grong wrote:This sounds good, except that the grind needs to be custom tailored to your specific machine for a quality result.

True...

I wish there were some leverheads that were local to me.

I just watched a couple of videos with Orphan Espresso pulling some shots on commercial machine after grinding on the Kyocera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-DxLqJZ ... re=channel, and the shots looked beautiful.

I received my Pavoni today from OE, and I think you will be very happy, KnowGood, when you have control over your coffee freshness and your grind.

It sounds like you have found a good local roaster. The day after roasting is probably going to produce a green tasting shot, but on day two you should be good to go.

grong wrote:This sounds good, except that the grind needs to be custom tailored to your specific machine for a quality result.

I agree that dialing in the grind for the current condition of the machine is optimum. However, for evaluating the quality of a <$100 grinder vs. a commercial grind (or even prosumer grind), getting some pre-ground coffee from a shop would be useful. If the shop is using freshly roasted beans, chances are they have their machines roughly dialed in.

So, while you could not tweak the grind to produce an optimum shot, you can still control dosage, and with a lever, pressure. Control over these two variables should enable a pull of sufficient quality to evaluate the grinder.

At least, that's my line of thinking. When i was new to espresso i would have been more willing to spend $5 on freshly roasted, pre-ground (by the shop, at the time of sale) coffee to evaluate my grinder, rather than spending $250 bucks by the recommendation of some people on the internet. Or, i should say, prior to the spending of $250 to buy a grinder. We tend to sink more money into hobbies as time progresses - hence, upgraditis - because we've seen the results so far and can make the decision that it's worth it to continue with better equipment. Still, you see people taking steps with their upgrades, rather than leaps, because of this very reason. (unless they have a lot of cash).

Very well put Popeye, on the upgraditis angle, which we all have in one form or another. We went through a period of downgraditis which actually turned out to be upgradeitis but in an odd way, when we went from out prosumer hx machine to a La Peppina then to a hand grinder from a series of Rockys and used Mazzers and whatnot, But what we thought was a downgrade of hardware turned out to be an upgrade in espresso quality, and enjoyment. We only then realized what we had been missing as far a flavour and just what was possible in a home setup with what at the time was a minimum investment since we sold our prosumer and came out ahead all around.
The La Pavoni is a great little machine and does it all....we have gravitated to spring levers vs manuals but really can appreciate that feeling with a manual lever when the pressure catches just right and you steer the lever through the sweet spot....very gratifying....with a spring lever much of the mental excercise is factoring all of the grind and dose variables, getting the temperature just right, and watching the crema roll out of the spouts....pretty much a similar feeling but not as tactile as the manual.
And Popeye, nice that you recognize this clearly as a hobby, helps keep perspective since sometimes it seems more like an obsession, but they could be the same thing!

Doug, as all too many gave discovered, a "hobby" like can quickly obliterate all thoughts of career, family, and such. Not that I've been there, of course.
Coffee, on the other hand, is truly an obsession, nee a passion, yet one that can be shared with friends family, teachers (as in bribes for grades, etc)
Popeye is indeed correct (IMO) to have the OP take home a bit of pgrofessioanlly ground coffee, if only for a comparison, perhaps under a good magnifying glass.
I've been hitting a beautiful sweet spot with my singles. That smooth "groove" as the lever descends like a dull knife through butter. You feel the resistance, but it's there to help the pace maintain. Awesome.



BTW...I left out the most important word in my treatise...GOLF...I meant a "hobby such as GOLF"
Sorry.

I'm sorry, but did I read that right...."like a dull knife through butter"??? Naw, must be my imagination..I think I must be checking these posts too late in the day....all the variables....knife size, butter hardness, ambient temperature, exact level of dullness.....we found 128 emails today that had gotten sported off into another file on our server and we have spent the day apologizing and slogging through them more or less like a dull knife through butter as a matter of fact.

OK, a slightly warmed dull knife. I just meant slowly, steady with no sudden speed ups.

KnowGood wrote: and in the mean time decide if I'm going to buy that Kyocera hand grinder you sell.

Well, i went ahead and ordered the Kyocera last week. Should be here any day now. Well see how things go.

EUREKA! Used the Kyocera this morning and pulled off a much more improved shot with twice as much crema if not more than any of my previous ones. Second shot wasn't so great. The grind was too fine, even though it was the same setting as the first, and i choked it. As the machine gets hotter, does the grind need to be adjusted?

glad to hear it. In my experience, unless the machine was really cold (less than 175 degrees) the rate of pour won't change significantly with temperature. If you're not using a bottomless portafilter, you may have had some unnoticed channeling on the first shot. How did it look?