coffee for mags - a coffee roasting trip report (& free mag coffee)

[Spats]

There's no accounting for taste; Starbucks and Folgers have preconditioned a ton of people that good imeans hollow and roasty.

If you're using mediocre beans, roasting them extra dark helps cover that up because (as you know) you're mostly tasting the roast, not the bean.

It's the same reason Japanese restaurants serve hot sake. The difference between good sake and bad sake is much less pronounced when served hot than when served cold. (This is why most people think sake tastes like hot Windex: they've only had the sake equivalent of Bud Light or Milwaukee's Best.)

Most of the time I feel like people prefer a basic “flat black” coffee or one with a little bit of chocolate to it over something light and fruity.

Usually "fruity" goes along with acidity, which is an acquired taste that many people never acquire. I'm one of them. Fruit notes are fine, and light roasts can be delicious, but I am unable to develop a taste for acidity.

There is a similar phenomenon in the wine world, known well by everyone in the industry as "People talk dry but drink sweet." Would-be wine snobs will yak endlessly about the virtues of dry French wines that taste like dirt, but if you put a Muscat or Sauterne on the table with everything else, it'll be gone first.

[JimmyCarter]

Usually "fruity" goes along with acidity, which is an acquired taste that many people never acquire. I'm one of them. Fruit notes are fine, and light roasts can be delicious, but I am unable to develop a taste for acidity.

.

My stomach hates the acidity these days so I’m usually leaning towards mid- to dark-roasted Sumatran.

[mntlion]

can anyone ID this machine?

[tgapp]

can anyone ID this machine?

No but it's an old e61, and they are all very similar to one another. Great workhorses. Judging by the pressure gauge it might be a heat exchanger but then again the 'green' zone on that gauge looks too low to be a HX machine. Would need more pictures. In any case e61 s are fantastic, I have one along with many other mags.

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[tintin5]

can anyone ID this machine?

It looks like an old “Magister Stella”
Maybe the “Pro” version with the gauge.

http://mrcappuccino.com/all-products...-professional/

https://www.magistersistemacaffe.it/stella.php

[neufox47]

Some back of the napkin math for the spritzing. I put about 3-4g of water at approx 20 c on the 680 g of coffee. That water will pull 7.8-10.4 kJ of heat from the coffee. The specific heat of roasted coffee is about 1400 j/kg/k. So it should drop the coffee temp by about 11c or 20F in the 10 seconds I apply it. I actually thought it would be a larger temperature change than that. Maybe I’m doing the math wrong, it’s been a minute since I took basic physics.

https://socratic.org/questions/how-m...%20of%20energy.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...20this%20point.


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[mntlion]

thanks team

[tgapp]

Just got my Timemore Sculptor 078 delivered after doebedoe turned me on to this grinder on Kickstarter about a year ago. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I had been using a fairly basic hand grinder (a 1zpresso) for pour over and a giant conical for espresso (Weber Key), and I am absolutely blown away. What took me so long to upgrade?

This is my first dedicated pour over grinder, and since I've always been "espresso first", my pour over game has been...lacking lately.

Fit and finish on the grinder is okay, with some rough edges - the power button is a bit clunky, and the grinder does suffer from some serious static. To be expected in the mountain west, I guess - our air is super dry. Thank God spritzing water is so easy, and I'm not trying to impress any house guests with my coffee bar.

While grinding I lost about 1g to static - the grinder has a built in rotary knocker, but there is still some retention. Again, I'm pretty certain spritzing the beans will help with that. Not a deal breaker.

In the cup it's absolutely stunning - very little astringency, incredible clarity and sweetness, a lot more detail and nuance than my conical. This grinder uses a unique burr configuration (Timemore's Turbo burr), which is a combination of a ghost burr and a traditional flat burr. The downside is that it can't grind as fine as a traditional flat, but the upside is that the grounds particle size distribution is much more concentrated and consistent.

I'll do some TDS testing and report back, but my initial guess is I can tighten the grind considerably and push the brew ratio even higher.

