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Bandire posted:Not going to edit a fourth time. This gasket is what I ended up getting to replace the original junk rubber gasket. The 8.5mm one says it is supposed to work with the Gaggia, but the portafilter wouldn't lock in all the way to 90 with that one. https://www.wholelattelove.com/products/caffewerks-silicone-group-gasket-73-x-57-x-8mm That is normal, they wear in.
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Jan 10, 2023 21:45
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The gasket is brand new - I ordered and replaced it with one of these: https://caffewerks.com/products/caffewerks-8mm-faema-e61-silicone-brew-group-gasket?_pos=9&_sid=3223d1cf3&_ss=r Here's the setup and results of the 18g test. I ground 18.8g of beans at finest possible level. I then dispensed half of the grounds and tamped them into the double shot basket like so:  I dispensed the rest and tamped tightly, leaning in from the shoulder and exerting some reasonable force. I wish I had a way to measure how many newtons I was exerting but I have no clue how to do that. The dry puck looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/EL06VbY.mp4 Here is the squirt in action: https://i.imgur.com/nof2ozc.mp4 This time, it only took about 20ish seconds to extract 36g liquid. Here is the puck after switching it off and letting it drip a bit.  Bonus: the Rancilio Silvia wand install went a bit smoother. The drat thing is REALLY tight, it doesn't turn unless I pull hard on it, so I guess it's kinda stuck in the full out position. However, I'm definitely getting more familiar with working the knob and getting wet foam. Finally got enough to (poorly) attempt latte art. Still a ways to go.  Side note: anyone know of how to get more even roasts out of a Turbo Crazy, or am I looking at buying an actual big people roaster? MJP fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jan 10, 2023 |
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Jan 10, 2023 21:46
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BlackMK4 posted:That is normal, they wear in. I gave it a year, and it didn't.  It made the seepage worse.
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Jan 10, 2023 21:47
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MJP posted:The gasket is brand new - I ordered and replaced it with one of these: https://caffewerks.com/products/caffewerks-8mm-faema-e61-silicone-brew-group-gasket?_pos=9&_sid=3223d1cf3&_ss=r Your issue is likely the grinder. See all those giant flakes of coffee on top of the near mud consistency of the rest of the puck? That means you have extreme variation of size in your grounds. Those extreme sizes cause gaps in between the grounds, where the pressurized water can shove itself through at first before the grinds expand and fill in the gaps a little more. It’s called channeling, and can happen for a ton of reasons, including grinding too finely. I know you have a better grinder coming, and I suspect that this’ll get fixed with it. Once you have a proper espresso grinder, you should focus on getting a non-pressurized basket. You do not need to buy an entire portafilter to buy a basket, unless you buy an 18-22g basket. I’m looking for you now. The basket size in IMS is 16-20g. This one should work with your portafilter? IMS Baristapro Nanotech Precision Ridgeless Double Portafilter Basket - 20 gram https://a.co/d/6Zzd3vi VST is the other brand. At the limit of what I can search for ya. Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jan 10, 2023 |
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Jan 10, 2023 22:25
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A brand new gaggia classic does shots at 14 bars, so that may also be why the flow is so fast here.
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Jan 11, 2023 00:33
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Your issue is likely the grinder. See all those giant flakes of coffee on top of the near mud consistency of the rest of the puck? That means you have extreme variation of size in your grounds. Those extreme sizes cause gaps in between the grounds, where the pressurized water can shove itself through at first before the grinds expand and fill in the gaps a little more. Don't I need a bottomless portafilter for unpressurized baskets? As long as the crema persists, I'll use the one I've got.
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Jan 11, 2023 00:45
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MJP posted:Thank you for the detail and all the help. This is the best thread. No you only use a bottomless so you can diagnose the shots. You'll get crema from a pressurized basket but it's a loving lie.
