welcome to episode 2 of dialing an
espresso now this is a series where I
take a coffee and I walk you through the
steps that I go through when I'm dialing
in an espresso talk about what I'm
tasting and how I might change my recipe
or technique based on what I'm tasting
to get a better tasting shot this series
is kind of controlled by the top tier of
my patreon supporters they get a poll to
pick which machine I'm going to use
which Gruner I'm going to use and then
one of them gets to pick which coffee or
mini use so machine wise they picked the
sage or the Breville dual boiler they
picked the niche 0 grinder and samuel
picked a rather interesting coffee and I
like this because it may not be
something that I would have picked on my
own which is kind of a point now this is
a UK roaster they're called dark woods
coffee and this is a barrel aged
espresso so I think the raw coffee it's
a wash ethiopian coffee has been aged in
bourbon barrels and then roasted I
wouldn't have picked that it's not that
I wouldn't think I'd like it as it's
just not something I would have picked
let's have a little look inside the
roast level on the little card on the
front this is medium one persons medium
is not the same as another person's
medium versa let's have a little
inspection okay this is oh wow that
smell there's like a ton of vanilla came
off that okay this is gonna be
interesting this is definitely what I
would call medium it's by no means dark
it's not super super light it's nicely
developed I don't think it's going to be
a difficult coffee to extract but I'm
gonna be sensible in terms of my recipes
very light roasted coffees you'd
probably wanna start with a lower dose
very dark roasted coffees and lean
towards a much higher dose and it's to
do with how easy they are to extract so
this so in the middle I'm gonna start
with a nineteen gram dose and go from
there so the way that this machine works
is actually not how I want
work it has two presets and these
actually work on time and I want to go a
different way so I'm gonna start with
the recipe I'm gonna use 19 grams in I'm
gonna aim to get 40 grams out and I'm
going to time how long that takes and
use that information to adjust my grind
setting now I don't actually know what I
last used this grinder for I don't know
where the ground setting is we could be
miles away today's tamper of choice is
the commemorative 2007 world worse the
championship reg barber edition Tampa so
like I said I have no idea how this is
gonna flow I get a nice time display
here so I'm just gonna brew til I get
about 40 grams out
[Music]
now what's not usually helpful in these
videos is when the grinders just fine
right from the get-go but let's not
presume everything is perfect because
timing wise 28 30 seconds is probably
where I'd want to go and and we've just
nailed it straight out of the gate which
is not helpful we can tweak and we can
play so I need a teaspoon because we've
got a stir we know we have to stir well
this is it's a washy Ethiopian coffee
but you can really tell something has
happened to it here in that aging
process there's some good stuff here
there's some not-so-good stuff here
definitely need to tweak and improve
this recipe so even though it was kind
of roughly where you wanted it to be
it's a little harsh and it almost has
this kind of roastiness that it
shouldn't have it's now this is by no
means a rusty coffee but there is a
certain sort of bitterness that comes
and I think that's primarily down to
temperature in this case I think we're
brewing a little bit too hot now this
thing is currently set to 95 degrees
Celsius which actually works really well
with pretty light espresso roasts this
is just that little bit more developed
and I think it needs to come down at
least a couple of degrees no matter how
stable your coffee machine is I would
recommend making a change of at least
one degree Celsius or two degrees
Fahrenheit you need a decent change to
really really taste it in my opinion so
I'm actually gonna drop this two degrees
Celsius I'll take this down to 95 which
is pretty easy to do in this thing you
go now that'll take a moment because
coffee machines a design we need to keep
the heat you know what I mean they're
supposed to be stable so this one
naturally want to cool down very well
I'm gonna run some water through it
clean up my mess now the temperature
alone isn't enough of an adjustment I
actually wanna bring that ratio down a
little bit I was like 19 to 40 41 in
that shot I'm gonna go a little bit
finer actually just a little bit maybe
one step on here so a very small
adjustment same dose in nineteen in but
maybe more like 36 to 38 more of a kind
of classic two to one ratio
slightly lower temperature I think
that's going to help improve the texture
a little bit more I've done I'm going to
sacrifice in extraction and I think it's
going to clean up that kind of harsher
more kind of bitter note at the back of
that shot
[Music]
what we aim before we got which is 19 in
38 out took about 30 seconds I'm not
much change in time so we shouldn't have
sacrificed extraction because we went a
little bit finer right
but hopefully that lower temperature and
that's slightly shorter brew ratio
should just clean up that finish a
little bit this is a really interesting
espresso the aromatics already
interesting it doesn't have that kind of
AG unpleasantness that I will associate
with anything that's described as age
it's really vanilla II I'm a little bit
bourbon II oh yeah that's much better
nice and sweet tons of sweetness in this
actually we're at the upper tier of
extraction in terms of what I'd want
from this I wouldn't say it's
particularly bitter this nice fruit in
it loads of texture really lovely
texture for a wash
you can if you in coffee that may not be
something you would expect like a ton of
nice texture but it's roasted in a way
that it's given itself up very easily
you know there's not a lot that I would
change about that I think that is really
super delicious you could if you wanted
to pull that even shorter I think if you
wanted it a little bit more zip and zing
to it you could pull that just
fractionally shorter maybe like 35 36 so
slightly I started to to one you'd get a
ton more texture and a little bit more
acidity I think so to wrap it up let's
do that so in this case I'm not gonna
change the grind all I'm gonna do is
essentially stop that shot a little bit
earlier see where we go now to make this
espresso extra delicious I'm going to be
using this cup which is something that
we've made that I'll tell you about
afterwards but you know it's guaranteed
to make your espresso ten percent more
tasty not a guarantee
[Music]
so that was it like two seconds faster
two grams less that is delicious I think
that's a really good interpretation of
what was in the bag and what I might
have expected from it I'll leave a link
to them in the description down below I
know the people behind this they're
lovely people now quickly a lot of
people in the previous video complained
that I used a lot of coffee well in this
setup I've used 60 grams to dial in from
this 250 gram bag so I've got 190 grams
left 10 more doubles if I wanted so you
know you don't have to be wasteful this
is kind of a nice setup for darling in
quite carefully without much waste
because you don't really need to purge
this so just about the cup this is part
of the tens hundreds thousands project
where we create a limited edition things
we worked with an artist called maggie
chang and we gave her like a spreadsheet
that had 52 cells that each had a color
representing coffees color in its sort
of flour 2 cups ernie and that was
always sent her and she transformed that
into this cup where you have these icons
and colors around the cup as you go from
flower all the way to cup on the other
side and actually the sauce is pretty
cool because you have like a key to the
symbols on the saucer as well we have a
pretty small run of these we work with
love or Amex that's pretty much their
smallest possible print run when they're
gone they're gone there's a link in the
description down below thank you again
to all my patreon supporters for picking
the kit for picking the coffee sermon if
you're watching this send me your
address because I'm gonna send you a cup
there'll be another episode next month
another different coffee and other
different setup thanks so much for
watching and I hope you have a great day
[Music]