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[mud]

The grinder gatekeepers I’ve come across doing research seem to think we need to have a grinder for every different type of brewing. I think most of it is content creators only have so many things they can discuss so now we have “experts” giving their opinions based on something as diverse as taste. Reminds me when weed went recreational and bud tenders started acting like wine sommeliers. The line between r/espresso and r/espressocirclejerk is thin.

[tgapp]

The grinder gatekeepers I’ve come across doing research seem to think we need to have a grinder for every different type of brewing. I think most of it is content creators only have so many things they can discuss so now we have “experts” giving their opinions based on something as diverse as taste. Reminds me when weed went recreational and bud tenders started acting like wine sommeliers. The line between r/espresso and r/espressocirclejerk is thin.

If you read the majority of my comments here you'll see that I generally am not a fan of spending money for the sake of consumerism - I advocate for a $10 plastic cone dripper as a primary brew method, after all. And I have used hand grinders for far more of my coffee career than electric grinders - as a means of saving money.

With coffee, the most impactful choice you can make will *always* be your grinder, but if your process isn't dialed and you're sourcing shit coffee, you won't be able to appreciate the difference a good grinder makes.

The law of diminishing returns applies here, of course. But you're talking to a group that agonizes over the difference between 110mm and 116mm skis for the first 5 laps of a 4 times a year powder day.

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[bennymac]

The law of diminishing returns applies here, of course. But you're talking to a group that agonizes over the difference between 110mm and 116mm skis for the first 5 laps of a 4 times a year powder day.

[skaredshtles]

All I have to say is tgapp's coffee he sent me is FKN *tasty.*

[bennymac]

I was just in Tokyo and went to a highly rated coffee place in the area we were staying and they had a $15 a cup reserve coffee pour over on the menu. I said to myself “oh this is tgapp level shit we’re dealing with here!”

Was worth every penny. Went back the next morning for another cup of it.

[jackattack]

gatekeeping consumerist influencer content creators,
mud is going to use his baratza encore with dry beans and nothing you can say will sway his opinion.
ignorance is bliss

[californiagrown]

gatekeeping consumerist influencer content creators,
mud is going to use his baratza encore with dry beans and nothing you can say will sway his opinion.
ignorance is bliss

I laugh a little at the people who only drink top level coffee/beer/wine/etc. Great becomes average and you have to spend and try so much more to have an above average experience. Personally, i do a pourover of specialty beans, ground with a capresso infinity as my first cup of the morning with my kid before daycare. 90% of the time it produces an absolutely awesome cup (IMO). the rest of the day i pound kuerig swill at the office. The kuerig swill gets the job done, and makes me enjoy my 1 good cup so much more.


IMO, everyone should try to keep a little bit of ignorance/naivete about sensory things.

[teleee]

All I have to say is tgapp's coffee he sent me is FKN *tasty.*

Can also confirm his coffee awesomeness


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[Dantheman]

All I have to say is tgapp's coffee he sent me is FKN *tasty.*

So FKN tasty. This, however, is damn good considering the price and zero hassle factor: https://www.costco.com/mayorga-bueno...100844180.html

[jackattack]

I laugh a little at the people who only drink top level coffee/beer/wine/etc. Great becomes average and you have to spend and try so much more to have an above average experience. Personally, i do a pourover of specialty beans, ground with a capresso infinity as my first cup of the morning with my kid before daycare. 90% of the time it produces an absolutely awesome cup (IMO). the rest of the day i pound kuerig swill at the office. The kuerig swill gets the job done, and makes me enjoy my 1 good cup so much more.


IMO, everyone should try to keep a little bit of ignorance/naivete about sensory things.

fair enough, but that does not negate the effect of a specific burr-set on a desired outcome or the static-reducing effect of the spritz.

A daily 550ml pour-over gets me through my day, tastes awesome, and saves me from drinking pod coffee. the caffeine-related effects are secondary for me.

