we have been a bit quiet of late, partly because january in new zealand is the equivalent of august in europe, so productivity tends to be down and the surf tends to be up, and partly because we have to bide our time until the improved two hole tip and L1 enhancement kit become available, followed by the LM (the londinium manual lever machine)
but we havent been completely indolent. frans has prepared a trilogy of excellent videos, one for each of the beans we currently have on offer, to show you how to get the very best out of them with a Compak E8 grinder, which we have settled upon as our recommended grinder, at least for our single group machines, assuming your budget doesnt stretch to the all conquering Compak R120
the only reason why these videos have been added to each of our bean product pages is as a result of bedding in our new website over the last couple of weeks we have decided to move to a new template to hang the content off. we expect to release this new template tomorrow, and with it frans’ excellent videos
anyway, to cut a long story short, when frans first sent me the videos and i watched them for the first time i saw him using a mini wire whisk to redistribute the grounds prior to tamping them. to be honest my initial reaction was, “bugger”. why? because the central tenet of the LONDINIUM system of espresso is simplicity. as long time readers of this blog know, i have little patience for people who try to obfuscate others with their expertise – not just in coffee, but in any area of expertise. if you’re really good, you’ll be able to communicate simply and clearly with others; that is the mark of an genuine expert
anyway, i have been wrestling with various basket preparation techniques for some time, trying to come up with a simple system that will consistently result in a single central pour, and one that can be communicated simply and concisely to our customers. happily frans’ system is one that works. i would love to have come up with something even simpler, but to date this is the best i have found
what is it, i hear you ask? as you will see in the videos in the next day the system assumes you have a LONDINIUM lever espresso machine and a Compak E8 grinder. we are also moving to endorse the 18g ridgeless VST basket as our aftermarket basket of choice, which we will be adding to the store imminently. a LONDINIUM button tamper, and now, a mini whisk.
grind directly into the portafilter with the E8 then take the mini whisk and twirl it around as shown in the video. tamp with a simple level motion and pull the shot. it really is that simple and i have tested it for consistency by replicating the central pour probably four times out of five with no particular stress
so there you have it. a simple method for consistently achieving a central pour, and it really is a goal worth achieving as your coffee tastes exponentially better when your basket prepration is good enough to yield a single central pour, and now we have such a system the works even on the notoriously exacting VST baskets
that’s all for today, but more on this important topic soon
reiss.