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Jan 11, 2023 01:06
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VelociBacon posted:No you only use a bottomless so you can diagnose the shots. Well yes and no. VST 20g+ and IMS 18-22g baskets (also known as triple baskets) require a bottomless as the stock Gaggia portafilter isn’t deep enough. However, both VST and IMS make smaller ones (IMS most 16-20g & 14-18g, VST I’m not sure) that fit in the OEM portafilter. It just requires a ton of research to find the correct one and I just don’t have the free time to do that for someone else right now. There are also OEM unpressurized double baskets from gaggia that’ll fit too. Those are 14-16g though. MJP posted:Thank you for the detail and all the help. This is the best thread. See my reply above. You will never get close to the shot quality with a pressurized basket that you do with an unpressurized one. Using a pressurized basket basically makes having a $300 a moot point as you’d get nearly the same Results with a $100 grinder. Think of a pressurized basket as a hack to be able to use a lovely grinder or pre-ground coffee.
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Jan 11, 2023 01:12
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Okay, so this is me asking another dumb question, but aren't bottomless filters basically built-in unpressurized baskets? Or would I need a bottomless filter and unpressurized basket to go with it?
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Jan 11, 2023 02:55
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MJP posted:Okay, so this is me asking another dumb question, but aren't bottomless filters basically built-in unpressurized baskets? Or would I need a bottomless filter and unpressurized basket to go with it? A bottomless filter isn’t a thing. It’s a bottomless portafilter. Unpressurized filter basket to go with it. A bottomless portafilter means the metal part is punched out, leaving only the metal ring so you can see the bottom of the basket. Basket is always separate.
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Jan 11, 2023 04:10
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MJP posted:The gasket is brand new - I ordered and replaced it with one of these: https://caffewerks.com/products/caffewerks-8mm-faema-e61-silicone-brew-group-gasket?_pos=9&_sid=3223d1cf3&_ss=r Don't worry about your tamping pressure too much. You are just trying to compress the puck to the point that there are no empty pockets inside. The pressure of the water from the espresso machine is equivalent to the weight of several grown men standing on the puck, so you aren't getting anywhere close to making a difference with the tamping pressure. Just focus on making it even and level. Looks like you've done a good job there already. I'm going to second the opinion that this is a grinder issue. To me, those grinds look far too coarse for espresso. You likely just need a grinder that can grind finer and more consistently.
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Jan 11, 2023 06:27
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Without a doubt that's just way too coarse, agreed.
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Jan 11, 2023 06:31
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Thought the coffee thread might enjoy this. On another forum I visit someone complaining about their V60 method:quote:My coffee takes an age to drip through even at course grind, and the coffee is always lukewarm and the funnel = 1 mug. I’m thinking of going back to Cafetière. Followed by a few replies giving advice about grind size etc but then the OP comes back with this revelation: quote:So I sat through 10 mins of James Hoffman, and I think I can surmise that my pour after to the bloom is wrong, in that I just blast a mugful straight out of the hot tap to the top of the V60. Definitely seems that the whole thing get clogged by coffee. Turns out their V60 method is to just BLAST A MUGFUL straight out of the hot tap. 
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Jan 11, 2023 09:54
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I, too, like my water slightly lukewarm with a hint of coffee taste. Probably ended up with the lacroix of coffees, from underextraction. Helios Grime fucked around with this message at 11:02 on Jan 11, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 11:00
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Gaw drat. Makes me wonder if they saw someone using one of those "boiling water" taps.
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Jan 11, 2023 16:02
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you've heard about cold brew, now get ready for lukewarm brew
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Jan 11, 2023 19:54
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BrianBoitano posted:Gaw drat. Makes me wonder if they saw someone using one of those "boiling water" taps. I don't even trust those to be hot enough to make good coffee. They're not quite consistently hot enough for black tea, but if you have them set up right to be actually near boiling I could see it working. I just don't expect anyone to have them set hot enough.
