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Has anyone else heard of the Nomad? http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uniterra-nomad/nomadtm-the-go-everywhere-espresso-machinetm I've pre-ordered one as it'll be interesting to see if such a small footprint, hand powered machine will be able to deliver true expresso as opposed to faux-expresso. The 'true creama valve' sounds like an interesting concept too, can't for the life of me work out how it salvages poor quality grinds.
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May 15, 2013 16:06
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The Nomad sounds kind of an espresso machine for people who don't use espresso machines much. Between the weird, makes-me-uncomfortable rocking pressure lever, the "true crema valve" and the lack of any dials or anything to tell you what the water and coffee are doing, i can't see it being more than a gimmick.
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May 15, 2013 16:32
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Whalley posted:The Nomad sounds kind of an espresso machine for people who don't use espresso machines much. Between the weird, makes-me-uncomfortable rocking pressure lever, the "true crema valve" and the lack of any dials or anything to tell you what the water and coffee are doing, i can't see it being more than a gimmick. In the video there's dials for the pressure so you can see if you're consistently hitting 8-10 bar.
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May 15, 2013 16:57
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Hey all, I have no stake in this. Saw it on FB, the project is a friend-of-a-friend's....well more like friend-of-a-guy-I-knew-in-college-but-wasn't-especially-chummy-with. Regardless, looks like a neat idea. USA-made french press based on a pint-and-a-half mason jelly jar. https://www.crowdsupply.com/bucket/the-portland-press If I still had disposable income I might get one.
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May 15, 2013 18:57
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^^^^ That's kind of rad, but as I noted below, I don't see the point in trying to keep the coffee hot if the grounds are still sitting in said carafe. It's just going to over-extract the beans. Someone should really make essentially a press basket that you can pull the grounds all the way out of the carafe. dusty posted:I haven't seen anything better than bodum, they are well made. Mine's on its third carafe - i seem to go 9-12 months before I break em. I agree that though all press are all kind of the same. Yeah, I'll probably just get him the Bodum Chambord which is what I have. I've managed to not break mine so far. I've seen some neat looking insulated ones, though I really don't get that since you wouldn't want to keep your coffee in there with the grounds, unless it's built so that there is some sort of way to remove them entirely... I'm in the middle of roasting up four regions of coffee for him to go with the press. rockcity fucked around with this message at 19:13 on May 15, 2013 |
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May 15, 2013 19:10
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I thought the same thing - and then I figured the the wool cozy on the press may be more intended to keep you from burning your hand than to keep the coffee warm in the press.
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May 15, 2013 19:17
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pr0k posted:I thought the same thing - and then I figured the the wool cozy on the press may be more intended to keep you from burning your hand than to keep the coffee warm in the press. "Includes press, one 24-oz. Pint & Half Mason jar and a custom size cozy to keep your coffee hot. We expect the post-crowdfunding retail price of the Portland Press to be $119." Sadly that doesn't seem to be the case. Oddly enough, I think I'd be more likely to buy it without the wool cozy. I just dig the wood handle.
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May 15, 2013 19:29
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I worry about staining and odorsticking on the wood surfaces. also, just, lol @ a 120bux presspot...that uses a mason jar that YOU still have to provide.
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May 15, 2013 19:32
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Gonna get the gaggia classic tomorrow. Some assembly required.  Will post pic.
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May 15, 2013 20:13
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foxxtrot posted:My preferred Bay Area Coffee is Four-Barrel, which I usually get from Red Rock in Mountain View. This is largely due to working for companies in Mountain View, so it's been the most convenient and best coffee when I'm in California. Just around the corner from Red Rock is Dana Street. They do all of their roasting in house. The espresso drinks they make are not as good, but their coffee is way better. I have talked to Red Rock people even admit that.
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May 16, 2013 00:24
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Wife knocked my CCD over onto the floor and it cracked. Dammit.
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May 16, 2013 00:30
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nwin posted:Wife knocked my CCD over onto the floor and it cracked. Dammit. A new one can be yours for only $22.
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May 16, 2013 00:39
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withak posted:A new one can be yours for only $22. Already ordered. Won't get me coffee tomorrow morning though! Back to French press for a few days.
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May 16, 2013 00:45
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I'd been trying to convert the Mrs. over to pour-over for a while now. I have the gear and do it for myself when I feel like slowing things down a bit on the weekends. Anyway, seems having a second opinion of one of her post-docs saying that the pour-over she had in Seattle last week was the best coffee she'd ever had, she's now lining me up to do one for her this weekend. That sounds a lot dirtier than I meant it to.
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May 16, 2013 01:38
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kim jong-illin posted:In the video there's dials for the pressure so you can see if you're consistently hitting 8-10 bar. I hope I'm wrong; if i am, i'll happily pitch in for the Nomad v2 (or just buy one outright) but with nobody outside of the creators saying anything other than "i hope this is okay/has anybody got a clue" I can't help but skeptic at it.
