Wow I thought we were geeks until I read this on Google+ stream

[Horton]

Cody CampbellSep 20, 2012

Check out http://www.home-barista.com/

I moved fomr a Super Auto to an espresso system a couple of years ago, and this was a great place to get started.

 

From a temp perspective, you're in the zone! +/- 5 degrees off of 200 is where you'll probably find the sweet spot for most good espresso roasts.

 

I've found that although temp super important, once you get a machine with a good boiler or with a PID installed, you can leave temp alone and focus on dose/grind, tamp, and extraction time. These three parameters in your brewing of espresso are probably the most important.

 

I tend to use scales and measure input and output by grams (bean weight before grinding, ground weight, extracted espresso weight) this gives me a good set of metrics to measure with.

 

Keeping a legal pad around, (there's also a couple of iphone apps for tracking dose & extraction times), you can record output and adjust the dose, grind, and extraction time.

 

For my machine (LM-GS3) I find that the good median target to start is 24 Grams of roasted beans (ground out to 22 grams of ground espresso) brewed in 26-30 seconds with an espresso output of 29 grams. I'll start there and adjust, recording until I get a certain roast right. Some may vary widely, just because of the light vs. dark roasts out there today. Once you do this enough times, you can toss the legal pad and just tune to what works on your setup. There's an amazing variety in the Bay area for roasted coffee, almost every local shop sells their roast. It's really a cool time to be discovering this delicious hobby!

 

I'm partial to my local neighborhood favorite http://www.highwirecoffee.com/.

 

Happy Brewing!

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[Ed_Obermeier]

You obviously have way too much spare time John.

[SDNAH2OSKIER]

I have an awesome coffee maker too. But I leave the details to the real pros.......errr geeks. Wait, isnt that exactly what I am doing on BOS?????

[jhughes]

Wait until you read some homebrew forums. Those guys are way over the top.

[Than_Bogan]

Hey, if you're not going all in, why bother?

[Skoot1123]

I'm serious about my coffee and espresso.....but haven't gotten to roasting my own, yet. I'm addicted enough to BOS and skiing.....can't take away from that!!

[andjules]

I've yet to see a coffee geek get out a set of digital calipers and argue about the slot indentations.

But they do like their thermometers.

[countymountie]

Anyone that drops $6500 on a coffee maker has issues.

[Ilivetoski]

@countrymountie they probably say we have issues dropping $60,000 on a boat, $2,000 on a ski and god knows how much on gas for a hobby :) however, our expensive hobby is helpful! Its exercise!!! Good for you!

[sixball]

Coffee black two mugs from my $20.00 drip.. Good Two outings first on good water second on great water. Ummmmmmmm Goooood. I am happy.

[Texas6]

That is insanely ridiculous coffee speak. But we are still pretty bad

[E_T]

@Horton you never seize to amaze me with all your hobbies

[DaveD]

To be as geeky, this coffee nut would have to talk about calculating Reynolds numbers and drilling out orifices to the nearest 0.001" to tune the machine to get the proper flow rate.

[Horton]

"calculating Reynolds numbers"

Classic!

[MattP]

@E_T learn to spell.. you are almost as bad as @Horton