Best technique for finding best flavor - Page 2

by **another_jim** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 4:14 pm

The first noble truth of hobby boards is YMMV

by **cafeIKE** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 5:01 pm

As espresso is at least as much art as science, follow Rule 1.

Rule 1 :
Make a change. 
Better? Yes, continue. 
No, proceed in the opposite direction.

by **malachi** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 5:14 pm

portamento wrote:This is fascinating and confusing. I look to people like Jim, Chris, and Andy for reference-quality espresso science, and I would love to see some debate on these points.

And if machine & grinder differences can inverse certain "laws" of extraction, then I'm going to have to parse advice more carefully.

This is the problem with assuming something that is at least 50% art is 100% scientific.
Taste and preference make objectivity unrealistic.

As noted above... I suspect that the differences have far less to do with equipment than they do with preference and subjective valuation.

by **portamento** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 6:59 pm

Agreed about varying preferences. But aren't certain metrics somewhat objective, i.e. The effect of flow rate on acidity?

by **another_jim** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:10 pm

You'd think so. I, for one, am astonished by these different opinions. I always thought we were all agreed on the basic metrics, i.e. the effect of flow, dose, and temperature on the acid/bitter/sweet balance.

by **zin1953** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:40 pm

Jim, I know far less about all this that you do . . . or Chris Tacy, or Ian, or Dan, or . . . .

But what I do know is wine. And Chris' comment ("This is the problem with assuming something that is at least 50% art is 100% scientific. Taste and preference make objectivity unrealistic.") is the truest statement I've read in this thread.

Making wine is part science and part art -- just as is making espresso -- and the same wine will taste differently if opened before or after lunch . . . and will vary with one has for lunch. The variables in making espresso are more immediate, and you don't have to choose which type of oak you age the espresso in (or for how long), but the variables are almost as infinite.

portamento wrote:But aren't certain metrics somewhat objective?

I don't like being definitive, so I'll say "probably not."

Look at it this way: it it were 100% scientific and objective, we'd all LOVE *$ . . . .

Cheers,
Jason

by **another_jim** on Mon Feb 16, 2009 11:48 pm

I didn't mean to disparage disagreement on the fancy stuff, but I thought we had the basics down. In wine, that is true. Table plonk used to be thin and sour back in the 60s and 70s; now, courtesy of the nice people at UC Davis, it's much more lush. Still table plonk, still generic, but a lot more pleasant and drinkable for the buck.

by **jbeecham** on Wed Feb 18, 2009 2:55 pm

another_jim wrote:I can take a fresh roasted batch of Esmeralda, use a simple home grinder (e.g a Solis Maestro or Capresso Infinity) and a French press, and make a cup of coffee better than 95% of the shots I will pull this year.

I guess it depends on your definition of 'better'.

I think comparing brewed coffee with espresso is comparing apples to oranges.

jerry

by **another_jim** on Wed Feb 18, 2009 3:52 pm

So what? A Granny Smith picked off the tree is still better than frozen reconstituted orange juice.

by **jbeecham** on Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:17 pm

I think espresso is a completely different drink than brewed coffee. Espresso has the complexity of crema which brewed coffee does not. The bubbles in crema are constantly releasing flavors and aromas long after you drink it.

I guess a more accurate comparison is wine to champagne. They are both made from grapes, but taste nothing alike. As to which one is better, well, I guess it depends on what you expect.

by **zin1953** on Wed Feb 18, 2009 4:50 pm

Champagne is an interesting comparison: it is the only wine that the winemaker never tastes.

It's not a perfect analogy, but bear with me . . . .

When a winemaker is making any other kind of wine, he or she can draw samples from the various barrels, tanks, etc. and know how the whole lot tastes. But because wines produced according to the true methode champenoise are fermented in the very bottle the consumer purchases at retail, and because each fermentation "vessel" produces a unique wine -- bear with me for a moment -- the winemaker can never taste the wine you consume. After all, to open the bottle is to "destroy" that volume of sparkling wine; it will never reach the market.