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May 16, 2013 01:47
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How long does it take to grind around 20-25g of coffee for a pour over with the Skerton?
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May 17, 2013 15:30
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A friend of my girlfriend is buying a $180 grinder. I'm trying to find out what the hell he's doing but is there any reason to buy one that costs more than $70?
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May 17, 2013 15:31
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Boris Galerkin posted:How long does it take to grind around 20-25g of coffee for a pour over with the Skerton? Took me a bit longer than it would take for my kettle to boil if I was taking it easy
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May 17, 2013 15:33
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Saint Darwin posted:A friend of my girlfriend is buying a $180 grinder. I'm trying to find out what the hell he's doing but is there any reason to buy one that costs more than $70? Yes. Read the thread. Try the OP.
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May 17, 2013 15:47
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So the 2nd hand gaggia classic turned out to be an espresso. It's ugly as sin and lacks the 3way solenoid so I didn't really want it, but I struck a real good deal on it and got it for €50. Now I understand that I can't backflush this one because it lacks the valve, right? And instead of getting commercial descaler I got a kilo of tartaric acid. This should not eat away at my aluminium boiler, correct?
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May 17, 2013 16:29
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Saint Darwin posted:A friend of my girlfriend is buying a $180 grinder. I'm trying to find out what the hell he's doing but is there any reason to buy one that costs more than $70? Consider other things might be interested in; let's say, as an example, computers. A 14" LCD monitor with a fairly low pixel density is going to be good enough to play a bunch of games; I've played Skyrim, Dishonored and plenty of other games on mine. You can do a whole bunch with that. But if you can afford to get a 22" nicer LCD, with a really high pixel density, and you've made sure your computer can pump things into it that take advantage of that, there's totally reason to upgrade to something quantifiably better that can get nicer results out of what is being pumped into it. Not that there's anything wrong with the 14" thing on its own, it's just that when compared to what is possible, you start to realize you're doing a disservice to the end product by not getting something nicer.
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May 17, 2013 17:24
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Boris Galerkin posted:How long does it take to grind around 20-25g of coffee for a pour over with the Skerton? I grind 15g of beans in about 60-75 seconds on one twist up from the tightest grind (not for pour-over though, grind time is dependent on grind size as well as amount).
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May 17, 2013 17:42
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Is there something like boardgamegeek.com but for whole coffee beans? I'd be interested in seeing what other peoples' scores for whole beans are. I just started a personal log like so:
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May 17, 2013 18:15
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Mandalay posted:Is there something like boardgamegeek.com but for whole coffee beans? I'd be interested in seeing what other peoples' scores for whole beans are. I just started a personal log like so: make a googleform so everyone can enter theirs. sounds like a cool project.
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May 17, 2013 18:17
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I think that it would depend too much on the roast and preparation to do too systematic of a comparison like that. The type of bean may be the least significant variable.
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May 17, 2013 18:37
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withak posted:I think that it would depend too much on the roast and preparation to do too systematic of a comparison like that. The type of bean may be the least significant variable. well sure, but given enough statistics one could study by region of purchase, roast, etc. Maybe even garner which regions prefer to roast which coffees to which levels and prepare in which ways, etc.
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May 17, 2013 18:56
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Saint Darwin posted:A friend of my girlfriend is buying a $180 grinder. I'm trying to find out what the hell he's doing but is there any reason to buy one that costs more than $70? In my opinion, it's the inverse, there is little reason to buy one less than $70. No electric grinder less than about $80 (Capresso Infinity) grind with any reasonable consistency. You can get manual ones for less, but they are a lot of hassle and many need modding to actually be any good.
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May 17, 2013 19:00
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Speaking of coffee bean reviews and roasting. Anyone have any good software online or for OS X/iOS that let's you manage roasts, something like BehmorThing (RoasterThing now I think). Would love something that helps me hit roasts better for specific beans.
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May 17, 2013 19:09
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Is anyone else appalled by the prevalence of coffee "pod" systems? They have a great coffee machine at work that actually grinds real coffee beans for each cup dispensed. You can see the beans descending from a big hopper, it's great. Not perfect but pretty awesome compared to most workplace coffee machines. For some reason the company decided to have a pod system demo unit brought in with multiple flavors of pods that can be used...all of which are disgusting and are nothing near the quality of freshly ground and brewed coffee from the other machine. I pray that they don't get rid of the current awesome machine in favor of the pod machine. Guess I'm a coffee snob, but the concept of pre-packaged, flavored pods that have been sitting there for who knows how long and containing a processed, compacted plug of "coffee" disgusts me. Why do people like the pods? Is it just the convenience and variety and is there genuinely good pod-coffee out there?
