[HN Gopher] Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields ...
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Why a spritz of water before grinding coffee yields better results
Author : CHB0403085482
Score : 202 points
Date : 2023-12-07 08:51 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| roflyear wrote:
| He says "just a spritz" and it is true that just one spritz does
| help, but in the paper there was quite a bit of water applied -
| probably more like 3-4 spritz of water.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| Spritzes? :-)
| cmiller1 wrote:
| I'm curious about how to add this to my coffee brewing process.
| Is there an optimal amount of water for a given weight of
| beans? Does it need to be a "spritz" rather than a "drop"? As
| in should I ideally find a spray bottle that nicely atomizes
| the water to apply it? Or would it be better to add the water
| to the beans, stir, then add them to my grinder?
| ysleepy wrote:
| The main known benefit is the reduced static electricity
| which reduced the amount of coffee sticking in and onto the
| grinder.
|
| The paper observes some difference in espresso brewing time
| in some grinder/brewer combinations, but this does not
| replicate well and wasn't investigated in regards to taste.
| foobarian wrote:
| In my experience only dark roasts have the static
| electricity problem, and since I prefer very lightly
| roasted beans this doesn't usually come up. But it is truly
| very annoying.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Alleged "medium roast" can have this problem as well
| though. A few drops of water into 16 grams of beans kills
| the static and very little sticks to the grinder.
| roflyear wrote:
| It depends a lot on the grinder. On some of my grinders
| this is true, on others its "bad to awful" from the light
| to dark roast categories.
|
| Also remember, one man's "light roast" is another's dark
| roast. I consider light something like nordic (and
| lighter) - what others consider light I would put well
| past "medium" but before "oily" - I consider "dark" right
| before beans start to get oily.
| hackideiomat wrote:
| You can use a wet spoon handle
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| I use a chopstick dipped in water.
| draw_down wrote:
| If you watch espresso enthusiasts on YouTube or whatever,
| they'll have a little spray bottle that they spray the beans
| with before grinding. The spray nozzle has a short travel. It
| looks like a sample size or something, very small bottle.
| roflyear wrote:
| I don't think there is one right answer - for a normal
| morning brew (15-20g of beans) 2 spritz out of one of those
| small spray bottles should be in range. Two spritz, then
| shake the beans up (like in a cup), and grind as normal. You
| may notice some changes in your brewing method: faster or
| slower brews. Adjust to taste.
| arcanemachiner wrote:
| Are we talking metric spritzes or imperial spritzes here?
| c0pium wrote:
| The paper provides the exact mass of water used, however
| nobody has a kitchen scale measuring to those tolerances.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| James Hoffmann talking about this yesterday:
| https://youtu.be/nLnB99VJ0HE?si=LIoZP0lwfsxvrqON
| hackideiomat wrote:
| Lance made a video too, but in more detail:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqVUsMPs-U
| luag wrote:
| Lance Hedrick too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuqVUsMPs-U
| lsllc wrote:
| Yes! he also interviews Christopher Hendon one of the paper's
| authors.
| searealist wrote:
| He doesn't mention if he used WDT, which is a strange
| oversight.
| 2devnull wrote:
| But as they point out residual moisture varies by roast, bean,
| time since roasting, storage, etc.
| mouse_ wrote:
| Are we talking a metric spritz or an imperial spritz?
| cheschire wrote:
| All science is performed in metric, and as this is ars technica
| you know it is not science, and therefore done in imperial. qed
| Horffupolde wrote:
| A then B, ~A then ~B?
| bee_rider wrote:
| All computer science is performed in valid proofs, and as
| this is Hackernews you know it is not computer science, and
| therefore done in fallacies. qed
| aulin wrote:
| Campari is the best and only spritz
| ipsum2 wrote:
| All this research, and not a single A/B/X test. Also very common
| among audiophiles, even ones focused on being scientific,
| replacing human testing with precise instrumentation that ends up
| not mattering in practice.
| aqme28 wrote:
| Yes. Every time I see coffee advice like this I wonder if
| there's ever been an actual study on it. I don't think I can
| tell the difference between coffee at 92 degrees vs 99 degrees.
| What percent of people actually can?
| hackideiomat wrote:
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=pZ-hKmz4PIY
| dmix wrote:
| Two people testing one brew (per temp) but interesting none
| the less.
| tednjrdjyrr wrote:
| The access the internet gives us to this kind of content is
| incredible. What a fun and interesting diversion into
| coffee brewing temperatures and how it might affect taste.
| Frost1x wrote:
| I think it's worth keeping in mind tweaking different
| parameters often yields varied levels of improvements. Going
| from near freezing to hot water yields very different results
| that you can definitely discern for example. Coarseness of
| the grind definitely effects results: if you run hot water
| over raw beans it's not great meanwhile if you could say
| grind to a point you broke down many molecular bonds in the
| bean (I'm using the term "grind" loosely here to illustrate a
| point), you'd lose all the nifty chemicals that you want to
| taste and so on.
|
| So there's varied ways to adjust each given aspect of
| preparing coffee (including times of everything, the process
| itself, the order of the process and so on). And how you
| tweak each given aspect will have varying degrees of
| noticeable effect on the taste of the drink (some have almost
| none). Beans roasted 3 weeks ago probably won't be
| discernable from beans roasted 4 weeks ago. Beans roasted
| today might be discernable from those roasted a week ago,
| though.
|
| Each of these aspects isn't inherently independent of one
| another either. Coarseness, brew time, and pressure are often
| very closely linked and adjusting one or the other often
| requires adjusting the other for desirable results.
|
| Now while some of these sort of tweaks are tiny, combining
| all sorts of tiny tweaks can result in noticeable larger
| differences. It might not be obvious what it is because of
| all of the small component improvements, but the end result
| is something that, even slightly, is noticeably improved,
| which is true for about anything.
|
| Ultimately the question is does all this effort combined
| yield enough improvement that's noticeable. Maybe one small
| improvement isn't noticeable like adjusting from 92 to 99
| degrees. That combined with a series of other tweaks might
| yield something worth the effort though.
