I understand the reason for using weights and not volumes. I've been around HB for a few years now. But I want to probe a little deeper into how all this works. I assume the piston holds about 60 ml of water - if one pulls a full lever pull shot, and lets the crema settle out for a minute or two, will it end up at close to 60 ml.

In very simple terms, how often are you pulling a full lever pull shot, vs. pulling the cup halfway through the pull?

It would be nice to see some typical brew ratios reported, to get an idea about this.

PC

peacecup wrote:All of the renewed interest in commercial lever machines has me wondering about brew ratios and shot timing.

A typical commercial lever machine is designed to pull a traditional double shot with one pull, ie. 14g:60g. Assuming for discussion's sake that this would be prepared to pull in 30 sec, how does one pull a 7g:30g single with such a machine? Is the cup pulled after 30 sec, or is a double shot split in two? If it is a single basket, is it ground to that one gets 30 ml in 30 sec?

The same question applies to higher brew ratios - I've read the Londinium I likes a 16g dose in the double basket. A full pull would result in a 16g:60g shot. I thought I read on the favorite blends thread that many people like the mystery coffees in the 50% or greater ratio range. How does one pull a 50% or greater shot on the L1 or similar? Is the cup pulled halfway through the shot, or is the grind adjusted so fine that the whole shot only results in 30 ml?

PC

As mentioned, 60ml liquid is not at all close to 60g, maybe 40g or less depending on the crema amount. Did you not weigh your shot before?I am surprised. And I tend to believe Italian are pulling shots with crema, and not just black liquid which would weigh 1ml=1g.

Most people(like 99%?) would pull out the cup after a desired volume, isn't it?That's how I did it and what I see most people are doing,whether lever or pump.

For single, it's a tiny bit more complicated. In commercial setting, it would make economical sense to get singles from double shot pull(either by splitting or completely let the other stream down into drain), to avoid re-dialing in the grinder or to have a dedicated dialed-in single grinder that doesn't get used that often. At home or other reason, you get single by using single basket and slightly different grind. Duh, you might say. But it's very important,not just because they hold less coffee, also the holes are lesser so you get a compensated slower flow rate. You want to maintain the flow rate(extraction rate) for lesser coffee.

my understanding is that on a typical commercial lever machine a shot is supposed to be 1 oz. that is definitely true of older machines. when i measure the shots on my gaggias they start to thin out (blonding as well) with 30 gr (ca. 1 oz) output. if i leave the glass a bit longer underneath, i could get 40 gr but definitely not 60 gr.
look on the ep website, the astoria rappalo is stated with 1 oz delivery.

my personal parameters:
18-19 gr coffee
6 sec preinfusion
depending on the grind 28-35 sec extraction (also function of preinfusion)
30-35 gr of espresso

peacecup wrote:I understand the reason for using weights and not volumes. I've been around HB for a few years now. But I want to probe a little deeper into how all this works. I assume the piston holds about 60 ml of water - if one pulls a full lever pull shot, and lets the crema settle out for a minute or two, will it end up at close to 60 ml.

Working using your assumption, the piston may hold 60ml. The puck will absorb 20 ml or so. About 40ml ends up in the cup, with may be about 20ml of mixed air, or your call it crema. It will weigh 40g and not 60g. Once the air goes away(crema dissipates), you're left with 40ml of black liquid, thus 40g. All the numbers are example and made assuming that you do not pull the cup.

peacecup wrote:In very simple terms, how often are you pulling a full lever pull shot, vs. pulling the cup halfway through the pull?

Most people on HB would've pulled the cup after reaching the desired volume/blonding point I believe. I thought that was obvious but I may be wrong. It also partially depends on what lever you're using. Home lever like export has very small pull volume and in fact you need to make multiple pull to make up for the small pull volume. So maybe you don't have to pull away the cup. Other levers or commercial ones will make excess volume and thus the only logical way is to keep the desired portion in the cup and the overextracted one in the drain tray.

Just pulled an 18 gram double which gave 32 grams of espresso.

Thanks Alf, that's what I wanted to know. That's more or less exactly what I get with the Sama, but of course it takes a bit more lever acrobatics, 3-4 half-pulls before the shot.

With the Strega I guess it's plug and play - just pull the lever down, wait a few seconds, then release it -what percentage of the pull did you allow before pulling the cup? Or is it ground finely enough so that you get 32g in one whole pull?

I seldom bother with weighing doses or shots either. I don't change beans, doses, techiniques much and I like the results I'm getting. I just got thinking about all this while following the L1 thread, and seeing a pair of 30g shots that came from one 16g dose - that would appear to be a quite low brew ratio, and I wondered how people worked up to higher ratios.

One point of all this is that, given there are so many different sizes and types of lever machines being reported on here now, it's nice to have a common denominator.

Happy New Year!
PC

I must admit it was a newly burned pound of coffee..Too fresh and poor was a little slow.
I'll measure another one and a little coarser grind.

18 grams of Panama.
36 gram nice espresso with tigerstriping.25-30 seconds.

Never weighed anything with the Export though.

That that Panama Red? Was it a full lever pull or did you pull the cup part-way through?

PC

One pull shot.i always pull the cups away at the point of blonding.Usually that is between 25 and 30 seconds.
but if i grind a lot coarser i'll get a bigger amount of espresso in the cup.
I'll try that later on.Maybe make a little video.

By the way no Panama RED.
I've got a little bit of astma so nothing but coffees these days.