Every month or so I converse with Bill Crossland at LM on things related to espresso machinery and grinding. We talk about various brewing and grinding parameters and what we perceive is the effect on coffee taste by varying them. We also discuss new art such as the pressure profiling stuff i was ranting about last spring. Notice that I never published any definitive conclusion about it. That's partially because I didn't think i could design tests (read didn't want to do all of that exhaustive work) to convince skeptics, and also because benefit can be negated or augmented by changing other variables. People like to think that something is either good or bad, but taste changes in a continuous, not digital manner when one is changing parameters. The art is in learning which ones to change to arrive at a desired taste. Bill's opinion (which I've been adopting more and more) is that you can prolly arrive at very similar taste for a certain coffee by a variety of different paths with differing grind fineness, dose, distribution techniques, tamps, temperatures and pressures. To slavishly adhere to one set of variables is to needlessly limit oneself. I think there is a place for updosing, and for downdosing. I think that there are parameter sets that are good starting points for an unknown coffee. What makes a barista really topnotch is in knowing what to tweak after tasting coffee produced using those starting parameters.

-Greg

OH, and just so you know that I haven't been possessed by an alien, I still think that the machinery involved ought to be able to produce consistent, reproducible grinding and brewing parameters under all conditions of usage.

To John: You've previously posted that you prefer milk drinks over straight espressos. If the goal is to make a largish milk drink, subtleties in the underlying espresso are going to be lost. If one wants the coffee flavor to be more intense, one has basically two options; use less milk or make stronger espresso. The latter appears to be your preferred approach and as long as you don't find the macchinations you need to do to get an espresso out of an updosed basket, I say, more power to ya. Very little of what we are discussing here is relevant to anything other than straight shots, unless we are discussing the hassles involved in executing updosed shots, that is.

To Jeff: As you surmise, I am saying this over and over again, because all the other stuff one reads on espresso making sites is about using gargantuan doses, handstand tamps, and the like. We have convinced ourselves that this is the right way to go, and there has been no voice for "appropriate" dosing up until now. I was not the first on this, but I am a strong proponent. I believe that instead of telling people how hard it is to make espresso, we should show them how easy it is to do, if the machines are used as they were designed to be used. If people then want to expand their repertoire, as it were, by updosing later, after they have learned to use the equipment the way it was designed to be used, then that is fine. It is akin to the chef who improvises on the fly, after he has already learned the basics of how to cook a particular type of food.

To Greg: I have never owned an LM, and my total experience on them is very limited. I cannot comment on how they are designed to be used and with what doses. I can say that what I've been writing is true about espresso machines in general, they way they were designed to be used at the factory. We have deviated from the design specs of most, if not all, espresso machines, here in N. America and in the online enthusiast community. We should not be teaching people, from the git-go, that espresso making is a difficult skill that requires months or years of practice. Instead, as frequent posters/known enthusiasts, we should be telling people how to use the equipment in the way that most of it was designed to be used. If used in this fashion, with doses the gear was designed to work with, making espresso is child's play. If, after learning the basics of espresso making with doses that were intended, someone wants to go out and experiment with different doses, the results will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis to see if they represent an improvement, or simply have become so much "in your face" that they stand out. My opinion, and this sentence expresses only that, is that the results that come from massive updosing lack balance, even if they may be more intense. Using my own prior experience as a benchmark, and I am of course most experienced with my own espressos, the ones I used to make with 18 or 20g, were way too much "in your face," and had too little balance to be viewed as an improvement over what I'm making now at lower basket doses. YMMV.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:[snipped]

To Jeff: As you surmise, I am saying this over and over again, because all the other stuff one reads on espresso making sites is about using gargantuan doses, handstand tamps, and the like. We have convinced ourselves that this is the right way to go, and there has been no voice for "appropriate" dosing up until now. I was not the first on this, but I am a strong proponent. I believe that instead of telling people how hard it is to make espresso, we should show them how easy it is to do, if the machines are used as they were designed to be used. If people then want to expand their repertoire, as it were, by updosing later, after they have learned to use the equipment the way it was designed to be used, then that is fine. It is akin to the chef who improvises on the fly, after he has already learned the basics of how to cook a particular type of food.

