This was brewed with a local roast near me called Reunion coffee roasters. The roast was Bullet Espresso, a medium-dark espresso roast. It was allright, nothing mind blowing.
Recently I discovered Burukudu, which is also a local roaster located within walking distance of my condo. I bought a bag of their 42 “Pete’s perfect” espresso blend… it’s gassing off right now (just shy of a week old), but dang, the aroma is mind blowing!! Can’t wait to crack open the bag next week and brew something yummy! According to the shop keeper, this guy Pete learned the recipe for this blend from his father. And it’s a family secret that’s passed on from generation to generation.
Bullet was OK, nothing special. I think their biggest issue is that they are more of a “mainstream” roaster, i.e. their beans are not really fresh… and they only have a best before date.
I cracked open my bag of 42 today, roasted on Jan 3, 2024, so done degassing. Wow. It tasted OK with a standard Breville basket, but then I tried it with the IMS Big Bang basket… mind blown! Such a beautiful aroma! I feel like I need to tweak the recipe a bit more, but so far it’s one of the tastiest espressos I’ve had. Taste profile is reminiscent of “classical” Italian espresso, but with the aroma and taste notes (caramel/chocolate) of lighter roasts. I’m loving it so far!
That sounds amazing (the 42)! Italian roast and Italian espresso is what got me into espressos, and I love them deeply. I’ve since move all over the world, in terms of coffees, and I’ve generally settled on medium and medium/light roasts, instead of the darker Italian. Nevertheless, I still find myself going back to Italian roasts every so often. Actually, I just roasted an Italian roast today, and I can’t wait to try it once it degasses enough. In your opinion, is the 42 worth the $20?
It’s a pretty standard price in Toronto for a bag this size. If you’re local, you may be able to get a better deal if you visit the store in person. It’s a very nice lounge with 80-90s music (on vinyl!) and a friendly vibe.
It’s definitely not expensive, and is very reasonable for decent to good roasts. I didn’t mean to sound as though I was implying it was excessively priced (I wasn’t implying that). Sorry about that. I only meant to ask if it was worth the price for the quality. For example, sbux, to me, isn’t worth the price tag (even though it’s not expensive), because I don’t like their coffee. That sort of thing. The vibe sounds amazing!
Oh, I think it’s worth the price, as long as you manage expectations of what you’re buying. This is by no means a fancy/experimental light/medium roast (like deMello, another Toronto-area roaster) with lots of complex notes and flavours… the “42” is definitely a classic Italian base with a good aroma to it. It’s a post-roast blend, and it seems to me like at least 2, maybe 3 different roasts. 2/3 dark, with 1/3 medium/light beans, just based off casual observation.
Ooh! I love those types of blends, they’re so interesting! I did multi-roast blends, and they were some of the most interesting roasts I’ve ever done. It just takes so much longer to roast, since I have to basically roast several singles to make the blend. When it gets warmer, I plan on making more of them. I started saving up for the 42, and I will add deMello Roasters to the list, too. They seem very good, too. Any specific roast that you would recommend?
I like fruity notes, but not acidic notes. They usually come hand in hand, though, so I take what I can get haha I’ll add that to the list. I do tend to like Ethiopian coffees. Thanks!
I tasted the Italian roast today, and it was amazing. It’s not 100% degassed, yet, which is to be expected for a darker roast 3 days out. I’ll wait a couple more days before I try again.
But from what I’ve seen, they’re all pretty much the same - Washing soda and an oxygen bleach (some brands add surfactants).
If you did it by approximate weight you’d be fine. But double dose probably wouldn’t make a difference either (the ingredients are easily dissolved).
I’d suspect the tablets contain a binder that might make them slower to dissolve.
If you want to get experimental, couch a spoon in one glass and a tablet in another and fill hald with hot water and see how long they take to dissolve.
I’m curious, but probably wouldn’t be curious enough to do it. I’d just Chuck in the scoop and give it a wash cycle and maybe an additional rinse (wash without powder) until the final rinse water from the clean cycle looks clear and tastes ok.
