Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chili Oil Notes

uptointerpretation.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 164 posts

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#141

Post by c0pium »

RevEng wrote: post #128
michaelt wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a someone who does DIY CNC, it's easy to add an adjustment dial labelled in 5 micron steps. But those labels are basically decorative if other imprecision in the machine means adjustments aren't reliably reflected in the output. Even if your coffee grinder is in a room temperature-controlled to within 1 degree, the heat output of the motor could easily cause more than 5 microns of thermal expansion. But o…

While I agree in general, a good quality burr grinder is surprisingly consistent. I'm not sure you could reliably get distinct results one notch apart, but at a given notch you will have a very narrow spread in grain sizes and a couple notches apart they will be visually distinct. James Hoffman has some videos comparing several cheap and expensive grinders, including looking closely at the grain size, and you can see…

Surprisingly consistent when measured using coffee that is ground to hundreds of microns is not an indicator about consistency at the few microns level. Use high quality calipers on the burrs, you’ll be shocked how much variance you see run to run at one adjustment, never mind what happens when you move the dial. Micron marks on grinders are pure marketing.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#142

Post by c0pium »

elhudy wrote: post #139
c0pium wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an important insight. Some people don’t have much experience in making repeatable coffee, and whether you make the coffee well is more important than how good the grinder is.

It's not an important insight at all - it's a credentials fallacy. "I was in industry so I am right". Many people have spent many years nerding out on coffee, myself included, but you'll note I don't use that as an argument for being correct.

You should really reread my comment, that’s not what I’m talking about.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#143

Post by c0pium »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #99
c0pium wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, almost everything else matters more. Bean quality and water quality in particular are at the top of the list. Good beans bad grinder > bad beans good grinder. The grinder is the last place to look, even though it does matter.

The mistake you’re making is that not all variables are under your control. Getting better and better beans is very hard. You’re stuck with what is available. You’re stuck with what water is available (if you’re a reasonable person). You’re stuck with the local roasters. So of the variables you can control, the grinder is the most important piece of equipment you can buy.

Of course they are, don’t be so helpless. Getting good beans vs Starbucks is trivial. You’re obviously not limited to local roasters, google “specialty coffee delivery”, it needs to rest for around a week anyway. As is getting filtered water (in-line under your sink for less than $100, filter pitcher for a fraction of that) and saline drops (you can buy them for next to nothing online or mad-science your own for even less). All of those things will make a huge improvement compared with a better grinder.

Again. Grinders can make a difference, but they’re the last step in the chain. Do everything else first.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#144

Post by [deleted] »

RevEng wrote: post #127
esperent wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of any blind tests done on this? I'm fully aware that I can taste the difference between my Specialita and a blade grinder. What I'm less convinced by is that more and more expensive grinders taste better to any noticeable and consistent degree. Personally I'd say that the taste changes day by day, maybe according to my mood, whether I brushed my teeth or ate something sweet in the last hour or two, the…

Yes. Check out James Hoffman on YouTube. He tests many machines, including grinders, using double blind taste tests, and he can reliably tell the difference between many machines. Though keep in mind that his palate is especially refined. Average Joe buying a coffee at Baskin Robbins isn't going to notice the difference between different high end grinders.

[deleted]

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#145

Post by esperent »

RevEng wrote: post #127
esperent wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of any blind tests done on this? I'm fully aware that I can taste the difference between my Specialita and a blade grinder. What I'm less convinced by is that more and more expensive grinders taste better to any noticeable and consistent degree. Personally I'd say that the taste changes day by day, maybe according to my mood, whether I brushed my teeth or ate something sweet in the last hour or two, the…

Yes. Check out James Hoffman on YouTube. He tests many machines, including grinders, using double blind taste tests, and he can reliably tell the difference between many machines. Though keep in mind that his palate is especially refined. Average Joe buying a coffee at Baskin Robbins isn't going to notice the difference between different high end grinders.

I meant by real scientists in a lab, not a YouTuber. Like a consumer testing lab maybe, or a university.

Besides, I've watched a good few Hoffman videos - including his high end grinder reviews - and while they are great, they aren't scientific standard double blind tests. They're just him in his kitchen.

I did search in case I missed anything, but can't find any videos that you might mean. If you have a specific video in mind, please link it.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#146

Post by barrkel »

psd1 wrote: post #121
gmac wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. Which is why, as a Brit, my heart still sinks when ordering tea in most European countries: nine times out of ten you get a glass of once-boiling water to add a teabag to.

