4 ms·

> The bottom line of the team’s experiments and mathematical modelling is that to get the most reproducible shots just use less coffee and grind it more coarsel

by mr_mitm 5mo ago

> The bottom line of the team’s experiments and mathematical modelling is that to get the most reproducible shots just use less coffee and grind it more coarsely. This seems to go against conventional wisdom, which says that less coffee will reduce brewing time and a coarser grind will also reduce brewing time, and consensus seems to be that you want a brewing time somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds. Or did I misunderstand something? Anyway, the reasoning seems sound, so I'm going to have to give this a try.

FrustratedMonky 5mo ago
Yeah. "most reproducible" -> Does not mean good. A lot of generic weak coffee is 'consistent', but not 'good'.
- mr_mitm 5mo ago
  Sorry, maybe I should have quoted the next line as well: > Pabst echoes that advice: “My recommendation for people at home, without knowing anything they are doing, 90% chance that if you use less coffee and grind a little coarser [your coffee] will actually taste better.” So it's not just about consistency, but also quality.
  - soco 5mo ago
    "taste better" does not mean quality either. What do I know about their tastes, they're scientists not baristas (in the article baristas were only asked about process options). Also they didn't discover anything new, just confirmed what everybody was telling them. And not at least, there are different methods of making coffee, while they smeared their espresso machine results interpretation over everything - like for instance to make Turkish coffee (aka pot) you must grind it the finest and use more.
- canes123456 5mo ago
  Reproducible is necessary but not sufficient for consistently good coffee. If you can’t reproducible what you did, you aren’t able to make changes to improve over time. This is why I think the Aiden is underrated. It way more consistent than I was when doing pour over but still lets me tweak variables.
- roflyear 5mo ago
  Good is totally up to the person's tastes, anyway. Turbo style shots are the end-all-be-all for a lot of people who enjoy espresso. For other people, they hate it, for a multitude of reasons. A pet peeve of mine is when people mention "weak" coffee. What does this mean?
sgc 5mo ago
They failed to mention the important point, that you have to be able to reduce the pressure to increase the grind size. I am convinced the best espresso you can make is at 6 bar, since you can grind the coarsest possible. It comes out sweeter and richer at the same time.
- criddell 5mo ago
  Some people go all the way down to 1 or 2 bars (soup espresso). I've mostly seen it in the context of very light roasts and I tend to buy darker roasts so I really haven't spent much time investigating it. I did see a video on americano's recently where steaming the water to heat it rather than using a kettle or water from the espresso machine's boiler made a better drink. That does intrigue me and I'll probably give it a try this weekend. Lately I've been making mostly decaf and it's really hard to get a good shot no matter what I try. Drip coffee comes out great, but my decaf espresso always seems to have a real harshness. Beans are fresh and my water is good, so I'm thinking it's time to replace the burrs in my grinder.
  - zimpenfish 5mo ago
    > steaming the water to heat it rather than using a kettle or water from the espresso machine's boiler made a better drink Was it Mr Hoffmann[0]? He has a decent explanation for why this might be the case too (and does an experiment later which points to it maybe being dissolved gases.) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HdzJz_evNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HdzJz_evNw
    - criddell 5mo ago
      Yes, that's the video. He doesn't seem to be a fan of americanos. It's one of my favorites so I'm pretty interested in new ideas for one of the most basic drinks.
  - sgc 5mo ago
    1-2 bars isn't really espresso, it's a moka - which can be quite good in its own right. It falls into the genus of pressurized brewing though, so same genus different species. There's a no man's land from 3-5 bars that is not really used and might be worth exploring, but most 'standards' consider 6 bar the minimum to be a true espresso.
roflyear 5mo ago
You're spot on, but this coarser, faster-style shot is called the "turbo shot" and you don't actually have to use less coffee, you can actually use more - just compensate your grind to brew quickly. You will get more consistent results here, but they're very different from traditional espresso. But, I think for any recipe, "total brew time" is just a way to communicate contact time with water, and should NOT be a goal unless you're trying to copy what someone else did with that same coffee, and is IMO more important for pour over in that regard than espresso.
bee_rider 5mo ago
These was actually a sort of fun and popular research paper about this, https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(19)30410-2 https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(19)30410-2 They suggest a courser size and less pressure to avoid channeling. I’ve been using this technique for a while, I think the results are better (but of course there’s a strong bias when people think they are doing the cleverer thing in food preparation). For light roasts I hold the pressure at around 1 bar for ~30 seconds before increasing to 7 or so.
- mr_mitm 5mo ago
  Ah, too bad my machine doesn't let me set the pressure
  - bee_rider 5mo ago
    [dead]
BiteCode_dev 5mo ago
Reproducibility doesn't mean good. I can make bad coffee every time myself by putting 2 spoons of vinegar in it.

