Guido, I think so ... if by "big post" you mean the one that ends with:
"phew, that was a lengthy one. i owe you for even reading through it all. :)" So here's my reaction to what I have read (and can remember): I am leaning toward a conclusion that your disappointing espresso pulls are caused by a collection of "not quite right" elements, not by a single big "espresso machine" failure. My working hypothesis is that the contributing factors (suspects) are: a dirty machine, imperfect tamping, "not great" beans and the non-standard basket. I do think the slow pressure ramp up is an indicator of something not quite right ... I remember having that same pattern on a B-1 once, but I can't recall what it took to fix it. I think your theory about pre-infusion is not very appealing, but I don't pretend to have spent a lot of time thinking about pre-infusion as the road to great shots. What I do think might be productive is to eliminate the suspects and see if the problem changes. I realize that you are convinced that your roasting is great. (I never met a home roaster who didn't hold that view. And there was always the excuse that we just hadn't dialed it in right, or that the espresso being compared to it was "inappropriate" if we compared two blends and found the home roast wanting.) So we may part company here. But I would urge you to get a known good blend from a shop where you can taste it and say: "yes ... this is good and I should like to be able to pull it this well at home." Then do your testing with this standard product until you get the machine & routine stable. Your situation is complicated by your constant changes to the parameters (... yes yes, justifiable changes in your own mind.) For example, you started this exchange 3 days ago with the brew pressure at 9 and 2 days later it is 9.5 For working at getting the situation stabilized, it was fine at 9. The profile is suspect, but the pressure setting was fine at 9. Very few people can detect the difference between 9 and 9.5 ... and since your machine's output is erratic, you certainly can't have any confidence in your detection of a "brew pressure" driven improvement. If your machine was at 12, we would all be telling you to cut it back ... at 9, it's not the mass murderer. A martial arts sensei once said to me, "until you can make the same mistake over and over, I can't fix your form." You asked what I meant by "data verification" ... I mean that you don't seem to have a sufficient number of same pulls to be able to look for a pattern of broken that justifies a conclusion. The taste may quite possibly be a dirty 2 month old machine. If I recall correctly, you reported that the taste got better after you did a one time modest cleaning effort. So the old data is no longer directly applicable to your current problem. Nice to know as background, but not current. But now you report that the water from the machine is getting a subtle tarry taste ... but you haven't said anything about how you are addressing that. Perhaps the light cleaning approach would be appropriate again. Perhaps you will need to go further ... (cleaning the boilers on the Brewtus, or any other E61, Hx or twin boiler machine is not done the same way that it is on the Gaggia and it is not a one hour task.) Do you ever just turn off the machine and let all the water that will come out of the steam boiler out, turn on and refill, then repeat for 3 or 4 cycles? Do you ever flush 3 - 5 liters of water through the brew boiler? You report that you backflush with a cleaner once in a while. ... you might want to try twice a week for a while to help the cleaning process along. And as Barry said ... you have to rinse the hell out of it when you use Cafiz. RE: "i am using a different basket, exactly the same as the standard expobar basket, except slightly smaller. ... both the standard brewtus basket and one that's exactly the same (shape,hole density/size), but slightly smaller. For purposes of trying to get the same good shots that other people get with a Brewtus, let's put the small one away for a while. I have no idea where it came from or how it's exactly the same, but smaller. But it will further confuse matters. You roast your own coffee and proposed testing with three day old coffee. I tend to think of 2 and 3 day old coffee as a little too young for espresso, I would expect to hear that it is a cremma bomb and "harsh" ... that's exactly how I would describe most espresso I have tasted that young. Cremma is not the shot ... in the words of Ken Schomer, it's Scuzz. If you were pulling 2 oz shots of mostly cremma with 3 day old coffee over a period of 27 seconds, then I would expect that it would taste pretty bad and probably have less than an oz of fluid when everything settled ... that usually turns out to be very risteretto and rarely pleasant, in my opinion. (BTW, Be sure to check the roast date on the shop espresso ... and pass on to someone else if it is more than 10 days old or uses secret codes.) So if you report shot volume, would you please include the fluid vs. cremma info. Last, the channeling is fatal to your goals because it will randomly produce differences large enough to swamp everything except a filthy smelly group head. You need to find someone who can tamp properly and have them supervise your efforts. Reading about it is just not the same as having somebody stand at your elbow and say ... "no,no ... not that way. Do it like this." And in your situation, I would recommend getting one of the (admittedly expensive) ESPRO tampers that give you feed back on your tamp (not the Clicker). Drop me a note off list if/when I can help further, but I suspect this is just clutter in most people's mail boxes as you muck about in the tiny details where the devil is. Kitt ----- Original Message ----- From: "guido" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, March 26, 2012 5:46 PM Subject: Re: is there something wrong with my brewtus iv? > hello kitt, > > ok, i will wait until thursday. have you delved into my big post yet? > > all the best, > guido. > >> Guido ... Please, let the coffee beans be 6 days old, OK? While most >> beans are good for espresso in 4 days, I would rather play it on the >> safe side. I can think of several espressos that should be >> considered undrinkable for at least a week. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Brewtus" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en. > > > > ----- > No virus found in this message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2114/4895 - Release Date: 03/26/12 > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en.
