King Seven wrote:I think with blends created by roasters with a brew recipe in mind then it is unlikely you are going to vastly improve the quality of the shot by straying a long way from those parameters (with the obvious caveat that the roaster understands how to brew espresso properly - but that is a whole other thing).

The whole dose thing becomes a lot more interesting you are perhaps roasting coffee yourself and you have no fixed style in mind for how you want to brew the espresso. It becomes something of a chicken/egg thing - do you tailor the profile of your roast to taste good at a certain dose, or do you tailor your dose to get the best out of your roast or do you try both extensively and see which gives you the best possible shot (and likely a quite horrific caffeine comedown). Roast profiles have such a huge effect on not only the flavours given up by the raw materials, but also in the way that it gives them up, that I think it is difficult to speak in absolutes about dose vs. origin/process.

There is a simpler way. Now, it does happen to be the way that I do things, which might disqualify it in the eyes of some , however it has worked well for me.

That is to forget entirely about blending and related issues, and to concentrate on the few coffees that can stand on their own, for espresso, as single origins. To my knowledge, few of these will benefit from "updosing," so one can pick a middling dose (which I've suggested many times before as being in the neighborhood of 14g). With this dosing and approach, which means you will use mostly dry processed African coffees, especially those from Yemen and Ethiopia (although the majority of dry processed Africans will prove unsuitable, so you can't just pick any of them randomly), you will want to roast to a little bit before the onset of 2nd crack. Simplicity defined.

For those other potentially usable SOs, you will likely have to tinker with the roast level (probably darker for a suitable Latin American wet processed coffee), but probably not with the dose.

Little basket preparation will be needed, you just have to get the grind right.

Little caffeine overdose will result.

This approach gives you the opportunity to see what different individual coffees actually taste like, not-camouflaged by the other coffees in a blend. And you can have a little private chuckle reading threads like this about how people jump through all sorts of hoops, to get results that are likely inferior to what you can get with so little effort

ken

Ken Fox wrote:This approach gives you the opportunity to see what different individual coffees actually taste like, not-camouflaged by the other coffees in a blend. And you can have a little private chuckle reading threads like this about how people jump through all sorts of hoops, to get results that are likely inferior to what you can get with so little effort.

Camouflaged? I prefer French press for an unadulterated coffee experience. And I don't mind "jumping through hoops" if it means more variety than single origin espressos provide.

HB wrote:Camouflaged? I prefer French press for an unadulterated coffee experience. And I don't mind "jumping through hoops" if it means more variety than single origin espressos provide.

There are always new suitable SOs coming onto the market at any given time. My goal is to have 2 to 3 different ones in my grinders (I have 4 that I use regularly, 3 Maxs and a Compak K10) at any point in time, although I'll settle for 2 Most days I will have shots from at least 2 different coffees, which is enough for me in the realm of "variety."

Suitable single origins I've used regularly during the last couple of years include a couple of different Harrar Horses, Ethiopian Adado from 2008, Ethiopian Biloya also from 2008, Yemeni Ismail (also 2008), and Bolivian Cenaproc, Ethiopian Worka, and Ethiopian Bonko more recently. I'm sure there are quite a few others.

A commonly held and totally fallacious myth is that the "marquee roasters" can maintain a consistent blend over time. I think the job of trying to accomplish that is hugely more difficult than say, what a blender of single malt scotches has to contend with. The crops are highly variable each year and try as they might, coffee roasters just can't do the same blend consistently over time as the constituent coffees will change. One has to go no further than all threads on this board about the various iterations of Intelly Black Cat to see THAT.

So, you get your variability no matter what you choose. You can pick and choose from all the categories and you can jump through as many hoops as you wish. I have found a very simple and nearly foolproof approach that provides me with as much variety and choice as I can absorb with the limited amount of time I have to spend every day on coffee.

To each his own, and there are no bad choices (or at least none that I make )

ken

Ken Fox wrote:I have found a very simple and nearly foolproof approach that provides me with as much variety and choice as I can absorb with the limited amount of time I have to spend every day on coffee.

Thanks for the clarification, I'm glad to hear you've found a system that works for you.

