How To Make GREAT Espresso. Part One of Six: The Three Biggest Mistakes To Avoid.

[@nickallan6392]

Excellent presentation thanks 👍

[@jamesmitchell9667]

Thanks for a great vid’ 👍

[@mrgazillions]

Legend! You should publish that roast guide. Very useful.

[@Noosa21]

Thankyou I once co owned a cafe and this type of material youre covering is very good. I heard only a mention of this during the coffee course I went to years ago, but youre the first one to explain in more detail than that course! So thinkyou, very good tips.

[@tomsgrinderlab]

Glad it was helpful!

[@JulesAUS]

The peak flavor point is really interesting. I’ve been buying lightly roasted beans from a new roaster and been struggling at extracting tasty espresso. Could be because the beans haven’t rested long enough. I thought a one-week rest was enough, clearly not!

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@JulesAUS bear in mind that most roasters will look a bit puzzled if you tell them about my theory. but most roasters haven't logged flow rates and taste notes day after day, over hundreds of roasts and thousands of shots. Hopefully that doesn't come across as arrogant, it's just a fact. Those who have taken up my suggestion and logged each pour, day after day, report back that one day, suddenly, literally overnight, the espresso tastes much tastier. It's quite remarkable. The earliest I've hit peak flavor is 8 days and that was with a dark roast. Really the ultra light roasts that I use for filter take around the 30 day mark. It's a big surprise for a lot of people and understandably those who have been enjoying their coffee tend to have doubts about peak flavor, until they test it.

[@boorayin2773]

Because I can't warm my cups on top of my Decent, I've been flushing about 10 seconds worth of hot water into my cups to charge them while heating up the portafilter/grouphead at the same time...and then drying it before I fill it. Good to know that I'd been doing it right. I'd always heard that beans are best after 3 days when roasting...amazing how far that was off! :)

[@tomsgrinderlab]

Thanks for your post. Yes the peak flavor thing is a surprise to a lot of people. With the Decent, even better is to NOT use the flush button but rather press the start button which will push water out at the nominated preinfusion temperature. Using the flush button can heat things up too much. PS I have a sworksdesign cup heating tray on top of one of my DE1XLs and it works a treat.

[@boorayin2773]

@@tomsgrinderlab Interesting on the start vs the flush! Just checking out that sworksdesign product...that'd only seem to be work if I left my machine on long enough to heat up the cups, though? The top doesn't get warm enough would have been my assumption.

[@dantemartini2345]

Love your work please keep it up

[@tomsgrinderlab]

Thanks, will do!

[@MadScientist7]

new subscriber here, great video. My question would be….say I bought lightly roasted beans with roast date on the bag, store them properly in the bag for the recommended 28 days, would you suggest then freezing the beans to preserve and lengthen the time the beans are optimum for brewing?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@MadScientist7 yes thats great quetion. I've done a lot of frozen trials and even tested vacuum sealers and a packing machine to dose and freeze individual 20 gram doses. But it was a lot of faff! I found that with frozen beans I need to grind them before they thawed i.e. instantly, otherwise they lost body. A roasted bean is a cocktail of interactive compounds and it seems that the defrosting process acts as a catalyst of some sort. Bottom line: if you freeze the beans you'll certainly extend their peak flavor window but as you have noted don't freeze them until you are inside that window. And then take a dose out of the bag and grind and pour fast. I did notice a slight increase in body when using frozen beans and Ona (Roasters in Melbourne) did some interesting work on freezing beans and found the same. These days I keep a bag of decaf in the freezer and a bag of medium roast beans, for visitors. Also, if I have excess beans I'll freeze some and use them if I've run out at any time.

[@ccoovvii]

Nice video. Would love a video on Kafatek!

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@@ccoovvii Get Denis to send me one!

[@10jsfvideo44]

Tom. Thanks for this series. I have a question on the portafilter flush. Won’t the portafilter lose 2-4 degrees between the time you flush and then prep the portafikter to pull your shot??

[@tomsgrinderlab]

Good question, short answer is yes, it will drop a couple of degrees but that won't make a detectable difference in the cup. A heated basket is going to read around 40c on the outside/bottom, and 45c on the inside/top of the basket. Dropping 2 or 3c only pulls the water temperatute down a fraction of that. Whereas an unheated basket, say at 25 degrees on the inside, can easily pull the water temperature down 5 degrees. And to be totally transparent, I'm not a laboratory scientist so my testing may have flaws such as variables I hadn't considered (humidity, basket type, coffee roast depth and more) so test it yourself, preferably blind taste test the difference and see what you think because your experience is the final arbiter.

