*edit -ok it has been pointed out that I am basically doing long ristrettos. So what I have pushed aside would be the 2oz in 25sec mindset. (Still learning) Maybe the 2oz 25sec is more suited to straight shots.

After what seems like years of struggle I am now making the best espresso drinks of my life. Drinks that are easily on par with what I have been served by top baristas. My shot routine is anything but conventional yet here I am blowing myself and my friends away with amazing coffee. I'll outline my routine and maybe some others will like to experiment or comment.

beans- currently Peru fair trade greens
roasted- roasted dark but not oily or sheen, I would say a few more seconds and a sheen would start to develop on them, I like it just before that point. Roasted P1 on my Behmor 1600 and rested 2 days, stored in mason jars I roast 225gms a batch.

kit= rancilio rocky doserless and PID'd Silvia set at 100-101c (numbers lie here but it seems to be perfect shot temp for my pid and machine so I leave it there). I also have the latest rancilio double basket, it is vastly different to the one my v3 originally came with. Almost seems like polished aluminum and very precise holes in the basket. This basket has changed everything, I believe this basket is giving me amazing consistency in brew pressure/speed.

procedure:

-bang out my grinder, then run it while pumping a tupperware type container lid inside the hopper to ensure old grinds are flushed out. The lid creates air pressure and flushes out old grind.
-measure 17.4 gms of beans on a pocket scale and place in the hopper
-grind out the beans then pump the container lid in the hopper to flush out all grinds to finish out the dose, this has been giving me a very precise dose every time
-settle and finger swipe the dose until distributed equally in the basket
-place my single spout portafilter on a tamp stand and tamp the sucker pretty much as hard as I can, a few side taps and a stiff polishing tamp

-ready for shot.. i lock in and turn on the steam switch, wait 3-5secs then turn on the group switch to pull the shot.
-start timing the shot when the group switch is flipped

-I get nothing at all for 15 seconds, then a mega thick syrupy dark mousetail forms. This sucker is crazy thick. I stop the shot at about the 45 second mark. I end up with just over 1oz of thick espresso.
-steam/stretch milk then into the ACF cup where I poured the shot, fairly small-med sized cup, I can't recall the size.

The resulting "flat white" is just amazing. You would think I added chocolate to the drink. It tastes strong, earthy and chocolate like. The after taste lingers for a good hour!

Very pleased and pulling these drinks with 100% consistency. I think the very slow start must be somewhat like a 15 second pre-infusion, then the shot pours thick and slow. By having the steam switch on during this time the temp is fairly stable. It is just a perfect drink, no bitterness, no sourness a real bullseye for my taste.

Just thought I'd share

srossnz wrote:After what seems like years of struggle I am now making the best espresso drinks of my life. Drinks that are easily on par with what I have been served by top baristas. My shot routine is anything but conventional yet here I am blowing myself and my friends away with amazing coffee. I'll outline my routine and maybe some others will like to experiment or comment.

Glad you are enjoying your espresso. Not to burst your "anything but conventional" bubble, but this sounds like a fairly typical ristretto pour to me. 45 seconds is on the long side, so you might want to try reducing the pour time (lower the dose, or coarsen the grind, or both).

Sounds worth a try. I was just used to all the hammering of 2oz in 25sec. But yeah sounds like a long ristretto is for me.

I'm responding a bit more to the title than to the actual original post. There is a common assumption in many posts about espresso that the espresso equipment can somehow, if used in a certain way, extract some things from the beans that are not otherwise there. To me, this premise is completely untrue and calls into question the understanding of the process that a person has.

My philosophy, with which one need not agree, is that by the time the green beans hit our shores (one can define "our" according to where one is), the unroasted bean has 100% of its potential and it's completely downhill from there. In order to increase this "potential," one has to be a better farmer or to prepare the coffee in a better way (such as selecting only the best beans and selling the rest of them to General Foods or Nestle).

Roasting is a process that attempts to liberate from green coffee beans the secrets that are trapped therein, but that seldom or never adds anything. When done well, it merely subtracts less.

Espresso drink preparation is likewise a subtractive process. There is more than one way to pull a shot, and multiple combinations of equipment that can be used to do so, but seldom or never will the process add anything to the product that was not in the beans to begin with. The best barista in the world can't add much or maybe anything to what is trapped inside the bean, but a mediocre or poor one can degrade it a lot.

So to me, the idea that breaking some sort of arbitrary rule or rules of espresso preparation will result in an "incredible" drink that would not otherwise be apparent, is a non-sequitor.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:My philosophy, with which one need not agree, is that by the time the green beans hit our shores (one can define "our" according to where one is), the unroasted bean has 100% of its potential and it's completely downhill from there.

Actually, the loss is often already quite substantial by then.

Marshall wrote:Actually, the loss is often already quite substantial by then.

Other than the obvious (better packaging, faster shipping, less exposure to extremes of temperature and humidity en route) how do you propose that we deal with that?

ken

Ken Fox wrote:Other than the obvious (better packaging, faster shipping, less exposure to extremes of temperature and humidity en route) how do you propose that we deal with that?

Not much you can do, except sample roast after the coffee is landed. The people in the export/import chain have to deal those issues, as do roasters in direct trade.

Marshall wrote:Not much you can do, except sample roast after the coffee is landed. The people in the export/import chain have to deal those issues, as do roasters in direct trade.

Green beans change over time, and usually not for the better. A very large proportion of them come from 3rd world producing areas, and must pass through other areas such as ports in "developing nations," where the chain of provenance can be hard to verify.

Undoubtedly this accounts for a lot of the coffees sold with mouth watering descriptions that turn out to be quite mediocre. Once the importers and or roasters get the product, they have to dispose of it no matter what the differences between what was cupped earlier and/or at origin, and what got delivered to their warehouse. If a coffee arrives that is truly horrible, I'm sure that most good purveyors will try to avoid selling it to the public, but what if the coffee they cupped as "90" at origin arrives as an "84?" A lot of those DO get sold to end users, if my experience is any indication. Miguel Meza who used to be at Paradise, once described a coffee they sold me as being "disappointing," compared to what he had originally cupped. There are few guarantees in this business.

And this is one of the reasons why I would feel comfortable buying bulk quantities of already-landed coffee from a reputable importer, without the "safeguards" of using one of the consumer suppliers we know, as long as I have the opportunity to roast samples before agreeing to buy.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:Once the importers and or roasters get the product, they have to dispose of it no matter what the differences between what was cupped earlier and/or at origin, and what got delivered to their warehouse.

That's actually not true. The standard contracts (Green Coffee Association forms) provide a variety of remedies, including price adjustments and (for serious quality differences) rejection of the shipment, and there is an active dispute arbitration system involving certified cuppers. Substandard deliveries of specialty coffees can then be diverted to other markets at a discount.