Merry caffeinating!

Sipping an Onyx Framily ala Chemex.  Tasty Ethiopian.  

HS

I pulled a few decent shots with the Flair Pro2 and used the Bellman to make cappuccinos. A quick blast of full steam into the milk makes a perfect dry foam on top of the textured milk. This shot was actually pulled on a standard Flair brewhead, not the Pro, but still turned out pretty. 15.5 in 32 out in about 45 seconds, peaking at 6 bar.

Edited December 25, 20214 yr by EdipisReks1

I've gotten into coffee again and so far have been maintaining a healthy relationship with it this time around. Primarily, I've been cold brewing with coffee ground at 10 on the Fellow Ode in one of these. Over the past few months, I've gotten to the point where I can agree with the tasting notes for the most part and taste the stuff I ought to be tasting. With a V60, however, it all tastes the same regardless of what adjustments I make. Varied grind size from 0 to 6 on the Ode. Varied  water temperature on a Fellow Stagg EKG kettle. Maybe on a random occasion I might get distant hints of something familiar but I feel it's likely because I want it to be there instead of actually tasting it. 

Any thoughts from the brewmasters? 

15 minutes ago, crappyjones123 said:

I've gotten into coffee again and so far have been maintaining a healthy relationship with it this time around. Primarily, I've been cold brewing with coffee ground at 10 on the Fellow Ode in one of these. Over the past few months, I've gotten to the point where I can agree with the tasting notes for the most part and taste the stuff I ought to be tasting. With a V60, however, it all tastes the same regardless of what adjustments I make. Varied grind size from 0 to 6 on the Ode. Varied  water temperature on a Fellow Stagg EKG kettle. Maybe on a random occasion I might get distant hints of something familiar but I feel it's likely because I want it to be there instead of actually tasting it. 

Any thoughts from the brewmasters? 

I wonder how much the grind size varies on the particular Ode you have -- there's the general guideline of going finer and finer until you get bitterness, then going back to the setting right coarser than that. In my experience that's where the biggest changes in flavor occur from adjusting grind setting; if you're coarser than that by too much, adjusting the grind does less and less.

Another thought is ratio -- how many grams of water are you using for each gram ground coffee? If this number is too high it would totally make sense to not notice changes as much (as the strength of the coffee simply isn't high enough for extraction changes to do much).

Come to think of it, the best cup so far has been with the ode grinding at 1.5. my drawdown times were longer (4 minutes-ish) so I started grinding coarser. 

Usually around 1:15 or 1:16 for coffee to water. The only time it got bitter was when I went 1:13 or so. 

The general wisdom is "don't fear a long drawdown"; this is especially true if your filter papers are slower flowing.

If I may ask, what is your typical recipe with the V60?

45g water, wait 45 seconds for bloom

45g water, wait 30 seconds after every pour

Ode at 1.5 with the above recipe has produced the best cup so far.

 

my lever machine showed up. There were some initial indications of it’s italian heritage, but once I disassembled it and connected the pressurestat, I was able to pull a tasty, tho slightly long, shot my first try. 

2 hours ago, crappyjones123 said:

45g water, wait 45 seconds for bloom

45g water, wait 30 seconds after every pour

Ode at 1.5 with the above recipe has produced the best cup so far.

 

Ah, are you doing 4:6 or something like that (seems like you're doing 5 pours)?

There are definitely people who have gotten good results from changing up the recipe. Try something in this family (said family defined more or less by the use of manual agitation like swirling or stirring). One issue you may run into is it seems your Ode is grinding very coarsely -- the sweet spot for 4:6 is usually coarser, and you may not be able to grind fine enough for other recipes like this.

Any thoughts on calibration, Ode owners? It seems like 1.5 for a good 4:6 means the grinder isn't calibrated fine enough.

 

Definitely calibrate it. It’s easy. I would also suggest getting the SSP burrs and making it stepless as well. These are both easy too, but you need to spend money to get the burrs. 

Ordered and received the SSP burrs from Fellow a few days ago. Was trying to see if I could do anything different/else before installing them. Pre-SSP, what were you grinding at for pour over Reks? 

1 or 2. closer to 1 normally. I’m at about 7 post SSP. Make sure you follow the specific instructions for calibrating the SSP. Make sure you have the machine absolutely spotless before you install the new burrs. It’s very straightforward; the difference is basically where you have to have the front plate knob set.

To turn it stepless, just remove the screw that attaches the stepper knob and remove said knob (the metal one you rotate when you calibrate). The stepper system is just a tube and a spring, and it comes right out with no effort.  I really like the Ode with SSP. 
 

 

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by EdipisReks1

i thought the problem with making it stepless is then it's more likely to drift

 

16 hours ago, grawk said:

i thought the problem with making it stepless is then it's more likely to drift

 

Everything that isn’t stepped drifts. Anything that isn’t does too. It’s easy to calibrate this one, and I’m not too worried about it, as it’s stepless and is easy to adjust in use all of a sudden. 

Edited December 29, 20214 yr by EdipisReks1

Well, the OG doesn’t drift, but it’s sort of… special. Would also be the only grinder I owned it I could only have one. 

This stuff is like powder. 
 

Calibrated to 5 clicks away from chirping. Thinking I might go a bit more so I have usable range for cold brew. 

Yes, it will produce powder with the ssp burrs. I have mine set just to where they don’t chirp, but I’m looking for adjustment range for filter and espresso (less of the latter, more of the former), so setting yours further coarser makes sense to me. 

So far, I'm happy with the Strega, with no bad shots pulled (out of 8). I'm not convinced I can pull a better shot with it than with the decent, so eventually I'll put them side by side and see.   

Fun comparison, grawk.  Look forward to more reviews.

I've been enjoying my Bianca.  What I did not appreciate was the complexity on grinds given different beans and the impacts from aging.  I also cleaned out my Nice Zero thoroughly and it seems to have shifted the grinds from their usual measures such that my Chemex pour over grind now needs to be more coarse...interesting stuff.

The Onyx Advent calendar continues to impress.  I should have been finished with the coffee by now but went sideways with the espresso machine so some good coffees left to explore into the New Year.

HS

I wonder how much they change to the niche is from the burrs “seasoning?” I’m not totally convinced it’s actually a thing, but you never know!

I've owned it quite a while, ER, and the only changes I can offer where a thorough cleaning and I did retighten the 10mm bolt over the plastic disc (avoids "popcorning" of the beans and came after I received my Niche).  The bolt initially loosened after my cleaning as I noted the disc wobbling a bit during a grind...I did not crank it down as tight as previously and it came loose.  Since then I tightened pretty well.

Those are literally the only changes other than I'm recalibrating more often mostly due to switching between espresso and pour over which I never did previously.

Clear as mud...

HS

3 hours ago, HemiSam said:

I've owned it quite a while, ER, and the only changes I can offer where a thorough cleaning and I did retighten the 10mm bolt over the plastic disc (avoids "popcorning" of the beans and came after I received my Niche).  The bolt initially loosened after my cleaning as I noted the disc wobbling a bit during a grind...I did not crank it down as tight as previously and it came loose.  Since then I tightened pretty well.

Those are literally the only changes other than I'm recalibrating more often mostly due to switching between espresso and pour over which I never did previously.

Clear as mud...

HS

Coffee is a pain. Wouldn’t be fun if it weren’t. 

I am sufficiently happy with this morning’s oat milk cortado. 

 

 

It’s a nicaraguan limoncillo ethiosar roasted medium light. 

Anyone that wants to give the Chemex a try, Domestic Domestic has them for 40% off. Decided to give it a try after using a V60 for a while.