Grind size

coffee_curators

Hi all!

Once again apologies for my absence from the forum, personal circumstances shall keep me joyfully occupied well into early next year. However, I shall be endeavoring to at least try and keep up to date with some threads whenever possible and say "Hi!" here and there.

I haven't had a moment to fully assimilate the article but thought this may be an interesting read for all.

Enjoy!

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/1115/832011-coffee-limerick-maths/

askthecoffeeguy

Excellent article! But unless the machine is fully automated it still comes down to the capable hands of the barista Quote from article: "Our model shows that this can be understood in terms of the grind size controlling the balance between rapid extraction of coffee from the surface of grains and slow extraction from the interior of coffee grains." Very true and I still often see baristas working with timed shots and weights and measures which is all good and well in ideal circumstances but when did empirical knowledged replace sensory perception in the Batista's lexicon of skills and knowledge The coffees Ive tasted which have been weighed and measured are not noticeably better than those which have not, and in some cases they're much worse! It seems to me that in heading down the empirical path is a poor substitute for tasting and testing your coffee and for compensating for other influential factors such as relative humidity, roast depth, and the age and variety of the beans By all means we should explore this important variable, but not at the expense of other important influential factors My five cents worth Pat :pan :pan :pan :coffee2:

cosmic_couple22

I think timed and weighed shots is the way to great tasting and consistent shots Pat. But, that equation (on a sticky note on my grinders) is and should be a variable form designed for each individual coffee, through a combination of tasting and refracting. If your stuck in a ie-22 gram 30 second mindset your definitely not getting the best out of your coffees. Maybe occasionally the coffee gods will align for it to work on a couple of consecutive different coffees, I would think that would be rare though from my humble experience. Even with my numbers dialed in for each given coffee, get a large humidity swing and even a few extra days of age and a little calibration tweak is necessary.

askthecoffeeguy

cosmic_couple22 wrote:

I think timed and weighed shots is the way to great tasting and consistent shots Pat. But, that equation (on a sticky note on my grinders) is and should be a variable form designed for each individual coffee, through a combination of tasting and refracting. If your stuck in a ie-22 gram 30 second mindset your definitely not getting the best out of your coffees. Maybe occasionally the coffee gods will align for it to work on a couple of consecutive different coffees, I would think that would be rare though from my humble experience. Even with my numbers dialed in for each given coffee, get a large humidity swing and even a few extra days of age and a little calibration tweak is necessary.

there's no doubt that timed and weighted shots can work well in a highly orchestrated and tightly controlled environment (ok, I guess like anything else it becomes routine after a while) and ive seen it happen where everything comes together and the resulting coffee is brilliant! but not often more often i see folks following a formula without i suspect tast testing the results. because if the did they would notice that the coffee is over extracted I taste test and site test my coffee at all stages throughout the day and make grind and dosage adjustments accordingly, which I know that many good folks out there do, but ive also often experienced first hand the result of dialing the machine in first thing in the morning to some presubscribed formula, and then sticking to that same formula for the rest of the day, regardless of the results in the cup, and i have to say that this gets my goat when i know that I can do better myself.... rant over

Brett_H

Rant most appreciated!

admin

cosmic_couple22 wrote:

I think timed and weighed shots is the way to great tasting and consistent shots Pat. But, that equation (on a sticky note on my grinders) is and should be a variable form designed for each individual coffee, through a combination of tasting and refracting. If your stuck in a ie-22 gram 30 second mindset your definitely not getting the best out of your coffees. Maybe occasionally the coffee gods will align for it to work on a couple of consecutive different coffees, I would think that would be rare though from my humble experience. Even with my numbers dialed in for each given coffee, get a large humidity swing and even a few extra days of age and a little calibration tweak is necessary.

Hey C_C22, how're things going - is it looking like going ok with getting into the roasting business? A