To Greg: I have never owned an LM, and my total experience on them is very limited. I cannot comment on how they are designed to be used and with what doses. I can say that what I've been writing is true about espresso machines in general, they way they were designed to be used at the factory. We have deviated from the design specs of most, if not all, espresso machines, here in N. America and in the online enthusiast community. We should not be teaching people, from the git-go, that espresso making is a difficult skill that requires months or years of practice. Instead, as frequent posters/known enthusiasts, we should be telling people how to use the equipment in the way that most of it was designed to be used. If used in this fashion, with doses the gear was designed to work with, making espresso is child's play. If, after learning the basics of espresso making with doses that were intended, someone wants to go out and experiment with different doses, the results will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis to see if they represent an improvement, or simply have become so much "in your face" that they stand out. My opinion, and this sentence expresses only that, is that the results that come from massive updosing lack balance, even if they may be more intense. Using my own prior experience as a benchmark, and I am of course most experienced with my own espressos, the ones I used to make with 18 or 20g, were way too much "in your face," and had too little balance to be viewed as an improvement over what I'm making now at lower basket doses. YMMV.

ken

Ken, I agree with this wholeheartedly. With a bit of practice, and proper equipment used as it was designed, espresso is "relatively" simple...with some practice of course. All skills require practice, and a bit of patience.
I guess my following suggestion is a bit simplistic (and off topic, for which I humbly apologize)...
If a milk drink is what one desires, instead of up-dosing and screwing around with taste profiles, why not just "down-dose" the milk?
Truth is, in the last couple of months, I've gone back to 15 gram doses in my Synesso double filter for most blends, and several SO's. I do confess, I like my Brazil SO's a bit more rugged, so I do around 16.5 doubles...all 1.75oz liquid @25 seconds, if possible.
Back on topic, I've noticed, as a few others have posted here, that my SJ does seem to bring out the lower end of the taste spectrum. To compensate, if I'm looking for a brighter taste, i add a bit more of that bright component (varietal) separately.

Ken Fox wrote:To John: You've previously posted that you prefer milk drinks over straight espressos. If the goal is to make a largish milk drink, subtleties in the underlying espresso are going to be lost. If one wants the coffee flavor to be more intense, one has basically two options; use less milk or make stronger espresso. The latter appears to be your preferred approach and as long as you don't find the macchinations you need to do to get an espresso out of an updosed basket, I say, more power to ya. Very little of what we are discussing here is relevant to anything other than straight shots, unless we are discussing the hassles involved in executing updosed shots, that is.

For the record, I think you've done the community a service by promoting lower dose espressos. But I do think you're going a bit overboard in your evangelical fervor. For example, not many would call a 5-6oz double cappuccino a "largish" milk drink. To put things in perspective, I make my wife 16oz skinny mocha lattes for b'fast - now that's a "largish" milk drink!


chocolate syrup melted over the foam while I was preparing the capp

Try not to dismiss evidence that doesn't fit your new ideology, and assume that what works best for you will work best for everyone. If correct dosing is important for straight shots, then it's also important for cappuccinos. I have been experimenting with lower doses (14-16g) since you began these posts, and I'm getting good shots. But they haven't been noticeably better than my typical 16-18g doses. (Yes, I've sampled them as straight shots too.) And it's not because I want more coffee flavor for my "largish" milk drinks. I've played around with triple baskets, and prefer doubles, despite the fact that you can pack significantly more grinds in a triple. The reason I dose to 16-18g is simple: that seems to produce the best shot for me, with my roasts, on my equipment.

To eliminate dose as one of the crucial variables in espresso, and insist that only a 14g dose is appropriate, is just not worthy of your fine intellect.

