Enkerli Senior Member Joined: 1 Aug 2004 Posts: 711 Location: Montreal, Qc Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: (At cafés, not at home) Grinder: Hario hand grinders Vac Pot: (Moka Pot) Bialetti Brikka Drip: Steep and release pour-over Roaster: iRoast-2
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 4:40am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
RaptorHornet Said:
I've noticed these stovetops popping up in a lot of stores recently and considering how cheap these things are, I might finally be able to skimp a bit on the cleanup for a change and not having to worry about finding a store to buy a replacement if mine malfunctions/rusts/whatever.
Good idea. As I mentioned on occasion, I have an old “Zanzibar” moka pot that I use for experiments. I keep my Bialetti Moka Express in a better condition. Actually, it’s not as well-seasoned as it could be, which is a slight problem.
By the way, I don’t think aluminum rusts. Oxidation has a very different effect on it. My old moka pot is a bit pitted, but there’s never been any rust-colour spot anywhere on it. I see what you mean, but just wanted to mention it.
RaptorHornet Said:
Oh the luxuries of easy access. It feels very liberating.
Which is what home coffeemaking should be about, in most cases!
As for my previous comments, I hope you didn’t take them as a knock on your method. I would disagree on the comparison with espesso and I’d still argue that the moka pot isn’t the ideal device when striving for “objectivity”, but to each their own.
In terms of learning, I’m guessing that worrying less about the effects of experiments will be a great help. I learnt a lot by doing experiments with my “Zanzibar”. The coffee was utterly undrinkable, but it didn’t matter because I have my Moka Express for coffee that I drink.
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 6:36am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
Enkerli Said:
By the way, I don’t think aluminum rusts. Oxidation has a very different effect on it. My old moka pot is a bit pitted, but there’s never been any rust-colour spot anywhere on it. I see what you mean, but just wanted to mention it.
As for my previous comments, I hope you didn’t take them as a knock on your method. I would disagree on the comparison with espesso and I’d still argue that the moka pot isn’t the ideal device when striving for “objectivity”, but to each their own.
No offense taken. My ways are simply how I get my enjoyment out of the thing.
On a different note:
I have finally come to terms with the fact that, regardless of modifications, my NOTSkerton will never give proper consistency past 5 knobs of grind setting. Actually, even 5 is already pushing it but is still WAY better than 6. The ceramic burrs simply aren't that good to begin with. Knowing that 3 is enough to clog my pot, I'm stuck with just a 4 and 5. I have yet to experience using a setting past 5 for a moka pot but if ever I get a batch of beans that still ends up over-extracting at that setting, then I wonder if I can compensate by cutting down on the brew time. I'm afraid that I may just end up with an overly strong cup though.
Alternative would be to simply not use the pot for that batch. There are beans that don't necessarily work well with every brew method after all.
Enkerli Senior Member Joined: 1 Aug 2004 Posts: 711 Location: Montreal, Qc Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: (At cafés, not at home) Grinder: Hario hand grinders Vac Pot: (Moka Pot) Bialetti Brikka Drip: Steep and release pour-over Roaster: iRoast-2
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 7:09am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
RaptorHornet Said:
I have finally come to terms with the fact that, regardless of modifications, my NOTSkerton will never give proper consistency past 5 knobs of grind setting. Actually, even 5 is already pushing it but is still WAY better than 6. The ceramic burrs simply aren't that good to begin with.
Strange. I rarely use my Skerton that fine. What problems do you notice, leading you to suspect consistency issues? You have more fines at a coarser grind? On the Skerton, there’s a potential issue with the centre rod, which can jiggle. But I haven’t really had issues with that and there are fixes for it.
RaptorHornet Said:
Knowing that 3 is enough to clog my pot, I'm stuck with just a 4 and 5. I have yet to experience using a setting past 5 for a moka pot but if ever I get a batch of beans that still ends up over-extracting at that setting, then I wonder if I can compensate by cutting down on the brew time. I'm afraid that I may just end up with an overly strong cup though.
You could try it. Brew time is difficult to adjust (it varies haphazardly). But getting a strong cup isn’t the worst problem you could get. In fact, you could do it “Americano-style”.
RaptorHornet Said:
Alternative would be to simply not use the pot for that batch. There are beans that don't necessarily work well with every brew method after all.
Good point. There are beans which are nice “in the abstract” but only work well with some methods, under certain conditions. Other beans are, like the moka pot itself, quite forgiving. You can get something quite nice regardless of other factors. Ritual’s Karatina is pretty much the latter. The former is more common. Part of it is the roast. Some roasts are more versatile than others. Not just degree of roast, but overall profile. Difficult to predict and/or control, but noticeable.
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 8:14am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
Enkerli Said:
Strange. I rarely use my Skerton that fine. What problems do you notice, leading you to suspect consistency issues? You have more fines at a coarser grind?
That's pretty much it really. The ceramic burrs just aren't sharp enough to make clean cuts so its smashing the beans for the most part and creating particles of various sizes. Even the addition of the top-bottom stability mod will never fix that kind of issue. It still does a better job than fake flat burrs from those cheap electric grinders but not by much, honestly.
Fortunately for me, a 5 knob setting is already about the right size for drip (500 microns, more or less) so there's still quite a bit of flexibility in it even with the limit of just 5 settings.
I forgot to mention but my 1st knob isn't necessarily the tighest but rather the finest setting I can achieve before the burrs start destroying each other. There's actually quite the difference in grind size from 1 knob to the next so, if we were to assume that the grinder actually had good consistency, each knob would have been an increase in grind size by around 100 microns.