|
| I know when I first started brewing espresso at home I
| laughed at a lot of advice thinking certain aspects of the
| brewing process were silly so I'd skip them or just ignore it
| all together. Things like weighing my beans, tweaking grind
| size, and so on. My first few weeks of espresso drinks
| were... pretty disappointing. Why can Starbucks (which in
| terms of espresso is often lackluster) make better espresso
| than me at home? As I went down the rabbit hole and adopted
| more silly strategies, I tasted notable improvements.
|
| It's not just me either, I've had friends try throughout the
| process and it went from "thanks, that was drinkable" being
| nice to my not so great coffee to now people saying "wow
| that's really great, how do you make that, that's the best
| coffee I've had."
|
| It sounds stupid until you start tweaking all these little
| parts. I'm not entirely scientific about it, much of it is a
| hit of an art and inference with science mixed in. I'm at a
| point now where I think no matter how many slightly improved
| tweaks I make, I won't be able to tell the difference and
| it's not worth the time.
|
| From your example, 92 to 99 C might come down to how much
| energy the water actually has and how precise you can measure
| it. When you're approaching boiling, some parts of the water
| probably is boiling and made a phase transition, you're
| measuring an average of some other part that may not be a
| good sample of the whole. Those parts that are boiling may
| result in damaging organics in what you're brewing leading to
| bitter flavors you don't want, so backing off gives you some
| margins of error in your measurement. 7 degrees might not
| make too much difference if it's say 95 and 88 C (a little
| more time might make up for similar results) but something
| approaching a critical point like boiling might actually
| matter.
| dmix wrote:
| This topic was made for HN lol
|
| (some) Programmers can't do anything without knowing
| everything about it
| kelipso wrote:
| I swear. There's this implication that the idea of having
| cooking recipes are unscientific in that post... "Without
| understanding why one sautes the onions, why should I
| saute the onions??? Where's the peer reviewed article
| proving that this results in statistically significantly
| improved taste?"
| notjoemama wrote:
| I tend to think it's a side effect of having a curious
| mind. Anyone can saute onions. It's the curious that stop
| to ask, "Why does this taste so good and how can I do it
| again?" I think the best chef's are the one's that are
| curious in the same way.
|
| edit: auto correct did me dirty
| kelipso wrote:
| That's an aspect but the best chefs have mastered
| sauteeing onions before exploring and being curious is
| what I was trying to get at.
| aksss wrote:
| It's time for the America's Test Kitchen book on Coffee.
| parineum wrote:
| The purpose of knowing why your doing things is so that
| you can tweak things and understand the implications.
| Sauteing onions is partially good because it caramelizing
| some of the sugars. What other sugary things could I
| saute?
|
| I rarely exactly follow a recipe so it's important to
| understand what effects the steps have so you can
| experiment with them. I've been trying to perfect cookies
| for years.
| wruza wrote:
| Otoh it reminds me of training networks. You may spend a
| week tuning the params and end up with no conclusion due
| to (1) constantly evolving training modus, (2) the
| inherent randomness of the process. You can't even know
| if the recipes out there help you or just add to the
| noise. It creates a feeling that you _know_ , but it
| never verbalizes into something meaningful, apart from a
| few fortunate coincidences.
|
| I wonder if that's a part our (everyone's) inevitable
| future that we didn't conceptualize yet playing on
| "default settings".
| quaddo wrote:
| As someone who is something of a coffee nerd (QM67 machine,
| Fiorenzato grinder w/ timer), I'll admit to balking at
| doing any of the more fiddly/fussy things.
|
| But out of curiosity, how much time does the coffee nerd
| community spend pondering and tweaking environmental
| variables?
|
| For example, ambient room temperature and relative
| humidity? Can't do a whole lot about pressure, short of
| tracking historical trends vs present air pressure and
| setting expectations, I suppose.
|
| Other factors: tamping down physical, emotional irritants,
| such as screaming children, freshly burnt toast, headaches,
| etc.
|
| And something that is adjustable but not quickly so: the
| (paint) colour(s) of the room. It's been something like 30
| years, but ISTR hearing that different colours can affect
| us in subtle ways. For example, red can help stimulate the
| appetite. I imagine good lighting (eg, warm lighting, avoid
| fluorescent) is another variable.
|
| All this to ask: do coffee nerds consider tweaking any of
| the above, or only those things that are in very close
| proximity to the grinder and espresso machine?
| BirdieNZ wrote:
| (Good) baristas dial in their grind size multiple times a
| day due to environmental changes like humidity, and I
| daresay the decor of a coffee shop is designed to
| motivate appetite. Not sure if that completely answers
| your questions but they've certainly been considered
| before.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > QM67 machine, Fiorenzato grinder w/ timer
|
| Nice! I got a bit burnt by a Quick Mill Andreja and have
| always wondered if it related to the the conversion to
| 240v that was done on it for New Zealand. The reality
| never came close to the reviews.
|
| I'm now on a Faema E-61 Legend and an orange Mazzer Robur
| - it's like having a particular large traffic cone in the
| kitchen. Every so often I consider a more tuneable double
| boiler, but going back to your comment, appearances
| matter and and my ridiculous setup makes the coffee seem
| better.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I'm not sure it matters. For any interest or hobby, doing it
| my way, to my taste, is the entire point. If someone else
| doesn't like it or can't tell, that might actually be an
| advantage.
|
| I don't think I would be able to tell - I make fussy coffee,
| but not to this extreme.
| gwd wrote:
| At least the video by James Hoffman I watched yesterday (too
| lazy to find the link, it's somewhere else in the comments)
| wasn't about experience, but about objective measures: How
| charged were the particles, how long did it take X amount of
| water go through the same amount of beans? The guy in the video
| even said he wasn't sure if the resulting coffee was better or
| not, just that it slowed down extraction, which usually ends up
| with more chemicals in your espresso afterwards.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Are more chemicals good or bad?
| elromulous wrote:
| Everything is a "chemical".
|
| Generally increased extraction (i.e. getting more "coffee"
| into the water) is better.
