Shot by Oddrain

Added an extra 3g to the output. It did turn a bit more bitter, but I didn’t get those wonderful dark chocolate flavours of a few days ago and tehre was a little bit of acidity somehow still there with the bitterness. Also the mouthfel wasn’t as good. Maybe the bean has just gone past it’s best. Last shot of the bag, so will start again tommorrow, perhas with the Papu New Guinea Goroka from CherryDog. Why do I suspect it’s not that fresh!

I learned from this bag that using the 49mm step down with no paper filter gave a bit less clarity, but a better mouth feel and more intensity in a shot intended for milk. Also that nothing rescues a bean that’s past it’s best. Also read some interesting physics around puck dynamics. The flow rate on these shots was levelling off and possibly even dropping off at the end. With the constant pressure this shouldn’t happen which suggests that something was happening in the puck to maintain the reistance. Could be fines migration, but it still happend with the paper filter. Could be the grains expanding when wet. More experiments and readin gto find out which and to also understand if / how this affects flavour.

Blend: Brazil Fazenda Toucan Natural Process + Guatemala Honey Process

The bean colour is a rcch golden brown which often works out as a flavour I like

There’s obviously 2 different beans in here of different sizes - medium and small.

Breaks easily under the thumb which suggests there will be a lot of fines which point toward grinding coarser. Seems similar to the Brazil Toucan, so might base initial grind and profile on that. UPDATE: Grinding at 1.3.5 gave a very slow extraction. Seems like the fines theory was right!

I don’t trust CherryDog roast dates. They don’t write on the bag and seem to make something up when I ask them. Previous experience with varying freshness levels backs this up. I might be wrong, but very suspicious.