CI mulls curved dosing tools
February 14, 2007 – 11:08 pmis it just this blog, or has it now become so common for hard-core amateur home-junkies to do the scintillating, labor-intensive and research-dependent espresso envelope pushing that the collective reaction of the professional community to these breakthroughs is, more or less … “huh.”
‘course, that’s not to say that amateurs always follow through on their discoveries. quite the contrary.
You know…lately I’ve been lurking on many blogs and forums, both professional and “amateur.” It seems to me that any questions regarding new extraction techniques are brought to the table by the latter. I am a professional barista and while I’d love to have a thoroughly tweaked home setup to play with different variables, I can’t quite afford it, yet. I look forward to what Jim and Andy find out and I applaud them and many other “home-users” for asking “What if?”
Keep up the good work. Love your blog
it’s a good point — home junkies, in many cases, just have more TIME. and maybe a bt more appetite for the coffee grind when they get home from the day job.
always nice when i manage to induce a lurker into leaving a comment.
many thanks.
Pros don’t often talk about the experimenting, you only see the end result. At least they don’t go to the level of self promotion jim often does about his own exploits…
We have to accept that not everything happens in the vacuum of the online community. When’s the last time you saw Andrew Barnett or George Howell lecturing on espresso or green quality in the forums? I know they are doing some interesting projects right now but it’s all under the radar as are a lot of business projects.
Anyway, I’m not really into the swiss cheese project jim is offering up but I can’t bring myself to antagonize him again. He is oversimplifying things and some of the premises need to been widened and rethought. I once got almost 30 pages deep into notes on diagnosis for different profiles and dosing/temp/volume adjustment to achieve maz sweetness from using different roasters and different bean choices before I realized, the complexity meant you can’t have hard fast rules, you need a lot of experience.
I did research on sugars where I found some interesting bits and pieces that make me question anyone who references the term lightly.
-My 2cents.
of course jim’s posit is simplistic (thus the reason for the semi-facetious title … i’m not even CLOSE to hewing curved dosing tools). bean density, sugars, the ol’ dose/temp slide rule, etc. are all massive and complicated factors to themselves. and if anyone is against rules, it’s me.
but i didn’t see jim advocating any rules. nor does he ever come off as arrogant in my book (as opposed to certain pro luminaries who exude self-worth). he’s saying american baristi may be limiting themselves by how they dose.
he was throwing out a basic (and unfinished) building block as he saw it. what’s wrong with that? pros are certainly doing significant research behind the scenes, but from my perspective, what’s the impact? few people know about it and are able to build on it — particularly those people whose only connection to quality coffee is the internet. you could make an argument that the third wave only exists because of the online networking that supports it.
pros across the country oohed and aahed at andy’s pressure-sculpting device at the last scaa show. that’s a legit step forward for the barista world, pro and amateur. and now several seasoned pros are being pushed wider (not narrower) in their thinking by jim’s latest posit. it’s just a building block (maybe even a tiny one) that advances the widespread movement toward better coffee understanding. i, for one, value that sort of transparency.
is it that pros don’t like floating their half-baked ideas online? i dunno. maybe you can answer that, jaime. i have no lack of respect for schomer and howell and all those true gurus … but you don’t have to be schomer or get 30 pages into profile diagnoses before you start sharing.
i mean, i have met (in person) a grand total of two coffee people you would know — nick cho and dan kehn. and i barely had time to speak to them. the online community is the sole reason i can make a good shot of spro. to say “this research is for the elite club only” comes much closer to true arrogance, it seems.
meanwhile, i don’t take jim’s notion as gospel. i’m going to test the heck out of it, and probably veer off somewhere else. yum.
of course, i’m not saying you’re a proponent of this elite club by any means, jaime. you blog your research, and i enjoy learning from it.
i just see no reason to ‘antagonize’ legitimate ideas in the evolution process.
American baristi do limit themselves by how they dose. Most of the well known barista have ever only worked with only one coffee and one roast profile/ style ever.
Your coment about George and Schomer is right on, it doesn’t -directly- help us what they do but it’s a business so we cannot overlook that aspect. What we can say is exactly why did they go that route and try to repeat the experiments.
If Jim’s opinion does influence some barista to expand their repetoire, that’s a good thing. I think he is making an argument for a set of rules. I don’t opose his posting simply irked by how much it looks to be a search for glory. I could be wrong.
As far as half baked and sharing notes… I only post things these days when I do as much research as I can to be confident about what I am posting. I know who reads my blog and a few are people I really respect and would not want to post half cocked ideas or make foolish assumptions. Some of the things I post involve a few phone calls and often a lot of time reading. Then again, there’s several research projects underway that I will never talk about online or in any forum because, financialy there is no benefit in sharing those things.
I am about to start a public project soon that I hope will finaly end what has been a big silly debate. it will take two years, include 4 roasters from four corners of the us and has already cost me a good amount of time and money prepping. If it works out, I hope it will mean access to better coffee for alot of us or t least instill a common thread of acceptance. I won’t say there’s not glory but I will happily pass that on to my cohorts if I end up with access ot better coffee.
Antagonism is not a bad thing. Even if you agree with someone, you should play devil’s advocate enough to strengthen or find the flaws in the argument.
huh? i’m following you for most of this. but are you saying that you only discuss projects when there’s a financial benefit to you? even businessmen like schomer and howell wouldn’t go that far, i don’t think. whatever happened to spreading the gospel freely? i’d argue that a freer flow of information enhances your business prospects in the long run — like the stock market, or democracy.
grin. i’m a reporter, jaime. i am, by nature, skeptical and occasionally contentious. but it’s usually about ideas, not people themselves.
this whole thing sorta reminds me of the news business, actually. we are learning to be less monolithic, more free-flowing, post the news when we know it, update it when we know more, correct it immediately. we’re involving citizens more, writing stories about their concerns, using their information posted in our internet forums to generate investigations, etc.
in almost every realm the freer flow of information online — and incrementalism itself — is becoming the hallmark of successful industries that adapt to change and harness the web to advance their cause. my point?
do all the same research, but think less like a book publisher and more like a blogger. real-time is where it’s at.
i only discuss projects I -don’t- have a financial interest vested in.
coffee bloggers need to get better networked and become a stronger force. That’s my opinion.
In all honesty, I went back and read jim’s more final paper and it looks a lot better than the mess he had up earlier. I don’t agree with a lot of the comments he made in the varied forums about the paper but it(once he identifies the bean choices he was making for the experiment) has more clarity now and doesn’t make many strong statements.
Do you have any interest in doing a research project?
clarified. thanks.
i don’t particularly desire to be a ‘stronger force’ as a blogger. this whole thing has been a gigantic accident (exhibit A), and my fence-straddling aim remains to simply chronicle how “premium coffee collides with real life.” other blogs have different goals, and that’s cool. i just have no desire to be some third wave juggernaut. i’ve seen that overinflated status ruin too many knowledgeable coffee people already.
i’m always interested in a research project — it’s just a matter of time. only reason i didn’t join the coffee research group is a severe lack of time just to READ those forums, let alone contribute and do homework. so it’s sporadic, half-baked hackery for me…