Fast blond point - Page 3

Beginner and pro baristas share tips and tricks for making espresso.
Exordium01
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#21: Post by Exordium01 »

Someone experienced may be able to judge an extraction by sight, but that is a bad place for a newbie to start.

If you're following a brew ratio, you aren't seeing evidence of channeling, and the extraction time is about right, you probably aren't actually seeing early blonding. You're probably mistaking the lightening that happens as you go from the first 1/3 to the middle 1/3 of the shot for blonding. Blonding is not a good characteristic to go by until you are experienced and have made espresso from and tasted many different coffees. This leads back to my advice, and advice from many other sources. Start by going by brew ratio, time, and taste.

brianl
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#22: Post by brianl »

Usually channeling causes early bonding so how do you know whether there is channeling if you're just blindly following a brew ratio?

I've had a shot with channeling and no channeling with the same time and brew ratio. Only difference was taste.

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neutro (original poster)
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#23: Post by neutro (original poster) »

I think I know exactly what I need.

A pro barista standing by my side, looking my every move while I pull shots and taking a sip of each, and slapping me in the back saying "That one's great soon, that will be as good as it gets with those beans" once in a while. :|

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csepulv
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#24: Post by csepulv replying to neutro »

Where can I get one of those? :)

More than anything, different things work for different people. And in our enthusiasm to help, we sometimes push, perhaps a little too much, what works for us. To the OP, perhaps experiment with some of the different suggestions here and see what works for you.

The unfortunate challenge is you need to get a variety of things pretty right and getting any single element wrong can ruin the shot. Good luck. :mrgreen:
Chris

day
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#25: Post by day »

neutro wrote:I think I know exactly what I need.

A pro barista standing by my side, looking my every move while I pull shots and taking a sip of each, and slapping me in the back saying "That one's great soon, that will be as good as it gets with those beans" once in a while. :|
That exactly what I was trying to tell someone in a separate thread :)

But seriously, i am learning now that the key is to really learn the different flavors of beans. Like drinking sprite when you expect water if you don't know whats coming you may miss whats good about it.

My current method to improve is perfecting an easier brew method and then focusing on smelling the beans in the bag, the grounds, tasting both, and then look for a common scent and flavor. Then identify that scent and smell in the easier brew prep. After that you will have a good idea of what to look for in the espresso and how to adjust to bring out that specific flavor...at least thats what i am working on, i am pretty much in the same boat as you and just seeing how that works...

Sometimes its the craziest things...i was dealing with channeling...couldn't solve it. Turned out one of the little rubber legs on my stand had fallen off and i had put a softer substance under there to replace it. As i pulled the shot it very slightly put the espresso machine off level while pulling...ruining all those shots...hehe everything has to be just right:)
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boar_d_laze
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#26: Post by boar_d_laze »

brianl wrote:Usually channeling causes early bonding so how do you know whether there is channeling if you're just blindly following a brew ratio?
That's where a bottomless pf comes in. Although, once you've got enough experience that you have a pretty good idea of what grind and dose should be early blonding suggests either a distribution problem or very stale beans.

There are other visual clues which suggest poor distribution as well. A vibrating stream from the pf spout, for instance.

Of course, taste is the final arbiter and the proof of the barista is in the cup... but you want to develop a sense of what's going on with the shot while you're pulling it so you know when to stop the pull.

The first and most important part of pulling good shots is avoiding under or over extraction. It seems complicated because there are so many moving parts. But if you break the process down to discrete steps, none of them are very difficult.

With the "blonde point" we're talking about cutting the shot. Some people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how to perceive and use the blonde "point." While the stream is dark, the coffee is under extracted. When it goes translucent, it's under extracted.

The first part of knowing when to cut is recognizing that it's going to happen and that you want it to happen within a particular time range, say 22sec to 32sec. If the stream stays dark for a long time, grind/dose need adjustment. If it goes translucent quickly, grind/dose need adjustment. From a prep standpoint (i.e., dialing in and/or tweaking for the next shot), it's as simple as that.

Cutting successive shots is also easy. Once grind and dose are adjusted to the point where you get the right brew ratio (without channeling) in the right time range, you forget about brew ratio and a predetermined clock and return to the visual cues for the right moment to cut your shot.

Well, okay. "Moment" is an overstatement. A considerable overstatement. Blonding and/or stream arc aren't hyper-exact to four decimal points. They signify a reasonably wide border between over and under extraction, and occurs at the border of light striping/no striping. There's no one, perfect moment to cut a shot. Rather there's a range of a few seconds. It's like horse shoes and hand grenades -- close enough is close enough.

I understand that there's a cacophony of advice on the boards, but the visual cues of extraction levels are -- by far -- the best way of knowing when to cut your shots on the fly. Cutting by time, weight or "volumetrically" (the best of the three) require near perfect dosing and distribution.

As it happens, my manual cuts frequently overlap my machine's volumetric cuts exactly; and when I cut before the machine would, it's not by much. However, there's enough slop in my dosing and puck building that -- based on the evidence of a LOT of cups -- there's a detectable difference over a large number of cups.

