Crew Review: Mazzer Burr Grinders

If you’re looking to seriously upgrade your espresso setup, you might want to investigate the Mazzer grinders. We can’t emphasize enough how essential a good grind is for producing yummy espresso, and we’ve often even recommended people spend more on their grinder than on their actual espresso machine. Feels a little backward, eh? Well, that’s just how we do ’round these parts.

There are a few different Mazzer models available on the market, and in this video Gail walks us through three of them: Mini, Mini Electronic and Super Jolly. These burr grinders are classified as pretty sophisticated home grinders or can be used in a lower-capacity commercial/pro setting as well.

Attack of the Killer Scale

Look, we’re not joking. Yes, there are a lot of things we poke fun at and crack wise about, but scale build-up in your boiler is absolutely not one of them. And it will never be — oh no, we are deadly serious about this.

Okay, not really, but scale build-up is often underestimated by folks. They think that by using filtered or bottled water, they won’t need to descale their espresso machine, and this just isn’t the truth. While these waters may have other impurities removed from them, they often have the same mineral content (and, in the case of bottled water, it may even be significantly higher, depending on the source) as your tap water. Using distilled water, water put through a reverse osmosis or a commercial-grade water design system like Cirqua are the primary methods for keeping lime and calcium from building up in your espresso machine’s boiler and related water works, but it’s important to note that mineral content in water does play an important role: It contributes to the flavor.

So if you don’t like the way the water from these treatment sources taste, how do you think it’s going to make your coffee taste? We recommend using water you like to drink to make espresso, which will often involve a regular descale to keep everything working well. Scale build-up will symptomatically show up as failure or very slow to heat up, not enough steaming pressure and/or leaking out of the steam wand and the brew head. Here in the Seattle area, we have pretty soft water, but other areas of the country have very hard water — and if you’re pulling straight from a well instead of the municipal water supply, you likely have a high mineral content.

A few months ago, we received a Rancilio Silvia V2 that was a few years old on a trade-in. The owner lived in Southern California and had never descaled the machine, so the guys put it through a commercial level descale just to start it off — high intensity citric acid was pulled into the boiler and allowed to sit overnight. When they came in the next day and rinsed it through, the machine was still exhibiting signs of scale build up, so they decided to crack it open to see if it was something more than scale. What they found is in the pictures accompanying this post — yes, this is scale build-up that was not able to be dissolved by the citric acid over a 24 hour period. The guys cleaned it out thoroughly and now it’s working just fine — and, obviously, this is representative of scale build up using the municipal supply in Southern California and will differ by region — but if the original owner had continued to use it without descaling, eventually everything would have burned out. It was caught just in time, however, so now it has a happy home somewhere else.

Not sure how to descale? Watch Gail descale a Rancilio Silvia and give tips on how to do this on other types of espresso machines.

Field Trip: Slayer

Last week, we headed off to points south and visited the warehouse headquarters of Seattle Espresso Machine Co., creators of the Slayer. We’ve talked about this machine on the blog in the past, primarily because it is the first to offer baristas the ability to independently control pressure during shot extraction. It’s also a ridiculously gorgeous machine.

We filmed our field trip and you can watch all three installments here. One of the founders, Eric Perkunder, and a friend of his, Sam from Equal Exchange, were veritable fonts of information, and there was a lot we weren’t able to catch on camera. Much of the engineering theory was really cool to hear about — specifically in regard to how they started the development process of the machine by examining traditional lever-powered espresso machines that allow for a little more control over extraction. But while the levers give you more control over pressure, it’s impossible to back them off of a certain level of pressure once you’ve built that up, and the Slayer has been engineered to allow for switching between disparate pressures throughout extraction, depending on how the shot is looking. Additionally, you can control the pressure independently at each group head, so you can calibrate the two or three heads for optimum brewing of different types of coffee.

The creation of this machine was inspired by the founders’ love for really great espresso — high quality beans that are either estate specific, season specific or from a single origin were not being given a chance to shine using traditional extraction methods, so these guys decided to experiment with pressure to see how that effected the flavor. What were once ’scorched’ shots became deliciously sweet and syrupy espresso, with a flavor and consistency that you can drink without additives like milk or sugar. It’s an altogether different experience to taste coffee prepared this way!

The Slayer is currently in several cafes around the world, according to their blog:

“Melbourne, San Francisco, Kirkland, Ann Arbor, and Calgary.  Soon more will be showing up in New York, Germany, Vancouver BC, New Zealand, Portland Oregon.”

If you’re in the Seattle area, the Slayer is in the Zoka in Kirkland and it’s definitely worth your while to experience this delicious coffee. We had an awesome — and illuminating! — time at the factory and really appreciate the guys letting us come in for a tour.