[@matthieusuzor-pleau3157]

Your flavor peak chart is interesting. What is your opinion about fluid bed air roaster vs drum ? Is there an impact for the flavour peak ? I ask questions because a roaster company mentioned that small sample roast with air roaster should be consumed more rapidly than drum roast.

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@matthieusuzor-pleau3157 Thanks for your question but its above my pay grade sorry. I will offer this though: there are a lot of opinions about this thing or that thing which are based on anecdotal opinions rather than being founded in a more evidence based approach such as logging impressions daily across multiple batches and blind taste comparisions. In your example those blind taste comparisons and logging of impressions would need to be done by having the two roast samples compared and being careful to minimise all other variable. That's easier said than done. It's complicated, its hard work, it's repetitive and sometimes after all of that it's inconclusive, All of which is to say, I understand why so few people do it!

[@matthieusuzor-pleau3157]

@@tomsgrinderlab thanks for your answer !

[@danec1384]

Great video, can you recommend some good roasters in Brisbane that you've tried?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@danec1384 close to Brisane: Mountain Top for medium/light beans but you'll need to mail order. Others may know though. Monestary for very light beans best for filter but equally great if you enjoy a super light roast espresso with brightness (not for everyone!)

[@aaronmaddern979]

Have you given any consideration to Roasting your own beans???

[@JuliusSP1]

Are these timeline guidelines based on roast level for optimal espresso the same for drip coffee or pour over r?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

Yes indeed they are. (Great question, glad you asked it).

[@paul--b]

Any chance you will review the Zerno Z1 at some point?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@paul--b I will if they send me one. What questions would you have about it, if I managed to get one on my bench? You may not have anything in particular but let me know.

[@paul--b]

@@tomsgrinderlab Build quality impressions, ideally taste and grind distribution analysis vs same burr type in P64 and DF64, taste vs grinders with larger burrs, taste differences with different augers, sound/noise impression, retention impressions. Hopefully you can get your hands on one!

[@anonylesss]

very interesting. but the question is - how can you tell for certain that a specific roast is dark/medium etc? and what about omni roasts and decaf? my experience with decaf is that it becomes less fresh much quicker

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@anonylesss color is the easiest way. Dark roast is almost black (in the south of Italy the beans are very black/burnt) and a light roast is a light brown color. Also, a dark roast has a LOT of oil on the outside of the bean and a light roast has none at all. Medium roast has traces of oil, a medium light should have none. There are color charts online you can use to compare beans. I use a coffee bean color analyser to be sure, there are a few out there including Tonino and Lighttells.

[@JulesAUS]

If you’re grinding directly into the portafilter, won’t the basket temp have dropped anyway by the time you reinsert it into the machine (after grinding into it)?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@JulesAUS a little, but nothing significant. Personally I grind into a dosing cup but pulling a heated portafilter out of a heated group head and then grinding, WDT and tamping, doesn't drop the temperature of the basket enough to impact the water pour temperature enough to significantly effect extraction.

[@red-underscore-one]

Re Decent DE1 - do you think they need pre-flushing, given they're supposed to compensate for puck & water temperature automatically?

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@red-underscore-one good question, but yes, for sure, especially the first shot of the day. Thing is this: the Decent heats water on demand but the water in the short tubes going in to the group head and of course the group head itself cool over night.

[@adrianmichaelsmith]

Hi Douglas (Tom) 5 videos in 6 parts, where are all the fish 🥰🤭 missing you on coffeetime ☕

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@adrianmichaelsmith Ha well spotted that man! Changed my mind, was going to be 5 then I noticed that I'd have to reconfigure the agenda slides so I thought a sixth session to answer FAQs would be easier than re-jigging the slides. Say hellow to all at CT,

[@tomsgrinderlab]

@adrianmichaelsmith PS who is Douglas?

[@adrianmichaelsmith]

​​@@tomsgrinderlab Haha. Douglas Adams . Maybe not as famous in Australia!! I though everyone of a certain age knew but didnt think it may be "regional" 🥰🤭 " The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the first book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy comedy science fiction "trilogy of five books" by Douglas Adams, with a sixth book written by Eoin Colfer." The fish reference would take too long to explain😎 (see book 4!!)