| xeromal wrote:
| Considering making coffee is extracting flavor chemicals
| from coffee beans into water, more chemicals would be good.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| I forgot the "/s" on my comment.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah I've come to expect sarcasm on Reddit but hackernews
| I just assume everyone's being genuine
| vpribish wrote:
| hear hear. keep hacker news sincere
| satellite2 wrote:
| Oh, the infamous "/s" - the internet's neon sign flashing
| "ATTENTION: SARCASM AHEAD." Where do I even start with
| this? It's like we've collectively decided that the art
| of understanding sarcasm needed training wheels.
|
| First off, let's talk about how it completely annihilates
| the fun of sarcasm. Sarcasm is like a secret handshake;
| it's supposed to be subtle, a little game of wit between
| the speaker and the listener. But no, we had to slap a
| big, fat "/s" at the end, just in case someone's sarcasm
| radar is as effective as an ashtray on a motorcycle.
|
| And then there's the snobbishness of it all. It's like
| saying, "Oh dear, I better put this here because you
| might not grasp the advanced concept of sarcasm." It's
| patronizing! We're basically assuming that people online
| have the emotional range of a teaspoon and can't catch a
| sarcastic comment unless it's gift-wrapped with a "/s".
|
| But wait, it gets better. The safety of "/s" makes a
| padded playground look like an extreme sports event. It's
| like we're afraid of a little scrape or bruise from a
| misunderstood joke. Remember when playgrounds were made
| of concrete and we survived? Now, it's all about safety
| first, even in our online conversations. "Watch out,
| don't hurt yourself on that sharp wit!"
|
| And as we progress down this ridiculous road, let's
| envision a world where everything is as blatantly obvious
| as sarcasm with a "/s" tag. Imagine going to a comedy
| show where the comedian has to pause and explain each
| joke. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a joke about
| marriage. You can laugh now." Or picture reading a book
| where every metaphor is followed by an explanation. "The
| curtains were blue, which symbolizes the character's deep
| sadness, in case you didn't catch that."
|
| We could even take it further. How about emotional cue
| cards for everyday conversations? "I'm about to tell a
| joke - please prepare to laugh" or "Warning: sarcasm in
| 3, 2, 1..." The possibilities are endless in our brave
| new world of over-explained humor.
|
| In the spirit of this absurdity, let's just put
| disclaimers on everything. "Warning: This rant may
| contain traces of hyperbole and a pinch of irony. Please
| consume responsibly." And don't forget, if you didn't
| find this funny, it's probably because I didn't put a
| "/s" at the end. My bad.
| progman32 wrote:
| Perhaps we need a /a for AI content, as well?
| robocat wrote:
| Sarcasm itself is not banned here. The community pushes
| back against sarcasm because it is often associated with
| poor quality comments. I've quoted some comments by dang
| about sarcasm with links to his source comment - it helps
| to read his well-thought-out opinions within their
| context. The guidelines don't rule out
| sarcasm. They ask for comments to be civil and
| substantive. The Venn diagram of those things may not
| have a lot of common area but there's definitely some.
| Just don't ask me to specify what it is--that's probably
| too hard.[1]
|
| The community here avoids sarcasm not for the reasons you
| so condescendingly note, but because sarcasm tends to
| reduce discussion quality. Readers here
| recognize sarcasm, but they also recognize what happens
| to a web forum where it is allowed to proliferate.
| We don't have any problem with satire and sarcasm as
| such, but on a large public forum like HN, with
| everything a mile wide and an inch deep, they are nearly
| always associated with really low-quality discussion.[2]
|
| The logic is similar to why jokes are discouraged[3].
| I've often wondered why jabs, swipes and sarcasm are so
| corrosive on HN when anyone who knows about the history
| of discourse knows what a lively role they have played.
| [The lack of sarcasm] makes the discourse a little more
| bland, but the alternative is not lively exchanges of
| high wit, it's YouTube comments.[4] I think
| sarcasm is more of a problem on HN than lame humor is.
| Humor doesn't always succeed, but at least it's intended
| to make others feel good. (Think "good humor".) Sarcasm
| is only marginally related to humor. It's really about
| scorn. Sarcasm is verbal bile. It feels good to let it
| out, but it acidifies the environment. It feels like
| you're being smart[5]
|
| Like you, I love sarcasm (New Zealander's tend to slather
| it on) and when used well it is a often a subtle
| compliment to the receiver. Over the years I have learned
| to tone my sarcasm down because I tended not to use it
| helpfully and respectfully.
|
| Note that Dang seems to personally like to use
| sarcasm[6].
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10411394
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506429
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18284457
|
| [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9378899
|
| [5] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9342526
|
| [6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7544169
| satellite2 wrote:
| Note that my comment is directed specifically at /s and
| not at sarcasm in general. I understand very well that
| given the diversity of opinions on internet it can be
| challenging to tell it appart. So I agree that in many
| case one should abstain. But if you go ahead and still
| use it, please, by all mean, don't botch it. Better to
| double down and make it obvious or ridiculous than this
| silliness.
| FrankoDelMar wrote:
| I wonder if, thanks to Reddit's karma economy, the usage
| of /s is some kind of learned behavior that acts as hedge
| against downvotes. Did people use /s as much or at all
| back in the days of forums or other platforms where the
| visibility of a person's content didn't correlate with
| upvotes?
| jnwatson wrote:
| No, more chemicals isn't necessarily what you want.
|
| Coffee beans contain diterpenes, which have been shown to
| increase cholesterol. Paper filters significantly reduce
| the quantity of diterpenes in the end product.
| gwd wrote:
| Depends on which chemicals and what your taste is. I think
| the main idea of espresso is that by that method you get
| more of the tasty chemicals and less of the bitter
| chemicals compared to (say) a French press (aka cafetiere).
| Since this is just a few seconds longer, you'd hope that
| the resulting brew would be less watery and have more of
| the "good" chemicals without getting the "bitter"
| chemicals. But as OP said, without an A/B/X test, you can't
| really say for sure.
| Syzygies wrote:
| "Extraction yield" may be a good thing, but that hypothesis
| goes untested.
