Re: Overextraction.... um... what is it?
mean bean.....
A sort of non technical explanation (which works for me)...
Remember the sugar coated nasty tasting pills you give to children.....
Well if you swallow them fairly quickly - before the sugar coating is dissolved- they leave a sweet taste in your mouth...... extract the flavour for too long - by sucking on the sweet coating and then yuck!!!
Chew the tablet up so it is smaller..... and the nasty taste starts sooner....... and if the pill is too large to swallow.... you have to chew it first.....
The more technical explanation goes into the volatility of the various oils, the temperature which these oils are extracted, their depth below the surface of the coffee grain etc......
Even correctly extracted coffee has different components during an ideal 30 ml shot..... Next time you make an espresso.... collect it into 3 shot glasses - 10 ml in each.
Taste the first 10 ml...... rich smooth and sweet
2nd 10 ml.... not as rich or as smooth and the sweetness will be a lot lower.
3rd 10 ml... starting to get bitter and unpleasant... no smoothness left...
Combined together they taste fine..... but continue extraction and the quality gets less and less causing the overall taste to rapidly deteriorate.....
The 30 ml volume is a good compromise..... you could just extract 10 ml which would be wonderful..... but you would require a lot more coffee (plus some people actually like a little of the bitter taste).
Originally posted by mean bean link=1170933141/0#10 date=1170980815
A sort of non technical explanation (which works for me)...
Remember the sugar coated nasty tasting pills you give to children.....
Well if you swallow them fairly quickly - before the sugar coating is dissolved- they leave a sweet taste in your mouth...... extract the flavour for too long - by sucking on the sweet coating and then yuck!!!
Chew the tablet up so it is smaller..... and the nasty taste starts sooner....... and if the pill is too large to swallow.... you have to chew it first.....
The more technical explanation goes into the volatility of the various oils, the temperature which these oils are extracted, their depth below the surface of the coffee grain etc......
Even correctly extracted coffee has different components during an ideal 30 ml shot..... Next time you make an espresso.... collect it into 3 shot glasses - 10 ml in each.
Taste the first 10 ml...... rich smooth and sweet
2nd 10 ml.... not as rich or as smooth and the sweetness will be a lot lower.
3rd 10 ml... starting to get bitter and unpleasant... no smoothness left...
Combined together they taste fine..... but continue extraction and the quality gets less and less causing the overall taste to rapidly deteriorate.....
The 30 ml volume is a good compromise..... you could just extract 10 ml which would be wonderful..... but you would require a lot more coffee (plus some people actually like a little of the bitter taste).


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