Mr_Dogg Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 40 minutes ago, maqroll said: I think that might be checkmate! Anyhoo, you can really taste the fruit of this coffee. My guess is that because of it's freshness, the beans retain some residue from the cherry? Ya, I suppose high quality coffee should impart different flavours, like grapes with wine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 (edited) I have this I mostly drink flat whites plus extra shot and macchiatos from it I buy Lavazza beans Edited January 29 by StefanAVFC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 13 minutes ago, Mr_Dogg said: Ya, I suppose high quality coffee should impart different flavours, like grapes with wine. 100%, and this is so much more evident with more lightly roasted coffee, but you tend to need to go to smaller independents to get the really characterful stuff. With more traditional mass market coffee, it's roasted very dark, and while there are still differences, you really lose most of the character of the coffee and you just get that roast character - bitter, sometimes ashy, woody notes. The big chains and supermarket brands like this because it's what most consumers expect coffee to be, and when your flavour profile is "roasted to ****" it makes it very easy to get consistency from batch to batch when the quality of the raw materials is hidden. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 The other thing you've picked up on @maqroll isn't just the quality of the coffee, but the freshness - if you buy coffee beans that don't have a roast date on them, you should just assume that they're stale, most of them will sit in supermarket warehouses for months or even a year+, and if you do a blind taste test of coffee that was roasted 2-6 weeks ago compared to 3-4 months ago, then 12+ months ago, there's a significant difference. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted January 29 VT Supporter Share Posted January 29 20 minutes ago, Davkaus said: The other thing you've picked up on @maqroll isn't just the quality of the coffee, but the freshness - if you buy coffee beans that don't have a roast date on them, you should just assume that they're stale, most of them will sit in supermarket warehouses for months or even a year+, and if you do a blind taste test of coffee that was roasted 2-6 weeks ago compared to 3-4 months ago, then 12+ months ago, there's a significant difference. How long can you keep coffee grounds for once ground. Do you literaly grind enough for one cup/who you're making for. Or maybe a day's supply? A week? I've got no idea how this all works Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 29 Administrator Share Posted January 29 1 minute ago, sidcow said: How long can you keep coffee grounds for once ground. Do you literaly grind enough for one cup/who you're making for. Or maybe a day's supply? A week? I've got no idea how this all works About ten minutes. I jest, but as short a time as practical. Store them in an airtight container in a cupboard. I don't drink a lot of decaf, but I portion the beans and freeze them. My grinders are fine grinding them frozen, particularly in portion sizes. Decaf beans stay fresh a lot shorter time than regular, therefore good ones tend to be expensive. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob182 Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 I’m currently using my 6th coffee machine. I’ve had nespresso and tassimo before, but I just prefer a ground coffee machine / bean to cup one, with a ‘steam wand’. That being said, I can still stomach instant coffee. I do find that if I have too many ‘proper’ coffees in a day, my mouth starts to feel a bit… oily? From the coffee bean oils, I assume! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lapal_fan Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 1 hour ago, StefanAVFC said: I have this I mostly drink flat whites plus extra shot and macchiatos from it I buy Lavazza beans You can afford that, but not a road?! **** offfffffffffff 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted January 29 VT Supporter Share Posted January 29 I have a Rancilio Silvia and a Rancilio Rocky grinder, and have had for years, but the coffee is always bitter. It's clean - backflushing and descaling. I do the temperature surfing thing (due to the machine supposedly getting too hot), where I run water through before extracting a shot, to keep the temperature down. It seems whichever beans I try, the coffee is always bitter. From Basic CoOp Italian beans, to £14 artisan roasted beans, it's still **** bitter. I'm missing something, but what is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post sidcow Posted January 29 VT Supporter Popular Post Share Posted January 29 1 minute ago, Anthony said: I have a Rancilio Silvia and a Rancilio Rocky grinder, and have had for years, but the coffee is always bitter. It's clean - backflushing and descaling. I do the temperature surfing thing (due to the machine supposedly getting too hot), where I run water through before extracting a shot, to keep the temperature down. It seems whichever beans I try, the coffee is always bitter. From Basic CoOp Italian beans, to £14 artisan roasted beans, it's still **** bitter. I'm missing something, but what is it? You don't like coffee? 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted January 29 VT Supporter Share Posted January 29 1 minute ago, sidcow said: You don't like coffee? How dare you! Bloody Palestine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Fun Factory Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 8 minutes ago, Anthony said: How dare you! Bloody Palestine. Personally, I believe in a two-state solution, in both coffee and tea. