Does preheating the Cafelat Robot affect taste? Please post your experiences here!

#1: Post by **drgary** » May 26th, 2021, 2:45 pm

grind727 wrote:Does preheating the baskets and/or pistons noticeably impact taste at all?

- guy that never preheats anything on the Robot

Jason's post in the Cafelat Robot User Experience thread was a great question and the reason for starting this separate discussion. There's been a lot of attention paid to pre-heating of the Robot, which has its own separate thread.

Cafelat Robot Temperature Tests

I'm always focused on taste and haven't seen many comments about flavor differences with specific coffees. Since I prefer medium to gentle dark roasts, I don't preheat the Robot often, although I did have good results with a Nordic roast, using Sam Law's technique where I simply overpour the basket for about one basketful of water that I let run over the edge into the sink. That technique was covered by Sam in the HB Cafelat Robot review. The main differences I've seen in temperature tests are reduced temperature decline, and I'm not sure that improves taste for some coffees and think it could even result in overextraction at times.

I am not alone in wanting to see people's experiences brewing different coffees with and without preheating techniques. Taste is the point after all, isn't it?

#2: Post by **Ad-85** » May 26th, 2021, 3:11 pm

I flip the basket-portafilter over the brewist's lid every time I make a shot regardless of the roasting profile.

#3: Post by **Chrikelnel** » May 26th, 2021, 3:30 pm

I balance the portafilter/basket across the opening of my Bonavita kettle when I turn it on and the steam heats it up to be too hot to touch when I take it off. I only drink medium roasts but I feel like I've noticed a difference the few times I forgot to preheat it. Tomorrow I'll make one of my shots without preheating and see if I can notice a difference.

May 26th, 2021, 3:53 pm

Ad-85 wrote:I flip the basket-portafilter over the brewist's lid every time I make a shot regardless of the roasting profile.

Yes, that's your technique, but I'm interested in what taste difference it makes. How does it taste if you don't preheat at all versus preheating with your Brewista?

#5: Post by **Ad-85** » May 26th, 2021, 4:19 pm

Can't answer that one Doc

This has been my technique from the start. I would love to replace the robot with oe-1 or ct2 when I get over that price

May 26th, 2021, 4:36 pm

Caffeine brings out the geek in all of us. This thread is to post about taste that is experienced with technique. How does it taste using the technique or not doing so?

#7: Post by **jpender** » May 26th, 2021, 4:53 pm

drgary wrote:The main differences I've seen in temperature tests are reduced temperature decline...

Starting temperature increase is also possible with preheating. For example, the "Sam Law" technique increases the initial temperature but doesn't affect the rate of decline.

#8: Post by **yakster** » May 26th, 2021, 6:14 pm

When I was doing the blind tasting of the HB Favorite Espressos 2020, I pulled the shots of the three blends with my Robot and I did pull shots for some of the blends with different temperatures. For coffee B, Dragonfly Coffee ~ Espresso Crema Dolce, I found that the shots tasted best with a full pre-heat (which for me is steam pre-heating the basket and portafilter on top of my water kettle and pulling a shot with the pressurized basket filled with hot water), resulting in a sweeter, more chocolatey cup where before it was too fruit forward with some sour and acidic notes IIRC. Most of the coffees that I pull as espresso on the Robot don't need what I consider a full pre-heat.

Comments on Favorite Espressos 2020

In my experience, pre-heating the Robot does affect taste.

#9: Post by K7 » May 26th, 2021, 6:15 pm

Preheating enhances mid tone notes and body that are weak or missing with no-preheat. IMO, it helps not just light but also medium and medium-dark roasts as well (no experience with dark roasts) because mid tone notes are crucial to those coffees.

I drink Americanos mostly and another major problem with no preheat is I get meek drinks. Flavors are ok but weak and tend to disappear quickly. By the time I am into 1/3 of my typical 5 oz Americano, it becomes kinda bland and barely resembles what people recognize as a flavorful coffee. I may be exaggerating a bit but not much. YMMV depending on your coffee, dosing, etc...

Both issues are largely gone when I preheat properly.

This is NOT to say...
- you cannot get a decent drinkable shot with no preheat
- all coffees need the maximum preheat
- any decline in temp profile is bad (probably quite the contrary)

But a decent drinkable shot does not make an excellent shot full of flavors and body, at least to my taste.

In one of his recent videos on Aeropress, James Hoffmann makes a comment (go to 23:40) about brewing temp. While Aeropress is not an espresso maker (I hope Alan Adler is not reading this

), his view that you can get decent cups at low temp but can get to another level with high temp kind of sums up my point of view on this.

#10: Post by **grind727** » May 26th, 2021, 7:13 pm

As the person who asked the question, let me be clear that I'm not doubting the general relationship between brew temperature and taste, as I know it matters, but based on my own experience, I'm skeptical that preheating various bits of the Robot makes much difference in the cup. The longer I own the Robot, the lazier I get with it because it seems to have some dark magic built in making it nearly impossible to brew a bad cup. Rather, most have been pretty impressive regardless of the beans I've tossed into it.

I tend to pour and press pretty quickly after the kettle boils, so maybe that's a factor?