Ken Fox wrote:If you make a double shot with 24g of coffee, in my opinion it is not an espresso, anymore than those 18% alcohol sweet Zinfandels are a good glass of wine. M

This is a good point, and to use the less-refined case of beer, at what point does an ale become a barley wine?

If one pulls a 30g 3-oz shot is it an espresso? An uberespresso? This becomes a matter of semantics, so if someone (or lots of someones) like these, than that's what they should drink. What Ken might say is that two 15g, 1.5-oz shots would probably taste better, and would be easier to pull properly, given the way the machines are designed, etc. and that these are espressos.

Maybe the downdosed shots are Italianespressos, and the updosed shots are Americanespressos. Or maybe it doesn't matter in America anyway, where most people drink mostly-milk drinks (usually from PAPER cups).

My 1950's era lever machine was designed by Italians, for Italians to use in their Italian homes. It makes 7-9g. 0.5-oz solos, and 14-16g, 1-1.5-oz doppios. With a decent grinder and decent coffee its almost impossible NOT to make a good straight espresso with this machine. And it produces great steam, which I use to steam small volumes of milk to make what I consider Italian-esque cappuccinos.

The Ponte Vecchio manual includes a hand-drawn diagram of the machine, and instructions to the effect of:

"place the desired amount of grounds in the filter, one scoop for single, two scoops for double. Pull the lever down and release it. Repeat until the desired amount of coffee is produced...."

PC

The last several posts should probably be moved to Ken's updosing/downdosing thread.

RapidCoffee wrote:For the record, I think you've done the community a service by promoting lower dose espressos. But I do think you're going a bit overboard in your evangelical fervor. For example, not many would call a 5-6oz double cappuccino a "largish" milk drink. To put things in perspective, I make my wife 16oz skinny mocha lattes for b'fast - now that's a "largish" milk drink!

<image>
chocolate syrup melted over the foam while I was preparing the capp

Try not to dismiss evidence that doesn't fit your new ideology, and assume that what works best for you will work best for everyone. If correct dosing is important for straight shots, then it's also important for cappuccinos. I have been experimenting with lower doses (14-16g) since you began these posts, and I'm getting good shots. But they haven't been noticeably better than my typical 16-18g doses. (Yes, I've sampled them as straight shots too.) And it's not because I want more coffee flavor for my "largish" milk drinks. I've played around with triple baskets, and prefer doubles, despite the fact that you can pack significantly more grinds in a triple. The reason I dose to 16-18g is simple: that seems to produce the best shot for me, with my roasts, on my equipment.

To eliminate dose as one of the crucial variables in espresso, and insist that only a 14g dose is appropriate, is just not worthy of your fine intellect.

Firstly, John, the second sentence in my post was intentionally NOT a dependent clause, but rather a separate sentence, because I was not commenting specifically on your preferred milk drinks as being "largish," rather commenting on what many do (obviously not you for your own consumption, as you have shown). For the record, my cappas are in the same size ballpark as yours. Nonetheless, one of the reasons why my one cappa, which often is my one and only milk drink of the day, is the first drink I pour, is that I can make a serviceable cappa with a mediocre shot, although not a sink shot. I use the experience with the first pour of the day, in the cappa, as a guide to how to adjust my grinders for their first straight shots later.

You have shown us pictures of your roasting set up, which in all honesty is not what I would call a standard roast set up. I have no knowledge of the characteristics of the roasted coffee that you get out it, and would never try to judge roasted coffee based upon pictures taken of the beans. You are obviously not alone in having a non-standard roast set up, and it could well be that nonstandard home roast setups are more the norm than the exception for home roasters. No doubt the characteristics of any particular home roasted coffee, especially coffee roasted in a nonstandard fashion, is going to be impacted by all sorts of coffee making and espresso making factors.

I may sound like I'm being evangelical, but in reality all I'm doing is trying to have a return to "normalcy" be viewed as the SOP (standard operating procedure). Anyone who makes 18 or 20g doubles knows how much effort you have to put into them in order to avoid channeling and other obvious problems that attend poor basket preparation and minor errors in grind setting. Anyone who has been to Italy and watched baristas over there is familiar with the cavalier approach that they take in shot making, and that they seldom if ever appear to pour shots down the sink. It is well known to anyone who has bought commercial grinders that the default setting on the dosers is around 7g per chamber. Now why is this?

