germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,008 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Wed May 4, 2011, 8:28am Subject: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
I spend most of my time brewing espresso now a days and learning to dial in a taste profile for different beans with dose and grind size to alter the flavor. A conventional Italian double shot is 14g at 25sec but with specialty roasted beans many suggest up dosing to 18g or more for a double shot. With drip and french I always used the SCAA of 10g per 6oz but started to wonder if the same altering of flavor in the cup can be achieved with a higher dose and a coarser grind to still achieve the same extraction rate or vise versa.
Anyone ever experiment with this and achieve results worth pursuing?
Posted Thu May 5, 2011, 10:41am Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
germantownrob Said:
I spend most of my time brewing espresso now a days and learning to dial in a taste profile for different beans with dose and grind size to alter the flavor. A conventional Italian double shot is 14g at 25sec but with specialty roasted beans many suggest up dosing to 18g or more for a double shot. With drip and french I always used the SCAA of 10g per 6oz but started to wonder if the same altering of flavor in the cup can be achieved with a higher dose and a coarser grind to still achieve the same extraction rate or vise versa.
Anyone ever experiment with this and achieve results worth pursuing?
For example: If you grind too fine, the consequence is that the brew in the filter basket takes longer to drip through, so you get a longer than the normal 5 minutes ...which can lead to over-extraction. Or if it's too coarse, the brew will run through too quickly ...which can lead to under-extraction.
The prob with 'partial pots' is that brewing is completed too quickly. Thus you need to double-up on the filters or use more coffee or grind finer.
With my Krups Moka Brew, 36 oz is completed in 5:30 ...OK. But 40 oz takes another full minute and the coffee is too bitter. What I will try next (to get 40 oz) is to increase the grind from 16 to 20 (coarser) hoping to bring the brew time back to 5:30 min.
germantownrob Senior Member Joined: 2 Dec 2007 Posts: 2,008 Location: Philadelphia Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Duetto 3, A Dead Oscar Grinder: Vario-W, Preciso w/Esatto,... Drip: Brazen Roaster: Diedrich IR-1, HT B
Posted Fri May 6, 2011, 8:40pm Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
I know it all to well Jerry, brew button and timer button pressed.....crap 80 seconds to fast, grind finer, try again. Never thought of using two filters.
I am thinking about up dosing and down dosing, playing with temperature, grind and quantity while keeping the steep time constant. What will happen to the flavor? This post over at HB puts words to what I have been chasing with my espresso and my roasts for awhile now. Click Here (www.home-barista.com) So can we alter the taste of our roasts with other brew methods and how we go about brewing them? Espresso took me outside of doing things in a standard way so I think I need to apply this to other brew methods and explore the possibility that it applies to them as well. I recently purchased some Red Bird espresso blend after reading about a member saying he was getting a snickers bar flavor from his shots ( I love a snickers bar),after a pound of dialing in I was capable of consistently getting snickers bar in my shots, and many great shots on the way there that tasted nothing like snickers bars. Can other brewing methods be altered with the same intensity?
Posted Sat May 7, 2011, 5:07am Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
Rob, with a filter-brewer like a Bunn, you also have another 'gauge' to tell you what's going on: When you remove the filter holder you can see how high the grounds (filter-cake) has risen during the brewing process. I like to have it an inch or less from the top. If the water isn't coming in fast enough (or the grind is too coarse) it will not create a deep pond in which the coffee can steep.
Going back to basics, if you have a bad grinder and lots of fines, those fines block the filter and you do get a good pond but the brew time will be too long and the fines themselves will over-extract.
I'm not saying you have that. Your original question was "...is it worthwhile to study this?" and the answer is "...definitely yes".
My mother had a good way of dealing with partial pots. Her formula was: 1 for each mug + 1 for the pot. So if each scoop was 12g and a full pot was 4 8-oz mugs = 32 oz,
1 mug needs 1+1 = 2 scoops or 24 g for 8 oz 2 mugs need 2+1 = 3 scoops or 36 g for 16 oz 3 mugs need 3+1 = 4 scoops or 48 g for 24 oz 4 mugs need 4+1 = 5 scoops or 60 g for 32 oz.
So a full pot got a full measure of coffee and partial pots progressively MORE to make up for the faster brewing time.
Now if I can ever pull myself away espresso to start playing with this I might find I really can dial in my brews for the flavor I want.
Edit: I keep waiting for the Esatto to be available, I think this will simplify playing with other brew methods and variations. My wife is also looking forward to this attachment to the Virtuoso to aid her in her geekness.
Posted Thu Jun 30, 2011, 2:15pm Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
Yes.
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Posted Thu Jun 30, 2011, 2:17pm Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
^^^ (maybe my shortest post reply/question answer on CG evah! ROFLOL)
------------------------------------------ ----------------------------------------- Le café doit être noir comme le diable, chaud comme l'enfer, pur comme un ange, et doux comme l'amour.
"There is no right answer with coffee. There is only the elixir in your cup at the moment you partake."
"...I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind;..." - Lord Kelvin RECIPES thread => http://www.coffeegeek.com/forums/coffee/machines/585708
Java_Jiver Senior Member Joined: 3 Nov 2010 Posts: 131 Location: Baton Rouge Expertise: I love coffee
Grinder: Capresso Infinity Drip: Technivorm 741
Posted Sat Jul 2, 2011, 11:38am Subject: Re: Has anyone experimented with up dosing and grind size for drip or french?
I experiment with dosing each time I try a new roast. I start at 60 grams for 1 liter of water and either increase or reduce this amount. I've found that by grinding the beans to roughly medium fine, the brew is more flavorful; going finer though, does lead to over extraction as someone else noted.
Medium roasts generally taste best to me at 66 - 70 grams per liter (what can I say, I live in Louisiana).
Darker roasts such as those coming from Kaffeeklatsch are best at 56 - 60 grams.
If you like robust coffees, I have found no finer roaster, and would strongly recommend him.
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