September already? What the hell, right? Time marches on, a determined trudge into eternity - every day forcing itself into your view. But along with a new day comes a new cup of coffee. That's right - it's Espresso Part 2.
I'm going to be Out of Office from September 18th - October 3rd; I have cross-trained Jan and Shawn on how to manage this here website, so you also know who to politely hit up if a video is missing! I'm getting married and then headed out on our honeymoon; it's all very exciting! If you'll remember, the Breville Bambino Plus was a wedding registry gift in the first place.
After my last article, I went out and bought a few things that have proven to be very helpful:
- a KNODOS "naked" Portafilter with a walnut handle (I love walnut things) for $50
- an Espresso Tamper, also from KNODOS, that has springs and auto-leveling for a perfectly tamped puck every time, for $43
The tamper also came with a little shot leveler thing? Basically a machined piece of metal that you stick into the portafilter after tamping a shot, and you rotate it 360 degrees to "trim" any excess bean dust. Wait, if I'm measuring the same amount of beans every time (17-18g) why do I need to do that?
I've found that different beans have different density, so their weights and volumes vary a bit. 18g of one coffee is too much, but for other beans it's perfect. I had some Onyx beans from India (they tasted like almonds!) and they were really dense - even after grinding, they took up less space in the portafilter. The beans I'm using right now (Onyx Eclipse), however, are softer and lighter, so they are just about right at 17-18g. I had a similar "just right" experience with a Madcap espresso blend I picked up when in Michigan a couple weeks ago.
Onyx Eclipse
I also spent some time really tuning in my hand grinder. Generally the range of "clicks" for the Commandante C40 goes from 6-9 for me. For Eclipse, 8 is perfect. I have a journal for coffee and I should really take notes on grind size and weights, but right now I'm sort of just relying on memory or leaving the C40 set so it's ready to go.
Let's take an accounting of the little tweaks and improvements I've made:
- Consistent, leveled tamping with the new tamper
- "Dialed" in grind size with the C40
- A shot trimmer that gets the size right every time
What I haven't really discussed is the naked portafilter. What the hell is that? Essentially it's a portafilter without the spouts on the bottom. Those spouts, I think, are for being able to extract two shots at once into different glasses - but for home espresso I'm always going to be pulling a double shot for one drink. What the naked portafilter also provides is the ability to see what's "going on" with the shot - do we have enough pressure? Is the puck evenly distributed? Is it too coarse, or too fine?
If you read my previous write up and saw my gif (gif as in gator), that shot actually suffered from coffee ground too coarsely. I thought at first that it was a choked shot, but those look very different. When too coarse, the coffee will sort of irregularly sputter and spit. When it's too fine, there's an uncomfortably long pause before extracting any espresso, and when it does extract, it's a painfully slow, syrupy drip. This also results in built up/backed up pressure, which luckily the Bambino is good about releasing into the drip tray. For a good shot, we want to be right in the middle.
Hey! Not too shabby! For this one, if I'm critiquing, it looks like I could have gone a little finer with the grind - but there's only so much I can do if we're talking about a range of 8-9 clicks. 9 might choke it out altogether; the minute differences really do matter.
So - $93 later, how do I feel about where things have ended up? Was it worth it? That's subjective of course, but it feels like $93 well spent for some tools that I know will last. They're also very aesthetically pleasing to look at on my coffee hutch! Spending a bit on a hobby and then actually being able to use those tools every day is a sweet spot for me, so yes. I think it was worthwhile.
Thanks for reading - shout out to all the folks that commented and gave some advice; in particular, moving to the naked portafilter helped me troubleshoot a lot. Wish me luck this week - lots to do, lots of travel.
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