My visually prompted cuts are better than the machine's; which demonstrates the consistency and reliability of cutting by eye.

I'm sure that with frequent reference to a refractometer, dosing every shot to the nearest 0.1g, and going to the trouble of perfect puck building I could get more consistent and tweaked yields volumetrically than cutting by eye. So not worth it.

Rich
Drop a nickel in the pot Joe. Takin' it slow. Waiter, waiter, percolator

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#27: Post by EspressoForge »

Exordium01 wrote:Someone experienced may be able to judge an extraction by sight, but that is a bad place for a newbie to start.

If you're following a brew ratio, you aren't seeing evidence of channeling, and the extraction time is about right, you probably aren't actually seeing early blonding. You're probably mistaking the lightening that happens as you go from the first 1/3 to the middle 1/3 of the shot for blonding. Blonding is not a good characteristic to go by until you are experienced and have made espresso from and tasted many different coffees. This leads back to my advice, and advice from many other sources. Start by going by brew ratio, time, and taste.
I think others have said it, but basically this might be good advice for you or some people. But lots of new people to espresso I have seen it just plain won't work for them. The biggest issue is that they have no idea what tastes good as usually their palate is assaulted by the sheer amount of flavor in espresso. The other problem is that they don't know which direction to go to correct issues which are easy to tell when an experienced person tastes the shot. And brew ratio and time are simply not enough to go on unless you've already dialed in perfect shots. If you've got a head barista in the household it might work for you...

So just from my experience with other new people to espresso, they catch onto blond point (as a gradual concept) much easier than they do brew-ratio or what tastes "correct". But hey, could be different for everyone, so use whatever works and makes sense to you IMO.

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Exordium01
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#28: Post by Exordium01 »

https://www.chefsteps.com/classes/espresso/landing#/ is a useful starting point.

The problem with going by blonding is that you can do everything "right" and still get a bad shot, which is why many resources such as Scott Rao don't focus on it. If you set everything else up right, the proper blonding point should follow, and you can maybe use it to make fine adjustments, but it's not particularly useful if you aren't already very close. Conversely, you can get great shots while ignoring it.

neutro (original poster)
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#29: Post by neutro (original poster) »

But I'm not getting great shot either weighing, measuring or looking for blonde point!

Well of course I'm exaggerating here --- I think I'm getting better at pulling reasonable shots, but consistency is not really there yet, and there is a more nagging underlying problem. Last weekend I tried Social's People's Liberation 5-6 days post-roast, and after using up half my 340g bag adjusting the grind, I was able to pull something interesting.

Now when I go to local caffés, it seems to be that I'm getting much more subdued shots than what I get myself at home. But I'm not even sure how to proceed to go there (dosing less or grinding coarser or pulling longer shots just seems to add bitterness because of over-extraction). And of course, I don't necessarily want to go *there* as I like the intensity of the ristretto-ish shot I'm making.

The problem is more that I put my "waste" grind in my moka pot along with another bean (Sumatra Mountain Gayo I think), and got myself a mug, which I took with a bit of sugar and milk as I like my mugs. I should have tasted it first without the sugar and milk but didn't; anyway, I found the resulting taste totally intense and awesome, with much more pronounced... uuuhh... coffee flavor? Of course the sugar and milk killed any acidity and/or bitterness and probably many lingering aromas but the moka pot definitely awoke flavors that were absent in all my espresso shots.

I was just wondering if that is normal, or if there is a way to get the same basic flavor and concentrate it without getting swamped by bitterness or acidity in espresso form.

I realize I have trouble expressing what I taste and what I want out of my drinks and I'm sorry for that; but I suspect I can get much more from the coffee and the equipment I use. At this point I think I'll really need someone else to assess the situation --- perhaps not a pro barista --- but I must find someone that can taste my shots and guide me afterwards.

Exordium01
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#30: Post by Exordium01 »

It sounds like you're looking for a ristretto. As Rich said, you should be able to get a balanced shot at any brew ratio as long as you get your grind dialed in properly. You may want to experiment with brew ratios between 1:1 and 1:1.5 (16-25g of liquid) and start at the low end of brew temperatures if you're sticking with darker roasts.

You should also go to coffeeshops that serve what you're looking for and talk to the baristas. At a good coffeeshop, they care about what they do and will be excited to share.

Use time as a loose guideline. If the shot still seems thin, underextracted, or sour, don't be afraid of going up to a 40-45 second extraction. The slower the water passes through the coffee, the more solids dissolve into it per volume. Some people prefer the long, slow ristrettos. The difference between home espresso and coffeeshop espresso is that you're only trying to please yourself. Something a critic might consider to be a flawed shot might be your "god shot."

Disclaimer: I've been doing wine and beer tasting for much longer than I've been doing coffee, so while I'd say I have a sensitive palate, it is still somewhat untrained as far as coffee is concerned. I have some experience with roasting and cupping, but I still struggle to pick subtler flavors out of espresso.