c0bra wrote:A friend told me that he found their coffee to be roasted no longer than a week ago, which is why I tried it. But even then, I should be able to get 2.0z in 25 seconds, right? It will just taste bad with the wrong beans.
You originally said, "The end product was watery, and bitter, and hot, and tasted burnt"; my first thought was dry, old beans, gusher extraction, and an improper temperature surf.
The freshness of the coffees at Whole Foods in our area is all over the map. I spoke with a roaster who sells their coffees there and he complained that he had to negotiate down to
60 days shelf life from their standard 90 days. Maybe things have changed since, but at the time, the roast date was encoded. Personally I recommend going with a sure thing.
You'll find more question and answers in the threads I noted (e.g., "Have you adjusted the brew pressure?"). If you post a video like Jon's, I'll be happy to offer more suggestions. Life with Silvia is a two-edged sword; the machine delivers a lot of performance in a well constructed box and there's literally GIGABYTES of information on it. The reason there's so much information isn't just it's popularity, but also the challenges "Miss Silvia" presents to her suitors.
The problem is on the handle side of the portafilter includes my mini-rant on the subject, excerpted below:
HB wrote:miKe mcKoffee wrote:Surfing forces paying attention to shot flow and crema color and of course taste! Thermofilter measurements have mostly only confirmed what I'd already observed about Silvia, now quantified. If barista techniques on an unmodded Silvia can allow you to serve shots to the likes of Tom Owens without fear of disgrace, then the handle end of the PF skills easily transferable and adapted to other machines, even modded Silvia.
I will also disagree with the assertion that time spent on Silvia is well invested. Let's face facts: It's a fussy machine with a mountain of research behind it. But someone starting from scratch on the next level machine (essentially every machine reviewed to-date on this site except Silvia) would have better results in a shorter amount of time with less frustration. I don't know of anyone who has returned their upgrade from Silvia under a "no remorse" policy. Chris' recent comments about the GS3 describe the
end game:
malachi wrote:One of the really nice things about the GS3 is that it allows the barista to focus on what truly matters... the coffee. In a sense, the machine becomes transparent. Over the last week I've started to notice that I spend less and less time paying attention to the machine. Everyone once and a while I get fixated on tweaking something or testing something... but this usually lasts for an hour or so at the most. What has been really interesting to me of late is the coffees that I've been tasting.
The GS3 really allows you to taste and evaluate and explore these coffees. My not creating additional tasks and challenges - by not demanding your attention - and by not imparting its own flavours and affects on the results in the cup it frees you up to really focus on the flavours and taste in the cup.
This, to me, is very cool.
I'm not suggesting the solution is to drop five grand on a machine. Rather that there's a huge gain going from the next level above Silvia (usually in the $800-$1200 range). No doubt there is an added gain to upgrading to a GS3 or Synesso class machine, however the return relative to cost are dramatically reduced. It's unpopular to criticize Silvia. The machine is capable of very good espresso, in the right hands. It isn't however high on my recommended list, especially since the price difference between Silvia (~$500) and the next level up representing entry-level HXs has narrowed to ~$200.
Later Chris Tacy added:
malachi wrote:The whole "learn on a hard to use platform" theory is something that I've heard applied in other areas and in general I tend to disagree with it in all areas. I've seen it proposed in education, in driving, in cooking, in photography and in music. I don't feel it works anywhere.
In general...
First - doing so is incredibly frustrating and is likely to result in people giving up. A learning curve that allows for early positive feedback results in increased confidence which results in more effective learning and a willingness to fight through plateaus in development.
Second - learning skills that will be unneeded as one progresses is, IMHO, a waste of time and energy.
Third - in general, hard to use platforms tend to teach people to develop work-arounds and bodge solutions that become engrained and turn into bad habits once not using that platform. The unlearning process is usually harder than the learning process.
With espresso in particular I find that there is an additional flaw in the argument. The most common challenge for beginning baristas is not knowing what good espresso should taste like. This is a complaint we hear over and over again. The "if it tastes good to you it's good" argument fails for these people as the espresso is rarely good tasting for them early on with hard to use platforms. As a result, people tend to become calibrated to "acceptable" espresso rather than good espresso and often start drinking espresso in other forms that are more palatable (with sugar, in milk, etc.). People also tend to gravitate towards a particular type of espresso - a forgiving, darker roasted and low acidity coffee. Over time, people start to associate the flavour profile of this "acceptable" espresso with high quality. In other words, they lower the bar. This, to me, is the biggest problem with the argument.
In general, I think it is unrealistic for those who have fought through the process of becoming a barista on a "hard to use platform" and become successful despite the challenge to claim that this is the best solution for everyone. Just because you ended up being a barista - despite the challenges and despite the additional arbitrary hurdles you crossed - doesn't mean this is the best solution. There are a ton of good baristas out there who have never used such a machine.
Making it harder on yourself than it needs to be seems, in conclusion, to be unneccessary, counter-productive and at some level masochistic.
by c0bra on Wed Dec 20, 2006 1:29 pm 
.
I'm in Kansas City.
