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Permalink Reply by Brady on March 13, 2009 at 7:27am

Jesse -D-> said:

Without consitant weight you will never have consistant taste.

That, I think, is a big part of the question. Is that really true? From the look of some responses, it seems like that is not taken as given. I suspect the answers are "yes" and "maybe", depending on whether you are talking shot-to-shot weight consistency (critically important) vs day-to-day weight consistency (the importance of which seems debatable). Ah, if only we could steal a sip of every shot that passes over the bar...

I do think there is a difference too in the skill level of barista we are discussing here. "Do it my way until you can do it better", to paraphrase what Darren said so much better.

BTW, I submit another non-destructive monitoring method - smell! Just be really sneaky...

Some really, really great posts here. I've enjoyed reading this discussion very much.

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Permalink Reply by Aaron McNany on March 13, 2009 at 5:40pm

I really don't get too much of a burnt taste...
I have noticed, however, that if I get a pre-infusion time of more than 10 seconds I will get a more burnt, baggy, over-brewed taste. If the shot finishes at 40+ it may seem that the extraction made it 'burnt', but in fact it could have been the 10 seconds of pre-infusion.

Try this: get your espresso all dialed in and pull yourself a shot. Take two demitasse and place them side by side, keeping one empty for now and filling the other with your shot. When the shot becomes blonde and thin (near the end), take away the one cup and replace it with the empty one. One would guess the second cup might taste burnt or bitter, but it will probably just taste like water or weak coffee.

Jesse -D-> said:

I am glad that so many people base their parameters on taste, after all that is the most important thing. In my experience shots that take over 35s taste a little burnt. Does this happen to you sometimes Aaron? I have made shots that had the right color flow etc, but then change one of the variables (not the beans), get it tuned in to flow right, and then you get a different taste. Somtimes better, somtimes worse, somtimes just different. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that monitoring flow and color doesn't do the full job. What do you all think?

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Permalink Reply by Jesse -D-> on March 14, 2009 at 6:02am

I say, we meet up soon and mess around with your experiment. Did you hear about the winning sig drink at the USBC. Pretty similar to what you are talking about. Only he broke up the good parts of the shot.

This is going really well, I'd love to keep the post going. Great discussion.

Aaron McNany said:

I really don't get too much of a burnt taste...
I have noticed, however, that if I get a pre-infusion time of more than 10 seconds I will get a more burnt, baggy, over-brewed taste. If the shot finishes at 40+ it may seem that the extraction made it 'burnt', but in fact it could have been the 10 seconds of pre-infusion.

Try this: get your espresso all dialed in and pull yourself a shot. Take two demitasse and place them side by side, keeping one empty for now and filling the other with your shot. When the shot becomes blonde and thin (near the end), take away the one cup and replace it with the empty one. One would guess the second cup might taste burnt or bitter, but it will probably just taste like water or weak coffee.

Jesse -D-> said:

I am glad that so many people base their parameters on taste, after all that is the most important thing. In my experience shots that take over 35s taste a little burnt. Does this happen to you sometimes Aaron? I have made shots that had the right color flow etc, but then change one of the variables (not the beans), get it tuned in to flow right, and then you get a different taste. Somtimes better, somtimes worse, somtimes just different. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that monitoring flow and color doesn't do the full job. What do you all think?

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