GVDub wrote:
I'm constantly straddling the Apollonian and Dionysian natures, seeking to find a balance between the two. The danger, of course, is slipping on the rail and coming down hard with one leg on either side.

My philosophy is a bit more virile, as it is based on the ancient Greek philosopher "Testicles."
(OT)I equate manual grinding and pulling a lever shot to my former bad habit of 30 years ago, smoking a pipe.
Half the relaxation was choosing the tobacco (no Cherry Blend garbage for me) and slowly and carefully packing the pipe. Ah, the good old days.
Back on topic. Does anyone have a problem with their Caravel "arms" coming out of the socket?
Used to drive me crazy, till I learned to make sure they were secure before pulling the shot.

IMAWriter wrote:Back on topic. Does anyone have a problem with their Caravel "arms" coming out of the socket? Used to drive me crazy, till I learned to make sure they were secure before pulling the shot.

Happened to me the very first time I pulled a shot on mine. Since then, I just pretend that I went to UT Austin and pull the handle with a sort of modified "hook 'em 'horns" grip with the thumb and little finger holding the 'arms' in.

IMAWriter wrote:Y'all are getting WAY too geeky on me
Hey, Ain't this s'pposed to be a manual grinder/Caravel (home lever of your choice) "seat of the pants" no excessive flushing, semi-relaxing, get in tune with one's self sort of thing??

Yea, I hear ya..

But it is really hard to communicate over the internet without numbers, and I think AndyS's brew ratio thing is one of the best tools we've got here, so might as well use it, huh?

re: weighing before grinder- I am using a commercial grinder, so it is not practical for me. For hand-grinder users, I think the only problem would be if some of the grounds don't make it into the basket, which sometimes happens when trying to fill the basket completely.

re: dislocation- I've never gotten that! Do you think it is caused by wear on the arm or on the socket?

Regards, Henry

just an off-topic, I've been making some great espresso macchiatos recently... using a little 'steam-toy' to steam 40ml of milk, lovely!

hbuchtel wrote:But it is really hard to communicate over the internet without numbers, and I think AndyS's brew ratio thing is one of the best tools we've got here, so might as well use it, huh?

just an off-topic, I've been making some great espresso macchiatos recently... using a little 'steam-toy' to steam 40ml of milk, lovely!

Henry, I love my little bodum pump frother.
BTW, I'm a big fan of Andy's. Anything he puts forth either advances my espresso, or makes me laugh.(in a good way)
I have a "mah-ve-lous" collection of Schector "schnozzo-li"...now all I need is an SJ.

I realize that I'm quite new to this, and am probably speaking almost completely from ignorance, but the whole 'brew ratio' thing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, even after going through the linked threads. Shift the temperature a degree or two, grind a little finer or a little coarser, tamp a little unevenly, get the pressure slightly different and two shots of absolutely identical brew ratio will be totally different in character. One may be total ambrosia and the other might go straight down the sink. So how, exactly, is brew ratio meaningful, aside from being simply another way to describe a shot than ristretto, normale, lungo, etc. If the bottom line is taste in the cup, where does brew ratio fit in?

Hi George, I think Andy came up with the brew ratio idea in response to frustration with the vague definitions (despite their widespread use...) of 'ristretto, normale, lungo' etc. You probably saw at the beginning of the thread that he was trying to get opinions from others about what brew ratio range they thought each type of espresso fell into. In the end it seems that everybody just agreed with what he proposed

Now (on this forum, at least), people have something to refer back to (ie the brew ratio range) when using the terms ristretto, normale, etc.

Another widespread problem at that time was that people often talked about the volume of their drinks... with out acknowledging that a good part of it was crema! I don't recall anybody talking about how much their espressos weighed until that thread. Now it is quite a bit easier to communicate about technique and so on.

But getting back to your point, you are absolutely right that there are many variables that can affect the taste as much (or more) than changing the brew ratio. This is slightly less true on pump machines where you have an OPV, but even then people find it necessary to talk about which standard basket they are using etc etc.

Right now I'm just trying to figure out if I'm doing something way different then you and Jack are doing, and seeing as we've got the same machine and I can see your dosing and pulling from the video, getting the brew ration would fill in a lot of the missing information.

FYI, I'm using a ~3 week old commercial-grade (ie cheap!) Brazil roasted at home. I've been thinking about picking up an imported Italian blend to see how much difference that makes.

Regards, Henry

Just for reference, that shot I pulled on video was a 6-day old roast of Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber Blend taken about 25 seconds into second crack (meaning that second crack extended for 15 more seconds after i hit the 'Cool' button on the Behmor, 10 seconds into SC).

