The Coffee Thread

Thanks for the heads-up about the cutout switch, will keep an eye out for that.
Is it possible to use a spoon or some other implement to drag most of the remaining grounds out of the chute without tipping it forwards?

I considered getting a Hario as they were mentioned upthread, reasonably priced, sound very well made with the ceramic burr etc, and my Flair Classic press is technically portable in its carrying case.
But realistically, I'm never going to take it away with me, I'd just take the Aeropress and some pre-ground in my airtight coffee canister to save the muckaround of dismantling/setting up/using the Flair.
If I'm on holidays and want a really top notch cuppa, I'll just find a reasonably busy cafe with Campos or Allpress branding out front.
When the benchtop grinder arrives I'm going to rearrange the kitchen benchtops and get myself a proper coffee station set up in the corner, where it shall all live happily.

I have one of these 3kg/0.1g scales on the way from an ebay seller too, $19.95 w/ free shipping.
It seemed like the most useful/practical variant... can use it for coffee dosing, checking posting costs, or if I decide to get into the Persian Rug business...

 

Only if you've decided to start selling lumps of semi-precious metals... the plate is only about 100mm on a side.

The 3kg model is still a reasonable shout, though - with the lower capacity ones you'll often add the container, tare it out, and then only have about 100g of capacity left for what you're weighing before it goes out of range.

 

Wow. That's... a lot

 

Bit late to the party but another recommendation from me. 3 family members have it and coffee snob mate down the road has one also.
I'm the only one of the four who hasn't done the shim mod yet. I'm down to #7 after 12 years.
Mate uses 2 washers after about 10 years but also makes about 7 cups a day.

Bought mine for $99 from Big W years ago when they were being sold for $199-229 at the usuals.

 

I was thinking it might be possible to set it on the edge of a bench, center a package on top, then sneak a finger underneath to the Tare button and read off the weight that way... should the need ever arise.
Usually use my ancient old mechanical kitchen scale, which will also be replaced by the digi since the plastic bowl is cracked and it only reads up to 2kg.
100mm^2 and 3kg max. should be perfect for a plastic measuring jug or small mixing bowl, it will probably get more use in this role than for dosing coffee tbh.
I can eyeball dosage for the Flair pretty consistently by now, well enough for my tastes anyway. But I still want to do a tasting comparison of all the beans I have on hand with accurate dosing, when I have nothing more pressing to do one morning...

Cheers for the feedback, no Buyer's Remorse here!
Good to know that it's a fairly simple procedure to shim the burr as it starts to wear.

 

No worries.
Yep, I emailed Sunbeam and they sent me 2 washers suited for the job. I never used them and gave them to a family member to use.

 

Turn a glass upside down on the scales then you can easily tare it and put something on top to weigh.

 

This is getting rather tangential to the thread, but there is another style of cheap import scale that you can find by searching something like "40kg market scale" - 40kg capacity, 1g resolution, runs for a fair while off an internal lead-acid battery. They float around between about $40-50.

Not really a coffee tool, but they are a great brewing tool, and on that incredibly thin linguistic justification I rest my case.

 

I'm really curious as to how it goes. My grind is quite coarse 34-36 to pull a 30ml ish shot so I'm hoping I can go finer grind and get a better extraction.

 

After I upgraded my shower screen I had to change my grind from 26 to 22 as the pour was too fast . Now at 30 ish ml in 25-30 seconds

 

Oh yeah and I extended my extraction to 32sec so I think my screen must be rooted. I clean it regularly with the tablets etc but I've never removed it and i won't bother until I get the new one.

 

Grinder showed up this afternoon, for The Good Guys.
Nice to see local dispatch/shipping timeframes getting back to normal now (for courier delivery at least, I presume it's still F in chat for people awaiting deliveries via Auspost).

No way was I going to wait until tomorrow morning to play with the new toy, so here I am drinking a double-shot flat white at 6pm.
Kicked off with grind setting 12 (finer end of the recommended range for espresso grind)... low resistance from handle of the press regardless of how firmly I tamped... a bit underextracted but I'm drinking it anyway (can't stand being wasteful).
Will try the 10 setting tomorrow. I'll definitely have the perfect grind setting dialled in by the time my scale shows up (see above re. Auspost), then I can set about perfecting dosage.
Needless to say, after using the old vintage-style manual burr grinder for a couple of months since I got the press, I am in Coffee Heaven right now.

