That’s 12oz every 2 weeks when what I really want is 8oz every week. Very competitive pricing, though, since it includes shipping.
I love my Silvia and am seriously looking at getting a PID for it, as my only real complaint is the wide variance on the boiler temp. I hadn’t realized that getting it installed was a practical DIY project or I probably would have tackled this months ago.
Boy, did I ever ignore the hell out of this thread.
I’ve had getting around to home espresso in my backlog forever; my mom jumped it to the top by getting me a Cuisinart EM-100. It doesn’t produce the best latte I’ve ever had, but with really good Vivace beans it’s better than an average store-bought. We’re using a Barata Virtuoso we go last year for grinding. The big downsides to the EM-100 are lousy crema and the milk steamer doesn’t warm the milk up for shit, so I have to pre-microwave it. I’ll get around to replacing it with something better eventually.
A few questions:
- How the hell do you know what the appropriate tamping pressure is? Does everyone else have a 30lbs of force guage in their head I shipped without? I’d guess it’s not hard enough if it’s not taking 22 seconds. Keep shoving until it takes that long?
- What sort of tricks does everyone play on their tap water? Ours is ok, but not realy that good.
At my local place new baristas have to practice tamping on a bathroom scale.
Yep, I practiced on a bathroom scale. And by “practiced” I don’t mean I spent hours on it, I just pushed down and figured out what 30 lbs felt like, and that was that.
If you’re using approximately 30 lbs of pressure and your shots come too fast, try grinding more finely. If the shots come too slow, grind coarser.
If you don’t like to drink your tapwater, use a filter or bottled water. Otherwise, it’s fine.
Looks like I may just wait until next year to go all out on my coffee addiction, but I am going to snag that grinder.
That will be awesome to have no matter what, and I’ll keep an eye out for sales on the machine this year.
Might pick up a cheaper machine to play with in the meantime as was suggested earlier.
Do it. I bought mine from Auberins, and with their instructions I had the machine ready in under an hour. It skips the entire ‘temperature surfing’ trick. When it comes to steaming, I wait until it hits 132 c then start frothing the milk.
Dear lord this grinder is fantastic. I just made the best coffee I ever had at home.
This will definitely hold me until I can afford the espresso machine. I’m almost giddy right now.
Whoop, just realized I mentioned two grinders earlier and didn’t specify what I actually bought.
I ended up with the Baratza Virtuoso Preciso
It’s been great so far. It took very little effort to dial in the perfect grind for my Aeropress. It’s very consistent, quite fast and less noisy than I expected. I’ve never seen a grinder have so little waste either. I was shocked to see that what I put into it is extremely close to what comes out of it. It’s one thing to read that and another to witness it after multiple uses. Seriously impressed.
Just noticed a nice video walkthrough of the Breville I was eyeing up from Seattle Coffee Gear http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7NIGabvnD2w
So lusting for it, but I think I may have to wait on that until next year unless I find a seriously awesome sale or something. But it certainly looks fantastic.
For now, local roasted beans I can get day of and that grinder and my Aeropress is producing some ridiculously awesome coffee and that will hold me until I can upgrade.
The Cuisinart I got for christmas broke already, of course. The frothing wand fell out, I dismantled it to hot glue the fucker back in place, and now the basket leaks. Oh well.
So I want a Rancilio Silvia? What the hell is a PID controller?
If you’re getting day-of-roast you should wait 3-4 days for the flavors to fully develop, or so I’ve read.
H.
I didn’t know that. With my uneven consumption I often do end up getting it several days after (they roast once a week), but that’s interesting.
Initial reports from Matt about the Bodum pour over rig are that it’s quite great. I’m taking all my office pour over gear when I leave Gawker (since Matt’s leaving, too, and we were the ones sharing the good gear), but I kind of love the way the Bodum looks. It should be $100, but I might treat myself. It’s awful pretty.
Although it has to be said, the Bona Vitas get high marks. They just don’t look fancy enough for my poseur ass.
I’ve heard very good things about the Silvia. A friend of mine here in the office has one and likes it quite a bit.
A “PID controller” is referring to the algorithm used for temperature control.
There’s nothing like testing it for yourself. I found that the early roasts (4-8) days had more of the floral notes which degraded into sugars and smoke over the next week, and that rancidness set it around two weeks after roast.
H.
The other part of the problem is that I almost never get the same bean/type as they roast whatever they have on hand. So it would likely be difficult to compare them like that.
I usually just buy a pound and it lasts me roughly a week, so perhaps it’s just not getting old enough for me to really notice a big shift in character by the time it’s gone heh.
I lost my tolerance for caffeine so I’m a one-cup-per-day guy, a pound lasts me many weeks.
H.
Well I make what basically amounts to a 20oz americano (with my Aeropress) in the morning. I may also make one in the evening. If I’m off work I may make an extra cup in the afternoon depending.
It doesn’t seem like much, but at three scoops per cup it adds up. I also rarely drink any other caffeinated beverages. It’s either coffee, milk or water.