[californiagrown]

fair enough, but that does not negate the effect of a specific burr-set on a desired outcome or the static-reducing effect of the spritz.

A daily 550ml pour-over gets me through my day, tastes awesome, and saves me from drinking pod coffee. the caffeine-related effects are secondary for me.

You dont find the flavor is compromised by your travel mug, and or the time after you brew? Or are you drinking that 16oz all in one go? Or do you put it in a vacuum bottle and then just pour a little bit out at a time into a mug?

I try to not put good coffee in my travel mugs as i dont find it nearly as enjoyable as a fresh brew from a mug. Kinda like i find beer in a frosted pint glass way more enjoyable than from a can/bottle.

[JimmyCarter]

You dont find the flavor is compromised by your travel mug, and or the time after you brew? Or are you drinking that 16oz all in one go? Or do you put it in a vacuum bottle and then just pour a little bit out at a time into a mug?

I try to not put good coffee in my travel mugs as i dont find it nearly as enjoyable as a fresh brew from a mug. Kinda like i find beer in a frosted pint glass way more enjoyable than from a can/bottle.

Travel mug coffee needs to be bolder because you lose too much of the scent with the lid on so taste has to carry the day. I don’t like my travel mug coffee as much out of a mug - it’s almost too much.

[doebedoe]

I laugh a little at the people who only drink top level coffee/beer/wine/etc. Great becomes average and you have to spend and try so much more to have an above average experience. Personally, i do a pourover of specialty beans, ground with a capresso infinity as my first cup of the morning with my kid before daycare. 90% of the time it produces an absolutely awesome cup (IMO). the rest of the day i pound kuerig swill at the office. The kuerig swill gets the job done, and makes me enjoy my 1 good cup so much more.


IMO, everyone should try to keep a little bit of ignorance/naivete about sensory things.

+1 to this sentiment.

tgapp knows my affinity to wine. I drink a $40 bottle maybe once or twice a month on average. Plenty of $15 bottles with dinner at home along with the curiosity of $7 Kirland bottles. I drink cool beer and have a fridge with Hamms, Tecate, and the like. Same with coffee -- love when I'm doing a careful attention pourover using tgapp beans. But that gas station coffee still hits a special spot.

[doebedoe]

Travel mug coffee needs to be bolder because you lose too much of the scent with the lid on so taste has to carry the day. I don’t like my travel mug coffee as much out of a mug - it’s almost too much.

It's one reason to buy a new mug with a spill-guard from Fellow.

[skaredshtles]

<snip> beer in a frosted pint glass

[tgapp]

Nothing wrong with blue collar tastes. I love Starbucks flat whites, cheap beer, and $10 Argentinian malbecs. I also eat a blend of gas station chocolate bars and ultra premium, bean to bar single origin chocolate. If I were to advocate for anything it would be intentional consumerism: finding the place on the quality vs cost matrix where you are able to maximize your return and minimize your spend.

One thing I will say about coffee is that due to the ubiquity of cheap options, there's a bit of price anchoring taking place. People tend to undervalue higher end coffee because of the prevalence of gas station coffee (along with the utilitarian nature thereof), and plus, many seemingly high end coffees taste no different than their cheap counterparts. Nobody bats an eye at doebedoe's $40/bottle wine (which would easily be $80 if purchased with dinner at a restaurant), but bennymac's $15 cup of coffee likely feels excessive to many.

A final note - my grinder cost $370, while mud's encore is somewhere around $200. Is that more expensive? Almost twice as much. It's also worlds better, and, a totally different thing (IMO) then some $4000 grinder.

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[jackattack]

Or do you put it in a vacuum bottle and then just pour a little bit out at a time into a mug?
.

The fellow mug is ceramic so it doesn’t affect flavor like a stainless mug. I pour it in a cup to let it cool a bit to allow some accessibility to the flavors. It’s enough for 2 cups before lunch and one cup after.

I have no problem pouring a beverage down the drain if it tastes like shit. I’ve done this with plenty of microbrews and sour shots.