Thursday, December 22, 2022

The Espresso Milestone - Dec 22nd 2022

The Espresso Milestone

BH Unlimited Update, Dec 22nd 2022

This Christmas, we've prepared something a little more boxing-day focussed as a little treat for you all. This treat comes after all those presents have been unwrapped (hopefully Santa brings you a nice Kees Van Der Westen Speedster — or something similar this year), when it's time to chillax and reach for that gritty crime novel, or your new cosy cookbook. In this new Agatha Christie-meets-Simon Sharmer style history: our favourite 'baristorian', Sebastien Delprat, finally gets to the bottom of who invented the espresso machine. The weirdest part of this story is that it's all true.

From 1847 to 1880, these systems featured only one outlet of steam-pressured water.

After 1884, systems used two position outlets: one for steam-pressured water and another for steam.

There are a lot more claimants to the 'inventor of the espresso machine' mantle than we anticipated. That is obvious when you look at the illustrations (above) where all the protagonists in this story are revealed; from Giraud in 1847, through Moriondo in 1884, and up to Bezzera in 1901 … and a whole lot of other folks besides. If you haven't checked out the first three instalments of The Espresso Vanishes, here they are (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3). If you're up-to-date and ready to dive in, here's Part 4, titled … The Espresso Milestone.

The Coffee Buyer's Guide to Colombia

This week in our Buyer's Guide to Colombia, we begin a new chapter on the incredible range of coffee varieties grown in Colombia. Colombia is known for growing a wide range of varieties — and yet until the 1960s, Colombia produced almost exclusively Typica.

With the threat of leaf rust looming, Cenicafé began working on rust-resistant hybrids, racing against time to release a resistant variety before the disease could reach Colombia. The resulting varieties — Colombia, Castillo, and Tabi — are well-known worldwide.

What's less well known is that none of these are single varieties. Instead, each of them is made up of a mixture of different hybrids that can be shuffled in different combinations to suit different growing conditions. In this week's lessons, we explain why Cenicafé chose this approach and what that means for farmers.

Ripe Pink Bourbon fruits vary in colour from pink to peach. Yields are low and plants are susceptible to disease.

Along the way, we also take a look at the murky origins of Pink Bourbon, a uniquely Colombian variety that — naturally — seems to have little or no link with Bourbon. BH Unlimited subscribers have advanced access to each new lesson as the course progresses.

Roasting Science

Meanwhile in our Roasting Science course, we start by looking at the idea of 'momentum' in roasting. The term momentum is often used to describe the way that the roasting temperature seems to lag behind changes in the gas settings, almost as if the rate of rise had a momentum all of its own. In fact, this feeling of momentum is an illusion — it is simply the result of stored energy, especially in big, heavy drum roasters.

A high rate of rise at the beginning of first crack is sometimes said to give the roast 'momentum', but it is more accurate to think of it in terms of the amount of heat energy stored in the roaster.

Next, we explain how the temperature sensor in your roaster works. Thermocouples are responsive, accurate, sturdy, and inexpensive — perfect for a coffee roaster. They do have some quirks to be aware of, though, before you choose and install your next new probe. We explain the merits of grounded vs ungrounded, K-type vs J-type probes to help you make a smart choice.

Wet Weiss Really Works

You remember the Wet Weiss Distribution post from a couple of months back? In that post we ascertained that WWDT significantly increased extraction yields in the Tricolate. And we posed this question:

'We would encourage anyone to try Wet Weiss when developing a new Tricolate recipe. After finishing this experiment, of course we then started to wonder, if we should be doing Wet Weiss Distribution in our V-shaped pour-overs too? And the answer to that is yet to be determined…'

Well, safe to say it's a lot more determined now. The indefatigable Real Sprometheus has put together a great video where he gets wildly increased extraction yields from using WWDT in his V-60s.

Need a Last Minute Gift Card?

This Christmas, give your favourite coffee person everything they need to unlock all the learning materials of the BH Unlimited coffee education program.

There's a 12-month plan that secures you a 30% discount. This tier will be of particular interest for folks who are thinking about taking the plunge into the barista profession but haven't yet found the time or the opportunity to start out on some serious coffee education.

Each of these Gift Cards will grant learners unlimited access to our entire catalogue of certification courses, our huge video archive, all our apps, as well as our ever expanding collection of white papers. Every week we produce more content for our subscribers so a BH Gift Card is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

Coffee Education — Without the Advertising

BH provides a level of detail about coffee production that platforms like Youtube are unable to obtain, because we are a subscription service — our members pay us to produce the best, most detailed information for them, rather than creating videos that get the most views for an advertiser.

At BH we never do ads for other company's products on our website. There's no product placement in any of our courses, newsletters or blog posts. Our only income comes from what you pay for your subscriptions.

When you see machinery or coffee gear mentioned in any of our educational material, or featured in our course videos, we have chosen to use that equipment because we like using it, because we think it's historically significant in the evolution of the espresso machine, or because it shows you something you need to see about modern coffee culture. It's as simple as that.