Anecdotal: I own a Skerton and feel like it produces a surprisingly consistent fine grind. The burrs just don’t seem to wobble when they are almost closed. For anything coarser than fine V60 it’s awful. Also, grinding with it isn’t enjoyable.
People swear by the Comandante, but holy shit it’s expensive for a hand grinder and almost always out of stock. Some people really like the 1Zpresso JX at about half the price. The Timemore series grinders are cheaper and reputable. OE Lidos are reputable. Lots of premium hand grinder options but they are spendy.
Fwiw, it’s crazy easy to remove the handle from the skerton and put a 10mm nut on there and use a power drill to grind the beans.
I haven’t used mine in a few years but maybe I’ll dust it off and do some comparisons. My memory is that even when set as fine as possible there was still some decent play in the burrs but it could just be in my head.
I think fine setting and loaded with beans is pretty stable. Maybe the quality varies though. Grinders like the Lido and Comandante definitely have bearings that allow for non-wobble grinding.
Let’s face it: good grinders are expensive. Unfortunately it’s the most important piece of gear.
Did you check out that astrophysicist’s site? He’s huge into freezing. I’m kind of mad because I thought maybe I was the first person to nail some of this stuff but dude is ahead of me by several years.
so I’ve been going back to the V60 more lately. I think I’ve dialed in a pretty good grind (as good as I’m going to get with my conical breville, anyway, and I can definitely tell where it gets sour and where it gets bitter and where the sweet spot is.
I’m using the Rao method, seems to work pretty well, except I am usually only brewing 10g of coffee to 170g of water (which is usually like 150g out) and then I dilute that to like 200g total weight (I don’t like big cups but I should probably just brew 20/340 to save filters and keep half of it in a sealed container to drink later since I’m always drinking at least 2 cups a day anyway).
A couple of things I’m not sure about.
my grinds are a little clumpy. I figure this isn’t too big of a concern since I agitate a decent amount when I bloom but should I be breaking these up before I dump them into the filter?
I mix up my grinds with a spoon in the grinds catch before I put them in the V60. I wouldn’t call that bed high and dry. It just looks like mud to me–just fines, no larger particles. It could be a sign that you’re grinding too fine (less likely) or that your grinder produces relatively too many fines (more likely).
There’s definitely a sweet spot though and it can be a real nuisance for me. I had it dialed in then started tinkering like an idiot and lost it. IME being just slightly off can make all the difference. It feels sort of like miniature golf, putting uphill onto a small plateau: if the ball rests on top it’s good, but barely miss and it rolls all the way down. Hard to recommend V60 for people who aren’t enthusiasts.
The latest assessments of the health effects of coffee and caffeine, its main active ingredient, are reassuring indeed. Their consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of all kinds of ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, gallstones, depression, suicide, cirrhosis, liver cancer, melanoma and prostate cancer.
looks like I’m probably not drinking enough:
In fact, in numerous studies conducted throughout the world, consuming four or five eight-ounce cups of coffee (or about 400 milligrams of caffeine) a day has been associated with reduced death rates . In a study of more than 200,000 participants followed for up to 30 years, those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day, with or without caffeine, were 15 percent less likely to die early from all causes than were people who shunned coffee. Perhaps most dramatic was a 50 percent reduction in the risk of suicide among both men and women who were moderate coffee drinkers, perhaps by boosting production of brain chemicals that have antidepressant effects.
Here is my bed from today. I might be slightly coarser than you, not sure. What’s weird to me is that your mud rides up the ridges like fingers. Don’t think I’ve ever had that.
I stopped including the bloom in my time because it can vary, so I just tack on 0:30 to 0:45 seconds for a check on my drawdown. This one ran 2:45 equating to 3:15 - 3:30 but it wasn’t that great in the cup. Are you doing multiple pours or one pour?
I was experimenting today and let the water ride up really high in the cone in one fast pour. Previously I speculated that this may not be great because it turns into a pseudo-immersion. However, there’s another factor I failed to consider, and it’s that high water levels may be bypassing the grounds through the side walls which would also lead to under-extraction. I watched an interview recently where the astrophysicist guy told Rao he’s using up to five pours now to keep the water low.
