Lunch 7/31/08

Had lunch today at a place called Bon Chon. A Korean fried chicken joint in LA. Sounded like a French/Korean place because of the name. A coworker wanted to go there because he heard they had good fried chicken. They do. Nice and crispy and we all noticed that they weren't oily whatsoever. We got two orders, one garlic (I think) and one spicy. The spicy is really spicy and I don't like spicy, but I had a couple pieces anyway because before it burned my tongue off, the sauce was actually pretty good. Had a sweet flavor to it and then the nuclear reaction took place. If they had a non-spicy version of that sauce I'd tear it up.
Menu. It's only 2 pages. Hehe.

Front counter

Salad to start things off. It was all right. Thousand Island dressing.

And the chicken. The garlic on the left and the nuclear spicy on the right.

Lunch 7/30/08

Had lunch at one of my favorite places by work, the Curry House. I had the hamburger curry, mild. The hamburger is leaning towards a meatloaf. Good stuff.

Hot Cocoa Art

Put some chocolate syrup in my cup and steamed some milk and made some cocoa art! Woo hoo. A nice subtle heart.

And the grindenstein with some dry pucks.

Lunch 7/22/08

Lunch from yesterday. Sword fish with rice and sauce. I've never had sword fish before. I liked it. Nice and meaty fish. Doesn't beat fried tilapia with rice and tomatoes though. Hehe. Or laing. Or tomatoes diced with some toyo. Good stuff.

Today's Art

Here is today's art. I think I stretched the milk too much or it's just inexperience and I just need more work on my technique. I'll blame it on the milk stretching too much...hehe.

Latte in the new cup

Made a latte today. Stretched the milk to 90 and then dipped the steam tip until 150. This is what I got. When I started the pour I started seeing the swirls and was tempted to start wiggling the pitcher to get a rosetta going, but I stayed my hand and purposely tried to make a heart. I think at first I was thinking "apple" but then went for the heart towards the end of the pour. Latte tasted nice. Nice tight 50 second, hehe, 1 ounce ristretto off a 15 gram dose.


Used the new Grindenstein knockbox too. What a mess. Better than knocking into the trashcan, unsanitary or the sink, will eventually clog. This is just two shots! I get wet pucks on this machine. I'll bring these grinds to work and use on the plants.

Danesi

A little package came in the mail today.

Packing peanuts and bubble wrap oh my!


More bubble wrap. These guys know how to ship fragile things.


The Danesi latte cup. The first thing I noticed was the weight. This guy is 14 ounces! Almost a pound. That is one heavy cup. Should hold the latte's heat well. The only downer is that the handle is very small, I can't put my index finger through it, so I won't be carrying it that way. I guess its thickness will also protect my hand when I carry it without the handle. On the websites it's listed as having a capacity of about 6 ounces. I tested its capacity by pouring some water and weighing it, its capacity is more around 10 ounces.


I was so busy taking pictures of the cup and weighing it that I almost forgot that it was a cup and saucer set. Below all those peanuts were the saucers. Oval saucers with the 'd' logo.


And here's the set.


Picture of my cup "collection." A 3 ounce Bodum Pavina, Starbucks Christmas cappuccino set of 6 (one was badly chipped so I now have 5 cups and 6 saucers), and the Danesi Latte cup. Edit: I was informed that it was actually a set of 8 cups. So now I only have 7.


In the home barista forums the Danesi cups were recommended in their cup recommendation discussions. I saw this picture and knew I had to get these cups. The shape of the cup is unique and maybe it was also the background in the picture that got me too.

Upgrades? and Tools

I was thinking of converting the Super Jolly to doserless from the beginning. A little cleaner especially when the doser was designed for high volume cafe use anyway. So I copied a mod from the forums with a lazy man twist. The original mod used aluminum flashing, I didn't have any handy, I did buy a piece of metal which was unweildy and I just ended up destroying it because it was too hard and I didn't have the right tools. Next time definitely aluminum flashing. So I just used a piece of food packaging lexan type plastic and glued on the gasket and used the 45 degree street elbow fitting. I haven't used it too much, ran out of espresso beans but when I did, it's a doserless SJ now. The elbow fitting comes off easily for easy cleaning with a brush. I just give it a couple of knocks to get any grinds off of there first and then take it off and brush out the grinds stuck in the exit chute. Will utilize the WDT from now on especially since this was his mod.


As for tools I picked up this cute sexy little thing at my local Intelligentsia. Fire Engine red. Sexy huh? The Grindenstein knockbox, small, compact, dishwasher safe! and small enough to fit under the group for storing.

This other tool I got online. It is the Palla group brush with steaming wand pin. I was using a toothbrush and a few burns later saw this being used by the CoffeeGeek himself in his Silvia video. As you can see much more robust than a toothbrush and the ridges on on the group brush prevent hot steaming water from making its way down to your hand.

Latte Art

Made a latte today. Here's the art that came with it! An almost rosetta. For now I'll try stretching to about 90 degrees for lattes and 100 for cappuccinos.

