UPDATE: Scroll to the second video to see a delicious two-pull naked extraction!

I just posted this video to YouTube demonstrating a bottomless Ponte Vecchio extraction as well as my reason for limiting my shots to one pull:



I'll try to make another one with a slightly higher quality camera, but that's all for now.

UPDATE: As I mentioned in my post below (and the note above), I've rediscovered two pull shots. It's all about the grind, it seems: the two-pull, 12.5g, day 12 shot of Coffee Labs Roasters' Espresso in the video below was delicious!

IF you run a pump machine for 30 sec, and take the first 15 in one cup and the second 15 in another they will look different and taste different. If you like taste of the first and not the second, that would be reason to take one pull (or the first 15 sec of a pump extraction). If you mix them together the taste will differ still. I don't like the flavor of 15-ml 14g shots, so I take a second pull. I grind, dose and tamp so that the puck does not get disturbed during the second pull (or the first for that matter). But of course the extraction is different during the end of the shot than during the beginning. I suppose, for example, that more caffeine is extracted over time, but I don't know that. What is for sure is that less soluble compounds, and more heat-resistant compounds come later in the shot.

So, I say, drink the part that you like the taste of.

PC

Ciao Dan,

Thanks for the vid. If one's goal is to get more volume in the cup, fortunately we have alternatives to doing 2 full pulls. The Fellini 1-1/2 pull has worked very well for me -- in fact with updosing I can manage 2 or 3 half-pulls -- a few drops escaping each time -- before letting go for the final time (letting the handle rise all the way). The flow is often thick & gloppy, resulting in approx. 1 oz. ristrettos. Yum!

Happy Brewing,
Wayne

There are so many variables making espresso. By the time you get to your second pull in the video, your puck has been wet for a very long time, from my perspective. From when you start your preinfusion to the time you start your first pull, I have done a Felllini pull, and two pulls. I like and enjoy both single pulls and doubles on this fine machine.

Thanks for the excellent video, and for your pursuit of a great cup.

I have to come clean. This weekend I tried some two pull shots with what I'd consider a coarser grind for the Ponte Vecchio group. To my great shock and surprise, they came out perfectly fine. I'll be playing with those a bit more now. It looks like the fine grind I was using for my longer single pull shots would result in a cracked puck on the upstroke for the second pull, but the coarser grind I've tried now has been tolerant of the piston's back and forth movement.

I generally have good results with a slightly coarser grind and firmer tamp - when I've tried very fine grinds I usually end up with pucks that have cracks in them. These shots usually don't taste as good.

Contrary to others, I like to view the puck as an ummovable matrix of grinds, through which water (and air) can move without disturbing the structure. My (probably naive) view is that I get a more even extraction this way, because the flow of water over the grinds is relatively uniform an constant. Stopping momentarily for a second pull does not disturb the structure.

peacecup wrote:I like to view the puck as an ummovable matrix of grinds, through which water (and air) can move without disturbing the structure. My (probably naive) view is that I get a more even extraction this way, because the flow of water over the grinds is relatively uniform an constant.

Yet it's not an "unmovable matrix" but a "porous deformable medium", peacecup. I like to view trout as fish with a keen intelligence devoted to just one goal: to find their way onto my dinner plate. I think they are tastier "this way".

Pressure and temperature: how they affect flavor?