5 ms·

empty your hopper, store the beans in a separate container, and weigh and grind per brew.

alfiedotwtf 3y ago
Was just about to comment the same thing. Keep beans air-tightly stored away from the sun but not in the fridge. When making a coffee, measure only what you need. IMHO the biggest factor is not the gear, it's the beans - I would rather "good beans and a $50 espresso machine from Aldi" than "burnt beans with a La Marzocco Linea Mini" every time.
- dmix 3y ago
  Another thing is grinders too apparently. I watched a video once explaining why espresso machines are so expensive and they said they'd rather have a $700 espresso machine with an expensive grinder than a $4000 machine with a cheap grinder.
  - sva_ 3y ago
    I often hear the priority list being 1. Quality of beans 2. Quality of the grinder 3. Quality of the espresso machine I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all there is to it.
    - sweettea 3y ago
      A high quality grinder also minimally heats the beans as they grind - heat can change the volatility of the oils, resulting in changed flavor (and usually not for the better)
      - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
        Correct, this is why people prefer burr mill grinders made of ceramic instead of metal since ceramic is more thermally insulating.
        roflyear 3y ago
        This isn't true in the high-end coffee community. No one uses ceramic burrs, and they are generally considered to produce worse coffee than other burrs.
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      I'd put the quality of the grinder above the quality of the beans, but that's assuming a certain minimum standard (e.g. whole beans from a supermarket brand). If someone's using a blade grinder, then the particle size are going to be all over the place and you end up with a brew that's both over-extracted and under-extracted at the same time. I'm not especially fussed about the espresso machine quality as I usually drink AeroPress coffee and as long as people aren't using boiling water, then it turns out fine (full immersion is a lot easier to get right than dialing in the specific grind for Espresso).
    - pivo 3y ago
      > I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all there is to it. Definitely not all there is to it. There are people who are in to swapping burrs on a grinder to experiment with different flavor profiles, or to make espresso vs filter coffee. Some grinders even cater to us, such as the Niche Duo: https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-duo?variant=43187239813251 https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-duo?variant=431... Also, some people who like more traditional, chocolaty espressos prefer grinders/burrs that produce more varied particle size. People who like cleaner, "modern" espresso prefer grinders that produce the more similar particle sizes. It's a rabbit hole.
      - quaddo 3y ago
        Random: is the Niche Duo made by a US company? Asking, as I noticed the power switch on the side: the "|" symbol was at the top, which doesn't jive with the UK's "up is off, down is on" typical switch.
        pivo 3y ago
        Interesting, that never occurred to me. Niche are a UK company, the grinders are designed in the UK, but as I understand, made in China.
  - chongli 3y ago
    While it is true that a $4000 espresso machine will not get good results with a $20 blade grinder from the hardware store, I think you do see diminishing returns going above $1000 for burr grinders. On the other hand, spending more on the espresso machine can get you way more dials and knobs to tweak. Temperature and pressure profiling and all that. This may not matter if you prefer medium or dark roasted coffee, but light and Nordic roasts really benefit from the extra control over temperature and pressure. With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require an impossibly fine grind that chokes a standard 9 bar machine.
    - bch 3y ago
      > With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require[…] Or a simple machine, like a (direct-)lever[0], which is an operator controlling a piston pushing water. [0] like a La Pavoni, or Cremina - this video is of a europicolla owner who I think embodies well the joy that can be had matching a machine like this to the right person https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58 https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58
      - chongli 3y ago
        My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Though I will say that a direct lever machine is the ultimate tradeoff of control over precision/repeatability. Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision because you're retarding the lever to subtract from the maximum pressure of the spring rather than modulating your muscle power in real time. Unfortunately, what the simple lever machines give you in terms of pressure control, they take away in temperature control. Getting accurate, repeatable temperature shots from a La Pavoni is a bit of a black art, and the group can easily overheat, requiring you to cool it down before making coffee. Even in the case of lever machines, you get more control if you spend more money. Take a high-end lever machine like the ACS Vesuvius Evo Levo [1]. This machine has an 11-bar dual spring group (which you can back off to your heart's content by retarding the lever) and a pump to provide selectable preinfusion between 1.5 and 5 bar. It also has 3 independently controlled (PID) heaters: 1 in the coffee boiler, 1 in the steam/service boiler, and 1 in the group itself. This allows you to do temperature profiling by, for example, setting a higher temperature in the group than in the coffee boiler, which will cause the slightly cooler water from the boiler to bring down the temperature of the group during the extraction. [1] https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/ https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/
  - aksss 3y ago
    Yes, and part of that is just preventing waste and saving work - I mean a blade grinder can get you a quantity of relatively consistent grounds after you sift them, regrind some, sift to separate, use the paper towel trick, etc., and now you have like a 30% return out of the beans you destroyed, and a pile of coffee dust and splinters. The amount of work saved by a good grinder and amount of waste reduced is worth a fair amount. I’m not sure $1000 grinder gives me commensurate value personally, but a $100-300 grinder I can travel with? That sounds quite fair even just being slightly down the coffee nerd rabbit hole. :)
- tamaraaramat 3y ago
  > but not in the fridge I thought that storing them in fridge will keep them fresh longer
  - LesZedCB 3y ago
    freezer yes, fridge idk.