Slayer = Control

Yesterday, we posted a video discussing brew pressure and how it applies to espresso extraction. Near the end, we talked about the Slayer espresso machine, which gives another customization option to the barista: Pressure profiling. The first machine to offer this on the market, it’s no surprise that the Slayer is slowly finding its place amongst high end espresso enthusiasts around the world. But if the results are as amazing as we’ve heard, the Slayer could just be the first in a new generation of espresso machines.

Earlier this week, The Seattle Weekly published a profile of the team, speaking with one of the founders, Eric Perkunder, and describing their current boutique-level factory. It’s a great read if you’re interested in the history and theory behind the invention of the Slayer.

We’re hoping to head out on a field trip in the near future to interview the guys and see the facility, plus play around with and watch a Slayer in action!

Under Pressure

Espresso machines often list 15 – 17 BAR pumps in their technical specifications, but the general rule of thumb for most espresso extraction is for 9 BARs of pressure. In this video, Gail talks to us about this pressure differential, what you’re looking for and talks a bit about the new world of pressure profiling in commercial/professional espresso.

Starbucks V.2.0 – Take Two

As folks discuss the reasoning behind Starbucks’ recent move to completely retool & rename their 15th Ave Coffee and Tea house, yet another example of the global java giant’s new approach is put on display: The redesigning of the back room of one of their Hong Kong locations to look like that city’s coffee shops from the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Literally translated as “Ice Room,” the Bing Sutt style change-up also comes with some specialized additions to the cafe’s menu to further extend the coffee chain’s connection to its local area. We love the design of the space and applaud their attempts to increase their community relevance — whether or not a face lift and menu change will revitalize their market share remains to be seen.

Independent Espresso: On Wheels and Wings

One thing that we really love about the world of coffee is its diverse economic lifecycle: It’s putting food on the table and roofs over the heads of millions of people, from its cultivation through its brewing. A rather rich and unique dimension of this portrait is that of the small espresso or coffee shop — and we found a couple of examples of really cool independent businesses that are worth checking out.

First up, Redeye Roasters in Hingham, MA. Based out of a brightly colored truck, Bob Weeks founded his java-on-wheels when he elected to change up careers and get out of the advertising business. In 2006, he started roasting his own beans out of his house and in the subsequent three years has grown to distributing them in specialty groceries around the Boston area. This excellent profile goes into detail on Redeye’s past and present.

Another great little operation we ran across is the Celtic-influenced White Horse Coffee and Tea Co. in Sutherlin, OR. Owner Kristin Lusk has been roasting and brewing coffee and teas to an exotic bird aviary backdrop for the last 11 years — and you can balance their Kilted Ladies of Hell blend with a cinnamon roll that measures 10 inches across! She’s been taking in “stray” exotic birds like cockatiels and parrots so often that her roost has expanded to nearly 100 birds. You can read more about White Horse in this blog post.

If you live close to either of these businesses and have had the chance to sample their goods, let us know what you think!

Crew Review: Rancilio Epoca E Commercial Espresso Machine

The Rancilio Epoca E is a commercial-class automatic dosing espresso machine that features highly advanced heat exchange and boiler temperature/pressure management technology, which makes whipping up a long line of lattes or cappuccinos ridiculously easy. It can be configured for either 110v or 220v, is plumbed-in and drain-out only and is available in either 1 or 2 group heads.

Watch Gail as she talks about the machine and shows us how it works. Beautiful!

While it may be a little bit of a stretch (for both your pocketbook and your kitchen space!), the Epoca single group would make a great choice for someone who wants to take a step up from a prosumer machine into one that has a significantly more powerful boiler — the steaming functionality on these commercial class machines just can’t be beat.

The Great Vita-Mix Experiment 2009

Well…maybe it’s not that great — but it was fun and that’s about 63.4% of the reason why we do things around here. Gail shows us the ins and outs of the awesome Vita-Mix Professional Series blender, which we wrote about earlier this month, and even whips up a couple of experimental smoothies for our refreshment. We cannot stress enough how deeply we adore this blender — it’s unnatural!

The Grind – May 2009

The May issue of our monthly newsletter, The Grind, has hit the bricks! Including the Turkish Dee-Lite recipe, our process for making excellent french press coffee, tips on how to brew a strong shot in a superautomatic espresso machine and a directory of all the recent YouTube videos we’ve done over the last month, May’s news is a sweet little compendium of a lot of the content we’ve shared with you here.

But what you won’t find here is The Grind Special — this month: $10 off the Hourglass Cold Brew Coffee Maker! Get this special and all future specials by signing up.