|
| Distilling, one wants to control extraction yield to isolate
| the best flavors. Done carefully, one makes armagnac.
| Maximizing extraction yield makes moonshine.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| if the input and output are humans, what do you imagine a
| nonhuman test gains you?
| bee_rider wrote:
| You should not put humans in your espresso machine.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Indeed, they tend to clog it.
| bee_rider wrote:
| The clog is only the beginning! If the person is Dutch
| that is.
| quaddo wrote:
| I've heard you get better results if you spritz them.
| bee_rider wrote:
| It is already a common industry trick, so there's no need to
| establish that people prefer it. Whether or not it produces
| somehow objectively better espresso, it is still possible to
| study the mechanism behind the reduced clumping and to quantify
| the static charge changes.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| https://open.substack.com/pub/albertcory50/p/google-busts-a-...
|
| On that topic: Jerry and I and some other Googlers did test one
| variable, at least.
| rfrey wrote:
| I haven't read the paper, but James Hoffman and others
| regularly do blind tasting with 3 cups, testing things like
| extraction. In the case of extraction, for example, they'll
| measure extraction with precision scales, then have 2 cups at
| one level (either the "optimal" extraction or slightly
| below/above) and the third cup at the other level. They don't
| know which is the outlier, but they're to guess. They seem to
| be very open when they're not sure or the difference to them is
| marginal. They try to control variables like temperature.
|
| I don't know if they make sure the person putting the cups down
| doesn't know which is which.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Extraction yield differences at the levels shown in the paper
| is no small thing (8.2% to 8.9% TDS). And I am sure an
| experienced coffee taster will spot the difference instantly.
| There is also the practical aspect of making less of a mess out
| of your grinder, as charged coffee particles tend to go where
| you don't want when to go and stick there.
|
| But you can think of it differently and see it as a way to have
| a cup that is just as good but using less coffee, because it is
| better extracted. Less waste is a good thing, for the
| environment, for the coffee brewing industry, and for you.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > There is also the practical aspect of making less of a mess
| out of your grinder, as charged coffee particles tend to go
| where you don't want when to go and stick there.
|
| I tried the RDT once. I find absolutely nothing practical
| about it. The mistake is trying to grind straight into the
| basket. I started grinding into a separate large cylindrical
| receptacle (a.k.a. a Tall Cup) that I can fit directly under
| the spout and catch all the grindings with.
|
| Wait 10 seconds for the static to settle.. bang the cup three
| times on the counter... then pour the grindings into the
| basket. Manages most of the static, nearly all of the mess,
| and makes the whole operation so much easier and efficient.
|
| The espresso space is filled with people who are _content_ to
| spend 95% of the effort chasing the last 5% of quality. I
| cannot truck with those people.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| - According to James Hoffmann video on the subject, when he
| tried to replicate the results, the choice of grinder had a
| big impact. In the paper, they used a Mahlkonig EK43, a
| very popular grinder in cafes, less so at home.
|
| - Your routine with the cup can count as "high effort", and
| if spraying a bit of water on the beans lets you avoid that
| extra step, it may actually be an improvement in terms of
| effort.
|
| In the end, I think it all comes down to your grinder and
| tolerance for effort. Some people have espresso as a
| ritual, and as far as rituals go, that one is harmless and
| results in a good cup of coffee, so I am all for it. Not my
| thing either though, and while I like playing a bit from
| time to time just to see what can be done with some effort,
| my routine is as simple as it can get. Note that I happen
| to have a doser grinder, which is usually not ideal in a
| home setting, but it does a good job with the static,
| essentially what you are doing but as built-in feature of
| the grinder.
| akira2501 wrote:
| I have the Bezzera BB005 grinder. It's a reasonable
| choice for someone unwilling to spend $3000 on a grinder
| for home.
|
| I actually like to use the bean hopper, and to use the
| RDT, you have to keep the hopper empty and fill on each
| use so you can actually spray the beans that are about to
| be ground.
|
| With the cup, I can load up the hopper for the entire
| day, then just grind. It's significantly less effort.
| Particularly when it comes to weighing the shot into the
| basket, I can just tare out the weight of the cup, and I
| don't have to mess around trying to balance a basket on a
| scale.
|
| When I watch most of these "youtube experts" push out a
| cup of espresso it drives me up the wall how much effort
| they waste. In particular, because to them, it seems like
| the more effort wasted the "better" the routine is. It
| needlessly scares amateurs away from learning how to make
| their own espresso.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Many who are really into coffee know this "trick". Still, you
| have to remember that there is no silver bullet that covers 100%.
| You can of course find beans that don't benefit from this
| treatment or where things get worse, but in my experience, for my
| purpose, it helps with almost all beans I use regularly. Best you
| can do is try out for yourself and see if it helps. You and what
| you like is all that matters, don't do things just because others
| do them.
| dmix wrote:
| I've got a burr grinder with a large hopper I usually keep
| filled with beans, how do I wet the beans in that case?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| empty your hopper, store the beans in a separate container,
| and weigh and grind per brew.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| Was just about to comment the same thing. Keep beans air-
| tightly stored away from the sun but not in the fridge.
| When making a coffee, measure only what you need.
|
| IMHO the biggest factor is not the gear, it's the beans - I
| would rather "good beans and a $50 espresso machine from
| Aldi" than "burnt beans with a La Marzocco Linea Mini"
| every time.
| dmix wrote:
| Another thing is grinders too apparently. I watched a
| video once explaining why espresso machines are so
| expensive and they said they'd rather have a $700
| espresso machine with an expensive grinder than a $4000
| machine with a cheap grinder.
| sva_ wrote:
| I often hear the priority list being 1.
| Quality of beans 2. Quality of the grinder 3.
| Quality of the espresso machine
|
| I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from
| another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans
| (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all
| there is to it.
| sweettea wrote:
| A high quality grinder also minimally heats the beans as
| they grind - heat can change the volatility of the oils,
| resulting in changed flavor (and usually not for the
| better)
| FrankoDelMar wrote:
| Correct, this is why people prefer burr mill grinders
| made of ceramic instead of metal since ceramic is more
| thermally insulating.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I'd put the quality of the grinder above the quality of
| the beans, but that's assuming a certain minimum standard
| (e.g. whole beans from a supermarket brand).
