YUK! Over extracted tastes of petrol

[smokey]

A few weeks ago someone posted that they had a terrible tasting batch of roasted beans, they said it tasted like petrol or something like that.

I made my first coffee for the day an hour ago, Harrar Longberry, a truly marvelous bean, well matured and smells of heaven. In my half-awake state I mistakenly ground it super fine after setting my grinder to near zero for the Elephant Hills Peaberry yesterday.

Well, I hate to throw out anything I paid for and so when it took longer than a minute to produce its first drop of brown liquid gold I thought to myself that I would drink it no matter what, after all, how bad could it taste?

WRONG! It was terrible! Tasted like petrol, so bitter and... yuk. I immediately thought of that previous poster and so went and looked at the grinder setting, and, holy cow, it was.... fine. In the sink it went. My next, much courser shot, was just right, wonderful Harrar. So now I know what it tastes like to drink petrol, or over extracted coffee.

[artman]

Was this the standard unleaded or the 98 octane high performance brew?

That's why I always taste all my shots good or bad. It is a good way to learn what's what, very interesting.

Cheers

[Yelta]

Will try to keep your experience in mind Smokey and try not to duplicate the same outcome.

[mwcalder05]

Hehe gotta love that over-extracted, thick, burnt caramel horribleness that we all try just because, well, why not? And then we all spit out :P

[smokey]

lol, this was a good learning experience too, before joining this forum I would have just thrown the bag out. Instead I blended the Harrar 1 part in 4 with the Elephant Hills and it was so darn nice I am heading back for a second cuppa.

Just a question to the experienced snobs, was the taste experience due to excess dissolved solids? Or was it small particles of the bean that got thru the basket mesh? Or is there another explanation why it tasted so darn awful?

[Dragunov21]

thrown the bag out

I'm confused; are you pregrinding whole bags of beans?

[smokey]

I'm confused; are you pregrinding whole bags of beans?

Fresh home roasted beans, 18 grams, and used within seconds of grinding for my morning flat white.

[Dragunov21]

So why would grinding one dose too fine require throwing out the whole bag? Sorry if I'm being thick; just curious.

[chokkidog]

Have another read of the post Dg.....;-) I don't think anything other than a shot went down the sink.....;-)
:-D

[DesigningByCoffee]

Just a question to the experienced snobs, was the taste experience due to excess dissolved solids? Or was it small particles of the bean that got thru the basket mesh? Or is there another explanation why it tasted so darn awful?

Hi Smokey
I do believe that the horrid flavour you describe as the result of over-extraction comes from - well, how do we put this nicely - the coffee being burnt! Really fine ground coffee, under both heat and pressure, for a long period of time = old-style percolator, completely overcooked for way too long, tongue tightening badness!

You get the grind right it should go away - unless you've roasted the beans too dark in the first place …
But sounds like this is not the case, as results improved when the grind was adjusted

Matt

[smokey]

So why would grinding one dose too fine require throwing out the whole bag? Sorry if I'm being thick; just curious.

As it tasted so horrid I thought that the whole bag was off or spoiled by something like petrol... but it was over extracted so only the shot went in the sink.

[Yelta]

Having read Smokey's OP Chokkidog I'm puzzled anyone could have thought otherwise!

[smokey]

Hi Smokey
I do believe that the horrid flavour you describe as the result of over-extraction comes from - well, how do we put this nicely - the coffee being burnt! Really fine ground coffee, under both heat and pressure, for a long period of time = old-style percolator, completely overcooked for way too long, tongue tightening badness!

You get the grind right it should go away - unless you've roasted the beans too dark in the first place …
But sounds like this is not the case, as results improved when the grind was adjusted

Matt

DBC, the roast was a medium roast, about a CS7 so there shouldn't have been too much charcoal, your description of the percolated coffee sounds close though it was way worse than even over-brewed sitting-on-the-stove-for-24-hours coffee.

[Dragunov21]

As it tasted so horrid I thought that the whole bag was off

~click~

Gotcha