A winemaker can taste the final blend of a table wine and know when it's the right time to bottle. A sparkling wine producer can taste one bottle, maybe two (but out of thousands, tens of thousands, or more!) and guess that it's time to disgorged ALL the bottles of wine.

When it comes to espresso, the actual production of the liquid itself is out of the hands of the commercial roaster. We, the "home baristi," are the ones who actually produce the shot(s). So unless one roasts their own coffee . . . the commercial roaster cannot control the final (and crucial) moments of production (akin to bottling/disgorging the wine in this imperfect analogy).

Just random thoughts on a Wednesday afternoon, after a post-luncheon espresso.

Cheers,
Jason

by **King Seven** on Thu Feb 19, 2009 7:14 pm

I sit somewhere in between all of Andy, Jim and Chris. (ah... the cop-out!)

I will try and explain my thinking, but I am aware the my easily destroyed logic could very well be influencing what I am tasting and my satisfaction with my adjustments.

I tend to see unbalanced (high) acidity as a sign of underextraction. For this reason I tend to drop the dose for coffees with high acidity to give my water (and its heat energy) less work to do in order to get a balanced extraction. Equally lighter roasts require more work to get more solubles out of them, so I tend to increase the temperature or drop the dose.

For me longer shots (lungo etc) tend to become more bitter because of the increased amount of water doing an increased amount of work, and ristretto shots (while more heat is spent in the cake) seem to struggle to extract as much as I would like from the coffee leaving them often a little acidic for me. So (as is probably quite obvious now) I tend to brew darker roasts, less dense/low acidity coffees at higher doses and at cooler temperatures.

I am sure my pop-science explanations could easily be pulled to pieces but I am sure some of it is pretty solid (increased brew temperature, with other variables kept constant, will increase total dissolved solids in the cup).

I hope that makes sense.

by **GC7** on Thu Feb 19, 2009 8:33 pm

I don't really have much to add except to say thanks for resurrecting and extending this most interesting discussion. I have learned a great deal.

Zin - I am reading this after drinking a 2000 Bordeaux that tasted better with yesterday's steak then tonight's pasta. :wink:

by **another_jim** on Thu Feb 19, 2009 9:14 pm

I think the disagreement on lungos and ristrettos may be related to shot time. I tend to do ristrettos at 35 to 40 seconds, lungos at around 20. This may be overcompensating, so thay it reverses the sour/bitter bias other people get when they run them at more similar times.

by **malachi** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 12:35 am

whereas I, as a general rule, pull ristretto shots at 25 to 29 seconds - and full volume shots at 25 to 29 seconds (and never pull "lungo" shots at all)

by **RapidCoffee** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:11 am

King Seven wrote:I tend to see unbalanced (high) acidity as a sign of underextraction. For this reason I tend to drop the dose for coffees with high acidity to give my water (and its heat energy) less work to do in order to get a balanced extraction. Equally lighter roasts require more work to get more solubles out of them, so I tend to increase the temperature or drop the dose.

For me longer shots (lungo etc) tend to become more bitter because of the increased amount of water doing an increased amount of work, and ristretto shots (while more heat is spent in the cake) seem to struggle to extract as much as I would like from the coffee leaving them often a little acidic for me. So (as is probably quite obvious now) I tend to brew darker roasts, less dense/low acidity coffees at higher doses and at cooler temperatures.

This makes sense to me, and is largely in accord with my (admittedly more limited) experience. My only question has to do with grind settings for lungo/ristretto pours. For the same dose, lungos require a coarser grind to achieve higher flow rates, and slower flow rate ristretto pours require a finer grind. It's not clear to me whether lungos (which may also be pulled for a shorter time) are subject to over or underextraction. Ditto (but in reverse) for ristrettos.