|
| If someone's using a blade grinder, then the particle
| size are going to be all over the place and you end up
| with a brew that's both over-extracted and under-
| extracted at the same time.
|
| I'm not especially fussed about the espresso machine
| quality as I usually drink AeroPress coffee and as long
| as people aren't using boiling water, then it turns out
| fine (full immersion is a lot easier to get right than
| dialing in the specific grind for Espresso).
| pivo wrote:
| > I'm not exactly sure what sets apart some grinder from
| another. Some say they more evenly grind the beans
| (similar particle sizes) but I am not sure if that is all
| there is to it.
|
| Definitely not all there is to it. There are people who
| are in to swapping burrs on a grinder to experiment with
| different flavor profiles, or to make espresso vs filter
| coffee. Some grinders even cater to us, such as the Niche
| Duo: https://www.nichecoffee.co.uk/products/niche-
| duo?variant=431...
|
| Also, some people who like more traditional, chocolaty
| espressos prefer grinders/burrs that produce more varied
| particle size. People who like cleaner, "modern" espresso
| prefer grinders that produce the more similar particle
| sizes.
|
| It's a rabbit hole.
| quaddo wrote:
| Random: is the Niche Duo made by a US company?
|
| Asking, as I noticed the power switch on the side: the
| "|" symbol was at the top, which doesn't jive with the
| UK's "up is off, down is on" typical switch.
| chongli wrote:
| While it is true that a $4000 espresso machine will not
| get good results with a $20 blade grinder from the
| hardware store, I think you do see diminishing returns
| going above $1000 for burr grinders. On the other hand,
| spending more on the espresso machine can get you way
| more dials and knobs to tweak. Temperature and pressure
| profiling and all that.
|
| This may not matter if you prefer medium or dark roasted
| coffee, but light and Nordic roasts really benefit from
| the extra control over temperature and pressure. With a
| fancy machine you can do these very long, lower pressure
| extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a finicky
| light roast which would otherwise require an impossibly
| fine grind that chokes a standard 9 bar machine.
| bch wrote:
| > With a fancy machine you can do these very long, lower
| pressure extractions with higher brew ratios to extract a
| finicky light roast which would otherwise require[...]
|
| Or a simple machine, like a (direct-)lever[0], which is
| an operator controlling a piston pushing water.
|
| [0] like a La Pavoni, or Cremina - this video is of a
| europicolla owner who I think embodies well the joy that
| can be had matching a machine like this to the right
| person https://youtu.be/1BGB2i4Bu58
| chongli wrote:
| My next machine is going to be a lever machine for sure!
| Though I will say that a direct lever machine is the
| ultimate tradeoff of control over
| precision/repeatability. Spring levers give you a ton of
| control with more precision because you're retarding the
| lever to subtract from the maximum pressure of the spring
| rather than modulating your muscle power in real time.
| Unfortunately, what the simple lever machines give you in
| terms of pressure control, they take away in temperature
| control. Getting accurate, repeatable temperature shots
| from a La Pavoni is a bit of a black art, and the group
| can easily overheat, requiring you to cool it down before
| making coffee.
|
| Even in the case of lever machines, you get more control
| if you spend more money. Take a high-end lever machine
| like the ACS Vesuvius Evo Levo [1]. This machine has an
| 11-bar dual spring group (which you can back off to your
| heart's content by retarding the lever) and a pump to
| provide selectable preinfusion between 1.5 and 5 bar. It
| also has 3 independently controlled (PID) heaters: 1 in
| the coffee boiler, 1 in the steam/service boiler, and 1
| in the group itself. This allows you to do temperature
| profiling by, for example, setting a higher temperature
| in the group than in the coffee boiler, which will cause
| the slightly cooler water from the boiler to bring down
| the temperature of the group during the extraction.
|
| [1] https://www.elcor.it/en/vesuvius-evo-leva-en/
| bch wrote:
| > My next machine is going to be a lever machine for
| sure!
|
| Nice - I've been a Cremina operator for the last few
| years, thoroughly enjoy it.
|
| > Spring levers give you a ton of control with more
| precision [...]
|
| At the expense of feedback. And to be fair and clear,
| most of my experience is with a direct lever, and I like
| it, but I'd happily have a spring lever too if I had the
| space.
|
| To move things away from strictly hard-tech and
| measurement though, all this is also so experiential that
| I'm happy to keep things low-tech and manual, to degrees.
| My morning coffee routine is fantastically quiet for
| example: this doesn't (directly) affect the quality of
| the coffee, but _I_ sure appreciate the experience. And
| the experience of being in charge of the pressure at the
| puck - a different way of being involved where I 'm
| interacting with the differences in grind settings, or
| one bean/roast vs another...
|
| Good luck in your lever-machine quest!
| chongli wrote:
| I totally appreciate the low tech approach. I think my
| dream machine is an Elektra MCAL!
|
| Do you use a manual grinder as well? I've never used one
| but they seem rather clumsy to me. Maybe one of those old
| fashioned ones that mount firmly to the table and have a
| big brass crank and brass hardware with a wood case!
| bch wrote:
| > Do you use a manual grinder as well?
|
| I have, in my life - I associate them with pour-overs
| (V60, Chemex) for myself. In my espresso setup, I have an
| electric variable-speed single-dose conical burr unit.
| It's naturally fairly quiet, and I run it at ~30rpm so
| about all I hear is bean crushing/grinding.
| chongli wrote:
| That sounds pretty nice! I have a Niche Zero and it's
| fairly unobtrusive, but still somewhat loud. At least it
| doesn't have any high frequency noise though.
| aksss wrote:
| Yes, and part of that is just preventing waste and saving
| work - I mean a blade grinder can get you a quantity of
| relatively consistent grounds after you sift them,
| regrind some, sift to separate, use the paper towel
| trick, etc., and now you have like a 30% return out of
| the beans you destroyed, and a pile of coffee dust and
| splinters. The amount of work saved by a good grinder and
| amount of waste reduced is worth a fair amount. I'm not
| sure $1000 grinder gives me commensurate value
| personally, but a $100-300 grinder I can travel with?