I'll admit that I'm very much a 'seat of the pants' guy about many things - music, cooking, writing, and it would seem, espresso. I'm aiming for consistency in my pulls, or, more correctly, in the results of my pulls, and so far (with all of my vast two weeks of experience pulling shots on the Caravel), I seem to be finding the most consistency going by feel, rather than by metrics. I'm trying to keep the temp in the Caravel as steady as I can (which is why I'm considering dropping a thermocouple in the kettle and getting a PID to control the temp) and staying with a 14 gram dose in the basket, but as far as loading the basket, tamping, and physically pulling the shot, I'm relying on muscle memory from the better shots that I've pulled. Once I knew what a good shot felt like, it made it much easier to repeat. Like shooting a basketball - you don't have to do it for long before you know when the ball leaves your fingers if the shot is good or not. As a proper child of the '60s, my exploration of the extraction space is about being enough in the moment that right action is obvious and inevitable. All of which goes to show that a) I had a seriously misspent youth, and b) if one is determined enough, one can turn anything into a spiritual quest.

This morning's shots: 14:18 (Fellini and single pull) and 14:26 for brew ratios of 78% and 54% respectively. Both 8 day old Jones Coffee Roasters' JC Espresso Blend.

Addendum: Wednesday morning's shots: 14:20 (2-day-old roast of Brazil Ipanema Tree Dried. Almost choked the machine, so it ended up a short pull that took a longish time. Still drinkable, though) and 14:26 (7-day-old roast of SM's Liquid Amber Blend) for 70% and 54% (I seem to keep hitting that number).

Thanks for recording those George!

Here are the #s for my last 8 drinks-

1. 10:15.5 = 65%
2. 8.5:12 = 71%
3. 10:13 = 78%
4. 11:14 = 79%
5. 10.5:15.5 = 68%
6. 12:14 = 86%
7. 10.5:13.5 = 78%
8. 10.5:13.5 = 78%

Range= 8.5-12g, 65-86%
Average= 10.4g, 75%
Mode= 10.5g, 78%

So thats cool, it looks like I make ristrettos. I usually do a single pull, but I'm going to try doing a light pull until there are a few drips in the cup, then lifting the lever for another pull. After a couple days I should have a solid impression of what doubles taste like. If I'm not liking it, I'll try upping the dose to the ~14g that you and Jack use.

Thanks again for recording that data! Actually I'm finding that having these numbers helps with more than just communicating... something about being about to examine some aspect of the process in a non-sensory way helps to firm up those sensory impressions.

An OT aside- I'm a student of Chinese medicine, and something I think a lot about (and teachers often ruminate out loud about) is the speed that Western medicine is/has advanced at relative to Chinese medicine. In the last ~150 years WM has made mind-boggling leaps forward, to that point now that it easily outshines (in several aspects) the advances that Chinese medicine has made in the last ~2000 years. I think a lot of this is due to something that has come up in this thread- the advantages of being able to quantify (and render objective) various aspects of health and disease. Traditionally, Chinese medicine does not have many quantifiable aspects. There is time, of course, (time of day, # of days, position in season), but the primary 4 diagnostic methods (looking, asking, smelling/listening, touching) are completely subjective. The main disadvantage of this subjectivity is that communication is limited to highly vague descriptions or looking at the same thing in person. The ability for medical professions to communicate in detail has an enormous affect on their ability to be exposed to and make use of other people's experience, so subjectivity has the affect of slowing down the advancement of the field on the whole.

A problem with quantifying is that it puts a lot of importance on things that are easily quantified, and lessens the importance of things that are not. In Western medicine we can see that the regression of a particular disease is measured by changes in those quantifiable aspects that were used to diagnose the disease, rather than by observing how the patient's quality of life has improved; something that is probably quite a bit more important to the patient. It also makes it harder for doctors to see the impact that emotions, climate, diet, etc have on health. Chinese medicine has many shortcomings, but in this holistic aspect it shines.

So getting back to the Caravel, it is (relatively) easy to communicate about temperature, dosage, brew-ratio, amount of crema... what is left out? the sound of the grinder, the aroma of the ground beans, the color-presence of the little Caravel, the weight in the handof the portafilter, the rumble of the heating water, the play in the connection of the lever to the piston, the gurgle of air and water exchanging places, the inhale then slow exhale of resistance felt through the hand on the lever, then the espresso making its presence known even while still on the table, intensifying as it gets closer then the explosion of taste and smell, hazy associations of bitter cocoa, black pepper and ginger that fade but linger in the background as the mind turns to other things...

Regards, Henry

The two shots I pulled this morning were a revelation. Monday's roast of Idido Misty Valley, taken right to the edge of second crack was almost like a small shot of blueberry jam. The aftertaste was intense and long lasting. The second shot, Monday's Full City+ roast of Brazil Ipanema Tree-dried had amazingly thick, buttery mouth feel and the hint of Oreo cookie that Tom Owen mentioned in his cupping notes was right there. I have never before had two such rich, detailed, complex espresso shots (though the Brazil isn't really that complex). The aroma was so compelling that I didn't take the time to weigh them to determine brew ratio, and it doesn't really matter what it was. What was in the cup was all that I could have asked for.

At some point, I'll probably get more curious about the technical aspects (I almost always do) and start weighing and measuring in earnest, but for the moment, I'll just keep chasing more shots like the ones I had today.