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Is blonding passe?
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I'd call my roasts reasonably light, typically 20% dev, FCe +0:45, and I'm in the ristretto camp too. I'm going to give time and weight a decent crack and ignore colour and see how it goes.
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Blonding is easily the best way to identify when to stop a shot IF you are doing a "normale". These days most CS'r's are either running either ristrettos or Luongos so blonding is then your enemy. Dark roast normales is its home turf. Picking blonding on light roasts requires a good eye (i.e. my "normal normale" morning cuppa) but is useful. Anyone trying anything else - weigh and time...
I am somewhat spoilt these days as my DE1 graphs live as it shoots: and temperature, flow rate (or pressure) and time can be preset in advance (or use one of a few hundred presets). Personally I am still old school enough to stop the shot manually, however a few friend's DE1 are actually set to cut at the correct time - a one button coffee shot rivalling a pod machine for ease of use (just a tad better in taste perhaps...). The DE1 is also SWMBO friendly as a result.
TampIt
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Best decide for yourself. Split the shot and keep that blonde stuff aside and then try it. If you like it, it's passe for you. For me personally, I'll pass thanks.Originally posted by Superman View PostSo what do you all think, am I getting old and my blonding biased method outdated?
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Like many things, blonding will vary from bean to bean and from roast to roast. The look of the pour (colour, viscosity, flow) at the point you should stop for best results will also vary, just like the ratio and yield weight. Once you have determined it though, it should be pretty consistent. I used to stop by look, and would then adjust the grind to get better taste, but once I started experimenting based on weight I found that there are a number of coffees out there which you should absolutely not stop at what any sane person would consider the blonding point, typically these are towards the lighter roast end, but not always.
If you are using the look of the pour to decide when to stop, make sure you do some science and go past what you think and try a shot there too, you could be leaving the best stuff behind! You should also try cutting it off a bit sooner and see what that's like, I've had a couple of beans where that worked better.
These days I use weight because as LeroyC said it's much less subjective, and since I change beans so regularly I only have to think about ratio for a bean, which I find easier to write down for next time.
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My first shot I have every done ignoring the colour change. Still dialling in the grind on this latest batch (39s pour) but the taste was acceptable and it was certainly a much less "stressful" way to pull the shot, just wait for the weight to hit 30gm.
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I guess I'm a bit slap-dash but I find 'blonding' is a good 'indicator' of when I want to stop the pour.
Over time you get a feel for your proportions in different cups and know how much shot is going into a given level of water/empty cup.
I would have to be getting a lot of crap shots before I would start measuring stuff. It takes me long enough now.
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It can be helpful to move the cup around a little and look at the extent to which you are getting a sharply different colour in the crema.
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I also have trouble identifying blonding. I have a light under the group head and with a naked PF you can the stream is actually composed of a multitude of individual sections, like a rainbow waterfall. When the majority of individual sections have blonded is when I stop the shot, but it's still very subjective. I might give time and weight a go see that improves my consistency.
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Speaking for myself, I have ruled out using colour for extraction. I find that I am just not capable of being consistent in identifying the moment to stop the brew. Much seems to depend on my mood, time of day or phase of the moon. I find weight as the foundation of brew ratios more consistent and I do use different brew ratio for different beans.
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My experience is that using the blonding point was an easy approach to apply when using darker roasts because it's night and day. But as roasts have become lighter it's not so easy to use that technique.
Dan Kehn over on HB had a thread where he posted a video of a shot in a bottomless p/f and invited people to indicate when it should have been stopped. My recollection is that the consensus (i.e. Dan's view) was that when the cone immediately under the p/f collapsed was when to stop the shot. That's usually a little easier to spot if the roast is not dark.
Just to muddy the waters further, James Hoffman had a video in the last year or two in which he argued against just blindly assuming that 1:2 shots are best. I guess he's implicitly arguing to try various things and use taste as the guide.
I'm not sure it's passé, but there are now alternatives.
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It’s not that ‘blonding’ can’t or doesn’t indicate an appropriate time to stop a shot, it’s just that it’s both too subjective and inconsistent. Weight and time are consistent variables and are therefore recommended.
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Is blonding passe?
For years I've aimed to stop my shots based on roughly 18gm of grinds to produce a 25-30gm shot in 25-30sec at the point of blonding. Of the 3, I've found blonding a much better indicator of when to stop my shots than time or weight. That said tonight I stumbled on some videos that say blonding is essentially old school and you should just focus on ratio of grinds to shot weight, very roughly 1:1 ristreto, 1:2 espresso, 1:3 lungo
There are definitely times when my shots are bitter and over extracted so maybe they're right. But occasionally I get a run of "god shots" so maybe not.
So what do you all think, am I getting old and my blonding biased method outdated?

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