2 oz Volumetric pulls and triple portafilters
I keep seeing shops use the volumetric feature on espresso machines to make 2oz pulls. I can understand that not everyone has the passion for espresso extraction as probably most of us on here do.
One shop that I had just spent three days at before partaking into somewhat of my own venture, was using the volumetric feature on their machine. Firstly their grind was too coarse. The shot would be pulling within 2 seconds and the flow was running freely. So I adjusted the grind and got a better buffer for the first appearance of espresso and the flow looked much better. The problem is though that they run their machine until the 2 oz mark is reached by the volumetric feature, so the shot gets greatly over-extracted. If I stopped the volumetric shot early, we got a proper tasting shot. So they were using some raggedy double baskets. I weighed the doses they were using and it came to about 16g. They were also not on the same page as far as WDT as a whole, everyone kind of did own thing.
So here I am in a new cafe that is reopening on Sept 6th. We will have training from our Roaster but it will mainly be myself teaching the two owners. The one being there almost always Mon - Fri and the other being there only on Mondays as she works another full-time job. I will be there Mon-Fri. We have a NS Aurelia with the volumetric feature. The portafilters and baskets are getting replaced as they were never cleaned in two years. So I have two bottomless portafilters with triple baskets coming. Going bottomless to help train my own and owner's WDT techniques.
With using a triple basket, do you feel that if I train them on what to look for in the beginning of the shot, that they could just use the Volumetric feature and let the shot run to 2oz? I would think that there would still be a little life left in the puck when stopped at 2oz, but that it would be easier for them to get to the promise land this way.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brady on
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Couple of thoughts...
Forget the WDT thing. You'll have no time to execute it on a working bar, and with proper equipment and practice you won't need it anyway. WDT is a workaround for home baristas with clumpy grinders that don't pull enough shots in a day to develop consistent professional technique. I know of zero working baristas that find this necessary.
Volumetric dosing is programmable - all you do is hold down the continuous flow button until the lights flash, load a puck, start the shot with the button you are programming, and hit the continuous button when you reach your desired volume or weight. You can set them to pull whatever you want - 1.2oz, 1.5oz, 1.75oz, 2oz, whatever...
The Nuova Simonelli "new conical" double basket (03000073) which became standard on Aurelias a couple of years ago is a great basket for doubles. It is an 18 gram basket, and works well for 1.5-2.0oz shots. You ought to pick up a couple of those.
Why are you tossing the portafilter handles? Are they dinged up and damaged, or just extremely cruddy? A long soak in a high-strength cafiza solution, followed by a couple of minutes with a brass bristle brush can make anything black and crusty disappear. Handles should last for many years.
The bottomless will be a great training tool.
Now for the controversial part...
Using the volumetric dosing function is not necessarily bad. When used properly, it might even give you a more consistently good shot than the "cut off at 1.5 fl-oz" approach. Why? Lots of factors can change the volume that a shot of a certain weight pulls to day to day - including freshness, blend, and whether or not you use a bottomless PF. People are finding that pulling their shots to a certain weight can result in a consistently better shot than pulling to a certain volume. For example, setting a program button to produce a 30 gram shot from an 18 gram basket (if you find that that produces a tasty shot) will give you pretty close to a 30 gram shot every time... much closer to consistent than just cutting off at 1.5 fl-oz.
Most good baristas still pull using the manual button, but the program buttons are not evil when used properly.
Hope that helps.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Raz on
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Okay I was totally using the term WDT wrongly. Should have said that they weren't on the same page as far as dosing, leveling, and tamping techniques.
The portafilters were/are extremely cruddy. I let them soak for a couple hours and went to town scrubbing them. They are still nasty. Don't think the baskets have ever been taking out in the past two years of operation. I also really wanted some naked filters to work with. I will definitely play around with volume and weight of shots once the machine is up and we have the new filters. Hopefully by this weekend. My thing is that i don't feel they are as interested in espresso as the rest of us here are. So I'm trying to set them up with a long term viable solution for pulling good "decent" shots. Who knows, I might be able to spark their interest and get them wanting to manually ending shot. I just feel that they aren't that dedicated to the art of spro.
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Permalink Reply by Jimmy B on
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I think you should just teach them the correct way. Teaching someone first time learning is easier than teaching someone something different from what they're used to. The thing is, once you teach them one way, it may be hard to switch their habits. Make sure you go over exactly what you're gonna teach them and try to be as clear as you can. Don't go into super detail because they're probably not gonna care anyways. If they aren't as passionate as you say they are, they're only care is to make it work and hopefully produce good stuff. I actually set up a tumblr forum with how I would want future workers to follow and understand everything. That way when I hire workers in the future, they can just read off of tumblr, and when I do hands on training with them, they already understand the concept and WHY I do it the way I do it. Good luck! And keep up the passion!
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Permalink Reply by Keith Eckert on
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I must have missed something over the years, but out of curiosity, WTH is WDT?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II8v2eEJlRY
I thought it was just a term for dosing, leveling, and tamping. Realized something was up when I read Brady's reply.
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Ah yes, Weiss...
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Espresso acupuncture :)
Keith E said:
I must have missed something over the years, but out of curiosity, WTH is WDT?
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First week of using the Volumetric feature and triple baskets has come to an end. Using the triple baskets has worked out great. Reaching 2 oz pulls around 30 seconds without any bitterness. They are using an espresso blend from a local roaster which is decent, but not comparable to those of the more well-known roasters. Thinking about grabbing some beans from CC or Intelli to play with during the off hours to see what I can get out of this setup.
Next week will be spent training the two owners and probably be out of here in another two weeks after that.
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Permalink Reply by Bryan Wray on
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Out of curiosity, what's wrong with a 2oz pull? If you're using a triple basket, you probably SHOULD be yielding about 2oz. It's going to depend on the coffee, obviously, but the better and better green coffee you deal with the longer and longer you're going to be able to extract it before it falls apart.
If you really want to train your baristas properly, start having them weigh their shots. If you are weighing your dose you should be weighing your yield. Developing the concept between dose weight and yield weight is one of the most valuable things you can work with when training someone.
-bry
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Permalink Reply by Paul G on
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In our place we've been doing something along the lines of what Brady said earlier. We dose 18g dry grounds every time (or try too!), and have found that around 33g shots seem to be tastiest.
We use the continuous button but have it pre set to pour 60g water. Almost always, this gives us a 33g double shot, we weigh the odd shot through out the day just to make sure.
One thing I don't get though, is how 60g water becomes 33g espresso? I always thought that coffee grounds absorbed 1g water for every 1g coffee, so I would have thought 18g water should get absorbed?? But in our case 27g seems to get absorbed, not sure why?
We find this pre set method way more consistant than knocking shots off by eye, and means the only variables we worry about then are grind and time. Works for us, even if I don't fully understand it!! :-)
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I don't think I said anything was wrong with 2 oz pulls. My goal with this setup was to reach 2 oz using the triple baskets. It has worked out very well. Interesting how the same beans but three days older from the weekend resulted in a shorter shot using the same volumetric settings from Friday. Adjusted the amount of water dispersed by the volumeric feature and was back at 2 oz pulls after playing with the grind.
This isn't my shop, just helping with getting it restarted. The women are a bit older and aren't into it as much as we are. Wanted an easy setup for them that they can understand and replicate without me. Trained a new girl today and was able to have her dial in the grinder and volumetric feature after a 2 hour lesson. I acknowledge people saying to train them the proper way with manually stopping a shot, but if they can d
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