Is body of espresso on the DE1 thinner? - Page 6

#51: Post by **appfrent** » June 11th, 2019, 12:46 am

another_jim wrote: I did a pair of early aughts style espresso porn/Schomer shots, one with a circular paper filter at the bottom of the basket, one without. The one without was true espresso porn: top to bottom mouth coating crema. The paper filtered shot looked like espresso porn pouring, but had a sad little coin's depth of crema, and no mouth coating action at all. So the sediments getting through the basket's holes, but not the paper filter's weave, were essential to crema formation.

Not wanting to put dog in the fight but proteins, lipoproteins as well as lipids can all foam very well and contribute to mouthfeel. Sediment particles in most cases does not. Your little filter paper experiment tells the opposite of what you think. The filter paper of the pore size you use for coffee (gigantic from biomolecular perspective; 0.1-5 nm molecular size vs 20,000 nm pore size) would happily and readily let small colloidal particles pass. What it stops very effectively is oils and low amount of proteins. They will simply adsorb to filter paper rather than pass through. Oils are definitely in small amounts. Extracted solubilized proteins are likely to be low as well. In addition, the fibers in filter kills the surface tension, reducing or preventing foam further.
About less mouthful on DE1, I have no idea. Design, probably. The designers of machines in 1940s empirically evolved design with right grind size, temperature, pressure, air intake and water ionic strength, all essential parameters for emulsifying lipids and proteins/lipoproteins to get maximum mouthfeel. That's why some of those designs have survived for close to a century.

#52: Post by **NelisB** » June 11th, 2019, 3:07 am

CwD wrote:Most emulators are better in every way save nostalgia, for one. Most audio coloration can be done past double blind standards in software.

Just two from the food department:

Butter vs. margarine
Sugar vs. aspartame

#53: Post by **NelisB** » June 11th, 2019, 3:43 am

JayBeck wrote:There is enough evidence out there to definitively say that higher flow and shorter dwell times increase mouthfeel and reduce clarity.

I think headspace plays a large role as well. It also appears the further a shower screen protrudes into a basket the better the mouthfeel.

My Lambro gives 20ml water to the dry puck in the first second (when pulling the lever down). Head space, (from the piston pulled up - the puck) is huge compared to pump machines. A Londinium LR will do about the same, probably a little less initial water. But headspace will be comparable. The LR gives a beautiful mouthfeel. My Lambro doesn't. Big difference between the Londinium and my Lambro: The Londinium builds up PI pressure to 3/4 bar. My Lambro reaches only 1.2 bar during PI (from the boiler).

JayBeck wrote:Quit using VST baskets. VST baskets are high flow and require fine grinds. Switch to the EPHQ 14g basket if you want more mouthfeel. You will grind coarser and that helps.

I had big bodied espresso's from VST baskets (not on my Lambro). The EPHQ gives more dark tones in the cup than a VST. (chocolate, nuts etc). We shouldnt mistake mouth feel with these tones.

JayBeck wrote:Conicals have always been known for mouthfeel. This is one reason why some users have both a Conical and Flat grinder on the bench.

For more mouthfeel, we need fines pushed into the cup.

So we need sufficient PI pressure to push the fines from a conical in the cup.
.
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#54: Post by **NelisB** » June 11th, 2019, 5:29 am

But with more fines in the cup, wouldn't TDS be higher?

June 11th, 2019, 6:57 am

No - TDS is short for total dissolved solids.

#56: Post by **luca** » June 11th, 2019, 7:06 am

(The below is a response to my question of the extent to which TDS and body coincide.)

another_jim wrote:Probably not. In formal cupping, the TDS of all coffees should be near identical. To complicate matters, "body" has become a quality score; so that a sprightly Hue Hue that's nicely buttery, and a brooding Java that's tongue toffee, can both score a ten. But if the the TDS of the Hue Hue and the Java are the same, why are they so radically different in the older, quantitative notion of body?.

