HB wrote:
Ken complains that I buried his thread in this forum by splitting it off. However, I'm always thinking of the reference value of a given topic; wide excursions to another unrelated subject, as is the case for this thread, dilutes the value of the original thread. Often a thoughtful split will spurn an entirely new level of interest in the second topic. It's a handy tool for building on a discussion, if used sparingly.

The first sentence is incorrect. I applauded you for doing so and bemoaned the fact that I hadn't thought about it first myself.

This original thread had already run its course, as umpteen people had already come to the correct conclusion, the OP had acted upon and I believe agreed the problem was in the OPV, so it had nowhere to go.

ken

Thanks, Jim.
I really wasn't going to come back to this thread, because I thought that I poked Ken in the eye and he poked me back and we should just be quiet after that. However, the consideration that you and Dan have brought to the discussion, and the humor that I detected in Ken's last post, made me reconsider.

Ken's post hurt my feelings. Plain and simple. I understand that this community is a somewhat more elite one that the one at coffeegeek, and I have been very aware of myself in that context. When I came here I came here because I was fascinated by levers, and so I got a couple, and I've been trying to find out all about them. I ask lots of questions, but I expect that the people who are answering them understand that it is their option to do so; it isn't a demand. In an effort to make the interchange fun, I try to interject some personal information, some pleasantries, some humor. I see it as an exchange; I'm trying to provide a pleasant environment for the person supplying me with the information he/she has gleaned. I see that it can be interpreted as frivolous and unnecessary.

I know that you and I have had a bit of a conversation at another time about the lines that need to be drawn to keep the masses from sucking the energy out of the important contributors. It's not an issue without merit, but we are on opposite sides of that line: your value is indisputable; you are an expert; you have credentials. I'm a seeker after the information that others here have; I seem to have deluded myself into thinking that my willingness to be a humorous supplicant and a reasonably quick learner would make me a worthy participant. Ken informed me otherwise, and it's never fun to find out that someone wishes you hadn't come to the party.

You will be glad to know that I have run out of steam.
Susan

...coffeed?

Ken Fox wrote:That's such a good idea, I'm surprised I didn't think of it first.

This, by the way, is what I thought was very funny.
I do appreciate well placed arrogance !

Nite.
Susan

HB wrote:
This issue has been a real struggle: How to handle answering the already asked question for the 100th time?

My strategy is posting links to previous discussions, referencing the FAQs, and sometimes merging the repeated question into the previous incantation with a marker "...merged with existing thread on same topic..." The keys to retaining my sanity while doing this sort of bookkeeping are (a) recognizing that resurfacing old discussions frequently leads to new insights, and (b) using my reply referencing previous discussions as an opportunity to draw them together or elaborate on a point that may not have been raised before.

This certainly helps, but truth be told, stuff changes, or at least our perception of it does.

This reminds me of the old joke about the opening lecture at medical school, where the dean gets up, addresses the new class, and starts out by saying, "50 percent of what you will learn here is incorrect. The only problem is, we don't know which fifty percent."

To give but one example, this site is full of excellent machine reviews done by Dan in a style no one else has equalled on any other site. As good as these reviews are, they are flawed, or at least most of them are flawed, in my view, by the fact that Dan uses or at least used 18+g doses (like the rest of us) when he was testing these machines. Some of us, certainly myself, have concluded that none of these machines was really designed to use such large doses, and the fact that a machine basically barfs on 18 or 20g doesn't necessarily tell you anything about the machine when used as it was designed to be used, with Italianate doses of more like 12 to 15g in a double basket.

The Cimbali Jr. review reflects the same observation that I had with the same machine, i.e. it is not easy to use for someone who isn't experienced in basket preparation. This observation led me to modify this machine with a pressure regulator and a delay timer, which cut down on the problems. I'm pretty sure now that this mod was unnecessary had I been using doses for which the machine was designed, and I'm equally sure that had Dan tested it with 12 or 14g doses, he would have come to a different conclusion on its usability.

an aside: when Jim Schulman was here visiting recently, I pulled some simultaneous paired shots for him on my two Juniors, one made with 14g and the other with 18 or 19g. I switched back and forth as to which machine pulled which shot, so both vibe and rotary pulled both 14g and 18-19g shots. It was fascinating to watch the comparison, in real time. The machines basically "rejected" the overdosed shots, and reacted with noises and violent foaming. The appearance of the shots immediately after they were pulled were so dramatically different, that had I tried to blind taste them I would be unable to be objective since the difference in the appearance was so obvious.

I only picked this example because I am intimately familiar with it. But I'm sure there are hundreds or more likely thousands more examples of stuff being said here that appeared to be correct at the time but later was shown likely to not be correct.