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May 17, 2013 19:30
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People also like drowning their coffee in sugar and milk. I can tell you that our patients prefer a pod system to freshly made coffee, which is unfortunate but true. Is your coffee machine at work that grinds beans and makes you a fresh cup for sale?
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May 17, 2013 19:32
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added more spergery to the OP in the form of pouroverfiltercone 
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May 17, 2013 20:49
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As a newbie to espresso making and learning about owning a machine - here's something I wish I had done earlier: a new basket. I had been humming and hawing about the brand names you see on coffeegeek, but didn't really have courage to really pull the trigger on a part I don't know will work in my machine. So I decided to swing past a nearby service guru with my portafilter. And what a good choice it turned out to be - what I had presumed was a 58mm basket was actually more like a 57mm, and pretty shallow at that. The service guy must have tried a dozen different baskets and futzed around with the calipers no fewer than three times before finding something that fit (Astoria). Totally worth the drive. Check out the monstrous size and disparity in the holes on the old basket on the left.  No wonder I really struggled with channelling and gushing. And grit - yech! That old basket is what is kindly described as No Longer Fit For Purpose. The new basket pulls sooo much better, much more controlled, much better in the cup yada yada yada. Totally vindicated in getting an expert to size it for me too - talk about an odd size. My only regret is that I didn't do this as soon as I picked up this machine. And it was cheap too. I've think coffee gear is best measured in units of green coffee beans - that new basket cost me the equivalent of 1kg of green beans, which compares to the total cost of my espresso machine: 6kg of beans. Not as cheap as the roaster though: 300g. Here's my lastest blend - blended from about 9 batches of four different beans, which I roasted seperately. My popper is a bit of a pig, but I'm slowly learning to cook better with it.  Those little dark suckers in there are the last of my big bag of Yirg. I totally think that the Yirg is my favourite bean, do try some if you get the chance and enjoy fruity zesty flavours. Here I'm using it as about a third of a blend with mainly Cuban and Bolivian. Not a bad effort, but there is some evident scorching. Hard to complain about such a cheap coffee roaster, but there's only so much finesse available with a stock popper. dusty fucked around with this message at 13:55 on May 18, 2013 |
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May 18, 2013 13:48
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dusty posted:As a newbie to espresso making and learning about owning a machine - here's something I wish I had done earlier: a new basket. Slightly related, but my 14g ridgeless filter basket from espressoparts.com showed up yesterday, along with a new 55m dispersion screen. The screen was night and day different from the stock stamped metal. The basket's finish is crazy better, very smooth. Pucks pop out clean. It also flows much... much faster. Going to have to re-visit the grind and tamp for this guy.
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May 18, 2013 15:58
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Alleric posted:Slightly related, but my 14g ridgeless filter basket from espressoparts.com showed up yesterday, How much are you loading?
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May 19, 2013 07:32
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dusty posted:How much are you loading? They are "14 gram" in name alone. Like most double baskets, they easily hold 18 g or more, depending on the screen clearance. I normally dose 18 g with them.
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May 19, 2013 09:22
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Seems like I'm in the right ball park - my digital kitchen scales only have 2g resolution and I'm reading 18/20g. Just to confuse things I've just shimmed my grinder too, which seems to have tightened it up by about ten stops. Because the electronic doser on this grinder is based on time not weight, the shimming has skewed my dosing right up. Unknown grind, unknown dose - and not sure how far out either of them are. How many shots does it take you people to get used to a new bean/grinder/machine?
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May 19, 2013 10:39
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dusty posted:How much are you loading? I haven't settled on that. On the stock double, I did a pretty strict 14-15g, depending on how a given bean behaved. I did my same routine on this and it flowed too fast on the first pull. I up-dosed a bit for the second and got it back into normal time/volume range. On the old basket, up-dosing rarely benefited me that much, so perhaps there's now an improved variable in the prep arsenal for me. dusty posted:Seems like I'm in the right ball park - my digital kitchen scales only have 2g resolution and I'm reading 18/20g. Just change to a new bean? I usually can just fix that on grind, little bit of tamp. Grinder? Shouldn't take that long to get used to, presuming the grain size you want is in the machine's range. Machine? That could take a while.
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May 19, 2013 15:57
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Any recommendations on roast subscription services? Non-espresso. I see Counter Culture has a single origin subscription for ~$25/month for 2 12-oz bags. I will probably get this one unless there is anything better you guys recommend? Props for the photography analogy in the OP. Chemex for life, btw. 
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May 19, 2013 23:45
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I've seen some cold brew chat in the past few pages, but nothing about which system to go with. Should I get a toddy, or a competitor, or a couple pitchers and a pour over filter? I'm just a casual morning coffee drinker who wants something cooler for the summer, if that helps.
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May 20, 2013 16:07
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I've been using an inverted Aeropress method for my morning brew for a while now but today I forgot to put the filter cap on before I flipped it. Not the best idea I've ever had.
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May 20, 2013 16:38
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