by mr_mitm 5mo ago

FrustratedMonky 5mo ago

Yeah. "most reproducible" -> Does not mean good. A lot of generic weak coffee is 'consistent', but not 'good'.

mr_mitm 5mo ago
Sorry, maybe I should have quoted the next line as well: > Pabst echoes that advice: “My recommendation for people at home, without knowing anything they are doing, 90% chance that if you use less coffee and grind a little coarser [your coffee] will actually taste better.” So it's not just about consistency, but also quality.
- soco 5mo ago
  "taste better" does not mean quality either. What do I know about their tastes, they're scientists not baristas (in the article baristas were only asked about process options). Also they didn't discover anything new, just confirmed what everybody was telling them. And not at least, there are different methods of making coffee, while they smeared their espresso machine results interpretation over everything - like for instance to make Turkish coffee (aka pot) you must grind it the finest and use more.
canes123456 5mo ago
Reproducible is necessary but not sufficient for consistently good coffee. If you can’t reproducible what you did, you aren’t able to make changes to improve over time. This is why I think the Aiden is underrated. It way more consistent than I was when doing pour over but still lets me tweak variables.
roflyear 5mo ago
Good is totally up to the person's tastes, anyway. Turbo style shots are the end-all-be-all for a lot of people who enjoy espresso. For other people, they hate it, for a multitude of reasons. A pet peeve of mine is when people mention "weak" coffee. What does this mean?

sgc 5mo ago

They failed to mention the important point, that you have to be able to reduce the pressure to increase the grind size. I am convinced the best espresso you can make is at 6 bar, since you can grind the coarsest possible. It comes out sweeter and richer at the same time.

criddell 5mo ago
Some people go all the way down to 1 or 2 bars (soup espresso). I've mostly seen it in the context of very light roasts and I tend to buy darker roasts so I really haven't spent much time investigating it. I did see a video on americano's recently where steaming the water to heat it rather than using a kettle or water from the espresso machine's boiler made a better drink. That does intrigue me and I'll probably give it a try this weekend. Lately I've been making mostly decaf and it's really hard to get a good shot no matter what I try. Drip coffee comes out great, but my decaf espresso always seems to have a real harshness. Beans are fresh and my water is good, so I'm thinking it's time to replace the burrs in my grinder.
- zimpenfish 5mo ago
  > steaming the water to heat it rather than using a kettle or water from the espresso machine's boiler made a better drink Was it Mr Hoffmann[0]? He has a decent explanation for why this might be the case too (and does an experiment later which points to it maybe being dissolved gases.) [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HdzJz_evNw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HdzJz_evNw
  - criddell 5mo ago
    Yes, that's the video. He doesn't seem to be a fan of americanos. It's one of my favorites so I'm pretty interested in new ideas for one of the most basic drinks.
- sgc 5mo ago
  1-2 bars isn't really espresso, it's a moka - which can be quite good in its own right. It falls into the genus of pressurized brewing though, so same genus different species. There's a no man's land from 3-5 bars that is not really used and might be worth exploring, but most 'standards' consider 6 bar the minimum to be a true espresso.

roflyear 5mo ago

You're spot on, but this coarser, faster-style shot is called the "turbo shot" and you don't actually have to use less coffee, you can actually use more - just compensate your grind to brew quickly. You will get more consistent results here, but they're very different from traditional espresso. But, I think for any recipe, "total brew time" is just a way to communicate contact time with water, and should NOT be a goal unless you're trying to copy what someone else did with that same coffee, and is IMO more important for pour over in that regard than espresso.

bee_rider 5mo ago

These was actually a sort of fun and popular research paper about this, https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(19)30410-2 https://www.cell.com/matter/fulltext/S2590-2385(19)30410-2 They suggest a courser size and less pressure to avoid channeling. I’ve been using this technique for a while, I think the results are better (but of course there’s a strong bias when people think they are doing the cleverer thing in food preparation). For light roasts I hold the pressure at around 1 bar for ~30 seconds before increasing to 7 or so.

mr_mitm 5mo ago
Ah, too bad my machine doesn't let me set the pressure
- bee_rider 5mo ago
  [dead]

BiteCode_dev 5mo ago

Reproducibility doesn't mean good. I can make bad coffee every time myself by putting 2 spoons of vinegar in it.