Spinn coffee brewer - Page 5

Coffee preparation techniques besides espresso like pourover.
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bostonbuzz
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#41: Post by bostonbuzz »

"We can make a perfect espresso." - DOUBT IT. It would be cool if it ground and made coffee at different strengths or even "velvety," but the founder isn't doing himself any favors with the specialty coffee world with statements like the one above.

When the proprietary filter gets clogged, how is it replaced if it's part of a fancy patented spinning chamber??
LMWDP #353

poison (original poster)
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#42: Post by poison (original poster) »

No idea. Hot water cleans it at high rpm?

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poison (original poster)
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#43: Post by poison (original poster) »

Yesterday I finally got to try this out. They moved to Los Angeles, and are only a couple miles from me in Venice.

The machine is the 6th prototype, or something. A lot of it is off the shelf stuff, but some pertinent components are new and quite interesting. It uses a ditting-supplied conical grinder. The hot water heating system is not a boiler, it's much more responsive to heating parameter changes, pretty much instant.

I took my beans, so I could make a comparison to traditional brew methods, but the hopper was full and I didn't want to go through the hassle of emptying it. They had a fresh bag of bBurundi from a good local roaster in there, so no problem there. It was a very light roast, definitely not an espresso roast, probably mid first crack.

I tried espresso first. It spun at 7k rpm, and brewed approx 1.5oz (eyeball) in 15-20sec, fairly fast. Crema is extremely thick and dense; having read the patent material, emulsification of the crema is created in part by the coffee being flung out of the centrifuge at very high speed, onto the surrounding wall of the centrifuge,so it's a different process than traditional espresso. But it's finer, even if the current dispensing nozzle creates some soap bubbles at the end, very dense, very buttery. The best way to describe the coffee is like a George Howell style shot, similar to what our local Bar 9 does with the ek43 and mod bar. Not having had that coffee brewed any other way, I can't say what flavor differences there are between brew methods, but....it didn't have any obvious flaws in brewing, it was very tasty, lots of clarity, and despite being pretty acidic, it was in all the good ways. I've had far worse shots at the big boy third wave roasters. It was definitely not traditional espresso, but that might be remedied with a change in coffeeand brew parameters.

Next I tried approx 6oz of drip. Now this was excellent. I expected it to be skewed toward espresso, given the potential for immense pressure, and thought it would just over extract or taste crappy. Nope nope nope. I'm sure it's partly a coffee choice, and this coffee was more suited to those brew parameters, but wow, the herbal, fruited sweet notes just popped, with great body.

So, it may be a unicorn for now, but one that's been spotted in the wild, and I actually got to pet it. :p I have pictures, which I posted on my fb, but I can't upload here until this weekend.

poison (original poster)
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#44: Post by poison (original poster) »

bostonbuzz wrote:"We can make a perfect espresso." - DOUBT IT. It would be cool if it ground and made coffee at different strengths or even "velvety," but the founder isn't doing himself any favors with the specialty coffee world with statements like the one above.

When the proprietary filter gets clogged, how is it replaced if it's part of a fancy patented spinning chamber??
It does grind and make coffee at different strengths. All parameters are potentially adjustable on the fly. The plan is for a roaster to be able to link a profile to his coffee. When you out my coffee in your hopper, the app will as 'is this the coffee we just sent you?'. Click yes, and it will adjust to my parameters automatically, or you can tweak as you please.

The centrifuge starts spinning at a lower rate before grinding. As it grinds it drops directly into the spinning centrifuge, for dispersion. Once grinding stops, it spools up to the prescribed higher brewing rpm, and starts dispensing water. Once brewing is over, it spins at an even higher rpm, to dry the puck, then dumps it into the spent grounds container. It looked almost like dry grounds, not compacted pucks.

Every so often the machine will run a cleaning cycle with no coffee. They were saying how there's relatively little stress on the machine: no boiler, no high pressure pump, just some bearings with little weight on them.

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Fausto
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#45: Post by Fausto »

Thanks for sharing, so far, better than I expected. Did you hear any sort of ETA from them on first production run?

poison (original poster)
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#46: Post by poison (original poster) »

They said Spring 2017 for the first delivery.

cafe+leche
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#47: Post by cafe+leche »

The product is about a year behind schedule at this point due to design changes. From their mid-January update: "The first machines are expected to ship at the end of Q1 2018, we'll then ramp up production throughout the year."

I was among the first to place an order, but I canceled it some weeks ago. I remain curious (and tempted), however.

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cafe+leche
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#48: Post by cafe+leche »

Has anyone here received a machine? I signed up early on but canceled my order after experiencing one postponement too many. I'm actually shocked they managed to finally crank out the product, although it's not at all clear how many people have received a machine and how good it is.

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Jeff
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#49: Post by Jeff »

Wikipedia states
Production for the Spinn coffee maker has been significantly delayed. Spinn has been taking pre-orders for their coffee maker since 2016, though an original shipping date of mid-2017 was missed, and as of January 2019, customers have not yet received their orders. While the company started shipping a small number of machines for beta testing in early 2018, many of their crowdfunding backers have become restless due to the delay. As of mid-December 2019, Spinn has not yet announced shipping dates.

cafe+leche
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#50: Post by cafe+leche »

Wikipedia is not quite up to date. This is more recent: https://thespoon.tech/after-four-years- ... fee-maker/
Oddly, the writer notes in the comments that he received his Spinn machine in early August, but he has not posted a review subsequently.