After a rinse or two I can’t imagine it’d be concentrated enough to case an issue from a tiny taste test (but I’m not a doctor, you do you).
Yeah you are a bit but manufacturers do like to ham up the warnings, so it’s understandable.
I wouldn’t stress. They’re all so similar. The variations will need mostly proprietary differentiation nonsense.
The sodium carbonate might attack copper and aluminium at moderate concentrations. I suspect the concentration would be enough to do mild damage if you left it a long time (ever run an aluminium pot, ice cream scoop or kitchen gadget through a dishwasher? You get that crazed grey look). But the chemicals and the duration of the cleaning cycle wouldn’t give it enough time to do meaningful damage.
From a heath angle, the cleaning agents in these tablets are also reasonably mild (in the scheme of things). Probably better to err in the side of no serious chemical burns to customers’ throats (in case the cleaning cycle goes wrong). Sodium carbonate (washing soda) and sodium percarbonate are generally mild irritants - best if you don’t stick your eyeballs on genitals in a concentrate solution.
But they’re not particularly nasty compared to things like dishwasher tablets.
Speaking of manufacturers, apparently the Barista Touch Impress keeps an internal log of all drinks and maintenance activities performed on the machine. I also read on Breville’s website (or manual/warranty registration page?) that this log could be used by Breville to determine warranty eligibility. In other words, if the machine asks you to do maintenance and you keep postponing it, they may refuse to cover warranty service in the future… kinda ominous, if ya ask me… on the one hand I get it: why should someone that straight up neglected/abused their machine be offered the same warranty coverage as someone who always maintained their machine well, but on the other hand, this is some ominous big brother stuff… 😯
Good to know. But, so far we haven’t got DRMed cleaning tablets. So, when it asks to clean, throw in some random powder, push the button and let it do whatever it wants. I can’t see how they’ll ever know.
It pisses me off. Because I’d happily buy manufacturer brand consumables if they weren’t such scumbag assholes with their pricing. I might even consider a small premium if the product is decent but not 400% premium just because it matches their brand.
These assholes package up the same common salt-shaker-garden-variety-chemicals costing 1-2 cents per dose (which generic brands charge 10-20c / dose) and sell it for $1 a dose. Screw that.
100% agree with you on this one. I entered this rabbit hole when I saw that Breville-branded cleaning tablets were made by Cafetto. Lonand behold, I found Cafetto tablets with identical specs on sale 10x cheaper than what Breville was selling them for. And powder was even cheaper, which is what triggered all this…
Nothing yet this weekend, only dissapointing aeropress presses(not too bad just tired of it). I ordered a Flair pro 2 but it will not be delivered until Monday. Keep reloading the track and trace but still stuck somewhere in a warehouse frustratingly close by…
I just finished an aeropress. It wasn’t disappointing, but not the best. It was preground sedamo I received for Christmas. Bummed that it was preground, but I do like sedamo. As for the Flair tracking, I would be doing the exact same thing you’re doing with the constant refreshes. I would even be tempted to call the shipping company and ask if them if I can just pick it up at their warehouse. I hope it gets to you soon and that it’s more than everything you ever hoped it would be!
I thought about that, but I fear my espresso grinder would get clogged or overly dirty. It’s a pain to disassemble and clean. I’ve been using it for pour over and aeropress, and it’s good enough for being free to me.
Columbia is usually really good. I roasted one that had apple notes to it. It was amazing, and I’ve been searching for that flavor note combination since. Thanks for sharing the link!
It would be really cool if you could use a compressed air tank that you can recharge with a bike pump. Something like this has a max of 200psi and is refillable with a shrader valve. More upfront cost but but you don’t have to buy CO2 cartridges.
I think part of the appeal of the espresso maker this guy DIYed is that it has no pump/electrical components. Less points of failure and cheaper to make, cost seems to be a driving factor in his design. A bike pump is a fairly common thing for someone to own.
Espresso (like water) is ~1ml per gram. So if your shot is not weighing 29-31 grams then it’s not 30ml of espresso. There will always be some loss as water stays in the puck, so if it’s weighing more like 25-28 grams then likely that other couple grams is still in the puck.
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