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Jan 11, 2023 20:33
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Jhet posted:I don't even trust those to be hot enough to make good coffee. They're not quite consistently hot enough for black tea, but if you have them set up right to be actually near boiling I could see it working. I just don't expect anyone to have them set hot enough. IIRC these tend to be sent between 90c and 98c. The extra 2c to keep it boiling takes apparently near double the energy
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Jan 11, 2023 21:13
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I’ve been having fun learning how to use my Breville Bambino over the last week or so. The normcore accessories have helped with my puck preparation - I haven’t experienced much channeling now that I’ve got my process down. I might pick up another 18-22g IMS basket so I can prep both my stock and new porta filter. At this point, I’m just waiting for that Fellow Opus grinder to come out so I can use that instead of my Baratza Encore. I’d consider a niche but hate how much I’d have to spend on the shipping costs - I have a friend that just picked up a df83 grinder and he might consider selling me his niche, but he’s still deciding if he wants to let it go (he also owns an Ode). The only issue I have is with my shot temperature - I’ve been checking it with my thermapen and my shots can be anywhere from 150f to 180f depending on how I’ve preheated the thermalblock, portafilter, shot glass, etc. I’ve definitely had some sour shots, so I’m convinced this thing doesn’t actually hit 200+ degrees unless I’ve run a few pressured shots through it. Maybe I’m wrong, though, and this thing can easily hit 200+ degrees in 3 seconds like it advertises. Corb3t fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Jan 11, 2023 |
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Jan 11, 2023 23:48
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I've been given a Gaggia Carezza Deluxe, someone said they had an old Gaggia machine going to waste. I thought okay, I'll take a free machine, Gaggia make proper machines, I was thinking of like the Classic or something. That's not really what this is, but I figure maybe it's worth a try, especially given I got it for nothing. It seems to all be in working order, but it's very plastic. It's only got a pressurised portafilter, with this weird spring-loaded handle that rotates back a bit after you lock it in, which honestly feels a bit like a toy feature. Its temperature dial doesn't have numbers and only goes up in increments of more-gray, and it doesn't have a pressure gauge anywhere. I knew it wasn't going to be a premium machine, so let's be honest, I can't be disappointed, I'm just not sure what to expect out of this thing. I do know its steam arm is pretty naff. It also didn't come with a tamper because apparently you don't need to tamp with this thing, or at least that's what I was told. I don't know that I believe that. If anyone's familiar with these, is it actually good, could I be doing anything to it to make it better, can I at least get a non-stupid handle for it?
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Jan 12, 2023 00:35
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Corb3t posted:I’ve been having fun learning how to use my Breville Bambino over the last week or so. The normcore accessories have helped with my puck preparation - I haven’t experienced much channeling now that I’ve got my process down. I might pick up another 18-22g IMS basket so I can prep both my stock and new porta filter. At this point, I’m just waiting for that Fellow Opus grinder to come out so I can use that instead of my Baratza Encore. I’d consider a niche but hate how much I’d have to spend on the shipping costs - I have a friend that just picked up a df83 grinder and he might consider selling me his niche, but he’s still deciding if he wants to let it go (he also owns an Ode). On my Breville I can push the temp of the water up by running the steam wand then immediately pulling a shot. I usually preheat it for like 30 minutes though, with the portafilter in and I run the water through the group head before pushing it up with the steam wand.
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Jan 12, 2023 01:51
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:On my Breville I can push the temp of the water up by running the steam wand then immediately pulling a shot. I’ve heard about the steam wand trick as well - maybe I’ll give that a try and see what kind of shot temps I can get.