To be fair, it's not really a big problem for me since I don't do espresso.
Enkerli Senior Member Joined: 1 Aug 2004 Posts: 711 Location: Montreal, Qc Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: (At cafés, not at home) Grinder: Hario hand grinders Vac Pot: (Moka Pot) Bialetti Brikka Drip: Steep and release pour-over Roaster: iRoast-2
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 9:45am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
Silly question, I guess, but how did you measure your grind fineness? I don’t do espresso either and wouldn’t use either of my Hario handmills for espresso. And while it’s possible that I’m oblivious to problems with consistency in grind size in my brewing methods, I can say that I get a “better grind” with my Hario handmills than I ever did with my previous grinder (Bodum Antigua, a low-end electric burr grinder). I don’t get fines at my usual grind level, there’s no static involved, and I tend to get very satisfying results. When I don’t, grind level might be at stake but grind quality doesn’t appear to be. I know, very imprecise. But it goes back to my point about this being “more art than science”: it’s very difficult to control variables and much easier to focus on everything getting together to produce a nice cup.
I do get fines in the cup when I grind too fine for my brewing device. As I was using Chemex filters in my SaRPoD, recently, nothing could be too fine. But I switched back to bamboo filters and my finer grind does seem to bring fines to the cup. However, it doesn’t really seem to be a problem with consistency. I either get lots of fines because the overall grind is too fine or no fines to speak of. Even while using the Coava disk in my AeroPress, which allegedly has larger holes than a bamboo filter for drip.
So, to be clear, I don’t really know about the quality of my grind. I notice that the quality of the finished product is quite comparable to what I have at some of the best cafés in town. It might be that the difference is below my own taste threshold, in which case it’s completely fine with me (especially since I stopped judging at barista comps).
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 4:38pm Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
I simply ground 4 beans for each of the 6 settings on a flat plate. I took a ruler for measurement and just eyeballed the consistency. The dust becomes very noticeable at the 6th knob. Not so much at the 5th but still quite bad. I noticed that grinding the beans whole makes a lot of dust (most probably because of the initial crack). I tried breaking them up first then use a fine mesh to remove dust. It helped with the consistency a bit and also reduced the stress on the metal threads when grinding (which is actually something I worry about more).
Enkerli Senior Member Joined: 1 Aug 2004 Posts: 711 Location: Montreal, Qc Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: (At cafés, not at home) Grinder: Hario hand grinders Vac Pot: (Moka Pot) Bialetti Brikka Drip: Steep and release pour-over Roaster: iRoast-2
Posted Mon Aug 15, 2011, 5:12pm Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
You make me realize that I should probably do some experiments with grind size. But I keep thinking that it matters more in some brewing methods than in others. Sounds like you have a specific issue with your own grinder which prevents you from using the kind of coarser grind which might be appropriate in a moka pot. Although, 0,5mm might be a bit large after all. Again, I use an “omnigrind” for all my brewing methods and it’s just a bit finer than what most people would think of as drip.
Posted Tue Aug 16, 2011, 7:28am Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
Enkerli Said:
You make me realize that I should probably do some experiments with grind size. But I keep thinking that it matters more in some brewing methods than in others.
Worst possible case would be dust clogging up drip filters. As for the actual brewing is concerned, following proper brew ratio is enough to somewhat forgive the inconsistencies.
Enkerli Said:
Sounds like you have a specific issue with your own grinder which prevents you from using the kind of coarser grind which might be appropriate in a moka pot. Although, 0,5mm might be a bit large after all. Again, I use an “omnigrind” for all my brewing methods and it’s just a bit finer than what most people would think of as drip.
To be honest, I've been content with .4-.5mm sizes ever since I started grinding for my pot. Those have always been my comfort zones whenever I'm not trying something crazy. The only reason I wanted to try going for something coarser was because, recently, I've had two batches of beans with very sensitive bitter notes that extract too easily. Since there aren't any other things to fine tune on a moka pot besides grind setting, my options are basically very limited at the moment.
Yeah, I don’t have a problem with that. Clogging a moka pot is worse in that it remains in the pot for a few batches and messes up the seasoning. But I rarely get it. And I still get the impression that I often grind coarser than you do. Although, 0,5mm does sound fairly big. Maybe I could ask a friend for access to a microscope. As a former homebrewer, I’m in touch with several people who have microscopes (they do cell counts and such). It’d be nice if there were a device to quickly measure grind size. Contrary to temperature and mass, it’s not something we can really keep in our logbooks.
Posted Tue Aug 16, 2011, 5:53pm Subject: Re: Confessions of a Brikka Lover
Just to give a correction on a previous post:
Breaking up the beans and sieving off dust before grinding them (assuming that you're also using a similar hand grinder of course) just doesn't help a bit. It actually helps a lot.
I made two batches of aeropress coffee this morning. The first batch was where I broke the beans and sieved out the dust first while the second batch was something I made in a hurry and simply put the beans straight into the grinder. During cleanup, I noticed that the bottom of the puck from the second batch had double, if not triple, the amount of "mud" than the first batch.
So there it is. If you're worried about dust coming from your grinder, go ahead and break up the beans first at rock gravel setting and sieve out the dust before grinding it again at your desired setting.
I also mentioned before that I'm quite worried about wearing out the threads on my grinder. I'm thinking that I should just upgrade it with a hex nut and wrench/cordless drill when it does wear out.
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