Fortunately, my goal is typically normale doubles (with ristrettos and lungos as, um, happy accidents :roll:

), and this simplifies matters:

* lighter roasts, more acidic beans => lower doses, higher brew temperatures
* darker roasts, less acidic beans => higher doses, lower brew temperatures

by **AndyS** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 1:49 am

RapidCoffee wrote:It's not clear to me whether lungos (which may also be pulled for a shorter time) are subject to over or underextraction. Ditto (but in reverse) for ristrettos.

Well, the point is to pour lungos, normales and ristrettos that are all neither overextracted nor underextracted. Jim is using a version of "Al's Rule," named after Al Critzer from alt.coffee. "....al" lengthened the extraction time for ristrettos and shortened the extraction time for lungos in an effort to normalize brew solids extraction.

....al wrote: As I was trained, the perfect espresso is 30ml in 30sec. That's assuming that all other factors are in line. For longer extractions, the contact time of water to coffee would have to be lessened so that undesirable elements associated with overextraction wouldn't be present in the cup. With shorter extractions, the water to coffee contact time would have to be increased to ensure that underextraction doesn't occur. This is accomplished by grind adjustment.

A good rule of thumb I have developed is this: For every 5ml of espresso above 30ml, subtract 1 sec of extract time. By this formula 1 1/2oz (45ml) would require 27sec extraction, 2oz (60ml) would require 24sec, etc.

The same holds true in reverse. This will find the sweet spot in espresso regardless of volume in the cup (within reasonable limits of .75oz to 2.5oz), as you are optimizing extraction to the desirable elements, maintaining the balance between under- and overextraction. For some reason, grinder adjustment and it's crucial impact on espresso is the most difficult concept to explain and grasp in all the trainings
I do.

As to ristretto. This a different drink altogether. If your grinder is set for regular espresso, and you choose to stop the pour at 25ml, this is simply an underextracted espresso. You haven't hit the sweet spot
yet. The "restricted" part referred to as ristretto is not so much related to volume as it is to water flow through the coffee puck. The ristretto that has been used for cuppings is a 25ml cup in 30-35sec.

This extraction intensifies the organoleptic perceptions of the eyes, nose, taste buds and upper pallate to better isolate the positive attributes of a given blend. Where the positives are accentuated, the negatives are exacerbated as well. The extractions are characterized by a very thin mouse's tail with rich, dark brown crema. Most people don't drink this as their everyday drink, but it is helpful in developing blends. If you customarily drink 25ml (or 50ml doubles), your grinder should be adjusted accordingly.

Unfortunately, Al was speaking in the Dark Ages of Espresso Knowledge, when hapless espresso people specified their pour volume in ml instead of grams. Nowadays, of course, we understand how confusing that is, and baristas who wish to communicate accurately always specify pour volumes in grams.

Also, he didn't specify the dose he was talking about, which presumably was around 7 grams (single espressos).

by **RapidCoffee** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 2:26 am

AndyS wrote:Well, the point is to pour lungos, normales and ristrettos that are all neither overextracted nor underextracted. Jim is using a version of "Al's Rule," named after Al Critzer...

Yeah, I use Al's Rule too, but as I said, it's largely by accident (e.g., while dialing in a new bean). But the point is, from a taste perspective, I find that lungos exhibit the bitterness often associated with overextraction, despite the shorter pour duration.

by **AndyS** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 8:13 am

RapidCoffee wrote:Yeah, I use Al's Rule too, but as I said, it's largely by accident (e.g., while dialing in a new bean). But the point is, from a taste perspective, I find that lungos exhibit the bitterness often associated with overextraction, despite the shorter pour duration.

OK, well I didn't say Al's Rule works, I just said it was a Rule!

by **RapidCoffee** on Fri Feb 20, 2009 10:28 am

AndyS wrote:OK, well I didn't say Al's Rule, works, I just said it was a Rule!

Oh, it's much more than just a Rule. It's a Justification that every barista should have in their arsenal of excuses:

Customer: Say, I watched you pulling my espresso. That pour filled a 10oz cup in only 8 seconds!

PBTC: Yeah dude, that's Al's Rule.


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