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The Science of Espresso

May 132012

Day 2 with our machine. Today we experimented with making small, measurable changes.

See the holes on top? Channeling, sheesh.

For starters we worked on our channeling problems. In coffee speak, “channeling” is when water pours through the coffee unevenly. This over-extracts certain parts and under-extracts others. Simply said, channeling is bad and makes our mouths unhappy. Sour shots can be a result of the extraction being too fast (water pouring through). Bitter coffee can be the result of a too slow extraction (dripping slowly instead of a flow). After the shot, you can take the portafilter out and look at it to diagnose channeling. You will see little holes or lines through sections of your puck. To battle this little devil you have to make the top of the coffee very even before sticking it in the machine. You also need to try to de-clump the coffee if possible.

Yogurt cup genius

You can de-clump by using the WDT method (Weiss Distribution Technique). Fancy pants name, not-so-fancy pants method. The short version is:
Buy some tasty yogurt. Eat it.
Cut the bottom off the cup.
Shove it in your portafilter and add grounds.
Go to town stirring it around.
Remove cup and then tamp.

49?!? Blech. This was a 38% shot.

We now have a blueberry yogurt cup for this purpose. Cheapest espresso accessory EVER. We also bought a cool tool to help us see channeling as it is happening. It is a bottomless portafilter. It is just a regular PF with the spouts removed. This way you can see it coming directly through the filter and can diagnose if it is pouring out unevenly. I had several today that sprayed at weird angles (see photos below).

When we met with our friend Ryan last week, who is also the owner of the local coffee shop Frothy Monkey, he talked to us about brewing ratios. The standard for quality espresso is a 60-75% difference between the dry ground coffee and the espresso. For example, 18 grams of dry ground coffee coming out of the machine at a final 30 gram shot is 60% (18/30 = 0.60). Don’t you feel science-y after reading that? So I spent some time today trying to get my shots to come out correctly, but I was more often too low.

More experiments tomorrow! And, in case you’re wondering, no we don’t drink all these shots. We just sip then toss. If it’s a great shot we will split it. Hopefully we will perfect our technique and then won’t waste all this coffee! Although I must say I am enjoying the process immensely. And I am very, very awake.

Espresso with the Ingalls

Coffee No Responses »

May 122012

We have embarked on a new journey into the world of espresso. Today our LeLit espresso machine arrived from Italy (via New Jersey). It’s so shiny!

We picked it up at 9:30 from the UPS office, took it home, and gently unwrapped all the components. After swiping all the static-filled styrofoam peanuts off our body, we gazed lovingly at our new toy. Then we left. We had a busy day of gallery hopping and swim lessons (ah, the life of a yuppie) before coming back to the house. We put the kids down for naps, then read the manual. I had done a lot of research as part of buying this machine. Part of that research was reading user forums that described the best techniques, such as coffee grind and tamp pressure. It required learning a new language as people referred to “channeling,” “blonding,” “temperature surfing,” and “the WDT method.” But I finally got all of this down in my head. Then I read the manual. There are 16 steps to turning the machine on. That’s a good indication that this new hobby is an art form.

We decided to hold off on learning how to steam the milk and jump straight into the espresso shots themselves. After all, this is the part we were most excited about. We got a new burr grinder to go with the machine to ensure a uniform grind of the beans. We read that our espresso machine likes a fine grind somewhere between espresso and Turkish grind (a coffee powder). The grinder has 40 steps so we set it to 5. This created a beautifully fine powder, but getting a scoop of coffee took about 7 minutes. I was relieved when our machine refused it, sputtering water from the seams. It meant we could grind coarser! We opted to try a 10 next, and this was lightning speed in comparison. Our machine handled it much better and produced a pretty ribboned stream of espresso. Clayton thought it tasted great, and I thought it was a little bitter. We pulled several more shots today, but had to cut ourselves off by 5pm when we knew any further espresso would be to the detriment of our sleep tonight. Although completely satisfied with the caffeine level, we are not completely satisfied with the taste results yet. Tomorrow we try again!

For those who are interested, here are the products:

LeLit PL041QE espresso machine
Baratza Virtuoso grinder
Bald Guy Brew espresso beans
Prima Design espresso cups

TESL Laughs

Video 3 Responses »

Apr 192012

For the last 2 months I’ve been in school learning to teach English as a second language. I hope this will be something I can use in Chicago and in SE Asia. It’ been a lot of fun and I’ve learned a lot about teaching, both English and otherwise.

As part of the class we occasionally watch videos. Here are a few that have causes a lot of laughs.

List of Snobbery

Food, Fun 4 Responses »

Apr 122012

I think I’m a fairly low maintenance individual. I buy generic everything. I like to begin sentences with “And”. But there are a few things about which I am a snob. Here are a few:

1. Adverbs
It might seem like a silly part of the English language, but I care whether or not someone answers the question, “How are you doing?” correctly (the answer is “well,” if you actually are). It also grates on my nerves when someone drops the “ly” ending of an adverb. For example: “If you look real close, you will see…” A double whammy of grammatical errors!

2. Coffee
I can trace this snobbery to the day I was made to taste Folgers coffee alongside Starbucks Kenya. I realized that some coffee tastes like cardboard and some like, well, coffee. This was in 2002. Since then I have continued to learn about coffee roasting, milk steaming, correct espresso temperature and crema, coffee oils in a french press, and the importance of the correct bean grind. I was reminded that I have become a snob about this because we are getting close to buying a new espresso machine and grinder, thanks to a decent tax return. I was intent on doing an absurd amount of research to find the right machine for us, and I have arrived at the LeLit PL041. Can’t wait for our return to materialize so I can order it!

3. The Martini
This snobbery began a few years ago when we began watching Mad Men. The advertising execs of that show drink hard liquor throughout the entire show. It is such a core part of the show that the website has a section for drink recipes. We were also living in Hawaii which has lower taxes on liquor so we could get a good deal on gin. We came to realize that a real martini is gin and vermouth. That’s it. None of this vodka mess. So when we go to restaurants with a martini menu and are presented with only vodka martinis it seems ridiculous.

4. Arrowheads
It’s not an arrowhead. It’s a projectile point.

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