Jim, that was sort of a stupid question of mine. With help from some more engineering genius type home roasters (as opposed to the impractical klutz that I am) I got my Quest M3 back up and running and did a few test roasts of the same green to get a feel for what my new probe readings mean. I ended up with a roast maybe 30-40 seconds into first, one slow one right up to the beginning of second and a faster one somewhere between first and second. I cupped all three and measured TDS, though only right at the end of the cupping. The lightest was the highest in TDS by a smallish margin - 0.7% or so. The middle roast probably had the most body and had less TDS.

After 20+ years of experimenting, I feel like a lot of the coffee journey is re-learning what I have drifted away from.

#57: Post by **NelisB** » June 11th, 2019, 8:32 am

Assume an appropriate test shows that mouthfeel is coming from viscosity. How is the DE going to mimic viscosity?

#58: Post by **crunchybean** » June 11th, 2019, 8:45 am

An interesting lecture by The Harvard on Food Science. This lecture is meant for the public so it is more interesting than science rigor and great fruit for thought.

#59: Post by **samuellaw178** » June 11th, 2019, 9:05 am

Very interesting discussion!

I did a bit of rheology for my PhD projects and so had a bit of experience doing viscosity measurements for high solids materials & emulsions (by no mean an expert and certainly not in food rheology). In my understanding, viscosity (the actual physical properties that you can measure) can come from increase in:
(i) undissolved fines,
(ii) dissolved solids,
(iii) crema/foam (air in water emulsion), and
(iv) lipids (oil in water emulsion).

And espresso has all these, even after filtration!

So when we talk about 'body' (aka viscosity??), it could come from any of these. Before reading this thread, I actually thought that mouthfeel/body/viscosity are more or less describing the same thing but apparently not so.

Thus, I do wonder if everyone in this discussion is on the same page (or was it just me

)?

Maybe depending on where the viscosity comes from, it may have a different effect on the taste perception. ie. the undissolved fines lead to 'body', foam/crema leads to silky mouthfeel etc, maybe...but I agree with one of the previous posters that without a standardized definition for body/mouthfeel/etc it might be difficult to separate which from what - and much certainly more difficult to attribute the effect to the cause.

On the topic on attributing 'body' to a particular machine, I did notice that my Portaspresso Rossa (54mm basket) gives a noticeably thicker-feeling body/crema compared to my 58mm lever, and the shots from Robot had the least 'body'. But there were so many variables (at one point I even thought that the pressurized air used in Rossa may have contributed to its thicker body but I never get to prove that). Comparing these three devices, the basket theory (particularly the hole size/finish) seems plausible but may be not the only explanation.

#60: Post by **Almico** » June 11th, 2019, 9:17 am

Since I hold body and mouthfeel in higher regard than most other coffee attributes, I'm finding this discussion interesting. At the cupping table, when I'm deciding on making a purchase of a new coffee, I will never pick a coffee with limited body, regardless of taste. I seek the naturally more syrupy coffees and then weed out the winner from among those.

I was never much of a tea drinker, but owning a coffee bar has forced me to expand my horizons. Part of my resistance to tea is the lack of mouthfeel compared to coffee. But I had a recent experience with, of all things, a White Peony tea that opened my mind with regards to body.

This tea, brewed at 195* for 4 minutes, barely colored the water. I had very low expectations, and maybe even winced, as I brought the cup to my mouth for a first sip. My negative anticipation colored my initial reaction, but by the third and fourth sips I was very surprised to find I was enjoying it. There was a very distinct pignoli nut flavor note, but that wasn't what I liked.

Despite the lack of coloration, there was a very pronounced, dare I say, heavy body to this brew. It certainly wasn't the equivalent of maple syrup, but there was a very enjoyable tongue and palette coating sensation that I could never have expected, given the pale appearance and my lack of knowledge and experience with anything tea. What could possibly be causing this?

My personality is quite prone to seeking the very bottom of the rabbit holes I choose to explore, so I choose them very carefully these days. Tea is a very deep rabbit hole so I'm trying to avoid the "why" questions as much as possible and just enjoying the scenery at ground level. I'm just adding this to the discussion in case some who knows more can correlate this with coffee.