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 58 minutes ago, sidcow said: How long can you keep coffee grounds for once ground. Do you literaly grind enough for one cup/who you're making for. Or maybe a day's supply? A week? I've got no idea how this all works To add to what @limpid said, yeah ground coffee starts to go stale within minutes. That doesn't mean it's undrinkable by any means - plenty of people are perfectly happy with shop-bought preground, and having some coffee ground and storing it for a couple of weeks is going to be much, much fresher than that. But it's got such an exposed surface area and it'll oxidise and lose some of those aromatics and be past its best very, very quickly. I usually grind for each cup, but I tend to have a cup pre-ground for overnight for my first coffee, as my grinder is noisy AF and I start work at 7am, the other half doesn't appreciate being woken up by it. It's perfectly drinkable the next morning, but I think most people could confidently pick out the fresh vs pre-ground one. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 18 minutes ago, Anthony said: where I run water through before extracting a shot, to keep the temperature down. see for me I find the machines don't make it warm enough and thus I find myself having to find an alternative method to bring the coffee up to a warmer temperature ( pipe down @chrisp65 ) has to be close to scalding hot before I'll drink it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob182 Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 1 minute ago, tonyh29 said: see for me I find the machines don't make it warm enough and thus I find myself having to find an alternative method to bring the coffee up to a warmer temperature ( pipe down @chrisp65 ) has to be close to scalding hot before I'll drink it I boil the kettle and fill my cup with boiled water for a minute, before making my coffee. (Hot water discarded in the sink obviously). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 (edited) 26 minutes ago, Anthony said: I have a Rancilio Silvia and a Rancilio Rocky grinder, and have had for years, but the coffee is always bitter. It's clean - backflushing and descaling. I do the temperature surfing thing (due to the machine supposedly getting too hot), where I run water through before extracting a shot, to keep the temperature down. It seems whichever beans I try, the coffee is always bitter. From Basic CoOp Italian beans, to £14 artisan roasted beans, it's still **** bitter. I'm missing something, but what is it? This is a simple question with quite complicated answers. In general, bitterness comes from overextraction, sourness comes from underextraction. There's a few key variables you can play with: you can adjust the grind size, it could be you're grinding too fine and so you're overextracting and creating that bitterness, so you could try dialling back a bit, going a bit coarser, but if you go too coarse you'll soon introduce sour shots that flow too quickly through the coffee. Temperature can also be an issue, but you're aware of that (hotter water extracts coffee more quickly), sop the other thing to consider is that you could reduce the water to coffee ratio (too much water will over extract, too little water will underextract). Grind size is probably the first place to start of those, IMO. Of course it could just be that the coffee you're buying is genuinely very bitter, have you tried lighter roasts that you have tried elsewhere and definitely like? Edited January 29 by Davkaus 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StefanAVFC Posted January 29 Share Posted January 29 1 hour ago, lapal_fan said: You can afford that, but not a road?! **** offfffffffffff got it on a 10 month 0% credit with my TV when we moved in Can't do that with the road Paid for it now though 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted January 29 VT Supporter Share Posted January 29 1 hour ago, Davkaus said: This is a simple question with quite complicated answers. In general, bitterness comes from overextraction, sourness comes from underextraction. There's a few key variables you can play with: you can adjust the grind size, it could be you're grinding too fine and so you're overextracting and creating that bitterness, so you could try dialling back a bit, going a bit coarser, but if you go too coarse you'll soon introduce sour shots that flow too quickly through the coffee. Temperature can also be an issue, but you're aware of that (hotter water extracts coffee more quickly), sop the other thing to consider is that you could reduce the water to coffee ratio (too much water will over extract, too little water will underextract). Grind size is probably the first place to start of those, IMO. Of course it could just be that the coffee you're buying is genuinely very bitter, have you tried lighter roasts that you have tried elsewhere and definitely like? Ha, yeah , at the moment the coffee flows out too quickly AND it tastes bitter. How the fugg does that happen? I use a triple bottomless basket, and extract into a double shot glass, so it shouldn't be too watery. In theory. I'm going to **** about with it this afternoon and see what I can find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted January 29 Administrator Share Posted January 29 2 hours ago, Anthony said: I have a Rancilio Silvia and a Rancilio Rocky grinder, and have had for years, but the coffee is always bitter. It's clean - backflushing and descaling. I do the temperature surfing thing (due to the machine supposedly getting too hot), where I run water through before extracting a shot, to keep the temperature down. It seems whichever beans I try, the coffee is always bitter. From Basic CoOp Italian beans, to £14 artisan roasted beans, it's still **** bitter. I'm missing something, but what is it? Are you tamping it properly? It could be a bunch of things, Do you get a solid puck after extraction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Posted January 29 VT Supporter Share Posted January 29 1 hour ago, tonyh29 said: see for me I find the machines don't make it warm enough and thus I find myself having to find an alternative method to bring the coffee up to a warmer temperature ( pipe down @chrisp65 ) has to be close to scalding hot before I'll drink it Well quite, but if it's too hot when running through the ground beans it tastes like burnt shit, with a hint of coffee. Kind of like Costa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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