Was just about to comment the same thing. Keep beans air-tightly stored away from the sun but not in the fridge. When making a coffee, measure only what you need. IMHO the biggest factor is not the gear, it's the beans - I would rather "good beans and a $50 espresso machine from Aldi" than "burnt beans with a La Marzocco Linea Mini" every time.

dmix 3y ago
Another thing is grinders too apparently. I watched a video once explaining why espresso machines are so expensive and they said they'd rather have a $700 espresso machine with an expensive grinder than a $4000 machine with a cheap grinder.
- sva_ 3y ago
  I often hear the priority list being 1. Quality of beans 2. Quality of the grinder 3. Quality of the espresso machine I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all there is to it.
  - sweettea 3y ago
    A high quality grinder also minimally heats the beans as they grind - heat can change the volatility of the oils, resulting in changed flavor (and usually not for the better)
    - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
      Correct, this is why people prefer burr mill grinders made of ceramic instead of metal since ceramic is more thermally insulating.
      - roflyear 3y ago
        This isn't true in the high-end coffee community. No one uses ceramic burrs, and they are generally considered to produce worse coffee than other burrs.
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    I'd put the quality of the grinder above the quality of the beans, but that's assuming a certain minimum standard (e.g. whole beans from a supermarket brand). If someone's using a blade grinder, then the particle size are going to be all over the place and you end up with a brew that's both over-extracted and under-extracted at the same time. I'm not especially fussed about the espresso machine quality as I usually drink AeroPress coffee and as long as people aren't using boiling water, then it turns out fine (full immersion is a lot easier to get right than dialing in the specific grind for Espresso).
  - pivo 3y ago
    > I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all there is to it. Definitely not all there is to it. There are people who are in to swapping burrs on a grinder to experiment with different flavor profiles, or to make espresso vs filter coffee. Some grinders even cater to us, such as the Niche Duo: https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-duo?variant=43187239813251 https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-duo?variant=431... Also, some people who like more traditional, chocolaty espressos prefer grinders/burrs that produce more varied particle size. People who like cleaner, "modern" espresso prefer grinders that produce the more similar particle sizes. It's a rabbit hole.
    - quaddo 3y ago
      Random: is the Niche Duo made by a US company? Asking, as I noticed the power switch on the side: the "|" symbol was at the top, which doesn't jive with the UK's "up is off, down is on" typical switch.
      - pivo 3y ago
        Interesting, that never occurred to me. Niche are a UK company, the grinders are designed in the UK, but as I understand, made in China.
- chongli 3y ago
  While it is true that a $4000 espresso machine will not get good results with a $20 blade grinder from the hardware store, I think you do see diminishing returns going above $1000 for burr grinders. On the other hand, spending more on the espresso machine can get you way more dials and knobs to tweak. Temperature and pressure profiling and all that. This may not matter if you prefer medium or dark roasted coffee, but light and Nordic roasts really benefit from the extra control over temperature and pressure. With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require an impossibly fine grind that chokes a standard 9 bar machine.
  - bch 3y ago
    > With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky light roast which would otherwise require[…] Or a simple machine, like a (direct-)lever[0], which is an operator controlling a piston pushing water. [0] like a La Pavoni, or Cremina - this video is of a europicolla owner who I think embodies well the joy that can be had matching a machine like this to the right person https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58 https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58
    - chongli 3y ago
      My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure! Though I will say that a direct lever machine is the ultimate tradeoff of control over precision/repeatability. Spring levers give you a ton of control with more precision because you're retarding the lever to subtract from the maximum pressure of the spring rather than modulating your muscle power in real time. Unfortunately, what the simple lever machines give you in terms of pressure control, they take away in temperature control. Getting accurate, repeatable temperature shots from a La Pavoni is a bit of a black art, and the group can easily overheat, requiring you to cool it down before making coffee. Even in the case of lever machines, you get more control if you spend more money. Take a high-end lever machine like the ACS Vesuvius Evo Levo [1]. This machine has an 11-bar dual spring group (which you can back off to your heart's content by retarding the lever) and a pump to provide selectable preinfusion between 1.5 and 5 bar. It also has 3 independently controlled (PID) heaters: 1 in the coffee boiler, 1 in the steam/service boiler, and 1 in the group itself. This allows you to do temperature profiling by, for example, setting a higher temperature in the group than in the coffee boiler, which will cause the slightly cooler water from the boiler to bring down the temperature of the group during the extraction. [1] https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/ https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/
- aksss 3y ago
  Yes, and part of that is just preventing waste and saving work - I mean a blade grinder can get you a quantity of relatively consistent grounds after you sift them, regrind some, sift to separate, use the paper towel trick, etc., and now you have like a 30% return out of the beans you destroyed, and a pile of coffee dust and splinters. The amount of work saved by a good grinder and amount of waste reduced is worth a fair amount. I’m not sure $1000 grinder gives me commensurate value personally, but a $100-300 grinder I can travel with? That sounds quite fair even just being slightly down the coffee nerd rabbit hole. :)
tamaraaramat 3y ago
> but not in the fridge I thought that storing them in fridge will keep them fresh longer
- LesZedCB 3y ago
  freezer yes, fridge idk.