Home-Barista.com

Why are you comparing food to a car. That's just silly.

Yes, I'd rather buy a Honda than a hand-built, one-off car built by a guy in his garage.

DaveC wrote:so let me get this right, you would rather go to a restaurant and pay top end prices for food cooked in automatic machines by guys who load ingredients in a press a button? A top class chef would just deliver food prone to errors and you want consistency....Mc Donalds must love you!

When you go to a restaurant that is exactly what you pay for. The chef (and the sous) may design the dish and the cooking process - but the complexity of a 3* restaurant is such that everything is mis-en-place and everything is cooked in sous vide and combi steamers to exact standards. They run a meticulous process - just like McDonalds. (But, more complex with better ingredients and sometimes get better results at higher cost).

Cooking is rarely "by hand". Ever since the first bison (or other animal) was dropped in a fire and cooked - it has been a process; one can argue to what level is this controlled but most are okay with a toaster oven, electric thermostat, thermometer, etc. Sous vide and com is are the next step forward (especially combis).

Automating much of roasting and espresso pulling doesn't make the hobby less interesting. It just transfers the experience to where it matters most: selecting greens and deciding the processsing. Why should we care if the rest is done by machine?

I've liked the conversation about what could be done to refine instrumentation and to insist on quality control in roaster manufacture. This business about automation or not, not so much. I hope we'll keep this an interesting read by that kind of exploration.

Whether it's a roaster or an espresso machine or anything else, you'll be figuring out what best pleases your taste buds. What's fine-tuned for my taste may not be what you like because we don't sense things exactly the same. Coffee itself is so complex and variable that it invites you to coax out the best. At most a pre-programmed profile gets you in the ballpark so you can tune in from there. If that is more consistent, great.

Ira,

I think you're misunderstanding me. I have no beef with automation. I see it in operation every time I visit Mike McGinnis at his roastery and watch him run his automated 3 Kg USRC roaster. I also have no problem with pre-programming. I use it often with my Brazen brewer and adjust the parameters as needed for the given coffee. I think that pre-programming is what you do with a device capable of automation and this allows you more freedom. I can see downloading a brew profile for a Decent espresso machine for a specific coffee. I would then probably tweak it -- or I may not.