King Seven wrote: The whole dose thing becomes a lot more interesting you are perhaps roasting coffee yourself and you have no fixed style in mind for how you want to brew the espresso. It becomes something of a chicken/egg thing - do you tailor the profile of your roast to taste good at a certain dose, or do you tailor your dose to get the best out of your roast or do you try both extensively and see which gives you the best possible shot (and likely a quite horrific caffeine comedown). Roast profiles have such a huge effect on not only the flavours given up by the raw materials, but also in the way that it gives them up, that I think it is difficult to speak in absolutes about dose vs. origin/process.

I go from green bean to espresso shot at home, choosing beans, equipment, and shot parameters. I realized a while ago that there is a process of mutual accommodation going on here, where ones choices in each detail become based on ones prior choices in the other details. I can only offer very tentative support here, since it's a complicated question with tons of variables, and I am just one case.

But I'm a before and after case. The before method was accommodating whatever I was working on at the moment -- e.g. the best roast profile, the best bean, the best pressure, etc, -- to the arbitrary equipment, roasting, and coffee choices I had made in the past. This is why I call "one variable at a time" the moron mantra. The variables are not independent, and by changing one at a time, you are just accommodating the current choice to the bad choices you made earlier.

You need to change all the variables and keep changing them until you get what you want. So the after scenario is this. I decide my god shot is espresso that has all the nuances of brewed coffee but the mouthfeel and power of espresso. This may or may not be possible, but it is a goal. Now I can base all my choices on getting as close to this as I can. Others may have a completely different idea of what the god shot is -- e.g. the ultimate monster chocolate caramel bomb of a shot, or the delicate flowers and nuts of a perfect North Italian blend done exactly right -- and they would then make very different choices in beans, roasting profiles, doses, and maybe even grinders and machines.

But when you are making shots of someone else's blend, they get to set the goalpost. I dosed the Red Line and Black Cat to get as close to how the blends are described, and how the best shots I had at the cafes tasted. Quite frankly, I didn't take the dosing, temperature and pressure recommendations too seriously, since I don't own a Robur, a GB/5 or a Mistral. It seems a no brainer to make the shot so it tastes like the roaster wants it to taste, rather than so its dosed and tempered like the roaster wants those done.

Hi,

I just stumbled onto this thread.

I noticed in Jim's initial post, the part
about the coffee hitting the shower screen.

Is this something that is done as a technique
for certain coffees?

Is this part of updosing in
general, or is using a bigger basket more approprate?

Thanks

appa wrote:I noticed in Jim's initial post, the part
about the coffee hitting the shower screen.

Please quote the relevent text, like I just did.

another_jim wrote:It could be these coffees need to be juiced up against the shower screen to yield their oils.

If this is what you meant, it was a joke; there is no legitimate technique of mashing coffee against the shower screen. On some groups, like the Elektras, and Bezzeras, the shot deteriorates if the coffee touches the screen, and a deeper basket is need when making higher dosed shots. Other groups, like the E61 or LM groups, don't mind it.

Sorry,

I meant more if some coffees did better with less headspace,
but I guess thats more of a machine contraint.

Currently, with my BZ02, when Ive tested 16 grams with a triple basket
, it just seems like too much head space, and the machine "blasts through" it
but w the double basket, its very close. I guess I just have to grind finer
if I do 16 with a triple, or get a different double basket.

Thanks

appa wrote:Sorry,

I meant more if some coffees did better with less headspace,
but I guess thats more of a machine contraint.

Currently, with my BZ02, when Ive tested 16 grams with a triple basket
, it just seems like too much head space, and the machine "blasts through" it
but w the double basket, its very close. I guess I just have to grind finer
if I do 16 with a triple, or get a different double basket.

Thanks

Maybe you have your overpressure valve (OPV) adjusted too high? Vibe pumps are more forgiving than rotary pumps, but even so you would probably get better results if your OPV is set to around 9 bar vs. being at up to 15 with an ULKA vibe pump.

Have you ever checked and or adjusted your brew pressure? I am assuming that the machine has an OPV, but then you never know.

ken

Thanks Ken,

Ill check that.

I know by now that there can be too little
headspace, but wasnt sure at what point there
may be too much headspace.

Ok, Im sure 1 gram in a triple is too much,
but wasnt sure about 16 in a triple..

Maybe this should go into another thread...