Bluecold wrote:There are easily 100 beans in a double. I'm not good at statistics, but i think it'd be accurate to within a quarter of a gram.

1/3 of a gram is the absolute minimum accuracy if you want automated control.

malachi wrote:If your idea is that all coffees should be pulled at the same dose and flow rate, regardless, and coffees that don't taste good at that dose and flow rate are simply bad coffees -- then sure, I can absolutely see not having to touch the grinder (in a home setting).

I don't know that this is quite the case. Actually, it seems that malachi and another_jim agree here:

another_jim wrote: Except for dose and blend changes*, I haven't had to readjust the grinder for over two years.

*emphasis added
It seems more the point that, once you have dialed in a setting for a given coffee to create the desired flavor profile, this setting should be fairly constant. For each coffee, that setting may be different, but if you have Setting 1 for Coffee/Dose A, and Setting 2 for Coffee/Dose B, then the idea is that whenever you switch to A, you switch to Setting 1. Coffee B, Setting 2.

My experience is limited to my SJ and gram-scale, but I've found that it holds true for my usage thus far. My hoarded stash of Sidamo Gerbichu Lela is 2.5-3 ticks coarser than "Start" at 14.5g. The Brazil I've been roast-testing with keeps coming back to 1.5-2 coarser than "Start" at 15g, with all beans being consumed within 8 days of roasting.

-s.

True to a degree but assumes that a Coffee X roasted by Roaster Y on Date Z is identical to Coffee X roasted by Roaster Y on Date AA.

If Roaster Y is let's say less than 100% consistent and the delta between Date Z and Date AA is large enough - what you'll have is a good STARTING point.

Interesting observation. I find this is true for me as well- with a consistent dose volume I don't adjust the grind much. I've got a range penciled into my Macap and only go finer or coarser for stale beans vs. fresh beans or switching from an e61 HX double to a smaller basket like a single or a double lever pull. For stale beans, an HX single and the lever pull I go a bit finer.

It's a slippery slope. I understand your resistance to dogma per se, but one can become just as paralyzed by choice as one can be restricted by dogma.

My opinion is that it's more than a starting point - it's a good place to start your own experiments and determine for yourself. I'm on that path now, and finding that this does hold true. Dovernyai v provernai, right?

-s.

lsjms wrote:Unless you restrict your choice of coffee, I am not convinced bean counting based on average weight would be more accurate than dosing by grind time or volume.
A variation on an automated bagging machine on top of the grinder could deliver single doses of beans, but I see no way for this machinery to be smaller than a grinder.
A roaster/packer could produce single serve bags of beans.

It's roughly 0.067 grams per bean, a granularity fine enough to allow very accurate dosing.

On the expense in general -- 1000 gram max/ 0.1 gram resolution scales cost $10 on Ebay. Given Italian espresso economics, I suppose that would just allow for a $250 dose by weight unit on grinders. (Sometimes I wonder if it would be a good thing if the Chinese started doing high end and commercial espresso equipment.)

malachi wrote:If your idea is that all coffees should be pulled at the same dose and flow rate, regardless, and coffees that don't taste good at that dose and flow rate are simply bad coffees -- then sure, I can absolutely see not having to touch the grinder (in a home setting).

This is a total misrepresentation of what I'm saying. If you cannot dose consistently, you cannot consistently change the grind and dose to suit the coffee, and therefore you cannot make the sort of changes you are celebrating.

Here's a recent example of what I mean:

When I was judging the home roast espresso competition, I initially dialed in all 20 blends by varying dose, grind, and shot volume until I got what I thought was their best possible shot. I have no doubt that USBC/WBC baristas would have done a better job than me at this dialling in.

There were seven finalists, picked because they outscored a reference blend I had created from the competition coffees. For these, I wrote down the weight, the grind setting, and the expected shot volume/time to be used in the final round. Doses ranged from 13.5 grams to 17 grams, grind settings varied about 1/8th of a full turn, and shots ran from ristretto to normale volume and timing.

The finals were held four days after judging the first ten submitted blends, and two days after judging the other ten. All seven finalists, pulled at the previously determined dose and grind, produced the desired shot flows and volumes. Abe did think I had one blend dialed in wrong, and we redialed it to a different dose/grind/shot volume; but the original shot had run as expected (turned out that neither variation was a high scorer).

I don't see how this exercise could have been done nearly as successfully using a grinder timer or any form of volume dosing. If the WBC baristas using current grinder tech, and who doubtlessly would have done a better job initially of dialing in, had come back to the seven coffees and had pulled the shots cold, without dialing in all over again, how well would they have done? How would they even have recorded the shot parameters?

mrgnomer wrote:Interesting observation. I find this is true for me as well- with a consistent dose volume I don't adjust the grind much. I've got a range penciled into my Macap and only go finer or coarser for stale beans vs. fresh beans or switching from an e61 HX double to a smaller basket like a single or a double lever pull. For stale beans, an HX single and the lever pull I go a bit finer.

You need to change grind as the beans stale, because they become less dense, and you use less weight for the same volume. No change is needed to compensate for staling when dosing by weight. Actually, I sometimes use both higher weights and coarser settings for staler coffees to prop up the declining taste.

{Rant mode on} The normal technique to compensate for staling is to grind finer with the same volume. Thus you use less coffee, and extract more weak tasting, heavy compounds in a coffee whose taste amplitude is already declining. In effect, this is like turning down the volume when the music is too quiet. So it's no wonder that people find too fresh or too stale coffee "undrinkable;" they keep turning up the volume when it's too loud, and turning it down when it's too soft. {Rant mode off}

another_jim wrote:{Rant mode on} The normal technique to compensate for staling is to grind finer with the same volume. Thus you use less coffee, and extract more weak tasting, heavy compounds in a coffee whose taste amplitude is already declining. In effect, this is like turning down the volume when the music is too quiet. So it's no wonder that people find too fresh or too stale coffee "undrinkable;" they keep turning up the volume when it's too loud, and turning it down when it's too soft. {Rant mode off}

I won't go as far as ranting about it but I dose by volume. It might be why a finer grind works. A stale roast doesn't bloom as much so a finer grind could offer the resistance necessary for a good extraction rate/character vs. a coarser grind for a fresh roast.

As far as pushing a stale roast for a better tasting extraction, maybe it could work but a stale roast, in the end, is a stale roast.

For the same blend, at the same age, 14 gram doses can taste "stale," while 17 gram doses can taste "properly rested." A few days earlier, 14 grams would have tasted "properly aged," while 17 grams would have tasted "unready."

I'm not saying that coffees cannot be too old or too young, but people who dose the same volume for a given blend will have a lot narrower window of good shots than those who weigh their doses and can properly and consistently adjust dosage.

Works fairly well on past crop too. I just roasted last year's 14 gram dose Bonko; and it's tasting flat at 14 grams now, but still has some depth at the coarser grind required for a 15.5 gram dose.