Yeah and the flagship model Thermapen One is on Black Friday sale for $69.99. It has a full read time of one second, which is faster than the older model I have which reads in 2-3 seconds. They are great all-purpose thermometers. However, looks like CAA is using this:
That’s nice because it’s a logger that accepts K-type thermocouples, but it’s $229 for the base unit only. A submersible sous vide type thermocouple would push it close to $300.
I found this interesting. They claim full immersion brew invariably reaches 21% extraction yield independent of grind size or water temperature to a large degree. I see that as mostly good news for cupping (and French press) because it removes a lot of variables. Of course, you can still alter the strength, and I would have to re-read this but I think they indicate that you might not be getting the same chemical composition in that 21% if you alter grind or temperature. It seems like a pretty big deal because you it implies you can see how other factors alter taste perception while holding the raw EY% constant.
this makes sense, if you’re doing an immersion brew you should eventually reach some sort of equilibrium point regardless of grind size. You can’t really overextract the way you can with a pour over because with a pourover the water with dissolved coffee matter in it drains out and gets replaced with clean water that will dissolve more matter. So this is why aeropress brews tend to be more consistent even if it hits the PERFECTION mark less frequently.
The question is “how big is the delta between ‘equilibrium’ for these immersion brews and the ‘optimal’ amount of extraction” (and, “how much time/money/effort am I willing to put in to move incrementally closer to optimal?”
Right, but I guess the surprising part to me is that it’s 21% seemingly no matter what. I think that’s an interesting property to exploit since you can always achieve near-constant EY% while changing other variables, therefore it’s possible to see how other taste perception factors may vary around fixed EY%.
For example, imagine a cupping matrix like this:
1: Medium-Coarse, 1:18, 98C
2: Medium-Coarse, 1:15, 90C
3: Medium-Fine, 1:15, 98C
That should be easy to conduct, and I think it makes more sense as a rapid comparison test to find what a particular coffee responds to as opposed to running out the entire lineup of eight cups. EY% being fixed is a really nice bonus here.
The biggest temperature delta is caused by the coffee grounds acting as a heat sink, right? The calculator I’m using at least gets it to a reasonable range given the starting parameters. So what really seems to make a big difference is the volume of water poured relative to dry coffee. If you’re adding a lot of water immediately then the stability should be better. It does give credence to the common advice of adding a large amount of water very quickly on the first pour.
However, with pulse pouring, the equilibrium temperature is predicted to be substantially lower, like maybe as much as 2-3 C depending on how big the pulses are. In the V60 01 I’m currently using, it’s not possible to pour as much water in initially: maybe that’s an argument in favor of the 02, but also I’m worried about a large water column both bypassing and channeling. What I’m observing is that I can control the slurry temp fairly well by monitoring and continually introducing new hot water, but without seeing the temp in real time, I don’t think my pulsing would be accurate at all.
However, I bet all of the smaller factors add up and could swing the average slurry a temp a few degrees. For example, just changing the water volume from 140 mL to 200 mL against 20 g of coffee results in a predicted equilibrium temp difference of 1 C. That’s not accounting for differences in flow rates (both in and out). Then if you factor in differences in dry coffee weight, post-bloom temp, brewer thermal properties, ambient conditions, kettle / pouring behavior, etc., I’m sure we could find another 1-2 C minimum between different setups.
*I’m using a specific heat range for dry coffee of 1434 to 1680 J/kg*C.
Yes. Definitely. We also know from experience that the size of the pour matters somewhat
Why do you think that raising the slurry temperature quickly is better?
As a counter to that. The blooming phase is clearly at quite a low temperature and seems to help.
I’m assuming that we want to reach the target temperature as quickly as possibly since most of the extraction happens at the beginning. The point of the bloom is to allow CO2 to escape and improve solubility. Not sure how necessary it is for coffee that is properly rested though. What I find most difficult to wrap my head around is watching April’s V60 method compared to Onyx’s. There’s no way they can both work as a general brewing method, so we all must be missing something.
Anyone ever tried yerba mate?
I conducted a side by side brew on this Ethiopia natural because I can’t get it to do anything. Everything the same except water temp: full kettle boiling vs. mostly full kettle 194 F (90 C). These are 10g doses and I had to guess on grind size, unfortunately going too coarse. I’m using Third Wave water and 15:1 ratio with a bloom then single pour up to 150g. Total brew times were 1:20 and 1:35 for hot and cool, respectively. 