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Jan 12, 2023 04:57
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My Bird and Bear coffee order was delivered yesterday and it's very good! I got the Honduran and the Ethiopian varieties and they're obviously quite different but both good in their own ways. In the next week or so I'll look at what my next order will be. Coming back to this: Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Also consider upgrading your grinder. It’ll make the next biggest difference after the bean upgrade. I think I can probably rationalize replacing my nine year old Capresso Infinity but I'm not sure the Encore is enough of an upgrade to justify it. At least, it seems like I'd be getting slightly better uniformity but that's about it. If I'm going to upgrade I'd like it to be to something that will also make my workflow more pleasant, which is to say less messy / less retention. I'd like something that's less plasticky and that looks a little prettier (which will also help sell my partner on a grinder upgrade). I don't have any immediate plans to buy an espresso machine but if I'm being honest there's a decent chance of that happening in 2023. So I'd like something that could do grinds for French press and for espresso even if I'm mostly using it for the Aeropress and a drip machine. Something like a Niche isn't out of the question but is definitely on the high end of what I could justify spending, and even that may be a bit overboard. But then again, this is an appliance that I use every day (multiple times a day, now that I'm working from home). Thoughts?
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Jan 14, 2023 17:52
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Easychair Bootson posted:My Bird and Bear coffee order was delivered yesterday and it's very good! I got the Honduran and the Ethiopian varieties and they're obviously quite different but both good in their own ways. In the next week or so I'll look at what my next order will be. Even with a niche I don't think you'll want to go between a grind as coarse as French roast and all the way back down to espresso. I could see having a fellow ode for everything but espresso and maybe the new fellow espresso grinder as it'll be out soon and you could wait to buy it until you have an espresso machine. Anyone with a niche here actually go back and forth from espresso to something else?
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Jan 14, 2023 18:00
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VelociBacon posted:Even with a niche I don't think you'll want to go between a grind as coarse as French roast and all the way back down to espresso. I could see having a fellow ode for everything but espresso and maybe the new fellow espresso grinder as it'll be out soon and you could wait to buy it until you have an espresso machine. Yeah I've wondered if anyone using these grinders that claim to have a range between pour over/french press and espresso actually do that? I just tried to go between pour over and espresso on my Vario, again and it seems like my grind calibration has gone out again. (I wonder what I can sell the Vario W for-- and if it would nearly cover the cost of a Niche for just doing pour overs).
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Jan 14, 2023 18:09
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there's a ton of competition out there in the "cheaper than a niche, better than an encore" price range. 64mm flat burrs like the fellow ode or the df64, smaller conicals like the turn sd40 or fellows soon-to-come espresso conical, probably lots of other stuff i'm not familiar with you can absolutely get something that can do both espresso and filter for less than the niche's £500, it's more about what kind of coffee you like, what kind of workflow you like, and whether you want to have like "upgrade paths" or whatever you want to call them (e.g.: a df64 is really more like a fancy carrier for a variety of nice-but-expensive 64mm burrs you can switch out, while a smaller conical might not have all those options but would also be significantly cheaper) eke out fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jan 14, 2023 |
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Jan 14, 2023 18:12
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Easychair Bootson posted:My Bird and Bear coffee order was delivered yesterday and it's very good! I got the Honduran and the Ethiopian varieties and they're obviously quite different but both good in their own ways. In the next week or so I'll look at what my next order will be. You’re going to want two separate grinders. Niche can technically do both but jumping between those two settings ain’t worth it. French press ain’t anywhere near as finicky as espresso, so in your scenario you’d probably want to spend less on a french press grinder and more on a espresso one. I might even consider keeping the infinity for the French press if you are running into a cost issue. Not ideal, but better than cheating out on an espresso grinder. If you are gonna buy both an espresso and French press grinder, a fellow ode for the French press is a good choice.
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Jan 14, 2023 18:14
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Does anyone have any pre-dosed storage they like to use and looks nice enough to keep out on the counter (I’m a bit vain about my coffee things….) I want to pre-weigh a bunch of 20g doses into containers that keep the coffee reasonably fresh and let me remove coffee bags from the counter. So maybe also a bulk container for current coffee or something as well.
