Dear generic help column in your local paper,
The beautiful thing coffee gives us is its ever changing attitude and form. This beauty can sometimes be a curse, as I have occasionally felt with the single origin spro at Honey, but it allows us to constantly revise our methods and look for new ways to approach old and new problems.
I bring this up because last night Hidenori was working on his routine and asked me "Ani, why you dosing-uppu? Why?" I though the answer was simple... "Some espressos taste better when you use a higher gram amount in the basket, and some espressos taste good when you use a lower gram amount. I dont always dose-up. It's case-by-case. You decide how you want the espresso to taste." But for some reason I kept hearing in the continuing conversation between Izaki and Hidenori, "Muzakashi neeee..." (It's difficult, isn't it...)
I was getting frustrated. What's difficult? Please, let's talk. Let's work it out. We might have some differences but that's always the best part about this, right? Instead of trying to hash it out, Izaki follows up with what feel slike another element of Japanese coffee folklore. Long ago there was a barista in Australia that felt the "space" between the espresso and the shower screen on the group head would cause unrest within the basket during extraction. By eliminating this "space" through dosing up, the mesh and packed espresso touch and then keep the espresso in place during extraction. Times have changed, as they usually do, and my definition of "dosing up" now means adding more espresso to the basket than initially dosed, simply to have a higher gram content (and what that further implies). Where is the Coffeepedia when we need it?
Hidenori and I are on the same page when we use the term "dosing-up," but what am I missing here?
-Frustrated in Fukuoka
2 comments:
Dear F.I.F.,
In espresso, much more than any other brewing method, each variable directly and indirectly effects pretty much every single other variable you can think of.
So if you take a, say a 16-gram dose as a "standard" dose, and dosu-uppu means 20-grams, what changes?
As you mentioned, the volume of the coffee is different. There is little to no "head space." The way the coffee reacts to the introduction of the water, then, is gonna be different. Personally, I think this is one of the least important of the relevant elements.
As you also already mentioned, more coffee means... more coffee. However, it's not so simple.
With a 25% higher dose (by mass), you will grind coarser, for a "proper" extraction. By grinding coarser, you are sort of cheating... tilting the extraction rate more toward the under-extracted end of the spectrum.
Too complicated for this generic advice columnist to write, but there's a reason we like Roburs more: it's cuz we updose. Long story short: Roburs (and other large conical burr grinders) generally make more fines than most other (flat burr) grinders.
Also, with a 25% higher mass, the actual brew temperature will be... lower. The coffee represents a quantity of thermal mass, and with more coffee, the initial "ramp-up" in effective brew temperatures is a little slower going than with a lower dose. In other words, when 200*F water (sorry, I don't speak Metric) hits 100*F coffee, the effective temperature of the (average) extraction space takes a while before it reaches 200*F. The more mass you have, the longer that would take. This also tilts towards a lower extraction rate.
Suffice it to say, there are some coffees that you can "reach deeper into the bean" by a more intense extraction, and still have good flavors... whereas some coffees might be good as brewed coffee, but as espresso, some of the flavors make you want to underextract it on purpose.
With other methods of brewing coffee, the dose is a wholly independent factor. You can dose more, without anything else really changing. Not so with espresso. It is the flow-restriction of the puck that determines the rate of espresso flow... and the flow-restriction of the puck is determined by the coffee (including humidity factors, etc), the grind profile (particle sizes), and the mass of coffee.
That said, I'd ask your friend there a discussion question: Does everyone dose the same for siphon coffee? Is there value in dosing up or down, or increasing or decreasing stirring, or water temp, for different coffees when brewing in a vac/siphon brewer? If the answer to the second question is "yes," then I think that may inform the espresso question too.
Hope that helps at least a little.
This helps tremendously. Your reply ended up as the dinner topic for the night, which ended with "WAKATTA!" (I get it now!) Major break-through. Thank you so much. These are baby steps, but the ability to convey that dosing up isnt simply about "head space" is a huge step. Thanks!!
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