Yep, a proper cuppa needs the water at absolute boiling. 1000m above sea level is high enough that I won't even bother trying to brew a cuppa; it just won't hit the spot. Milk is a factor. Weirdly for a country with a robust approach to pasteurisation, French milk is insipid. In China, I couldn't even get hot enough water for coffee. The places I stayed offered water almost cool enough for a bath. I had thought I was…

IME holiday without a moment of privation is less memorable, and if you're travelling with others, the struggle is bonding.

If hot drinks are important to you, bring a travel kettle.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#147

Post by chongli »

elhudy wrote: post #137
chongli wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make my morning coffee on a Lelit espresso machine. I use a Niche zero espresso grinder. I can easily tell the difference between grind sizes a mm apart on the dial, when it comes to taste in the cup (and even with milk). The espresso machine can tell the difference too, because even a minute difference in grind size can make a significant difference in the coffee puck’s ability to withstand the water pressure. You…

Do you live in Europe by chance? When people in the USA talk about coffee they are typically not talking about espresso, which is a different beast altogether, and something I have no experience with.

I live in Canada. I’m not Italian. I only got into coffee a couple years ago.

If you ask the experts, much of the physics of espresso apply to pour-over coffee as well. Grind size and distribution, water flow rate through the coffee bed, channeling, fine migration and filter clogging.

Of course, the ‘typical’ coffee drinker is just looking for some caffeine with sugar and milk to help start their day, so they don’t care about this stuff. But if you make pour-overs and drink black coffee made with specialty roasts then all of this technique applies, and so a good grinder can help a lot.

Pour-over fans tend to prefer lighter roasts and flat burr (as opposed to conical burr) grinders, which are said to produce a more unimodal grind distribution with fewer fines.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#148

Post by thulle »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #125
Adverblessly wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that if the milk is added first, slowly pouring the prepared tea will gradually heat up the milk from its initial temperature to the final combined temperature. If the tea is added first, the milk will start at tea temperature and gradually cool down to the combined temperature. Imagining a scenario where the milk starts at 0 degrees and the tea at 100 and having a 1:10 milk:tea ratio, the differenc…

Does the milk really heat up passed the shared temperature, then back down? How does it "know" which way round it's mixed? Like if I did this on the ISS, put milk in a cup, then moved it up into a hot blob of tea, am I adding tea to milk or milk to tea?

Without the gravity you don't have the (same) resulting turbulence?

I have no clue how fast the temperature equalizes or how long it takes to scorch milk at different temperatures, but I heard about this as a kid and made the following thought experiment.

If I pour the milk first and then put in a single drop of tea, the milk at the surface of the drop would receive some flash heating, then equalize pretty fast to an average of their temperatures and then as the water turbulences away the resulting temperature would barely be above that of the original milk.

If I pour the tea first and put in a single drop of milk, the relative masses would equalize the temperature of the milk to pretty close to boiling, and it's gonna require a lot of drops before the milk cools down again.

Thus the time spent at higher temperature seems longer in the latter case. Assuming it matters for things like protein breakdown, and that those changes can affect the taste, then the question becomes: how slowly do we have to pour our tea for this to matter? I suspect I don't pour anywhere near slow enough.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#149

Post by elhudy »

c0pium wrote: post #142
elhudy wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not an important insight at all - it's a credentials fallacy. "I was in industry so I am right". Many people have spent many years nerding out on coffee, myself included, but you'll note I don't use that as an argument for being correct.

You should really reread my comment, that’s not what I’m talking about.

It’s exactly what you’re talking about. The claim was “i was in industry -> therefore i know if you control the other variables you can tell the difference”.

For one, controlling the other variables is an obvious step you need to take when testing the effect of particle size. For two, it doesn’t follow that the OP is magically correct in his hypothesis about the effect of grind size just because he thought of this step and works in industry.

Re: Chili Oil Notes

#150

Post by elhudy »

chongli wrote: post #147
elhudy wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you live in Europe by chance? When people in the USA talk about coffee they are typically not talking about espresso, which is a different beast altogether, and something I have no experience with.

I live in Canada. I’m not Italian. I only got into coffee a couple years ago. If you ask the experts, much of the physics of espresso apply to pour-over coffee as well. Grind size and distribution, water flow rate through the coffee bed, channeling, fine migration and filter clogging. Of course, the ‘typical’ coffee drinker is just looking for some caffeine with sugar and milk to help start their day, so they don’t c…

This entire paragraph reads “because the experts say so”. As an avid coffee drinker and experimenter for many years now I’d challenge you to question that “more unimodal grind distribution” effect on pour overs especially as it relates to very minor differences in distributions measured across grinders.
Post reply on HN