Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

tamper?:

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Scottland said:
Any recommend places in London? Down there next week for a few days and will need to attend to my fix ;)
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Last time we was down we only managed monmouth and flat white, i didnt think much to flat white at all but loved monmouth.

did have a cappucino at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay and that was nice but i still think monmouth tops it.
 
i tend to use this: http://www.thelondoncoffeemap.com/ but then it wasn't a bad investment as i'm always in meetings in random bits of london.

You can also pick up a paper version from these guys: http://bluecrowmedia.com/shop?four - most decent coffee shops have it.

Monmouth is ok for their drip coffee but not great otherwise imho. I'd recommend trying to get to:

Purfrock - top notch espresso
Mothers milks - really random little place, but good vibe and friendly staff
Nobel Espresso cart - great little place outside kings cross
Iris & June - a little minimalist inside, but again a great coffee

totally depends where your going to be really...

oh, and a free google map of decent places, not sure how upto date it is though: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...n&msa=0&ie=UTF8&mid=zzaFRp1uxKY8.kys4itMVN6a4
 
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Waste of time....looks great but so much faff?

Also, I thought you are not meant to pour boiling water into the grind because it burns it, in that contraption it is pumping steam into it.

And the filter there is fabric? Which is not as fine as paper so yeah get more grit in your cup.

And how do you clean that tiny metal tube?
 
It is rather gimicky but the point to the syphon method is that you will get pretty solid consistency, almost completely removing the human part of the equation. Also it's easier to clean one of those than it is to clean an espresso machine. Those just unscrew quite easily into their different bits, and you use one of these to clean the pipe:

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They do take a while but they make a nice table/conversation piece at dinner parties. I personally don't, but many swear they provide a unique flavour.
 
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The boiling water thing is a weird one - pour over, espresso, cafetiere, aeropress etc generally recommend not using boiling water for that very reason however stove tops, percolators (as if you see them anymore) and Siphon makers all use steam to push through the coffee.

I guess it gives a different profile rather than anything else...
 
They don't use the steam directly, the tube goes to the bottom of the boiler so it is using the pressure to push the water into the coffee.
 
Scottland said:
Has anyone had the Guatamala Finca El Limon from Hasbean recently? We've just opened a bag in the last couple of days and it tastes really funky. At first we thought it just cos we had a cold and couldn't taste anything right - but we tried it on a guinea pig and they thought it was off too.
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I've just opened and made a cup of Nicaragua Finca Limoncillo and it tastes rank, too. I'm not sure if it's "reacting" badly with the water in this office or not, but it's leaving the kind of after taste you get if you dab a paper towel on your tongue. Rank.

Will make another when I get home (using filtered water) to see what's what.
 
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So just got my new bottomless portafilter and it clearly shows I am doing something wrong, coffee squirting everywhere. :D

So I am guessing my grind setting is either to loose or I'm not tampering enough. I suspect it is the grind setting at the minute so guess I will need to give the rocky a clean and recalibrate it. Also need to get some cheap beans to fire through for testing. I can see a lot of mess being created over the coming days.
 
Unfortunately the cheap bean tactic doesn't work as the brew can vary massively from bean to bean. The only real way to do this is to either buy extra of your choice of bean, or to play the long game and accept the first half-dozen cups will be sub-par.
 
Dj_Jestar said:
Unfortunately the cheap bean tactic doesn't work as the brew can vary massively from bean to bean. The only real way to do this is to either buy extra of your choice of bean, or to play the long game and accept the first half-dozen cups will be sub-par.
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Ah ok. Good info to know.

I guess it will be a case of test out a couple more cups once I have given the grinder a good once over and then see what happens there. I suspect I have some coffee trapped between the burr threads and so it's not going all the way to the finest setting.
 
Bloody hell ... I must have had a bad bag/batch because the Nicaragua Finca Limoncillo (yellow pacamara) I moaned about before is up to £12.50 a bag at hasbean!
 
well another attempt with the new portafilter and less squirting this time but looking at the puck it showed a couple of areas where the coffee was dry (bad tamper/ over tamper?)

Had one stream for the most part although it was rather fast so I guess I need to move the grind setting down a notch or two.
 
davetherave2 said:
well another attempt with the new portafilter and less squirting this time but looking at the puck it showed a couple of areas where the coffee was dry (bad tamper/ over tamper?)

Had one stream for the most part although it was rather fast so I guess I need to move the grind setting down a notch or two.
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I'd say that sounds more like an uneven tamp and/or distribution in the basket
 
Well after a 40 minute clean of the grinder and recalibration I am hoping that will help get a fine grind down. Amazing how much mess you can make taking a grinder to pieces.

I will see about the tamper but I usually put the basket on the table and press down evenly and level off the coffee before I start the tamper.

Hopefully tomorrows experiments will be more insightful and fruitful.
 
I have a BPF and a rockey. I tend to set the rockey to either the minimum grind or 1 above. I do get some spritzing at times which I think can be down to uneven distribution of the grounds or too fine/heavily tamped puck so the water has to find away around the puck. the rockey produces quite clumpy grounds due to static. it's worth distributing it with a cocktail stick to break up the grounds.

I dont fill my BPF to the top (to level off) as it takes something like 19 grams which is virtually a treble shot.

http://www.home-barista.com/tips/espresso-spraying-with-bottomless-portafilter-t17624.html
 
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