As you can see from my previous post, I am just back from a lecture from Scott Rao which was arranged by Anna McGregor of Coffee Labs New Zealand, who i would be the first to acknowledge sources exceptional coffee, and hosted at La Marzocco in Parnell, Auckland
Anyway, Scott didnt know i was in the audience and one of his main thrusts was the importance of using a VST refractometer to measure the extraction of the espresso and at some point he mentioned his friend Andy Schecter had a LONDINIUM I and he called him over to see it as his refractometer was indicating extraction levels of 24% on his LONDINIUM I (the highest extraction level mentioned in the entire lecture!)
I was glowing with pride and I would have gone completely undetected had Anna not blown my cover at that point
Anyway, its hilarious learning something about your own machine from someone from the other side of the world, who knows a customer of yours, who against all odds is presenting in New Zealand and you happen to be attending
Ive not heard from you in a long time Andy, but if youre reading this, cheers! I hope you’re still enjoying your LONDINIUM I
Scott is a fan of the EK43 and i couldnt disagree with that, although i would urge people to try the Compak R120 if you are looking for a grinder of a similar mind bending calibre. The results from the Compak R120 are very different to the EK43 – the EK43 makes every roast incredibly sweet, unbelievably sweet, in my experience but the Compak R120 does something different – instead of sweetness it brings unbelievable clarity of taste, it show cases every subtle note buried in the coffee like no other grinder i have tried
Scott drove home the importance of the grinder, the grinder trumping everything, and having the ability to transform any level of espresso machine and its good to be reminded of that message
Scott might have almost persuaded me to buy a VST refractometer – those of you will know how vocifierously i have written about the importance of being guided by taste, and i still hold to this but i do accept a refractometer would be a nice toy to have on board, but only after youve got yourself your ultimate grinder in my view. Interesting points he emphasised were that as a grinder’s burrs age, i.e. grind more coffee, the optimum extraction from that grinder falls. i.e. a new grinder might have an optimum extraction of 22% but after 400Kg its optimum extraction might be 18% (percentages just used to illustrate a point) and that the optimum extraction differs between grinders, i.e. the optimum extraction from a Robur will be less than an EK43
Other points of interest Scott made were that he doesnt like doserless (electronic) grinders and that he prefers a dosed grinder – he sighted clumping as a reason – that doserless grinders clump. i would agree with his preference for dosered grinders in a shop setting, but not for the reason of clumping; i think dosered grinders do a better job of distributing the difference sized and shaped grinds. Scott thinks clumping is killer, i dont because coffee is hydrophillac and as each grind comes into contact with water it swells and any clump is destroyed as a result. to be fair my comments relate to lever machines where we have the luxury of a long, lazy, low pressure pre-infusion that in my experience just eliminate clumps
Whilst I recognise that doserless grinders do not distribute the coffee as well as a dosered grinder, I still believe doserless grinders are the way to go in the home at least (taking a doser unit apart on a regular basis to remove the stale grounds does not feature in my list for Santa) and i will be acquiring a Compak E10 for home before the year is out i expect, and if i went dosered it would be a Compak K10 pro barista
Scott also stressed the importance of a snug fitting tamper, endorsing 58.40mm tampers for a basket measuring 58.70mm, so i was pleased as our tampers are 58.50mm
One point of interest he did raise was dont level with the edge of your finger, which is something i am guilty of doing – im going to try using the back of a knife for a month and see if i can raise my game – he was at pains to emphasise the importance of not having it just finger flat but dead flat, spirit level flat all over, before you tamp. Scott also recommended two taps of the portafilter before levelling to knock out any air pockets in the the mound of coffee, and too his credit acknowledged that if you knock more than twice you start separating the grinds by weight in the basket (which is the laat thing you want to do). My personal preference is to nutate instead of knocking as i think it achieves the same thing, but without risking the separation by weight issue
The other thing Scott spent a lot of time on was water, and to be honest i think if youve got an obsessive compulsive disorder with measuring things this is the best place to direct your affliction. Its hard to argue with the premise that majority of your espresso by volume is water, and therefore you need to measure it. Interesting he talked about total dissolved solids (TDS) yet he didnt mention the fact that two equal TDS values could comprise totally different dissolved solids that just happened to add up to the same number, which would result in a differing taste, but hey ho. My father’s cousin has a water filtration business here in Auckland and i can see myself paying them a visit in the not too distant future, perhaps with a view to going completely mad and seeing what fully engineered water would give us
One thing i learnt completely from Scott was how to break in the burrs on a new grinder. Scott said you set your burrs to their finest setting then put a kilo of beans through. then set the burrs back to their normal position and prepare your coffee and measure the extraction level – it will be low, as is characteristic of new burrs as they are so sharp the level of fines produced is very low, perhaps 17%. then set the grinder back to the finest setting and put another kilo through, then set the burrs back to the normal setting and prepare another shot an measure that – it will still be at the same low level as the first one. keep performing iterations of this until until you see the extraction rise, then keep perfoming additional iterations until the extraction level stops rising. Your burrs are now broken in. The moral of the story is of course that you need a refractometer, VST by inference, to break in your grinder in order to waste as little coffee as possible and not wear the burrs more than is absolutely necessary
Somewhere along the way Scott very graciously acknowledge that the American speciality scene in particular, and speciality coffee in general, has derided the Italian way of making espresso for way too long, yet interestingly the wheel is more or less turning full circle after millions of meaurements have been made by fanatical coffee ‘lab techinician’ types and the doses are now dropping back from 23g to more like 18g and grinding finer and getting a better extraction. This to me is absolutely hilarious and i thought Scott was extremely couragous to admit to it in public. The only rider he added is that Italy needs to start buying higher grade green coffee, which i think is beyond dispute, but it must be remembered that Italy is not a wealthy nation for the most part and they drink a lot of coffee – it is very much part of their life so it is understandable that it is very price sensitive in the same way the petrol prices might be watched in other countries
Extra credit must be given to Scott for fronting up as he had quite severe laryngitis and if he was a diva he surely would have cancelled as he has another lecture to give tomorrow. Thanks for coming to New Zealand Scott, it was a privilege to sip from your fount of knowledge
Scott has an eBook available on Amazon which i would thoroughly recommend, he is a vastly expereinced barista and presents well. if you are considering hiring Scott’s expertise I would strongly suggest that he will bring a lot to your organisation; do it!