Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

Pact - yes hotuk showed their 50% deal - I only have a paused membership at Compass,
I was going to try these folks https://whiterosecoffeeroasters.co....nds/products/continental-blend-roasted-coffee

Waitrose offer on their Italian beans £4.40/500g roasted 2 weeks ago(julian dating) caught my eye - pretty good - some oil, but not carbonized, completely choked the pump on first attempt.

Vero glasses - only thing is the heat capacity of thick glass, much less fragile than the double walled Melitta's I have, taking more care after I broke one.
 
Bought some coffee beans from a new supplier. There was a food festival in my town today and I spotted these guys Grumpy Panda. They seem to have a decent enough range of coffee albeit a bit quirky with the naming, and they're based in Dereham which is only a few miles away from me. I tried the For Nairobi, and it seems pleasant enough as an Americano, although it did extract a little fast for my liking, putting that down to the age of the beans. I've tightened the grind for the next shot to see if I can slow it down a touch, but no more coffee today!! I usually buy Green Farm Coffee Co Roma blend from a local deli at £11.50 p/500g so price wise isn't a million miles off. Hopefully the other ones will be as nice.

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Spec me a grinder.......
I have owned a Rocky for 13 years now and have generally been happy, except for a few niggly issues:

Lack of fine granular control - to that end I did a stepless mod a few years ago, this works really well.
High grind retention - Rocky does like to keep a hold of ground beans - ~1.5g on average. I have it tilted at 30° forward to encourage the grinds out, I've modded the hopper with an insert to encourage the beans to drop into the burrs, the plastic chute has been removed and I use a cocktail stick to sweep out the remaining bit where the grinds end up. This works well, and weighed before and after ensures I get the majority of the beans out. It is a faff though. I have seen bellows, but they aren't cheap and I suspect would blow a lot of the grinds about.
Some cheaper/older coffee won't grind fine enough to get a decent extraction time. Whether that's a shortcoming of Rocky or the beans idk. I can have the burrs "chirruping" on some beans and still get a very quick extraction.

Other than that the grinder is great. It's well made, heavy so doesn't jump al over the place, isn't obnoxiously noise and grinds beans quick enough for me.

So - how much will I need to spend to upgrade to a machine that addresses the above issues? I only ever grind enough coffee for one cup (~17g beans) so volume is a very low consideration for me. I suspect Rocky will be stored somewhere, so I can always dig him out to bulk grind should the need ever arise. Machine is a V3 PID modded Silvia, no complaints there. Looks aren't *really* a consideration - quality is though.

Appreciate ya thoughts - ta :)
 
haaammit said:
High grind retention - Rocky does like to keep a hold of ground beans - ~1.5g on average. I have it tilted at 30° forward to encourage the grinds out, I've modded the hopper with an insert to encourage the beans to drop into the burrs, the plastic chute has been removed and I use a cocktail stick to sweep out the remaining bit where the grinds end up. This works well, and weighed before and after ensures I get the majority of the beans out. It is a faff though. I have seen bellows, but they aren't cheap and I suspect would blow a lot of the grinds about.
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I'm sticking with dosered Rocky he must be 20 - grinding per shot I use a fine paint brush to get final grounds out of base of burrs, by poking into shoot, then quick final burst.
top burr carrier is wound with ptfe tape to eradicate play, stepping control blocked too; never had the burrs chirripping, lowest I ever used it is about 5.
yes - it's fast enough and well , noise is probably because the metal it is made of doesn't attenuate grind noise.

I missed dualit deal where they were selling eureka specialita at good price - otherwise haven't been tempted.
 
They are both grim...but the Tim Hortons espresso was just....I don't know someone at that company tasted it and said "Yep, this is our coffee". Burnt, gritty, flat. Eugh.

On a more positive note, I'm trying a bag from SeaMoor roasters, Peak District themed coffee, got 1kg of the Stanage, which was inevitably going to be my choice as a climber.

Rather nice actually, but I'm craving some fruity, light single origins again. I'd really like to get something like Wogan's Mio's Microlot, but not found anything quite as good.
 
I know it's not espresso, but I just got an Aeropress (using the Hoff's ultimate technique), and it's a revelation compared to my V60 daily driver.

It seems much more straightforward, it's more consistent, and it uses less coffee per cup, so wins all-round.
 