Lunch 7/10/08

Lunch July 10, 2008 at a Cheesecake Factory. It's called Garlic Noodles. First dish was just too salty so I actually had them send it back. I never do that. The only other time I could recall sending a dish back was when we got raw chicken fingers at Black Angus. The Factory waiter asked if I wanted the same dish or a different one. I should have gotten a different one. My coworker got something that was delicious. I got the same dish and it was just as salty. I guess that's just how the sauce is supposed to taste. Oh well.

Slight Change to Super J

It seemed like I was spending as much time brushing away stray grinds as I was actually drinking coffee. It was getting to me. So I decided to use a used aluminum can to help clean up the doser a little bit. There was a flat metal piece that went over the doser's exit chute to keep grinds from falling directly out of the doser when grinding. Stray grinds would stay on top even after thwacking away 5 to 6 times. Those grinds would just stay up there taunting me. So I figure the use of the upper star on the doser was to determine the dose amount with each pull of the doser lever. This is only effective when the doser is full when in use in a busy cafe setting. Not really effective when only grinding per shot. So I removed the upper star and the pesky flast metal piece. I used the tall aluminum can to help deflect the grinds from just going for the now exposed exit chute. Works pretty well so far. Only downside is that it is now a little harder brushing the grinds away from the grinder's exit chute. Much cleaner though, less stray grinds to brush away. Will use this until I get the necessary bits for a doserless mod I've been eyeballing in the forums.

More Super Jolly Cleaning

I decided to deep clean the Super Jolly this time around. Got some Grindz and took off the lower burr and just scrubbed away some more.

I marked where the upper burr carrier was for consistency.

Looking down at the bottom burr. Doesn't look too bad does it? Just scrub away and run some Grindz too maybe.

But after removing the lower burr, this was what was caked on below the burrs. Nasty looking stuff. Don't know if this was all from me grinding or maybe some of the old user's too.

Top portion of the lower burr. The three clumps are from the three upright thingies that push the grinds out of the grinding chamber.

Some of the grinds that was cleaned off.

I'm thinking I should use the Grindz and deep clean at least once a month to keep from getting stale rancid cofee grinds and oils stuck in the grinder.

What about the coffee?

Now after the cleaning and simple mods, what about the coffee?

The seller kindly supplied some beans he roasted along with the grinder. A Brazilian bean.


Tried it in a press pot first. Wasn't too sure about grind settings so I grinded too fine and steeped too long so the coffee was overextracted and bitter. Makes a good looking cup though. A ton of mud at the bottom too.


So out came the EC 701 and I went on to try and dial the Super Jolly in.


After a few tries. I believe this shot came out about one and a half ounces in about 27 seconds. Should have stopped the shot sooner as the blonde spot in the middle indicates. Was getting inconsistent shots most of the bag. The seller later informed me that those particular beans were tough to work with. Good thing I ran out or else I'd still be trying to dial it in. Still working on my espresso palate so don't have a comment on how this shot was. Maybe a bright flavor profile?


Tried my hand at some art. This one in a Starbucks Christmas season cappucino cup. I think I've measured the size of the cup at about six ounces. So this had a double shot with four ounces of steamed milk/foam. There's a heart in there, really, there is. It's not a mochaccino. It was a bitter brew. The milk barely cut through it. Still working on a routine with my espresso machine. The dark ring around the edge of the cup is an indication of high brew temps. The taste in the cup confirmed it.


So what now? I will to to the Klatch and Intelligentsia and taste some of their straight shots so that I will have something to go by when I make some shots at home. Will also get some Belle espresso beans and maybe some Black Cat from Intelligentsia and I have some Sweet Maria's Monkey blend greens to roast too. Will use the shots from the Klatch and Intelligentsia as a baseline and anything I make that doesn't taste like those will immediately be spit out and thrown into the sink. Just kidding. This stuff is expensive. I'll drink it all. That's what I did with the shot and the bitterccino in the pictures.

Simple mods to SJ

Some mods to the doser. I did the sweeper mod, but don't have any pictures of it. I just attached some velcro strips to the bottom of the sweeper to get at the stray grounds at the bottom of the doser.

Nipple mod. Used a spare baby bottle nipple to put on top of the nut on the doser. Grounds would get stuck on top of that nut when I'd grind. Will use an RC plane spinner next time. It is a sharper point on top and the nipple is absorbing some oils.


A little brass music wire on the exit chute to break up the grinds a little more to help with the clumping.


Attached the music wire to the doser cover so I can easily take it off when I have to sweep the exite chute.

Saw some posts where they had soldered some wire together, but the only solder I have is lead based and don't want to mess with that and food. So I just twisted the wire with a couple of needle nosed plyers and will stick with it for now.

Update: The wire set up above was too cumbersome. Made an easier simpler x pattern. The previous version just got more coffee stuck in the chute making it more cumbersome than useful. I also removed the nipple since it was just absorbing too much of the oils. Will get the spinner soon.