Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

manveruppd said:
Anyone watched the UKBC? Or been to it? I didn't even realize it was on this weekend, only found out this evening. Is it normally this early in the year? Vaguely remember it being in March other years...
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It's the heats at the moment. I think the finals are in April.
 
manveruppd said:
Anyone watched the UKBC? Or been to it? I didn't even realize it was on this weekend, only found out this evening. Is it normally this early in the year? Vaguely remember it being in March other years...
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I volunteered last year at 2 heats and the finals.

Very interesting and got some great coffee. :D I spent most of my time doing the semi-official tweets.

May be at the 3rd heat at Butterworths and the finals. Not sure if I'll be volunteering or not this time though.
 
I was planning to, had my routine almost worked out too. I had liquid nitrogen. :D
Then they announced that there wasn't going to be a london heat, which stuffed that idea.
 
Well I finally pulled my finger out and ordered an Auber Instruments PID for my Silvia - it's got both the brew and steam temp controls on it - just got to install it now. 10 days for delivery from the states - ordered 09th Feb, delivered today!

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So got myself a Gaggia Classic a few weeks ago and things are going ok. After investing in a bottomless portafilter though it would appear I have a few issues. Primarily with coffee spraying everywhere. I'm guessing this is an issue with the grind and the distribution of coffee inside the portafiler being uneven wich is resulting in fissures in the puck?

In order to remedy this I'm looking at doing the OPV mod to reduce the brewing pressure from 15 bar so its set to the correct 9 bar, and get myself an Iberital MC2 Grinder. I currently have a dualit one which I think is ok but from doing some reading I gather the Iberital would be an improvement. Plus the Dualit has a habit of the beans not flowing from the hopper into the burrs which means I have to stick my hand in the hopper to force them in. This gets a bit annoying after a while as I'm sure you can imagine.

Main question regarding the MC2 is which version to go with, the auto or the doser? Opinions from people who own either of these would be great. I would imagine the doser would make things slightly quicker? Which would be good as making a coffee is a bit time consuming at the moment, would like to get a bit quicker at it but I guess that will come with time and experience anyway.

I reckon the main problem with my technique is when I actually put the coffee in the portafiler I find it incredibly difficult to distribute it evenly, generally one side will be slightly higher than the other when I tamp it down (like the surface of the puck has a very slight slope) so I'm not sure if one of the grinders is better for distributing it evenly or not?
 
I use a french press and have been using good pre-ground coffee like Percol, Taylors.
I only have one cup a day so a bag lasts me 3-4 weeks. I store it in a Lock & Lock container in the fridge but I guess it will still go stale.

I've now ordered a Porlex Mini Coffee Grinder and I'm looking for good beans to grind. Do whole beans keep fresher longer? Whittard sell smaller bags but are they good? Checked out Hasbean, but they only sell 250g bags so guess it will go stale before I can use it all?
 
joffy said:
I use a french press and have been using good pre-ground coffee like Percol, Taylors.
I only have one cup a day so a bag lasts me 3-4 weeks. I store it in a Lock & Lock container in the fridge but I guess it will still go stale.

I've now ordered a Porlex Mini Coffee Grinder and I'm looking for good beans to grind. Do whole beans keep fresher longer? Whittard sell smaller bags but are they good? Checked out Hasbean, but they only sell 250g bags so guess it will go stale before I can use it all?
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Whole beans last longer than ground beans - if you are getting ok results with ground coffee over three to four weeks, then the beans will work even better and lose less flavour. The Hasbean beans come in airtight ziplock bags - ideal for storing the beans in - just keep them in a cool, dark place - in the fridge isn't ideal.

OT, are you "Admin's pet"? :)
 
Do they show a roasting date? If not then I wouldn't bother. In fact I probably wouldn't anyway, I didn't like the last lot of Union stuff I had! Just get onto Has Bean tbh.. it's not that expensive in comparison, even including postage.
 
Just ordered some Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama Bourbon Pulped Natural from Hasbean :)

UPDATE; Well the beans arrived today, just made my 1st cup.
Thought I had ground them too fine, but there was no sludge at all left in the cup. Taste was quite mild compared to the Percol pre-ground I'd been using, but very nice!
 
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joffy said:
Just ordered some Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama Bourbon Pulped Natural from Hasbean :)

UPDATE; Well the beans arrived today, just made my 1st cup.
Thought I had ground them too fine, but there was no sludge at all left in the cup. Taste was quite mild compared to the Percol pre-ground I'd been using, but very nice!
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Ideally you'll want to rest your beans for a few days post-roast before using them. I've been using the same Brazilian beans and found they were good after 5 days. Hope you enjoy them. They make a lovely sweet coffee and good in milk (but not too much milk!) and have a lovely aftertaste.
 
Hamster said:
Ideally you'll want to rest your beans for a few days post-roast before using them. I've been using the same Brazilian beans and found they were good after 5 days. Hope you enjoy them. They make a lovely sweet coffee and good in milk (but not too much milk!) and have a lovely aftertaste.
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Thanks. Will order my next bag just before this one has run out. Any recommendations on what to try next?
 
Percol stuff is dreadful. I bought a bag in tesco on a whim, if this is Italian syle it's not for me. I generally like roasted and intense, this tasted like charcoal, like when you badly burn meat on a bbq. No subtly at all.
 
joffy said:
Thanks. Will order my next bag just before this one has run out. Any recommendations on what to try next?
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Not knowing how you like your espresso, it's difficult to suggest. Have a look at the descriptors on Hasbean and see what takes your fancy. The Cachoeira is quite a safe bean with little to offend but although I said it's good in milk, I much prefer it as espresso. Having said that, I do like more fruity, acidic espresso such as Squaremile's Red Brick.

I do find that Hasbean's roasts easily get lost in milk (19g ground coffee, brew ratio 1.55) and to be quite honest, I may get shot for this but I'd rather use Lavazza supermarket beans (black packet) if I'm making a milk drink. This is why for anything in milk I'm looking forward to trying a roaster that does a darker roast such as Londinium Espresso. Going to Cali - maybe their beans will suit your taste better.

-edit- when I mention milk drinks, I mean espresso based such as cappuccinos, flat whites or lattes.
 
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Yeah, Has Bean seem to roast a lot lighter than some of the others. I drink all my coffee with milk (inverted aeropress + a touch of milk) and my favourite go-to blends are Nude's house blend and Square Mile. They've got a bit more oomph to them. Always trying new ones though, you can't go far wrong :)
 
Well my classic is faulty and being sent back to amazon for a refund after only 4 months.

Soooo I'm using the opportunity to upgrade to a quality machine, has any one got any recommendations up to £600? I'm currently thinking of going for the francino picciono, does anyone have one? :)
 
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