A couple of questions for simontifik and Groff (and anyone else using the EM0480) if I may:
- For reference, what grind setting are you guys using?
- Do you find a need to adjust the setting for different beans, or is it basically set-and-forget for a particular machine/brewing method?

 

There's no other way.
You throw the single basket out, never to be used

Today I'm on 10 but...

I have a Silvia which is reasonably forgiving (can't say the same about the Gaggia Classic which would go from sour to choking in 1 notch.)

I may need to adjust 1 notch if going from a warm dry day to a cool wet day as what happened recently.
I normally buy the same beans from a local roaster and in the 3 weeks the bag lasts me I could adjust the grind a notch from start to finish.

I tend to go for the medium-dark roasts.
If I try a lighter roast I may need to go a notch finer initially.

 

I mostly use 10. Find it works well for both my stovetop and Aeropress. I do have to adjust up or down a click with different coffee beans. A single click can be the difference between the stovetop pushing through nicely and it boiling over. I’d guess mine has worn a bit since I got it too, was more regularly using 11 and 12 when it was new.

 

Thanks guys.
Looks like 10-11 is the sweet spot for mine too.

 

Enjoy!

 

Crap. I coulda sold you mine for, like, $50.

Then again, I'd feel bad about it because they're an awful grinder.

 

All good mate, I felt like treating myself to a little present anyway and the cost for a new one was lower than I thought it would be, with free shipping into the bargain.
Regarding it being awful, where I'm coming from the only way is up, so my rose-tinted glasses are firmly in place.
It seems perfectly adequate for my needs, only has to cope with grinding out one or two shots per day... maybe four at most if I have a friend over.
Looks to be pretty well built for the money but I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about why they are crap since I've never used anything fancier that this. You don't know what you don't know, etc.

Scale showed up this morning. A few observations:
- By pure luck it fits perfectly on the silicone pad of the grinder, and the silicone spout attachment lets me grind straight into my little dosing cup with minimum mess. So that's nice.
- If I remove the cup plate at the bottom of the Flair press and chuck an old 2.5" HDD in its place, the scale fits perfectly there too. The HDD raises it just enought to clear the sides of the base. So that's also nice.
- 16 grams of espresso grind has quite a bit more volume than I thought, so I've definitely been under-dosing. Instant improvement right there.
- If you're careful to get the dose correct and hit the water fill line bang on, the Flair portafilters are perfectly sized to deliver a 38 gram shot with very minimal variation. A neat (albeit very obvious) design win.
- #10 grind is still a bit too coarse for these portafilters for whatever reason, even with a pretty firm tamp. Extraction isn't too bad, but I've previously done better with the manual grinder. Will try 8 tomorrow.
- I'm loving this process of experimentation, because every morning the coffee gets a little better and I get a little closer to achieving good consistency!

 

They produce an inconsistent grind, clog up very quickly with a large amount of retention (I've had up to 2g retention, it's nuts), are difficult to clean thoroughly (they're easy to take apart and put back together, but there are so many little niches that hold pockets of grounds that are difficult to access even when it's all apart) and are incredibly noisy.

For the money there are better manual grinder options. They are solidly built, though, I'll give them that. You could definitely kill someone with one

This will depend highly on the bean. Some fluff up a lot, others don't.

 

The Breville BES920 dual boiler is on sale at DJ's for $979. What's peoples experience like with these? I have a Lelit PL91T and I'm really not impressed with it. There's so many poor design choices they have made that it just infuriates me, but it does make a good coffee. I could sell the Lelit for $800-1000 and buy the Breville, but not sure if it's worth it. Any comments?

I had a Lelit PL44MMT and it was an absolute piece of shit that cost me $410 and they're now charging $570! It had dosing, but only timed and you had to hold the griphead in against the button. There was also no way to tell the grind size as the knob wasn't indexed. To clean the burrs I had to find a maintenance manual to see how to pull the machine apart, then spend 2 hours disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling. After 6-12 months it stopped grinding because it was so clogged up, and the fact it was so hard to clean was a total deal breaker. I sold it and got a Breville grinder which has been fantastic. Easy to change grind size and time, one push hands-free operation and it's VERY easy to clean the burrs. You can even remove the hopper with the beans still in it!