Scace reading on my Appia - update

After yesterdays great experience I decided to do a list of scace readings with my new found profile. The findings where a bit different than yesterday but not totally off.

A bit to the cold side so maybe I should raise the boiler pressure. The three shots that are lowest in temperature are shot numer 3, 4 and 5. 3 and 4 where done with 10 seconds between shots - 8 seconds flush - 20 seconds rebound. Only change with shot 5 was a 20 second slip between shot. The grey shot was done after 30 seconds from the shot before - 8 second flush - 20 second rebound.

FANTASTIC ESPRESSO

Today I Think I cracked the code.

First shot for the zink. Wait 10 seconds. 8 seconds flush 20 seconds rebound. Seemed pretty stable om 93'5 celsius through most of the shot. Test data and diagram Will follow and hopefully show that I am right.

One thing I have noticed is that if the flush is too short the temperature Will rise through the shot. If it is too long it Will Fall during the shot. 8 seconds seemed right.

Scace reading on my Appia

I have recently installed a restrictor in my appia and adjusted the boiler pressure to apr. 1 bar.

After that I set on to work on temperature profiles for my Appia - I borrowed a Scace device and here are my initial readings - I still have a lot to work with I see. The way I work is that I change the time between shots : flush time : rebound time. The best profile yet was after a long time of pre heating I made a shot after that a 3 minute reheating : 2 seconds flush : 15 seconds rebound - you will see it as the yellow shot :

After changing boiler pressure I discovered that the temperature still was'nt low enough. So I had to experiment with the intershot timing. Remembering Michael de Renouard saying that in a professional environment the intershot time was 30 seconds I tried to incorporate this in my testing. First impression of this test is that it is much more simple to reach the desired level of temperature. The only problem is consistency during the shot.


I am stille using the flush'n' rebound method rebound set to 20 seconds and experimenting with flush time. It seems that 2 seconds flush and 20 seconds rebound gives apr. 94 degr. celsius which I find acceptable but fluctuation during shot is still a bit too unstable to my likings. I will make more graphs later.

World Barista Championship 2010 - v. 2.0

I was lucky to get invited to another session at Growers Cup participating in Søren Stiller Markussens preparations for the championship. Once again I was amazed and inspired with the complex variations a small change in the preparation of the espresso makes in the final cup.

Besides tasting a lot of splendid coffee it was also inspired to different ways to work with my own coffee preparations. I am especially inspired to try to experiment even more with small changes in the different parameters.