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Jan 14, 2023 18:37
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Spice jars are probably your best bet. You can get some fancy looking ones
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Jan 14, 2023 18:45
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I use Airscapes for my beans. The small one doesn't hold a full bag, but the next size up does.
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Jan 14, 2023 18:57
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Interesting points on the topic of one grinder for all grinding versus separation of duties. Are [stepped] grinders not consistent enough to be able to repeatably go from setting #20 to #50 and then back to #20 (just making up numbers here) and deliver the same grind at #20? I guess I was thinking that dialing in a grind was a matter of finding a given setting and that was that. Sounds like I need to focus on a moderately-priced grinder and worry about espresso if/when that time comes.
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Jan 14, 2023 18:59
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Robot pull 18g in, a little less than 2:1 out. Maybe I stopped pulling a little early but it tasted good.  ]
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Jan 14, 2023 19:23
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I actually think having a manual grinder for pour over is a decent idea. If you get something like a 1zpresso it's very quick and easy to grind while being relatively affordable. I use mine every morning and it's like 20 seconds of work. Manually grinding espresso is a lot more strenuous so I will never recommend that. So get that new Fellow grinder for espresso and a cheap 1zpresso for pour over.
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Jan 14, 2023 19:31
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:You’re going to want two separate grinders. Niche can technically do both but jumping between those two settings ain’t worth it. Pff, I intended to buy a Niche for this reason. Now I'm going to have the uphill struggle to convince my wife why two coffee grinders on the countertop is necessary.
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Jan 14, 2023 19:39
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Sweeper posted:Does anyone have any pre-dosed storage they like to use and looks nice enough to keep out on the counter (I’m a bit vain about my coffee things….) I want to pre-weigh a bunch of 20g doses into containers that keep the coffee reasonably fresh and let me remove coffee bags from the counter. So maybe also a bulk container for current coffee or something as well. I like the atmos for regular storage, and the airscape jars always get a lot of recs too. for pre-weighed doses the weber workshops bean cellar is the nicest looking thing out there but it is priced like a weber workshops product. A more reasonably priced option would be plastic or glass test tubes from amazon, or small spice jars, depending on how science experimenty you want to get Easychair Bootson posted:Interesting points on the topic of one grinder for all grinding versus separation of duties. Are [stepped] grinders not consistent enough to be able to repeatably go from setting #20 to #50 and then back to #20 (just making up numbers here) and deliver the same grind at #20? I guess I was thinking that dialing in a grind was a matter of finding a given setting and that was that. Sounds like I need to focus on a moderately-priced grinder and worry about espresso if/when that time comes. Stepless are usually considered better for espresso, and the espresso-targeted stepped grinders out there usually don’t have enough range to do both (I know these exist but am struggling to think of any popular examples currently on the market; the rancilio rocky used to get advocated as a good beginner espresso grinder, but it really wasn’t and you would often end up unable to dial in properly because one setting would gush and the next setting finer would choke.) I’m not sure if this is still the case, but when the niche initially came out you would have to go way off the scale to get it coarse enough for pourover, let alone french press. The p64, meanwhile, has the opposite problem; it’s numbered 0-9 with 10 notches between each number, and I grind for espresso at around 3-4 and for v60 at 0-1. (I’ve also got the version where the numbers go the wrong way, and burr chirp starts at 4.6, so the adjustment is generally the least pleasant thing about the grinder.) The upshot is that returning to a grind setting is not at all possible for me since I often need to adjust not by “a notch” but by “a bump,” so I usually dial in a bag for either v60 or espresso and stick with that until the next bag.