Anyone who has used 18 or 20g doses who then switches to 12 or 14 or 15g doses can attest that their shots become much more uniform and that barring maybe an enormous error in grind setting, the espresso does not channel. Jim and many others have commented upon problems with various machines when baskets are overloaded and the coffee contacts the group screen. Why is that?

Putting all of this together, combined with well known and long standing Italian practice, it is pretty obvious that the equipment is designed for lower doses than has become SOP in N. America and for many internet aware home enthusiasts.

I'm not suggesting that 14g shots will necessarily be better than 18 or 20g shots. What I am suggesting is that if they are just as good as the updosed/overdosed shots, then what exactly is the point in using more coffee, other than force of habit and waste? If one finds an added benefit of achieving better "balance" in the 14-ish gram shots, than that is an added plus, something I have found but maybe others won't. I'd suggest that simply being "as good" at 14g, with less hassle, would be enough of a benefit to switch.

We haven't had much input from professional roasters in this thread, but I would caution the readers that it is kinda unlikely that a roaster, whose job it is to sell coffee, is going to advocate that we use a lot less of their product!

In any event, what I'd like to accomplish from this, over time, would be to have the standard basket dose recommended in internet land, to be more in accordance with what the machines were designed for, e.g. 12-15g, in my view. If someone wants to use more coffee, and figures out a way to do it that produces a better shot, than all I can say is, "that's terrific." As such, it should be viewed as a variation to standard technique, not the standard technique.

ken

peacecup wrote:The last several posts should probably be moved to Ken's updosing/downdosing thread.

the problem with doing this, is that stuff will then appear out of sequence and out of context on that thread. Dan did that with another thread this week, with what I think were unintended consequences.

ken

Ken Fox wrote:

Ken...while I always find your posts honest and entertaining, and informative, I do have to (gently) call you out on one comment of yours.
Including what you call John's"non standard roast set up" is I believe, not germane to this discussion. First off, what is a "standard" roast procedure? Even professional roasters differ...some use radiant, some drum, some use fluid bed, etc. Home roasting techniques are way too numerous to mention, but I truly believe that most of us (including yourself, of course) produce fine roasted coffee at home. Everything being relative, using the same batch of coffee, pulling shots with differing dose amounts would be the way to determine one's taste preference. Obviously, as was said earlier on this thread, differing coffee's may provide differing results. I do agree with that, if overall there is no taste advantage using an extra 3 grams of coffee, why waste. Of course, if I worry about 3 grams every time I grind, I should quit this habit now...lol
Just my take.

Ken Fox wrote:You have shown us pictures of your roasting set up, which in all honesty is not what I would call a standard roast set up. I have no knowledge of the characteristics of the roasted coffee that you get out it, and would never try to judge roasted coffee based upon pictures taken of the beans. You are obviously not alone in having a non-standard roast set up, and it could well be that nonstandard home roast setups are more the norm than the exception for home roasters. No doubt the characteristics of any particular home roasted coffee, especially coffee roasted in a nonstandard fashion, is going to be impacted by all sorts of coffee making and espresso making factors.

Yet another reason to dismiss evidence that does not conform to your pet theory? Ken, I've been drinking a lot of commercially roasted espresso this summer. Rocket Roasters, PT's and Caffe Fresco were all generous enough to support Team H-B's Titan Grinder Project with coffee donations (I believe you received some of the Rocket Classic). This morning's shots (shown above) were Paradise Roaster's Espresso Classico, a very highly rated commercial blend (and one of my favs). This batch was home roasted, perhaps on a "nonstandard" roasting setup (whatever that means), but it tastes every bit as yummy as the commercial roasts. I have no data to back this up, just my taste buds. Which, when it comes to espresso, I trust more than any measuring equipment.