eliminate much if not all of the theoretical value.

malachi wrote:Keep in mind - the value of the practice of leaving the portafilter in the group and tamping into the basket will differ from one style of group to another.

Why is that? Is it flush timing you are referring to?

malachi wrote:In which case the coffee will start to stale.

No it won't. I wasn't talking about grinding in advance... I was talking about starting the grinder earlier. The "clumping" that Danny mentions could be an issue for some I suppose. Depends on the grinder.

malachi wrote:Also - if you choose to "overheat" the portafilter with your hot water - keep in mind you'll need to completely dry the basket after doing so, which will eliminate much if not all of the theoretical value.

Why would that eliminate the theoretical value?

It's always fun discussing things with malachi. Too bad he's not real... just an imaginary manifestation of the id of the coffee industry.

Abe Carmeli wrote:Why is that? Is it flush timing you are referring to?

Saturated groups will cool differently from groups that use a thermosyphon which will cool differently from groups that don't use any method to stabilize group temp will cool differently from actively heated (grin) groups.

And some groups, of course, do not require a flush at all.

Nick wrote:Why would that eliminate the theoretical value?

You heat the portafilter up.
Then it cools off again as you dry it.

The honest truth...

I'm sure there are baristas out there for whom the small change in portafilter temp, even if skilled enough to build a shot in less than 30 seconds, is going to represent a limiting factor. For those people - there are so few areas for improvement that they have no choice but to focus on these types of techniques.

For the other 99.9999999999% of us, however, there are other limiting factors and issues that are far more worth focusing on as improvement in these other areas is going to have significant results in the cup.

malachi wrote:Saturated groups will cool differently from groups that use a thermosyphon which will cool differently from groups that don't use any method to stabilize group temp will cool differently from actively heated (grin) groups.

And some groups, of course, do not require a flush at all.

I don't see how that is related to the question at hand, re: the P/F cool down when detached from the group. It will cool down regardless of the technology used to heat the group. Am I missing something here?

You mentioned the group cooling as well. This is, of course, in reference to the group not the PF. And, as Barry notes, the group is what is important in this case.

i'm not sure the group cools significantly when the portafilter is removed... there's no doubt that heat radiates from the showerscreen, but that happens with or without the portafilter in place, so i guess for there to be significant cooldown the rate of heat loss through the showerscreen would have to increase with the portafilter removed. i'm not sure that happens.