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  • gerbi
    replied
    Coffee waste - I am ready for this sacrifice. I wasn't going to drink barley infused espresso originally... But I might give it a shot.

    Complexity in climate conditions - absolutely. Ideally this experiment should be done in some weather chamber repeated for various combinations of temperature, humidity and altitude (pressure). If I manage to pull it off I might publish it in some scientific magazines too.
    But I am not going to do it - for this I am not ready yet.

    Leave a comment:


  • saeco_user
    commented on 's reply
    I also wonder about how much coffee you'll waste doing the testing (assuming you won't drink it with barley contamination - then again you might invent a new and novel beverage)? The best you'll get is an average measure of retained grinds per shot. This will need to be calculated over quite a number of shots as different beans, roast levels, humidity levels etc, will all impact the amount of retention (ie some days the chute will clog up and on others it will mostly empty). From shot to shot the amount is unlikely to be very consistent.

  • gerbi
    replied
    Originally posted by saeco_user View Post
    Maybe a dumb question, but what will you do with the information once you have it?
    I was thinking about sharing results here.
    Although quietly enjoying my achievement is an option too.

    On a serious side: this won't change much for my workflow. I might purge more or purge less or stop doing it depends on what I find.
    Also I might try to compare Eureka Specialita to Eureka Mignon XL to see how much marketing BS is in Eureka's ELR (Extremely Low Retention) System.

    But you are right - it might be interesting for some coffee snobs. But most people don't care like they don't care about speed of light in vacuum vs speed of light in the air.

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  • gerbi
    replied
    Originally posted by Caffeinator View Post
    Thread could also be renamed Tasting Retention. At what point can you distinguish the difference?
    Testing taste is beyond my expertise.

    With Breville Smart Grinder it was a noticeable difference in extraction speed between morning shot without purge and the one with a purge. So I believed the retention I am talking about was noticeable. Again, I am technical person, not talking about taste here.

    For Eureka Specialita the purge affect is less significant.

    Leave a comment:


  • WhatEverBeansNecessary
    commented on 's reply
    Agree. 7g will have an impact on taste and the hip pocket wasting beans like that. Also likely need to purge more than 7g to get out the 7g retained.
    But in a busy cafe doing dozen or more shots an hour, it's no big deal taste wise.

    Many folk who have large commercial grinders sweep out the grind path to lessen retention.

  • sacsnob
    commented on 's reply
    7g purge * 30 = 210g/mth, is not a negligible amount for many people. esp for people like me who only consume 1-2 cups/day.

  • WhatEverBeansNecessary
    commented on 's reply
    Far more meaningful application of retention testing. At what point does it actually make a difference to taste?

  • Caffeinator
    replied
    Thread could also be renamed Tasting Retention. At what point can you distinguish the difference?

    Leave a comment:


  • WhatEverBeansNecessary
    commented on 's reply
    Agree - it's a nice to have. But realistically once you get the info it wont change anything. All grinders (even the 'zero' retention grinders) will retain something, it's just a matter of to what degree does it impact taste.
    Zero retention grinders with 0.2g retained are probably not going to impact flavour to a degree 99% of drinkers will notice.
    7g from a large commercial grinder probably will impact if left for a number of hours. In this case just purge a little bit and away you go.

  • saeco_user
    replied
    Maybe a dumb question, but what will you do with the information once you have it?

    Leave a comment:


  • gerbi
    replied
    Originally posted by level3ninja View Post
    Not all the stale grounds are pushed out by the next dose. Depending on the grinder you might get 60% with the first dose, 20% with the next dose, 10% with the next and so on.
    Yes, I understand that.
    This test would show how long old ground coffee is staying in the grinder too.
    The idea is to grind to the point where the amount of white particles and dark particles are equal.
    This would mean that 50% of old grind is pushed out and while I still have some old particles still in the grinder I have some new out. So the amount of "replaceable" ground coffee will be the amount of the mix delivery up to that point.

    What do you think about barley?
    Is it safe for the grinder?

    Leave a comment:


  • level3ninja
    replied
    Not all the stale grounds are pushed out by the next dose. Depending on the grinder you might get 60% with the first dose, 20% with the next dose, 10% with the next and so on.

    Leave a comment:


  • saeco_user
    replied
    Sounds like you want the "silicone bellows" that somebody makes. A quick puff while grinder running to expel the retained grinds through chute. Not high pressure so wont dislodge the static grinds, and little risk of forcing grinds into the machine internals.

    Leave a comment:


  • gerbi
    replied
    Originally posted by WhatEverBeansNecessary View Post
    Not sure about this method - the problem with the true retention is there are nooks n crannies that get filled with coffee that essentially never move (or move so little it won't make any real difference) so these grinds aren't truly 'retained'.

    I think the method of light & dark roast mentioned above would work to get a general idea as would sweeping the grind path to remove the likely retained coffee. This would probably be accurate to within 0.1-0.2g or so range. More than enough to give you a pretty good idea.
    I think there is some terminology confusion.
    Some people call "retention" whatever is retain by the brand new/clean grinder.
    If I sweep the grinder I will get all ground coffee which would normally stay inside forever.
    I am no interested in this.

    Some people (and youtube channels) call retention waterer fits under your hopper shut off valve.
    I am not interested in this either

    What I care about is that stale ground coffee in the burrs and shoot which will be "pushed out" by the next fresh doze.
    So if the next fresh doze is in a different colour - I will see how much of the previous doze was still hiding in burrs.



    I like the idea of using barley.

    Leave a comment:


  • WhatEverBeansNecessary
    replied
    Not sure about this method - the problem with the true retention is there are nooks n crannies that get filled with coffee that essentially never move (or move so little it won't make any real difference) so these grinds aren't truly 'retained'.

    I think the method of light & dark roast mentioned above would work to get a general idea as would sweeping the grind path to remove the likely retained coffee. This would probably be accurate to within 0.1-0.2g or so range. More than enough to give you a pretty good idea.

    Leave a comment:

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