Hello, once again a long time since I've been round here! Perhaps that explains a recent realisation:
A collegue of mine has always struggled to pull decent shots depite having a reasonably good grinder and machine (Iberital MC2) & PIDed rancilio Silvia).
He recently went for an hour or so's tuition with Maxwell Colonna Dahswood (UK Barista Champion in case anyone didn't know) as his coffee shop is only half an hour from his home. He came back with lots of info and he said his shots have improved immensley, mainly due to accurate weighing and consistency.
This got me thinking that after nearly 8 of this espresso lark my shots weren't thrilling me like they used to.
Anyway his findings made me think I had gotten lazy and prompted me to get some 0.01g scales and properly measure dose (rather than just overfilling the basket etc) and actually weigh my shots. What I discovered was my dosing and shot volumes were all over the place! I was also prompted to buy one of the VST baskets, though in the meantime I found a triple basket lying around which I had never used, but looked much more like tghe VST ones than the old LM style ridgless basket I had been using far ages
What a difference, long, dark, sweet shots with consistency and not the sourness which had crept in to my shots. I'm not yet sure how much to attribute to the basket and how much to accurate dosing, but it will be interesting to see what happens when the VST basket arrives
I guess this all goes to show if you get lazy/compacent quality suffers.
Hello to anyone who still remembers me
Apologies for any bad typing or smelling pistakes, I'm recovering from carpal tunnel surgery which is also making shot pulling interesting
Simon