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Jan 14, 2023 19:45
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Easychair Bootson posted:Interesting points on the topic of one grinder for all grinding versus separation of duties. Are [stepped] grinders not consistent enough to be able to repeatably go from setting #20 to #50 and then back to #20 (just making up numbers here) and deliver the same grind at #20? I guess I was thinking that dialing in a grind was a matter of finding a given setting and that was that. Sounds like I need to focus on a moderately-priced grinder and worry about espresso if/when that time comes. See the post above for most of the reason (the stepless stuff and grinder range) there’s the issue of retention. Almost all grinders (even ones marketed as low or no retention) have some retention. So what happens is unless you purge ~10-15g of coffee on every single adjustment, you’ll have French press size grinds in your espresso and vice versa. This isn’t a huge issue for french press per say, but it’s going to be a huge issue on espresso and if you do pour over it’s gonna be an issue as well. You could purge every adjustment, but the amount of waste would be absurd.
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Jan 14, 2023 20:04
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Easychair Bootson posted:I think I can probably rationalize replacing my nine year old Capresso Infinity but I'm not sure the Encore is enough of an upgrade to justify it. At least, it seems like I'd be getting slightly better uniformity but that's about it. If I'm going to upgrade I'd like it to be to something that will also make my workflow more pleasant, which is to say less messy / less retention. I'd like something that's less plasticky and that looks a little prettier (which will also help sell my partner on a grinder upgrade). I moved from an old Capresso Infinity to the Fellow Ode 2 and it is so much less messy than the Infinity. I honestly don't think I've gotten any coffee grounds on my counter using it. The anti-static feature seems to really help with grounds escaping. I expected it to be much better at grinding beans but did not anticipate how much cleaner my counters are. Retention is also so low it seems to be effectively zero.
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Jan 14, 2023 21:44
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Niyqor posted:I moved from an old Capresso Infinity to the Fellow Ode 2 and it is so much less messy than the Infinity. I honestly don't think I've gotten any coffee grounds on my counter using it. The anti-static feature seems to really help with grounds escaping. Oh, nice. I had seen Hoffman's review of the original Ode and had kind of dismissed it because it seemed so messy, but the Ode 2 seems to have addressed that issue in a significant way. I will definitely check that out.
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Jan 14, 2023 22:40
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I’m considering getting a new espresso machine. I have an old Nuova Simonelli Oscar I. I’m looking at Profitec’s lineup with their 400, 500, or 700 models. Does anyone here have one of these machines and would comment on it? Just general stuff, any issues with it, likes, or dislikes. I’ve never used flow control and I don’t see a real need for it in my case as I mostly do milk drinks on the weekends - but it is available on some of the models. I feel like I’m probably better off buying $200 worth of beans.
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Jan 15, 2023 02:10
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ThirstyBuck posted:I’m considering getting a new espresso machine. I have an old Nuova Simonelli Oscar I. I’m looking at Profitec’s lineup with their 400, 500, or 700 models. Why do you want to upgrade, and why Profitec? Why those models? The 400 and 500 are heat exchanger machines with vibratory pumps, while the 700 is a dual boiler with a rotary pump... any reason you skipped the 600, which is a dual boiler with a vibratory pump? And, while I haven't used a Profitec specifically, I have some thoughts on e61 machines in general. I tried out a Lelit Mara X as an upgrade from a Rancilio Silvia that I had for around ten years. I used the Mara for about a month and went out and bought a decent. The e61 group is a pain to live with. It's very slow to come to temperature - in theory you can start brewing in 25 minutes on the Mara, but realistically you need at least 45 minutes for it to fully heat and the temperature to stabilize. But you can't leave it on because it's so inefficient. That big grouphead is at brew temp the whole time it's on, and it's totally uninsulated - you can really feel the heat it's throwing off and you will burn yourself if you touch it. If you leave it on for an hour, it heats up a room the same way a full-size oven does. Without touching too much on the environmental aspects of wasting so much energy - it's not a well behaved home appliance. It's very old tech and really reminds you of that. You can make good espresso on it but that's true of almost any machine nowadays and the tradeoffs are tough to justify, in my opinion, unless you really love the aesthetic. On flow control - the only features I think are must-haves are a pid and some form of pre infusion. Flow control is a nice-to-have.
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Jan 15, 2023 04:14
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