I bought some of this loose Earl Grey with silver needles and it’s wild, but I’ve never had a tea that I thought was nearly as interesting as coffee. It’s a strange flavor but sort of dry with no development or aftertaste and not a hint of sweetness or acidity. Maybe I’m missing something.
I’m generally doing bloom 3x, pour 10x (total), pour 17x (total). Bloom for 30-45 depending on how closely I’m paying attention, and then usually 60-90 seconds between the 10x and 17x pours.
I just finished a bag of beans, so I’ll probably do a few cups with the same routine to get a baseline with the next bag, then maybe try a few with more smaller pours
If you get a chance, try doing it all as one fast pour with a high water level vs. dividing into 4-5 equal pours with a low water level while keeping everything else the same. Like maybe do one right after another so you can A/B same session. In theory, the first should taste UE and the second OE compared to your current grind level and method. But maybe they won’t, which would be interesting. Would also advise letting it cool to 115 F before tasting if you have a thermometer available.
Heads up to @jwax13 or anyone else in the market for a budget grinder. Baratza sells refurb units at a discount that have been tough to come by during pandemic and sell out quickly. They have the Encore in stock now for $99. This should be a significant upgrade over blade grinder if you’re just doing French press or whatever and don’t want to wait around for a $300 ticket into the rabbit hole.
I forgot to make the journal entry today. Today’s reminder is that coffee is hard.
Through a combination of experimenting and recalibrating I wound up in the no man’s land of V60 grind range. By that I mean grinding slightly coarser and slightly finer did not reveal which direction I needed to go based on taste. No bearings. No compass. In fact, it was all kind of sour until I got to extra fine grind.
It turns out that I had drifted off into a too fine trap and was bouncing around between 5 and 8 when 9 was the magic number. I mean the cup profile change between 8 and 9 is unbelievable, and it’s scary because that’s maybe a couple human hairs thickness in target particle size. The “bad” taste is sort of like black tea with lime juice and it seems to show up anytime the grind is outside a rather narrow optimal range. The “good” taste round, balanced, and juicy with some sweetness.
I think this is sort of why I don’t like the V60. You really only have control over the grind size (and, I guess, pour speed). And the grind size actually changes two important things (the amount of exposed surface area and how fast the water passes through), so it can be really hard to get it right.
With the aeropress, if I’m off by a little with the grind it’s pretty easy to just adjust the brew time to whatever I need to compensate. And it’s easier to make smaller batches to experiment while dialing it in (I probably need to test this but it feels like I can’t just make 2x as much coffee in a V60 without upsetting the drawdown speed in a bad way whereas I can change the amount of grinds in the aeropress without upsetting anything as long as I keep the same water ratio).
I’ve had some brilliant cups out of the V60 even with my meager grinder, but it’s just so finicky I don’t want to fuck with it when I’m up at 5:00 and just want to get a cup made before I walk the dog. When I get home I don’t mind putting in a little extra effort. I’m pretty convinced that the best cups from the V60 will be significantly better than what I can get out of the aeropress, but the variance is huge and the bad cups can be really, really bad.
Right, it’s an enigmatic device with huge variance and not recommended for non-enthusiasts. The advantage is low cost reference device that’s good for learning the subtle aspects of brewing. Occasionally you get a mind-blowing cup, but I would never consider V60 an end-game brewer. For most people, assuming they are going for the percolation cup profile, the answer is an SCA-certified home brewer. All of these rabbit hole technical aspects we’ve been discussing like TDS, EY%, ratios, particle size distribution, and temperature that are absolutely crucial are part of the certification process:
we’ve talked about roasters before but I can’t dig through this thread, who’s doing really good single origin light roasts? I’ve mostly been buying from https://www.sumpcoffee.com/ and https://www.seycoffee.com/ and just looking to branch out a bit
I’ve tried a couple of local places and they either don’t do real light roasts or they aren’t really experienced at it and I haven’t been too impressed with their work.
