Opinions on Clive Coffee's brew ratios, basket size article

#1: Post by **espressonut** » March 23rd, 2018, 9:14 am

I'm curious to hear what people's options are on this latest article on Clive Coffee. It seems to go against conventional barista wisdom.

https://clivecoffee.com/2018/03/brew-ra ... uble-shot/

Clive Coffee wrote:Given that we teach thousands of people every year how to make espresso drinks at home, we often see confusion and frustration first hand. One of the major culprits is the proliferation of misinformation about coffee on the internet. Some of which is from very prominent people and places...

At Clive, we are striving to make sense of all of these legacy terms to help consumers make great espresso at home. We have dispatched all mention of single and double shots, in favor of brew ratios. We have also centered around the use of a triple basket, as it seems to be more forgiving than the single or double, especially in the 53mm variety.

The Clive recipe for espresso is the same as used by the originator of American espresso (and the pioneer of latte art), Espresso Vivacé in Seattle. We use a 1:1.5 brew ratio (as it stands up to larger milk drinks), a triple basket with 20 grams of ground coffee to extract 30 grams of liquid espresso in 25 (dark roast) to 30 (medium to light roast) seconds.

(cont'd)

#2: Post by **CwD** » March 23rd, 2018, 9:53 am

I think it's a bad time to be getting solidly behind brew ratios for recipes and the idea of a brew ratio for a certain coffee across different setups is very rapidly becoming obsolete. TDS% (not EXTY%) is a far better descriptor of how ristretto-like or normale-like a shot will be than the in:out numbers.

If I pull a shot of 18:25 with 13.5% TDS (19.43% EXTY on VST), it should be more similar in texture and general shot style to a 18:33 shot with 13.5% TDS (25.65% EXTY on VST) than to a 18:25 shot with 12%TDS (17.27% EXTY).

Ratio as something to give as a recipe to people with different equipment stopped being meaningful when grinders started dramatically distancing themselves in extraction capabilities.

#3: Post by **Radio.YYZ** » March 23rd, 2018, 1:33 pm

I think the clive article makes some sense to me at least because the "typical' ratio everyone aims for at 1:2 is not set in stone. I prefer most of my pulls at 1:1.5 ratio. I would probably always suggest to start with 1:1.5 ratio if anyone asked me.

TDS% goes way beyond the ratios as it put numbers to an extraction whereas brew ratio is simply a vague concept as TDS % in coffee could range from coffee to coffee based solely on ratios. But ratio is a good way for everyone who does not have the equipment to measure tds % in the solution, post extraction.

#4: Post by **Deebo** » March 23rd, 2018, 7:55 pm

I read this article this a.m. I believe this is the one that refers to Gail from Seattle Coffee Gear as an "Expert".

I pull 20g doses and consider that a double, I guess according to this it'd be a triple, with an 18g dose being a double.

#5: Post by **Andy** » March 23rd, 2018, 8:16 pm

Seems to me, whatever recipe you go by is okay, in that it is only a place to start. Then you make changes, one at a time, preferably, based on the result, until you get where you want to be.

March 26th, 2018, 11:41 am

I normally do a 1:2 ratio with good results, but decided to try a 1:1.5 and was pleasantly surprised. Goes to show that nothing is set in stone.

Overall I thought the article was interesting and thought provoking, although could have been nicer to Gail.

#7: Post by **barri** » March 27th, 2018, 12:44 am

Andy wrote:Seems to me, whatever recipe you go by is okay, in that it is only a place to start. Then you make changes, one at a time, preferably, based on the result, until you get where you want to be.

I'm trying to get my head around all of this. I just made made a cup using 19gms and its yield was near 50gms (1:2.6)with 60gms of liquid. I was aiming for about 40 to 45 gms as a starting point and then adjust by taste. So to reduce the yield do I stop the shot short and do a 20 second shot? Do I change the grind? Finer or coarser? So what do you do to decrease and increase the yield?

I know people will say ignore the numbers, go by taste etc etc but I'm just interested in dialing in by brew ratio. I'll work on taste later

John

March 27th, 2018, 4:01 pm

How many seconds was your 60gms liquid shot? I would grind finer and try to get 1:2 within 25-30seconds.

Mostly, the grind size will increase and decrease the yield - this also changes flavour as well.

My new favourite methodology is starting at 1:1.5 and increasing ratio and time (one variable at a time) to see what i like! - Note that this shot is 1:1.5 in 25ish seconds so i have to adjust the grind to accommodate the smaller ratio within same amount of time.

For experimentation, if you don't want to waste a lot of shots, get to the 1:2 between 25-30s stabilized then pull a shot but put a new cup every 5 seconds, this way you will notice what is happening to extraction every 5 seconds and can decide when to stop time wise!!

#9: Post by **barri** » March 28th, 2018, 1:49 am

Radio.YYZ wrote:How many seconds was your 60gms liquid shot?

28 sec from activating the pump which seems about right. BTW I should have said 60mls of liquid with a weight/yield of 50gms

#10: Post by **jpatrickramos** » March 28th, 2018, 9:53 am

I always found that 1:1.5 worked best for me, flavor-wise, until I had a chance to align my burrs on my grinder and put a PID on my Silvia.
I have a feeling that for the longer extractions/brew ratios things need to be more consistent too.

Also, many beans are REALLY tasty at 1:1.5, but pull them longer/etc. and things can go south (or sour) quickly.