| That sounds quite fair even just being slightly down the
| coffee nerd rabbit hole. :)
| tamaraaramat wrote:
| > but not in the fridge
|
| I thought that storing them in fridge will keep them
| fresh longer
| LesZedCB wrote:
| freezer yes, fridge idk.
| neverrroot wrote:
| You can likely get more out of not keeping the beans in the
| "open" (large hopper) than you could get out of wetting them.
| Assuming good quality beans, rather freshly roasted.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| If the beans are freshly roasted, it's often best to leave
| them two-three days to degas the CO2 from the beans.
| neverrroot wrote:
| Agree 100%, I didn't mention this because the beans were
| resting for longer as mentioned by the user I replied to.
| sgt wrote:
| A professional roaster told me at least a week. I brought
| them green beans which they roasted and phoned me after a
| week (telling me that before that would be too soon and
| taking a chance) to come pick up.
| robbs wrote:
| It varies. I roast at home, and some beans are great the
| next day. Some are great the next week. The cafe I used
| to live next to would rest their beans for a week.
| swells34 wrote:
| Same. I have noticed that the lighter the roast, the
| happier the beans are with less rest.
|
| That being said, the best coffee I've had was Ethiopian
| style, roasted dark and brewed right in front of me with
| no rest.
| stouset wrote:
| I buy 5lb bags and let them sit on the counter for a week
| or two. Then I set aside a week's worth for use and
| freeze the remainder in gallon ziplock bags with the air
| pressed out.
|
| This allows me to waste less coffee and less time dialing
| in shots because each week's worth will be very close in
| required grind setting to the previous week's.
| tomstuart wrote:
| The target audience for this hack are people who carefully
| weigh their beans (and then put them into the empty hopper
| for grinding) each time they make coffee.
| sva_ wrote:
| Damn, literal bean counters.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| Busted. My scale absolutely has a units mode that is very
| fun and completely caters to my precision fetish.
|
| Or at least I thought it did until I considered bean-
| weight variability...
| mimischi wrote:
| It's infuriating when you change brands. Built up a feel
| for how much a bean weighs and how many are needed to go
| from 17.9 to 18.0g? Yeah, that other bean requires five
| beans, and not just one.
| cjr wrote:
| Or removing the right sized bean to go from 18.1g to 18g
| LesZedCB wrote:
| there are even more niche products, literally called bean
| counters which dose whole beans to a certain weight.
| believe it or not they are well over $100. the deep end
| of coffee is both insane and expensive
| demondemidi wrote:
| I'm that target audience. It's called single dosing. I
| weigh before and after because the difference depends on
| the quality of the grinder. Retention is the enemy of
| single dosing. The Niche grinder is one of the best (I've
| been through 4 grinders.) I have had mixed luck with
| spritzing. As the article says it only benefits beans with
| lower moisture but even large distributor beans vary
| between roasts. It takes a few shots to dial in every new
| batches.
| glitchcrab wrote:
| I've also been very pleased with my gev 4 DF64; it was a
| tossup between that and the Niche Zero at the time. The
| retention is so small I can't even measure it.
| fnord77 wrote:
| I can't believe they milked an academic paper out of this.
|
| I know people who have done this for years.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Eh, most journals are mostly digital nowadays, it isn't as if
| they are going to run out of room.
|
| The methods might be interesting, and if nothing else it seems
| like accessible material. If it is well written it could be a
| nice quirky paper to stick in a senior year undergrad course...
|
| And, that people already do it doesn't mean it is
| unpublishable. It is good to figure out why common behaviors
| work.
| hackideiomat wrote:
| Especially because people didn't know ALL the effects. This
| is not just about static, but also how it impacts shots.
| epistasis wrote:
| You might be interested in James Hoffman's opinion of the
| paper, a coffee wonk who has been using the RDT for a long
| time, but found a lot to learn from the paper:
|
| https://youtu.be/nLnB99VJ0HE?si=1Pc47qo94ZxbTlZq
| elromulous wrote:
| Direct link to the paper
|
| https://www.cell.com/matter/pdf/S2590-2385(23)00568-4.pdf
| nightowl_games wrote:
| Doesn't getting any moisture in the grinder cause the grinder to
| dull faster?
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think this is a relevant question for those of us who are...
| doing this stuff at home and not expecting total perfection,
| haha. If my coffee is only slightly better, I'd rather not wear
| out my grinder.
|
| But, coffee beans already have some moisture in them, so I
| suspect the grinders can handle a little moisture. Just
| speculation though.
| chongli wrote:
| The study looked at the effects of the moisture on the grinder.
| They noticed a slight increase in humidity within the grind
| chamber that dissipated within a few minutes. Not something I'd
| worry about.
| lfuller wrote:
| As I've seen several comments on this here - people have used
| spritzes of water to reduce static when grinding coffee for
| years, but the interesting part of this study was the finding
| that beyond reducing static, adding enough water prior to
| grinding actually reduces flow rate and increases extraction by
| preventing the creation of coffee clumps / aggregates.
|
| So it confirms the anti-static properties that everyone already
| knew, but has interesting implications for increasing extraction
| without changing any other variables.
| c0pium wrote:
| It also bears pointing out that the amount of water needed to
| achieve these anti-clumping effects is probably twice what
| people are using following existing RDT (water spraying)
| methods.
| searealist wrote:
| WDT was already super popular, so the declumping properties
| aren't very useful. And the static issue is mostly limited to
| non-traditional light roasts.
| webnrrd2k wrote:
| I have to wonder how much this static electricity is in an actual
| coffee shop... I'd think that the machines would be legally
| required to be electrically earth-grounded. Wouldn't this remove
| the static charge as the coffee is physically ground? And, even
| if the coffee particles are charged after physical grinding,
| wouldn't water flowing through them in the espresso maker also
| electrically ground them, thus removing the charge?
