Hello all,
I want to share something that has finally sunk in to my skull after all this time, Ive heard it time and time again here at CS, "adjust grind, adjust brew temp, adjust tamp to get the most out of your beans etc etc etc" well, what i have done in the past is to, roast a bean, find a grind that will deliver 25 ml in 30 secs, with a consistent tamp pressure of about 10kg, and left it at that, what ended up in the cup was the result...... the only variable on taste was the age in days post roast...
Now i bought some Honduras from Di Bella a couple of months ago, and i found it lacked body and acidity, very boring in milk.....and as an espresso for that matter, i roasted my last 400g of it about 9 days ago and thought, i am going to use this batch purely as an experiment....
Optimum grind for my standard tamp of around 10kgs was setting 3 on the rocky..... this delivered 25mls in 30 secs,from this i did the following;
Temp 109C
Shot 1
grind setting 0
very light tamp
Shot 2
grind setting 1
light/medium tamp pressure
Shot 3
grind setting 2
medium tamp
Shot 4
grind setting 3
normal heavy tamp
I lined the shots up and tasted them one by one.....
I know all the experienced guys and gals know how important this is but, i suppose this post is to emphasize how important it is to newbs like me, here are the results.....
Shot 1, great acidity, quite fruity, no overwhelming body that cuts out the flavour, but plenty of depth
Shot 2, less acidity, started to lose fruity flavour, body increased, woody
Shot 3 and 4, wood wood wood, no complexity, very gassy flavour, yuk
What i then did was to repeat Shot 1 with a higher boiler temp, this time 111C.....wow! beautiful, full of fruit, good body, very easy to drink.
I poured another in milk this time and the acid cut throught to make an amazing latte, so happy to turn this boring bean into something truly special,
Now what i will do is, with every new bean i roast, i will repeat this process to get the most out of that particular bean, i love this hobby!

I want to share something that has finally sunk in to my skull after all this time, Ive heard it time and time again here at CS, "adjust grind, adjust brew temp, adjust tamp to get the most out of your beans etc etc etc" well, what i have done in the past is to, roast a bean, find a grind that will deliver 25 ml in 30 secs, with a consistent tamp pressure of about 10kg, and left it at that, what ended up in the cup was the result...... the only variable on taste was the age in days post roast...
Now i bought some Honduras from Di Bella a couple of months ago, and i found it lacked body and acidity, very boring in milk.....and as an espresso for that matter, i roasted my last 400g of it about 9 days ago and thought, i am going to use this batch purely as an experiment....
Optimum grind for my standard tamp of around 10kgs was setting 3 on the rocky..... this delivered 25mls in 30 secs,from this i did the following;
Temp 109C
Shot 1
grind setting 0
very light tamp
Shot 2
grind setting 1
light/medium tamp pressure
Shot 3
grind setting 2
medium tamp
Shot 4
grind setting 3
normal heavy tamp
I lined the shots up and tasted them one by one.....
I know all the experienced guys and gals know how important this is but, i suppose this post is to emphasize how important it is to newbs like me, here are the results.....
Shot 1, great acidity, quite fruity, no overwhelming body that cuts out the flavour, but plenty of depth
Shot 2, less acidity, started to lose fruity flavour, body increased, woody
Shot 3 and 4, wood wood wood, no complexity, very gassy flavour, yuk
What i then did was to repeat Shot 1 with a higher boiler temp, this time 111C.....wow! beautiful, full of fruit, good body, very easy to drink.
I poured another in milk this time and the acid cut throught to make an amazing latte, so happy to turn this boring bean into something truly special,
Now what i will do is, with every new bean i roast, i will repeat this process to get the most out of that particular bean, i love this hobby!



Somehow she found out while she was on holidays in south America and that warranted a phone call home to bust my proverbial you know whats!
)
;D
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