At least starbucks is drinkable, i had a neros the other day and boy was that grim. I also had a latte in a cafe the other day that was terrible it was burnt but also sour, no idea how they managed that maybe it channeled really bad and they over extracted to compensate.
Anyway i was looking around for a decent (cheap) sub option and coaltown have a 50% off your first reccuring order, (minimum 3 bags) this includes 1kg bags. works out at £100 for 3kgs or £6.67 per 200g plus free delivery. Ive just got through my first bag and it was very nice, delivered the day after it was roasted too.
 
Don't nero have manual machines so you do need to identify a good barista to get a +3sigma cup versus the starbucks automated approach -
take it back if it's a poor shot too ?
 
I used to roast coffee for an independent coffee roaster in the North East.

Just started my own thread on coffee gear that strayed into roaster recommendations and someone pointed me here. So thought I'd share some UK recommendations:

Origin - If you're into your chocolatey medium roast coffees I've found these guys nail it. Their South American offerings are just bang on for that flavour profile.

Abe & Co - one of the only in person Scott Rao trained roasters. Harder to dial in as it's lighter than I'd like but it's developed so you won't taste any roast defects.

Kontext Coffee - got a lot of interesting coffees as she has unique connections for green buying. (I find a lot of UK roasters get their green from the same place and it gets a bit boring).

Swansong coffee - only had one order but they are using a very new type of roaster that has rave reviews. Pricier than most for this reason.
 
citric acid descale on bezerra hx - pressure seemed to have dropped during shot , suspected grit in opv I'd rebuilt a year back,
it's not on hot side so shouldn't be scale - but maybe citric would help ?
putting in blind basket to drive return flow via opv - pump seemed to cut completely, so swapped pump for original Ulka ,
flow seems back to usual, have to do a post-mortem on pump, maybe salvageable.

Machine doesn't have a pressure gauge that might have revealed issue - maybe need to revisit purchasing one that would attach to PF,
if I were able to unscrew the spout , which wouldn't mind doing for a forensic clean (where pulycaf doesn't get)

Was going to get a bigger bag of citric acid to use on washing machine too - but apparently not recommended for rubber seals.
 
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window shopping hadn't realised bezerra now had their own e61 with flow rate (maybe the euro exchange rate helps)


nice engineering inside I also need to get some tank insulation, rotary pump mmmh
 
jpaul said:
citric acid descale on bezerra hx - pressure seemed to have dropped during shot , suspected grit in opv I'd rebuilt a year back,
it's not on hot side so shouldn't be scale - but maybe citric would help ?
putting in blind basket to drive return flow via opv - pump seemed to cut completely, so swapped pump for original Ulka ,
flow seems back to usual, have to do a post-mortem on pump, maybe salvageable.

Machine doesn't have a pressure gauge that might have revealed issue - maybe need to revisit purchasing one that would attach to PF,
if I were able to unscrew the spout , which wouldn't mind doing for a forensic clean (where pulycaf doesn't get)

Was going to get a bigger bag of citric acid to use on washing machine too - but apparently not recommended for rubber seals.
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I had the same issue once upon a time for my HX. Id bet it was a bit of scale worked loose causing the pressure issues. Fastest fix would be getting it up to pressure and use a long screw driver to depress the release valve a bunch of times . If that doesn't sort it do another descale , make sure you run some solution through the steam wand
 
Finally descaled my Lelit Mara today....bit of a ball ache as to drain the boiler you need to invert it and attach a tube to the steam wand. All sorted though, but faffy having to use the Italian YouTube video instructions :D
 
gazref said:
Fastest fix would be getting it up to pressure and use a long screw driver to depress the release valve a bunch of times .
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as far as i know the 3-way wasn't leaking, although, I've never dismantled it; I suspect if it were, the drip tray may have been noticeably fuller.
If I started using bottled water that would probably help, and even though it would be a litre a day, the expense is not enormous next to the coffee - may help taste.

mid_gen said:
bit of a ball ache as to drain the boiler you need to invert it and attach a tube to the steam wand.
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yes - interesting technique - I take the top off and siphon liquid out via the anti-vac valve hole , replace av, refill from tank filled with citric, bring back to temp, and siphon liquid back out later,
after running some through group&steam - not sure which technique gets the most of the used cleaning fluid back out.
 
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