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nm posted:I had an ethopian where the tasting notes were "fruity pebbles." And holy poo poo, it kinda did. Was it a natural process Ethiopian? I've tasted a few of those in the last few weeks and fruity pebbles or fruit loops were both pretty common... uh, flavors. Apparently that's the taste of ferment. I thought it was pretty interesting, but I've heard it described as hot garbage water. I'm still pretty new to coffee so it was my first exposure to really ferment-y stuff.
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Oct 16, 2013 23:55
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Any of you Coffee Drinky types going to be attending any of next year's SCAA regional barista championships? I'll be attending the Big East in Durham in January. I was at the Big Central. Are you participating?
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Nov 20, 2013 01:34
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Good luck! One of my friends was a sensory judge at the Big Central and wow did it sound like a rough ride. It's gotta be one of the harder things to do at competitions. That said, coffee competition is awesome and I highly recommend attending in some capacity to anyone who's interested in coffee and has the weekend free.
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Nov 20, 2013 01:58
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ChiaPetOutletStore posted:So I just started a new barista job, and I've noticed that the baskets tend to pop out of the portafilters if you knock the espresso out at the wrong angle. Anyone have any experience with preventative measures for this kind of thing? Or is it just a reality of using portafilters. If you knock on the edge of the basket itself you shouldn't have too many problems. It still happens every once in a long while but you have a pretty big target to hit. Did the spring fall out of your portafilter perchance?
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Mar 4, 2014 20:49
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ChiaPetOutletStore posted:I think the springs are all still there, but I'd need to double check. Are the springs something that wear out over time? Nah, but sometimes they get bent out of shape or lost. The most common problem I've seen so far is one end of the spring popping out of its groove and poking out the bottom of the portafilter. It's easy to fix if anything goes wrong; it's just a piece of wire.
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Mar 4, 2014 21:49
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frenchnewwave posted:Maybe depends on brand of milk? Yes. I can't speak for almond milk but the shop I work at recently switched our soy milk brand and it made a huge difference in taste and texture. Pacific makes a barista style (or barista-something) soy milk that pours drat near the way regular milk does. I'd bet almond milk brands have similar differences in thickeners and whatever the heck else is in that stuff. Valicious, if you're looking for other nondairy alternatives I recommend giving coconut milk a shot, too. I had a coconut milk cappuccino once that was phenomenal.
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Aug 29, 2014 02:33
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Valicious posted:It's not the dairy I worry about, it's the carbs in milk. I do the whole keto thing. Ah, I looked up what that is and checked some nutrition info for the milk alternatives I've used in the past. Pacific's barista series milks all have pretty moderate (like 10g per 8oz serving) carb content and also like 8g of sugars, so they probably won't be good for your purposes. Unsweetened almond milks from Silk and Califia farms both have miniscule carb contents, so they may be worth a shot. I can't tell you how well they'll form microfoam, but you can definitely stick a steam wand in almond milk and get something hot and foamy. I don't know how much experience you have steaming milk but I personally always introduced less air and heat to nut milks. They form foam more easily than dairy does and tend to taste better when they don't get too hot. The keto diet is pretty interesting, though. I hope it works/is working well for you.
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Aug 29, 2014 03:04
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dhrusis posted:
I wrote a whole bunch of poo poo that I just deleted about how you should definitely try and pull a 30s shot, but honestly if you like what you're doing, keep at it. What I know about espresso says that a "good" shot is one that finds the (literal) sweet spot between a sour shot and a bitter one, which usually happens under the following conditions (for a double, which is the only kind of shot I know how to pull): ~17-19g ground coffee in ~25-35s brew time ~27-36g brewed espresso out If you want to try and pull a shot that way, fiddle with your grind until it gets there, then start playing with dose and poo poo. If you liked your 60s shots, keep at it! To echo old advice, keep a journal of your recipes and how they taste. Also this discussion got me to read the wikipedia articles for ristretto and lungo. I learned how to pull shots without being exposed to much Italian terminology, so I thought ristretto just meant a shot that was less than 1:2 coffee:water, and lungo was over that ratio. It's baffling to me that someone would want what to me is a shot pulled deliberately off-recipe, but where I work so much effort is constantly put into having shots that taste good, it seems like a waste to throw out all that work for a demitasse full of battery acid or ash water.
