Crema de la Crema: an espresso blog

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Today, I had the ultimate panic attack. Plus stupidity. I turned on the
Anita, hit the showers, and came back to the Anita. The Anita takes
about 30 minutes to warm up. I put my Vivave Dolce into the grinder,
turn on the grinder. I went back to do a flush, and to my utter
amazement, the digital temp read 78.4ºF. What???

The boiler did not turn on. Panic attack starts here. The Anita is on,
green light, but the boiler’s red light did not turn on. First thing I
did, panic button means turn on the comp and emailing chriscoffee. HELP!

It was working fine yesterday, my last drink. What went wrong???

Then, I opened the top cover to examine the water reservoir.

DARN! Panic Attack ends here. STUPIDITY comes in. I was out of water,
and the magnetic sensor detected just that and refused to turn on the
boiler til I’ve added water.

I waited for another 20 minutes, all the while thinking the Vivace
Dolce must be stale in the grinder, and no more crema. To my surprise,
it was a good pour, despite the low temperature, and it had the same
decent crema I get on normal days. A good mouthfeel, very balanced taste, neither bitter nor acidy.

Espresso extracted in 45 seconds may be considered over-extracted in most circles, but for me, it’s sheer bliss. I’ve been, at the advice of Steve after watching Hoffmann’s techniques in WBC 2007, grinding finer, and tamping lighter. For the past 5 days, this has given me slow slow pours of nectar averaging 45 seconds to a minute. And we are talking ristretto. Not thin, overextracted Charbucks crapresso. My tamp is around 15 to 20 lbs. Thick gooey pours. Funnel only forms after 18 seconds or so, 9.5 bars. At the first hint of a paler brown, which starts around the 45th second mark, I turn off the brew lever. The espresso is so thick it feels like I’m sipping sauce. I’ll be lucky if it hits 2 oz. My 2nd drink is like the first. Espresso sauce.

I received the kit in the mail 6 days after Eric sent it. I’ve read the instructions several times over even before I received the kit, so I pretty much did a quick effortless installation. The instructions were well written, but for newbs who don’t know a bolt from a nut, it would be helpful if there are photos detailing the name of each part.

The really plus point is that Eric has a Quickmill Anita. So, the charts he has in his instructions are all Anita-friendly. Lucky me.

In his response to this blog entry, Eric stated that “the blue data points represent actual readings of a thermocouple inserted into the grouphead exactly where the digital thermometer is inserted.  The pink represent the Scace thermofilter readings.  A thermocouple and/or digital thermometer typically will always read higher than a Scace thermofilter because the water gets cooled further (by the grouphead) in the additional 1.25 to 1.50 inches it must travel.”

From left to right, the above chart shows the thermocouple reading of a flush til the end of a pour. The thermocouple’s reading is about 5ºF cooler than the actual brew temperature measured with a Scace thermofilter. The peak of the curve at approximately 218ºF shows the start of the flush, which continues until the thermocouple reads 185ºF when the flush is stopped. The upwards spike denotes the thermocouple reading the grouphead temperature instead of the water temperature during the flush. A good 100 seconds pass before 198ºF (marked Eric’s favourite) is reached, and the brew lever is turned on for the pour. The part that denotes the pour is magnified in the chart below:

The 100 seconds lull is more than enough time for me to go about my routine of DLTing my portafilter. I initially wrote that with Eric’s device, I tend to flush more water than I normally would without his device. But then again, without Eric’s device, it was a Hail Mary flush each time, not knowing at what temperature to stop flushing, with me just watching the water dance to gauge.

Eric added that “the chart ALSO represents MY methodology for pulling a shot.  Needless to say, there are a number of ways to execute a shot and every individual would have their own “little” variations.  It is correct to say that this methodology uses up more water but it is not correct to say that the installation of the digital thermometer (in and by itself) uses up more water.  As you can read (and feel free to copy verbatim into your blog) in the adaptor tidbits document, I dose directly into the basket while the PF is in the machine.
 
It would also be easy to FULLY PREPARE the basket, flush to, say 200, and immediately pull the shot.  You would be flushing less BUT I believe the consistency of the shots would suffer -  I could be wrong.  The temperature dynamics of our espresso machines (all prosumer machines) are very complex.”

While I need to brush up on my routine, I’ll have to note that with the help of Eric’s Digital Thermometer Kit, my pours have improved a lot. At the very least, I KNOW when to end my flush and begin my pour. That’s ending another uncertain variable in the journey towards making a goodshot. This mod is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for E-61 machine owners who don’t know when to stop.

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Notes on my Quickmill Anita and my modded Compak K6 approximately a month later…

Good news is I’ll be getting Eric’s Digital Thermometer kit after a long wait. It’s due in about a week’s time.

The few goodshots I’ve pulled from the Anita were all ranging in the 40 to 45 seconds pull. Yes, 45 seconds. You must be thinking over extracted, thin brews. Au contraire. I regret I stopped filming my naked pours. The pours are syrupy, thick and it takes forever for the funnel to form. And when it forms, the pour is slow, and continues in a dark chocolatey gooey pour, gauge reading around 9 bars, right up to the 45 second mark when it turns a slight variance in the colour, and when I stop the pour. So, in this sense, the 45 second pour is a ristretto. And you get to taste the nuances, the origins, the character of the bean. Mornings haven’t been this good.

The modified Compak K6 is extremely easy to clean. I’ve been setting it to a fine grind for all my beans. The oversized hopper is removed for my purposes as it’s very in-the-way. Instead, I fit the aeropress funnel on top which eases the transfer of beans from my one way valve bags, and keeps the beans from jumping out during grinding.

I’ve managed to reduce the brew pressure to 9 bars by opening the Anita up. Removing first the 4 screws by the 2 sides, and then the lower 2 screws at the bottom back panel eases the entire one-piece enclosure to reveal the insides. At first I turned the nut without re-adjusting the tube connected to it, and the tube gave way, water flooded everywhere. I easily tilted the Anita to one side to let the water drain out. Then, the needle nosed pliers from my Leatherman was used to fit the tube back over the valve, which was a bit of annoyance. Lesson learnt, I was more careful with adjusting the brew pressure the next time around. The enclosure was fitted back on, with the back panel screws first, and then the sides. The last screw is always the hardest to fit in.

My heartfelt congratulations to Adrian, another CGSGer, for opening this much anticipated bistro, Peaberry & Pretzel. Besides boasting a traditional fare of German cuisine, beautifully crafted desserts, Peaberry & Pretzel has freshly roasted coffee beans (oh yes) in store for us geeks. Coupled that with a beauty of a machine, a La Marzocco GB5, I just can’t wait to try this bistro out.

This new bistro might just put an end to all those “Can’t get a decent espresso in Singapore” posts. Darn. I need to find new blog material.

For all those raring to try out Adrian’s espresso, please head on down to:

Peaberry & Pretzel
106 Clementi Street 12
#01-52
(off sunset way)

You can also visit his blog which is chock full of great photos of Peaberry & Pretzel’s entrees.

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