Brew Tip: Saeco Intelia SS Panarello Sleeve Retrofit
While we love the gorgeous metallic finish on the Saeco Intelia SS, we’re not super in love with the cappuccinatore functionality that comes as stock. So when Gail came to us with the idea that we could retrofit the machine with the panarello sleeve from the Syntia series of machines, we were excited!
Watch as she shows how easy it is to swap this out and then demonstrates how it performs.
SCG Experiments: How Much Time to Make 4 Lattes on the QM67?
To answer the question posed by multiple YouTube viewers, we put Bunny behind the dual boiler QM67 espresso machine, enlisted Shiami to track time and taste, then took it away! Watch how quickly she was able to whip up four lattes.
SCG Experiments: Drip Coffee Preparations in the Brazen Brew
It’s time for Fun with Drip Coffee, starring Bunny and Coach!
When preparing coffee, we know that there are a few different variables we can tweak in order to impact the flavor in the cup. We can play with brew temperature, pre-infusion timing, grind consistency, coffee dosage and water ratio, and each element will produce a different flavor nuance.
So we decided to play around with that! In this video, we take three different Brazen Brewers and we change up the grind consistency, coffee dosage, brew temperature and pre-infusion time, then taste them to see how they compare. Watch as we learn more about how changing these elements impacts our coffee.
SCG Experiments: Playing with Single Shots
We’re not quite sure why one would want to pull single shots, but we’ve been asked multiple times to experiment and provide our tips on how to get the job done. So we drafted Jess to take on the formidable task of dialing in a single shot. Off-camera, she worked on the Rocket Giotto Evoluzione and the Crossland CC1; while she had success on the former, the latter still proves to be a challenge.
Watch her pull a few shots on the Rocket, varying an element each time to dial it in. The singles she pulled did taste great, but, still … really? We’re triples all the way, friends.
Compare: Rocket Espresso Steam Tips
We’re not sure if learning how to pull a shot is more or less frustrating than learning how to steam milk, but we do often hear complaints about the latter. It does take a little time and practice to produce microfoam, but what part will your tools play in the equation?
Rocket Espresso offers a set of four different tips for their steam wand, which feature different configurations of smaller diameter holes. We wanted to find out how these different styles affected our mad steaming skillz, so Bunny and Kat took them for a ride! Watch as we compare different techniques and the different tip styles to learn how they measure up.
Vertical Coffee Tasting: Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate
One of the benefits of choosing a single origin bean is consistency. Especially when pulling shots of espresso where you’re utilizing a relatively small amount of coffee grounds in your brew, a single origin ensures you’re getting the same grinds every time. With a blend, on the other hand, you have the potential for a unknown ratio to end up in your portafilter, and that can cause a little bit of havoc if you have a deep commitment to consistency.
One of the drawbacks, however, is that single origins can be difficult to source. While a blend is devised with a target flavor profile in mind and the sourcing and selection of beans will change every year depending on the coffee crop, a single origin is, well, a single coffee bean. If you fall in love with one from a specific estate or farm and they experience issues the following year, you’re kind of out of luck. But maybe that’s also something you can love about them — the potential for their rarity.
In this video, we play around with a few different preparations of a single origin from Velton’s Coffee, the Brazil Condado Estate. We featured this guy because it is a great espresso single origin and also produces a delicious cup via pour over, AeroPress and drip. Watch the ladies prep it up and give their thoughts on the coffee’s flavor profile.
SCG Experiments: How does brew temperature affect tea flavor?
Yeah, we know that we are Seattle Coffee Gear, but sometimes we enjoy a sweet cup o’ tea. Since we play around and experiment with different approaches to coffee brewing, we thought it might be fun to do the same with tea!
In this episode of SCG Experiments, we play with temperature: Keeping the dosage and steep time the same, we brew up batches of Dammann teas using water right off the boil and then with water heated to the recommended temp for both black and green teas. Watch as we taste them side by side to find out how their flavors compare.
AeroPress Vertical Tasting of Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate
The flexibility and creativity that surrounds the AeroPress knows no bounds. Seriously: For as many AeroPress lovers there are out there in the world, there’s an equal amount of preferred preps.
So we put the question out to the class: What is your favorite AeroPress prep? And then we recreated these sometimes meticulously crafted brews, tasted them and discussed how they compared in the cup. Using Velton’s Brazil Condado Estate, we were able to experience several different dimensions of this luscious single origin coffee. So that was pretty tight.
Pulling a Double Ristretto on the Via Venezia
Specifically, a double ristretto is a double shot that has been calibrated to use the same dosage of coffee, extract in the same 20 – 30 second window and produce a powerful, condensed shot with a total volume of 1 – 1.5 oz (depending on your tastes). If you have an espresso-grade grinder, you can do this with any non-pressurized espresso machine by altering your grind and tamp.
Watch as Jess pulls a double ristretto using the Saeco Via Venezia, Baratza Vario and non-pressurized portafilter upgrade. Yummy times were then had by all.
SCG Experiments! Grind, Dose & Tamp
Professor Bunny in the house! We have often been asked about how grind, dose and tamp affect each other, so we posed a few questions to learn more about it. First, how does coffee dosage affect coffee grind? As you dose more, do you need to make the grind coarser or finer? How about when you dose less? Then we turned to tamping: When you tamp more lightly, how do you have to adjust your grind to still extract within the 20 – 30 second timeframe?
In these two videos, Bunny takes on these questions and a whole lot more! Watch her experiment with the Crossland CC1 and Baratza Vario-W and learn how to change your grind in order to meet your dose amount or tamp pressure.
How does Coffee Dosage affect Coffee Grind?
How does Tamp Pressure affect Coffee Grind?