Tír Na HiFi

Sligolad wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:50 pm Your initial post finally sucked me down the rabbit hole Ivor.
Been planning to jump into roasting for some time after listening to Tony,Nige and Ken talking about it so finally made the leap.

Beans arrived and one thing lead to another....Gene Cafe arrived next....Vesuvius on the way.....Niche Zero on the way...an expensive week and a lot to learn!!

Welcome to the club Pearse, there's no going back now! It's actually cheaper than buying roast beans, depending on how deep you go on the roaster the return on investment can be quite quick. Keep us informed!

Welcome to another fascinating ,€€€ consuming , pastime. Here's the manual , suitably priced. Espresso Coffee - The Science of Quality by Illy and Viani. Available from Amazon.co.uk and Book Depository.



https://www.bookdepository.com/Espresso ... Q8QAvD_BwE

Dog woke me at 8 this morning no bank holiday lie in allowed when he needs his morning sustenance!

Good thread to start Ivor this might grow legs.

Some roasters I have tried.

discountcoffee.ie Very reasonable I had low expectations here but Nicaraguan, Sumatra and Columbian taste very nice to me. €10 a kilo free postage at €50

https://badgeranddodo.ie/ Again free postage at €50 but more expensive prices.

https://www.bellabarista.co.uk/coffee.html This the coffee roasting arm of Bellabarista in the UK. There bulk buy option is good for a discount but postage costs are saucy.

Was hoping given the nice big garden and shed out the back Ken would upgrade the popcorn roaster to one of these. He could batch roast Trim with free delivery to Dublin during Trinity term time.

https://cormorant-roasters.business.sit ... GB#gallery

interesting roaster. whats the retail price?

Sligolad wrote: ↑Sun Jun 02, 2019 2:50 pm Your initial post finally sucked me down the rabbit hole Ivor.
Been planning to jump into roasting for some time after listening to Tony,Nige and Ken talking about it so finally made the leap.

Beans arrived and one thing lead to another....Gene Cafe arrived next....Vesuvius on the way.....Niche Zero on the way...an expensive week and a lot to learn!!

when jumping you certainly bypass the padding pool and go direct to the deep end
that is some very nice toys, Im sure there will be lots of fun experimenting with them

https://www.dieckmann-aroma-kaffee.de/e ... aster.html

ive got this yoke, it blows chaff everywhere, some might worry about fire risk.
definitely one for the shed.
but its reasonably priced and much more productive than a popcorn machine
will do 250g batches

the method i use now is put the batch on set a timer on the phone for 6-7 mins, "make some coffee", alarm goes off then wait up to a minute for first crack then press the first crack button walk away and come back whenever. simple

nige2000 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:21 am https://www.dieckmann-aroma-kaffee.de/e ... aster.html

ive got this yoke, it blows chaff everywhere, some might worry about fire risk.
definitely one for the shed.

That's one I have myself, it does the job. The same company sells very nice beans that don't produce chaff - in fact the manual says to only use ~"chaff less" beans with that machine but I like to live dangerously. Half the fun of this is finding new and interesting beans to try. I use it in the kitchen on the hob and I'm usually standing over it anyway. A bit messy but that's all. I don't care if there's a fire. I'm old and I've had a full life.

As with Tony I've used Discountcoffee but I found the coffee a bit dull. Cheap and quick delivery alright, nice but nothing exceptional.

Now... while I have your attention... your opinions please?
recently I'm not getting a decent crema on an espresso. I'm using good coffee, proper roast, I cleaned the machine recently - no improvement. I've played about a bit with the grind but I doubt that's it. The shot itself tastes fine if a bit thin.
I'm still using my modest and humble original Gaggia Classic - maybe I should finally do that OVP Mod I've been putting off?

Not sure really even though I've been making espresso for bout 7 years I still feel like I'm a long way off figuring it all out. However I'd think the brew pressure would have to be way off to be make any significant difference to crema
I think between 9 and 10 bar should be fine
Find too fine would do it as will too coarse
I start at 18g of gnd espresso into circa 40mls liquid( 1:2 type rule)espresso in 26ish seconds and tweak it from there

Of course theres crema differences between varieties and origins of beans

Stale coffee is the usual reason for no crema but not in this case

nige2000 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 03, 2019 10:01 am

interesting roaster. whats the retail price?

£1600 before postage 3 to 6 month waiting list. The Dalian Amazon modified for Bellabarista comes in at £3.5k Prices really rise steeply once one goes beyond the genecafe!