SquareH Senior Member Joined: 17 Mar 2004 Posts: 36 Location: Denver, CO Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: AstraPro Drip: Old Mr. Coffee/Melitta/Press...
Posted Sun Dec 4, 2005, 10:36pm Subject: Re: New Silvia, very fast extraction
Even without your own grinder, you can and should tweak your grind to your machine. What's ideal for the the coffee shop setup is unlikely to work well for you on your Silvia. Intead of getting an entire pound ground the same, ask them to give you a range of different grinds, with few ounces of each in a separate bag. I'd start where you are and go finer.
When you find something that works better you can modify the amount and the tamp to tune the shot further. Once you find a workable grind, you're likely to need to change amount and tamp anyway to try to keep your quality up as the pre-ground coffee goes stale. Even though you're getting a grinder, I think in the beginning it's useul to keep your variables under control. Ideally you'd still be grinding for each shot but if you've got to use preground make the most of it. Consistency is key until you understand the impact of each variable and learn to use them in your favor. If you like the beans from your local shop, stick with them until you're getting the hang of the other variables.
When I used preground, typically the first day or two was very good--not quite as good as fresh ground but still reasonable. 3-4 days, it was definetely fading. 5-6 days, I was just burning up what was left in the bag and looking forward to getting a fresh batch. I could keep the crema pretty decent into the 4th day but the bitterness was increasing. Days 5-6 were really just very dark, strong coffee. Keep it frozen and only take the bag out to measure your coffee for the next shot. Leaving the bag out would cut the staling times in half or more. This was in Denver, so for Breck, YMMV.
Hey if your shop is feels your pain, maybe you can buy 4 oz at a time!
poison Senior Member Joined: 11 Aug 2004 Posts: 1,164 Location: LA Expertise: I live coffee
Espresso: Astra Pro Grinder: Maestro Plus, Super J deal Drip: Cone filter Roaster: RK drum
Posted Mon Dec 5, 2005, 9:01am Subject: Re: New Silvia, very fast extraction
the other thing to do with pre-ground is ask to buy coffee directly from their espresso grinder, NOT the bulk grinder set to 'espresso'. It's a lotta clackin, but if they're cool, they'll do it.
caffeinatedjen Senior Member Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 297 Location: michigan Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: Bezzera B707 Grinder: Mazzer Mini Roaster: Behmor
Posted Mon Dec 5, 2005, 9:46am Subject: Re: New Silvia, very fast extraction
I couldn't get the coffee shop to sell me coffee from their espresso grinder, but I did get better results asking them to grind it on the "Turkish" setting instead of espresso, so you might give that a try. Jen
Posted Mon Dec 5, 2005, 5:58pm Subject: Re: New Silvia, very fast extraction
Breckenridge_Realtor Said:
I'm not sure what I am looking for but the pucks seem even. I do not see anything that intuitively suggests channeling to me. The shot would start very dark (.5 sec), then change to light brown, then go light blond at the end, with about 2.5 oz pulled in 5-7 seconds. I would say the shot is slightly bitter.
Sounds like the shot is going right. You said your grinds are about 24hrs old, I think. The bitterness could be from grinding dry beans fine enough to get a proper extraction time. From what I understand a dense puck offers more resistance and the increased resistance to pressurized hot water will raise the extraction temp to a point that it's high enough to cause a bitter, overextracted taste to the shot. Grinding coarser would help but the shot would pull a lot faster, most likely, as a result.
It's a hard thing to find a balance when just being off on one variable can throw off the shot. I'm starting to appreciate why you could call a really great shot a God shot, especially with the Silvia: God must have intervened for the 25 sec it took for all the variables to fall in line to pull the shot.
Posted Mon Dec 5, 2005, 6:30pm Subject: Re: New Silvia, very fast extraction
SquareH Said:
Keep it frozen and only take the bag out to measure your coffee for the next shot. Leaving the bag out would cut the staling times in half or more. This was in Denver, so for Breck, YMMV.
Hey if your shop is feels your pain, maybe you can buy 4 oz at a time!
Because coffee beans will absorb odor easily, it's not a good idea to either freeze or refrigerate roasted beans.
It's my understanding that you can freeze GREEN (unroasted) beans only.
Good advice to buy only 4 oz at a time until you can get a good grinder. Besides, it gives you a good excuse to stop by your favorite shop. As if any self respecting CG needs an excuse to surround herself with everything coffee. :-)
DEFINITELY not the case. In fact, I've never heard of anyone intentionally freezing green coffee. One of the best ways of preserving coffee for use at a later date is to put it in glass mason jars immediately after roasting, before it starts to outgas. This effectively makes it "dormant", and can be stored for about a month easily.
Chris
Please remember CoffeeKids throughout the year: www.coffeekids.org
Sorry Chris, it DEFINITELY is the case! George Howell of Terroir Coffee Company freezes all of his greens in a commercial freezer, -40°C/-40°F.
There's info on this site about it here in threads somewhere & I'm sure alt.coffee also. I'm too tired to look for it now (1:48am)., a couple of links for now. {;-)
Well, my comment regarding "DEFINITELY not" was really directed towards the "only" statement
"It's my understanding that you can freeze GREEN (unroasted) beans only.
And it is definitely not the case that you can only freeze green coffee.
I didn't realize that George was freezing all of his coffee, nor had I heard anything about it here or on alt.coffee, but it is certainly likely that I just missed the threads. I'll check out the links.
Chris
Please remember CoffeeKids throughout the year: www.coffeekids.org
Symbols: = New Posts since your last visit = No New Posts since last visit = Newest post
Forum Rules: No profanity, illegal acts or personal attacks will be tolerated in these discussion boards. No commercial posting of any nature will be tolerated; only private sales by private individuals, in the "Buy and Sell" forum. No cross posting allowed - do not post your topic to more than one forum, nor repost a topic to the same forum. Who Can Read The Forum? Anyone can read posts in these discussion boards. Who Can Post New Topics? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post new topics. Who Can Post Replies? Any registered CoffeeGeek member can post replies. Can Photos be posted? Anyone can post photos in their new topics or replies. Who can change or delete posts? Any CoffeeGeek member can edit their own posts. Only moderators can delete posts. Probationary Period: If you are a new signup for CoffeeGeek, you cannot promote, endorse, criticise or otherwise post an unsolicited endorsement for any company, product or service in your first five postings.
= No New Posts since last visit 