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  • DT11
    replied
    My question has been answered quite emphatically! I'll toss the Vittoria to where it belongs.
    Still waiting for the rest of my hardware to arrive, which should not be too far away now. However, I did receive my Beanbay order today and I am impressed with that as I only ordered it on Sat evening. Three working days from Melbourne to western Qld is a pretty good effort. And the aroma; ah... just sublime! I could smell it from across the counter at the Post Office where I collected it! The cheap stuff couldn't possibly compete. And as suggested in post #4, dialling in is part of the expense, so $20 or $30 on beans, in the scheme of what I spent on machinery is b*gger-all.

    Thanks for all the responses. Anyone want some Vittoria??!

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  • sprezzatura
    replied
    I think you should try some of the Vittoria beans. Dial in the grind and then try a shot. Put the rest in the freezer for another year or two and try them again - see if they taste better, worse or the same. Expect a thin pale crema - like a boreal mid-winter dawn in the Siberian taiga.

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  • Yelta
    replied
    I'm with the others here, forget the Vittoria beans and go with the good stuff, shouldn't take more than a few shots to get close, then make minor adjustments as the burrs bed in.

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  • blonk
    replied
    I wouldn't bother with the Vittoria beans. In desperation I bought a small bag recently to tied me over until some proper beans arrived. The difference between grind settings required for every other type of bean I have tried and the Vittoria beans was vast. All other beans required minor adjustments to get it right, maybe 2-3 shots, the Vittoria was half gone before I had a decent pour, and it still tasted pretty average. Just use some of the good beans you've got coming, it's just part of the expense required with a new setup.

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  • LeroyC
    replied
    Sounds like a great set up you've got coming. Using the Vittoria beans could just end up being a waste of time as while it might help you get your grinders in the ballpark, it's gonna be a very big ballpark, more like a sporting precinct.
    I can't imagine that they'll be detrimental to any of your gear though, so if you wanted to start with them I'd suggest maybe just using enough for a couple of shots in each grinder (so about 50g each). And use them frozen, straight out of the freezer. Then throw them away.

    Leave a comment:


  • artman
    replied
    Congrats on the new toys!!

    The stale beans won't do anything apart from taint your new gear with staleness!!

    It shouldn't take you long to dial in at all.

    Keep your dose constant (does 5 cent test as a start max capacity). Keep temp constant.

    Empty and off adjust your grinder until the top burr just touches and starts rotating lower burr, back off quarter of a turn of the top burr carrier and that should be a good starting point.

    Adjust grind to get the pour right.

    Grind should feel like gritty flour is best I could describe it.

    Cheers

    Leave a comment:


  • DT11
    started a topic dialling in full suite of new equipment

    dialling in full suite of new equipment

    Well my coffee journey is about to begin in earnest. Starting from scratch I've ordered two new grinders (one for decaf), plus a new HX machine. My new Eureka Atom grinder turned up today and I’m expecting the Bezzera HX espresso machine and accompanying M2M grinder to arrive in the next day or two. I’ll very soon be setting them all up and dialling in. I’m getting a kg of beans with the machines to get started, and I've also ordererd from Beanbay a mixed bag: 1 kg Espresso Wow, 1 x Sampler pack (4 x 250gm various beans); plus 1 kg Decaf Wow for Her-Indoors to be milled through the M2M grinder for decaf.


    I was reliably informed by Antony at Cassa Espresso that I could expect to use about 1/2kg or there-abouts dialling in my new equipment. Fine; that’s why I ordered 1kg each of the mainstay Wow! beans.


    However, I also happen to have in the freezer in the shed an unopened kg of Vittoria’s finest bottom-of the-barrel beans from Woollies, Coles, or IGA, or wherever else i got it from a year or two ago that i now can’t remember. Could I use the Vittoria beans (after 24hrs or so thawing) to dial in the two new grinders? At least to get them both in the ball park of where they need to be, then purge them and fine tune with the good beans? Both grinders are brand new, so can I assume that they’re no-where near where they need to be? I’d rather waste 500gm - 1kg of cheap Vittoria than an equivalent amount of good fresh stuff?
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