| lfuller wrote:
| I consult for a specialty coffee shop, and in my experience the
| electrical ground of the machine has no impact on static
| generation - I doubt the burrs themselves are grounded. The
| amount of static you get very much depends on the specific
| grinder you use. Our large-batch shop grinder creates massive
| amounts of static and requires water to be added to not end up
| with a mess, while our espresso grinders tend to generate less.
|
| To your second point, one of the fascinating things about this
| study is that the static charge during the grinding process
| causes the coffee to clump - that means that by the time the
| water hits the coffee puck it is too late to avoid the static-
| induced clumping.
| aendruk wrote:
| Like others I've been doing this at home for years with
| uncooperative beans e.g. most decaf, but it's fun to have it
| modeled. My highly technical method has been to stick a finger
| under the faucet then twizzle it around the beans in the weighing
| cup.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| Haha, you're not alone--I do the exact same thing! I feel like
| too much water could affect the burrs somehow? I don't know. So
| I am with you! A few drops jostled around and it's good to go!
| psytrx wrote:
| Yes, too much water on the beans can lead to water gathering
| on the burrs, which can lead to rust on the burrs.
|
| I use the teaspoon method (just the handle), cover it in
| water and stir the beans a couple of times. Just a single
| data point, but I've done this for 2 years at ~2.5 shots a
| day with no sign of rust on the burrs. YMMV
| dannylandau wrote:
| Just tried this trick, using a bottle spray on some beans in the
| hopper before grinding. And this was before I read this article,
| very timely!
| alacode wrote:
| I'd be worried if there's an increased risk of mold growth.
| pivo wrote:
| I've been doing this for years and haven't seen any evidence of
| mold, even in more humid summer months.
| antisthenes wrote:
| You're worried mold is going to grow in the 5 minutes between
| grinding and brewing?
| stinos wrote:
| More like in the 24*60 - 5 minutes between brewing and
| grinding again the next day. In all seriousness: it can takes
| surprisingly little time for ground wet coffee to form mold.
| Think 48h range especially when it's relatively hot.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| As a couple people pointed out:
|
| Human taste testing is the only way, if you want to up your game.
| I just published a paper on this on HN (sorry, one arm's in a
| sling, so don't ask for a link).
|
| If what you want is Science, then this is great; don't get me
| wrong.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| There is a burr grinder that never has a problem with static
| cling so does not require the spritz of water: the KitchenAid
| KCG8433DG Burr Grinder (the last two letters refer to the colour
| of the body, so mine is Dark Gray). The grinding mechanism is
| conical and shockingly quiet, unlike the typical flat disk burr
| grinders I've had over the years from Braun, De'Longhi,
| Black+Decker, and Cuisinart, with all their static mess and
| irritating loudness. The conical nature of the grinding mechanism
| seems to force the grounds downward quickly and directly into the
| lower hopper with no static or mess. The lower hopper is
| cylindrical, meaning that the contents pour into my coffee
| maker's basket so much more cleanly than from the rectangular or
| oddly shaped hoppers from the competitors I've mentioned.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpjGfpN4y7w
| deelowe wrote:
| Conical burr grinders are much better. Kitchen aid isn't the
| only brand. I have a brazata encore that works very well and
| there's a good modding community for it as well. For example
| the burrs can be upgraded fairly easily which is typically
| needed if you want an expresso grind.
| cf100clunk wrote:
| I'd never heard of that Brazata Encore, not that I'm in the
| market anymore. Good to know though. The KitchenAid allows
| removal of the top ring in the conical grinder, allowing
| ultra-coarse grinds. I've never had to do that because I find
| that the coarsest grind is already great for my French Press.
| charles_f wrote:
| While the encore is a good machine, pretty much everyone is
| agreeing that flat burrs provide a better consistency than
| conical
| cf100clunk wrote:
| That is not at all what I have found, but who am I to argue
| with "everyone", heh heh.
| deelowe wrote:
| Fair enough. I prefer Americano via the aero press so
| conical is better for me. I think espresso is better when
| made with flat grinders. Tomato tomahto... Trying both, I
| prefer conical.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| What if you grounded the blades and inner areas? Would static be
| eliminated?
| cf100clunk wrote:
| I tested that once on an old Black+Decker burr grinder by
| changing the OEM ungrounded plug to a grounded one. The
| superstructure was mostly plastic so grounding the whole unit
| wasn't possible, so I attached a length of grounded bare copper
| wire and ran it into the hopper after drilling a tiny hole
| (which made the polystyrene crack and require gluing). The
| results were not as I hoped: the bare wire thankfully seemed to
| conduct a lot of the static, but that meant the copper wire was
| coated in the grounds. The end result was that empthing the
| hopper was pretty well just as messy as without grounding.
|
| Your results may/will vary, and I never attempted other grinder
| grounding ideas. I bought a KitchenAid KCG8433DG, which does
| not have any issues with static.
| 01100011 wrote:
| I've used one of these types of sprayers for a couple years:
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08X7HLJP7
|
| I originally did it because my hand burr grinder would end up
| with ground coffee stuck inside due to the static electricity.
| One, quick, half-spray is all that's needed. Lately I also use
| the spritzer to dampen the filter and the grounds while I wait
| for my water to heat up.
| rokkitmensch wrote:
| This is also known as a "bloom" if you do it before the full
| immersion. Helps the CO2 boil off before you load the rest of
| the water in, which keeps the grounds from clumping at the top
| and not fully extracting.
| analog31 wrote:
| Ask HN: To anybody who has tried this, does it gum up the
| grinder?
| avtolik wrote:
| The opposite. It helps with retention.
| nosefurhairdo wrote:
| Nope. I use a little spray every time I grind. Also used to wet
| a fingertip and stir the beans with it for the same effect. I'm
| not grinding for espresso, but reducing static is nice for
| cleanliness and minimizing grind retention. Tons of coffee
| nerds have been using this technique for many years now, never
| heard of it causing grinder issues.