Short of spending time that no one has available to update all this stuff, not just reviews but many posts and many threads, I think one is always stuck with having to interpret postings as maybe being correct in the light of what was known at a particular time, but this espresso stuff changes just like medical knowledge does, over time.

ken

SJM wrote:Thanks, Jim.
I really wasn't going to come back to this thread, because I thought that I poked Ken in the eye and he poked me back and we should just be quiet after that. However, the consideration that you and Dan have brought to the discussion, and the humor that I detected in Ken's last post, made me reconsider.

Ken's post hurt my feelings. Plain and simple. I understand that this community is a somewhat more elite one that the one at coffeegeek, and I have been very aware of myself in that context. When I came here I came here because I was fascinated by levers, and so I got a couple, and I've been trying to find out all about them. I ask lots of questions, but I expect that the people who are answering them understand that it is their option to do so; it isn't a demand. In an effort to make the interchange fun, I try to interject some personal information, some pleasantries, some humor. I see it as an exchange; I'm trying to provide a pleasant environment for the person supplying me with the information he/she has gleaned. I see that it can be interpreted as frivolous and unnecessary.

I know that you and I have had a bit of a conversation at another time about the lines that need to be drawn to keep the masses from sucking the energy out of the important contributors. It's not an issue without merit, but we are on opposite sides of that line: your value is indisputable; you are an expert; you have credentials. I'm a seeker after the information that others here have; I seem to have deluded myself into thinking that my willingness to be a humorous supplicant and a reasonably quick learner would make me a worthy participant. Ken informed me otherwise, and it's never fun to find out that someone wishes you hadn't come to the party.

You will be glad to know that I have run out of steam.
Susan

Susan,

I have to first apologize in that I had no idea that you were a long term coffee site poster or even a moderator on other sites. I glanced quickly at your posts before I made my response, and they were overwhelmingly little chatty things, so I came to the wrong conclusion for which I am sorry.

It is very easy to misinterpret written material in a medium such as this, which lacks all external cues such as body language, which those of us who have survived this long (in the real world) tend to pay more attention to rather than just what is spoken.

Maybe you are just in the process of thickening up you skin, for the real battles that lie before you in the future on this forum!

ken

Ken Fox wrote:when Jim Schulman was here visiting recently, I pulled some simultaneous paired shots for him on my two Juniors, one made with 14g and the other with 18 or 19g. I switched back and forth as to which machine pulled which shot, so both vibe and rotary pulled both 14g and 18-19g shots. It was fascinating to watch the comparison, in real time. The machines basically "rejected" the overdosed shots, and reacted with noises and violent foaming.

My dear dear dear dear Ken,

This is ridiculous. Just because you're too lazy to use the proper grind, proper basket and proper technique for an 18g dose doesn't mean the Junior can't make excellent shots at that dose.

Your friend,

Good Morning All, and I'm glad to be here.
Thanks, Ken, for extending your hand to me, and I take it gratefully.

I admit to thin skin.
I'm too old to think it will actually get tougher, but

Thanks for talking me through my snittiness
And I will try to learn MORE and chat a bit LESS.

Susan

AndyS wrote:My dear dear dear dear Ken,

This is ridiculous. Just because you're too lazy to use the proper grind, proper basket and proper technique for an 18g dose doesn't mean the Junior can't make excellent shots at that dose.

Your friend,

The one thing I did not do was switch baskets, but the baskets I did use were the ones I've been using most of the time for the last several years. The only other option would be to use LM triple baskets, since the baskets I used have as much or more head space as any double baskets I've used on my machines. And I have a huge collection of double baskets, including what I have been told are the largest available, so that would not be the issue.

The grinds used for these shots were appropriate, producing proper time/volume relationships in both shots pulled. As far as taste was concerned, We intentionally used a coffee that we thought would work ok at the larger doses. I believe that Jim liked the 18-19g doses as much (but not more) than the 14g shots (he was served them blind). What I referred to was what I saw and heard from the machines, not the shots produced.

If your point is that any dose over, say, 15g requires use of a triple basket, it may be valid. Being as triple baskets are not the norm for any machine other than an LM, it supports the notion that for most machines, using more than Italianate dosing is not what the machines were designed for. For example, there is no current OEM double PF basket sold by Cimbali for my machines, and in order to go beyond that size one has to go either generic or LM, and use a bottomless PF, also not something sold by my manufacturer.

Considering what you have done with your machine, the argument about using equipment as intended is obviously not going to ring very true.

So I guess, dear Andy, I could have done this little informal test with either two triple baskets or one double and one triple, but I'm not sure the results of that would have been valid, either.

Your car is designed for driving on paved roads at reasonable speeds. You could probably drive it at 75 miles an hour on some dirt logging roads, and barring some sort of accident you would get away with it. I could say the problem is just the tires you are using, that you could do this all the time with the right tires. But then again, it would probably work better being used with road tires on a proper road.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:Susan,

I have to first apologize in that I had no idea that you were a long term coffee site poster or even a moderator on other sites.

You really should get out & about more Ken...