I always enjoy discussion about the obsessively minute details of espresso related matters. I"m going to try and clarify things some more and see what you think, don't take it personal, I rarely get personal on these sorts of things:
Fact - When pulling an espresso shot it's typical to set the grinder to a point where you pull the best out of the coffee, call it coarse grind or fine grind, the terminology isn't important in this case. What IS important is that you are using the CORRECT setting. If you take 17gms of ground coffee in a double basket at a grind setting that allows for an extraction within acceptable standards you will get a good cup (applying all the other necessary variables of course). For the moment lets just say that the grinder and dose variables allowed for a 1.5oz liquid volume in 29secs. Now... if you setup for a shot, and don't touch the grinder setting, but reduce the dose by 50% (which also reduces the headspace between puck surface and screen by approx 50%) you will get an imperfect cup, it is a reduction in quality and it is by definition over-extraction. Slight over-extraction (your term not mine) is a reduction in quality and while I'm trying not to focus on semantics your slight over-extraction isn't the first word that comes to mind with such a large headspace and way under-dosed coffee, the term that comes to my mind is huge over-extraction. If you compare a two shot sequence, everything exactly the same from shot to shot with the only difference being 18gms versus 9gms, then top the resulting product off with water to a total of 5oz, the difference will be this... the 18gms is correctly extracted, the 9gms is over-extracted. The suggestion that "Probably because the entire amount of water has been in touch with the finely grind coffee." is wrong and that's not just my opinion, it is the opinion of hydrodynamic specialists. I can't debate the details of the fluid movement side of the shot as I'm afraid it's outside of my field of expertise but I trust the brains who schooled me in the coffee fluid particulars. So to be very clear... Whether I am pulling a shot for a 4oz latte, a 5oz Americano, or an espresso shot for sipping, they all get the same treatment. I dose, grind and extract all of them exactly the same way with hopes of trying to pull the best shot I can that will get built on from there via milk or water. Depending on whether the shot is pulled using a single origin, or a blend, depending on whether it is five day old or an eight day old, depending on whether it is wet processed or dry, or Brazilian or Ethiopian, whether it is humid in the kitchen or not, etc, etc, etc... no matter what is going on I still try to pull the shot the way I think will demonstrate certain qualities that I am looking for. Minor tweaks will allow me to manipulate the coffee to show different things but NO MATTER WHAT my pulled shots can go in milk, water or by themselves - using the same grind and dose. The shot must be able to stand on its own before the decision is made to manipulate it post-shot pull. Finally, certain coffees whether they are S.O. or blended may not pull well into milk or into an Americano style bevie. Some will work with both and some won't. I'm a home roaster and currently have approx 30+ different greens in my stash, I work the coffee hard every day with another coffee-freak who comes over daily, sometimes we want to run outside and shoot off fireworks because the shots are sooooo good. Most of the time the shots are what we call averagely great, on occasion I totally blow it. Hope some of this makes sense. Shaun ps. Your image links are unavailable. On Jan 26, 1:13 pm, "E. Masseurs" <[email protected]> wrote: > Ok, no need to apologize. It's a discussion group and it's always hard to > explain these things e-mail. But, this asks for even more clearance now that > you've started comparing the wrong things. > > Over here everybody strongly dislikes americano's. > The regulated alternative is a double basket with (say) 20 grams coarsely > grind coffee > meaning to yield 5 oz. Now, if you wanna switch between an espresso and this > one you'd > definitely have to change your grinder settings back and forth, right? > > To prevent that we came up with the single (fine grind) dosage in a double > basket theory > to find a better alternative for the Americano 'taste'. > > An Americano takes appr. 10 grams fine espresso grind yielding 1oz espresso, > combined with > 4oz of hot water, totals 5oz. of americano, right? > Our 'new' alternative takes exactly the same amount of grams as this > americano, therefore not cheaper. > But the taste... is actually MUCH richer if you compare these two. Don't > compare it to an espresso... > Of course your lip will curl. You really need to compare this to an > Americano or 5oz of drip coffee, > if you like. We don't do this to save money, but to get the best taste out > of the same amount of coffee > we'd otherwise 'abuse' (in our opinion) for an americano. > > Now, to make my point once again... I've included some pix. > Even from the photo's I can tell which one tastes better... and yes... > there's a slight trail of 'blonding' in the crema, but nothing tastes burned > whatsoever. > Actually the Americano tasted burned, while the water I added was only 203 > degrees fahrenheit. > > Left is the Americano and right is the > alternative:http://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk56/HCHybrid/Brewtus%20III-V/IMG_... > ghttp://i277.photobucket.com/albums/kk56/HCHybrid/Brewtus%20III-V/IMG_... > g > FYI, I used Cafè Martella Maximum Class beans for this experiment. > > I hope this helped in explaining my point of view... > It's up to everybody's free will what to do with this information... > And please don't be offended by our opinion of an Americano ;-) > > Regards, > Hybrid > read more » --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. 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