| keep_reading wrote:
| Business partner / coffee expert was huge into the online
| barista community and knew about this method for years. We did
| it with our commercial grinder and it worked great to reduce
| the amount of cleaning the grinder needed
| c0pium wrote:
| The method in this paper is different than most existing RDT
| applications since achieving the best results requires much
| more water than anyone was previously suggesting. The
| heuristic that James Hoffman has espoused is 3-4 spritzes of
| water per 18g of coffee. Obviously this depends on the
| spritzer you use, but it's much more water than people have
| used before so questions about that effect are valid. The
| paper addresses these concerns somewhat by measuring humidity
| in the grind chamber, and they found that it dropped to
| ambient on the order of a minute after grinding finished.
| secondcoming wrote:
| I just spritzed my headphones and the audio quality is definitely
| better
| redandblack wrote:
| I generally don't follow recipes and rules although I do read
| them - but always experiment during cooking. Coffee is one of
| those over the last 40+ years.
|
| After many iterations (filter, mocha pot, simple espresso), I
| have arrived at a French press for my morning coffee at home - I
| grind coffee reasonable fine and onto the pot while getting water
| ready in a electric heater. I add just under 3 tablespoons of
| water and then slow stir for a good 2 to 3 mins. Then add
| remaining water. After a couple of mins, it is a really smooth
| coffee in a mug and ready for the scrum call.
|
| I do the same for tea as well - tea leaves, black as I prefer
| with milk, stir, wait and a relaxing cup at night.
|
| I found the stirring to be the most useful - mentally a few mins
| of inconsequential living, and then with a good cup
| hammock wrote:
| I use a similar method and the stirring / first drench (the
| "bloom" - 45-60sec sufficient in my experience) is important
| for letting all the air come out of the grounds so that they
| can dissolve in the rest of the water and not float on the top
| where the extraction will be suboptimal
| dubeye wrote:
| My local coffee shop does none of the fancy stuff bar you see in
| vids. Bar grinding beans. No weighing or spraying or stirring.
|
| Tastes amazing.
| bch wrote:
| That's great - you're correct in realizing some of these things
| aren't really suitable for a "production" env, versus (e.g.) a
| home enthusiast, which might essentially be a lab environment.
| There's space for both of them.
| L_co wrote:
| Most high-end burr grinders have settings that allow you to
| adjust how much coffee comes out for a single dose. The
| machines also can be tuned to deliver a specific output for a
| given grind and dose. Given this, it's likely that the barista
| is still weighing inputs and outputs, even if you don't see
| them use a scale while you're there.
| yoyoyo1122 wrote:
| I would hope so when they're using espresso machines worth
| $10k+ more than mine
| spoonjim wrote:
| I'd love to see some coffee snobs do ABX tests of their voodoo
| coffee vs. something from Walmart
| LesZedCB wrote:
| it's called cupping and we do it regularly. it's extremely easy
| to detect differences between coffees when tasting side by
| side. I roast my own at home, doing two batches of different
| coffees at a time, and try to compare them with each other as
| well as my previous batches. using grocery store coffee as a
| baseline is actually recommended as well.
|
| I highly recommend doing a cupping sometime, it's great for
| learning what you like, you may discover something.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| I'd be interested in hearing from folks that live in more humid
| climes--is this as much of an issue there, versus, say, Arizona?
| Or is the static buildup consistent regardless of ambient
| moisture?
| pard68 wrote:
| Lived in the Appalachians and Ozarks, both are fairly humid
| locales. Coffee is the most static substance on the face of the
| earth.
| guidedlight wrote:
| Halfway down the article it mentions all this testing is with
| Starbucks coffee beans. Yuk!
| DesiLurker wrote:
| why am I suddenly seeing more posts about coffee & brewing. I can
| swear I did not search about it or click ads, is anybody else
| experiencing this?
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| This kind of passion used to only be seen in items about Emacs
| customization!
| massifist wrote:
| This is good to know.
|
| I usually stir the fresh grinds with a metal fork which seems
| help remove static charge.
|
| It seems like the static problem gets worse with darker roasts
| (in my experience).
| loaph wrote:
| The darker roasts part is mentioned in the article too! It's
| because darker roasts have less internal water content to begin
| with since they have typically been roasted longer
| _kb wrote:
| As an alternative approach, the new Fellow Ode grinder integrates
| an ionizer [0] the grinds pass through for similar effect. A
| similar setup could be hacked into other machines or form part of
| a manual process for those wanting to experiment further.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/B-bXctXbXFc?t=205
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| James Hoffman (linked above) discussed why an ionizer might not
| be as effective
| midtake wrote:
| I've never noticed static is a problem, but I use a $15 blade
| grinder and a $15 French press.
| danielovichdk wrote:
| Funny with this goofing around for making coffee.
|
| I drink a shot of rum in the morning and throw out the coffee,
| because really it tastes worse than the rum.
|
| This man is measuring static when grinding his coffee. It would
| be the same as if someone else started measuring how soft the
| water is when cooking pasta.
|
| Don't get me wrong. I like things that taste good. But it does
| not taste good because of an obscure measurement.
|
| It tastes good because of a feeling. A feeling you get when you
| are reminded of how hard you work, how lovely it is to see your
| best social relations, where you are and so on.
|
| It's like you can drive a Porsche and still look like refitted
| angel investor from Silicon Valley without any class. But the
| porsche has 508hp. Who cares.
|
| It's not the static in the coffee. It's not the soft water. It's
| the rum and the Fiat.
|
| Find your own style and build your own class instead of this nerd
| shit which every coffee purist will be yapping about for days on
| end.
|
| "Uhhh did you sprinkle the beans"...fuck off and give me my rum
| yulker wrote:
| Can you expand on the rum ritual here? As in rum as a
| substitute for having coffee altogether?
| searealist wrote:
| Most of these new techniques (spritz before grinding, pre-
| infusion, puck screens) don't help at all with traditional dark
| espresso roasts. If you aren't brewing light roasts, then you
| don't need to worry about this.
| wackget wrote:
| It can't just be me who thinks adding moisture to the already-
| filthy internals of a coffee grinder is a terrible idea. Sounds
| like a recipe for mould growth.
|
| I took apart my electric grinder once for cleaning and it stank
| of mildew even without adding water to the beans.
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