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Oct 5, 2014 04:07
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Mu Zeta posted:Does anyone here work in a third wave type cafe as a barista? Wondering if I could ask some questions through PM. I do. Go hog wild!
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Oct 18, 2014 02:08
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Romulux posted:Do any of you own an OCD? I don't own one but we do have one of these at the training lab at my work, and I've gotten to use it a little bit. It's worth saying my entire coffee experience is commercial so my use case is different, but I have mixed feelings on the OCD: Pros: Used properly, it can eliminate one of the many variables that are involved in the preparation of espresso. It's a slick little piece of equipment that doesn't take up a ton of space on your countertop. It seems pretty durable, too. More on that in a second. Cons: I can say with 99% certainty that you're going to drop it on the floor at least once. The top is not very grippy at all, and everyone who has used it at work has dropped it, including people with decades of experience (not that experience means much in this case). Grounds have a nasty tendency to cling to the ridges on the bottom, which is mostly just irritating but can cause some inconsistency if you use it again without noticing (not especially likely at home, but for me this is an actual consideration) But the biggest complaint I have is that it feels like a beta product. If they took feedback and released a second version, it could be made significantly easier to use. Because this is a coffee gadget the likelihood of this happening is all but nonexistent, but every time I look at it this is the first thought I have. All that said, I also thing it has a limited use for the home barista since the greatest benefit it provides is consistency. Like it's great to have a perfectly distributed puck every time, but if you're pulling one or two shots a day you're going to have a million other things that change day to day that really diminish its usefulness. I don't know if any of this helps you make a more informed decision, but I hope something in there is useful. I additionally have some thoughts on the 270W, but I think this post is long enough already. The short version is "I would get the 270 and use the money I saved to buy a nice scale." Fake edit: beaten!
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Oct 22, 2016 00:32
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Lube banjo posted:as a forever-alone guy who drinks 2-3 cups per day and is lazy, I'm looking at one of these two coffee makers. Is there a reason to go with the more expensive Moccamaster? Both seem to have temperature control The short answer is that the moccamaster has better build quality, but ultimately they both can make great coffee.
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Nov 14, 2016 21:35
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Jan posted:Everything you need to know about brewing with a V60. By now I feel like I should know better than to click on any vimeo link in this thread, but you got me again. That said, There's a new contender. Putting goofy videos aside, I myself have brewed thousands of v60s. If you have any questions about it I can at least offer some perspective.
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Nov 16, 2016 05:53
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Scaramouche posted:Finally got some time the Baratza Sette's. Feels... kind of cheap? The display on the W feels like I could peel off the aluminum bezel around the LCD with a fingernail. Works fine, though retains about 0.4gr in the hopper/works. Also the feet are uneven on the bottom of the case, and the weight sensor really really needs it to be flat when operating or it freaks all the hell out. All of ours have had the updated/proper portafilter forks though. We actually got a Sette not-w at work today and I spent a significant amount of time with it. The thing sounds like someone screaming into a paper shredder, but it does the thing it's supposed to do pretty well. The timer was dosing pretty consistently (like.. within a half a gram or so), and the grind itself seemed pretty consistent too. I totally agree on the build quality, though. It feels cheap as heck, though this is frankly a complaint I have about baratza grinders in general. My biggest build issue is that they put in that piece to sit on top of the portafilter to hold it in place, but it's way too low to actually fit any of the portafilters I had access to. I had to hold the portafilter to grind, which isn't a big deal (since that's what I have to do with literally every other grinder I work with). Someone else might find it more troublesome. The coarse adjustment was a little tricky to work, but the fine adjustment dial was real nice. Edit: The buttons on the faceplate suck, too. Holy poo poo I almost forgot. There's a significant delay on them so good luck if you want just a little bit of espresso. Overall, it seems great as a reasonably priced home espresso grinder. We'll see how long it holds up with a bunch of working baristas beating the poo poo out of it. I also haven't used it to grind for filter coffee, so we'll see how that goes, too.
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Nov 17, 2016 01:33
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DangerZoneDelux posted:Anybody in Chicago? Is Intelligentsia worth visiting? It's two blocks from my hotel but with their hours I would have to wake up and be there by 6am. I hope you're near the one at Jackson and Dearborn, then. It's the only one open at 6. I also may be slightly biased but I definitely recommend checking them out.
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Sep 14, 2017 13:21
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