I’ve seen people give competing answers on Ethiopia naturals. Some say as hot as possible because the beans are dense and difficult to extract. Others say naturals are much easier to extract and are optimal at lower temps than normal. You’ll find similar conflicting advice on grind size. They consistently seem to produce a lot of fines, so you need to adjust accordingly.
The two cups I produced are so obviously different that I’d lay odds that anyone reading this could identify the odd one out with perfect accuracy. The boiling brew was extremely acid dominant up front, whereas the cooler brew was balanced. However, that’s just the instant sensation of the coffee hitting my mouth (I preferred the balanced one). It took more time to process that both were underextracted and awful, about equally so I’d say. Next step is to grind considerably finer and try again.
Yeah I went through a big mate phase. It’s an acquired taste. I prefer green mate which can be bitter, if it’s roasted it’s more mellow.
If you want to get esoteric, check out guayusa and yaupon, which are like mate but are not mate. Yaupon is native to North America.
I’m resigned to just believing this coffee is the problem. The closest I got to a good cup was grinding super coarse and using low temps. I really want to taste the brews of these dudes grinding V60s at 600 microns and pouring 99C water at 17:1 with tons of agitation. I can recall maybe a handful of coffees in the past decade where that produced the best possible cup for me. I’m starting to suspect that maybe we don’t have the same standards for what constitutes a “good” cup.
i haven’t watched it yet but how can it go wrong
This has been my conclusion for a while.
I know I’m a bit sensitive to harsh flavors. I don’t really like IPAs, any liquor, and things of that nature so I’m under the impression that I’m also more sensitive to the less desirable flavors that start coming out at really high coffee extractions either.
Got moved in to the new house and pulled out my forte. I think it’s making better coffee than my Ode with the new burrs.
When I have the chance I’ll season the Ode some more and compare again. Probably will be a couple weeks before I get around to it though.
Any recs on good coffee at the moment? I’m a week or so from running out of April stuff and canceled my sub because the last two deliveries didn’t have brew guides and I couldn’t edit my delivery address.
Did you ever do this PTC test in school? I did but can’t remember if I tasted it or not. Anyway, it’s just one gene but shows how some people can have a horrible taste experience while others taste nothing. There are certainly some peculiarities I’ve noticed in coffee: naturals are by far my favorite coffees when brewed well, and yet some people absolutely hate them due to a “funky” flavor that I have never tasted.
I’ve also noticed that there seems to be a bimodal distribution in recommendations for V60 recipes with some grinding medium-fine (500 to 600 um?) and doing hottest possible water while others grind medium-coarse and higher (> 800 um) while using lower temped water. I’m definitely in the 2nd camp. Grinding finer than about 7M (1M cal) pretty much guarantees I’ll get at least some horrible bitter flavors in the aftertaste regardless of water chemistry, temperature, agitation, or anything else.
Note that his claim about counting your papillae does not really correlate so well to this as is explained in the Wiki for the TAS2R38 gene. There seems to be at least another gene contributing to the effect that is unknown, and the papillae count isn’t a determining factor.
Because fungiform papillae (FP) number varies with PROP bitterness, TAS2R38 genotype was also suspected to alter FP number. Again, however, TAS2R38 genotype could not explain FP alterations. Additionally, FP number was not a strong predictor of PROP bitterness amongst TAS2R38 heterozygotes, indicating, again, a lack of knowledge about the relationship between PROP bitterness, TAS2R38, and supertasting. Research is leaning toward a second receptor with PROP sensitivity that confers supertasting abilities.
No I’ve never done those tests. I have suspected that I might be a super taster in the past though. I’ve always been really picky about off tastes in water so I need an added flavoring, super cold water, specific bottled brands, or just be plain old dehydrated to really intake much water.
I might try to order some ptc strips and see how I react.
I ordered this one which was about $16 total with shipping included. Not just PTC but also PROP, sodium benzoate (which might be the most important?), and control. One vial of each with about 100 strips of each:
Some of the other sites I looked at seemed like ripoffs. For example, this Supertaster dotcom website gives you 2 strips of only one type for $8.
*I could just mail you some after I get them. Same offer to everyone here.
I’ll take you up on the mailing offer! I was gonna try to find something on Amazon that I’m sure would have led to liver failure or something so thank you!
