Open source espresso machine is one delicious rabbit hole inside another

It gives precise control over the grind fineness, but tries to manage the grind time (and thus volume of coffee in the puck) itself. The software that does this isn't very smart and that's where the problems lie...

My comment came from a place of love. I’m happy to see people going the extra mile. Myself, I just want to be chill at home and aim for a balanced providing me joy without headaches.

But I’m weird. Example: I love playing vinyls not because it sounds better but because it lacks dynamics and I find that… relaxing!

Lower grade equipment can make great espresso, but maybe you are managing good results only 1/10 instead of 5/10.

Roast level is also a big deal. Dark roasts have a much wider sweet spot on the grinding dial. The beans are brittle so they tend to shatter and produce a lot of fines. As long as you don’t grind too fine that the machine chokes during the shot, you’re going to be able to find the sweet spot.

The lighter you go in roast, the more challenging everything becomes. Lighter roasts are less brittle so the grinder tends to cut rather than shatter. This often allows you to grind way finer on the dial. It also makes the coffee much more difficult to extract, requiring higher temperatures and a narrow grind sweet spot. Loads of people complain of sour, weak extractions with no body. This is where you can get into spending loads of money on a high-end flat burr grinder and a pressure profiling machine with PID temperature controls (and even temperature profiling during the shot).

Light roasted single origin coffee beans can smell absolutely amazing, so people know there is potential there for unbelievably good coffee. All of the disappointment in the cup is what leads to the big spending (or giving up and going back to darker roasts).

Fine as in drinkable? Sure. But if you want delicious coffee, with great aroma, crema, etc, there is a big difference between fresh roasted beans and something that has been sitting on a shelf for a few months.

I don't know if it's a grift but it is absurd

Oh this is easy. - Starbucks, as an org, in whole. Brutal dishonesty in much of their marketing, naming, and Brewing methods. Their Coffee flavor is intended to distort your expectations of 'quality coffee'. - The "Roast Date" disappearance on high-end coffee to sell "Quality" rather than freshness. - Keurig's marketing of quality or that they can make 'Espresso' (it can't), their product is designed for lock-in. - Nespresso Vertuo's fake "Froth"

Espresso is a lot easier to understand too, it's an entirely physical process, and everyone has had bitter, bad tasting espresso, so it's easier to know what "good" tastes like, vs some arbitrary chart or subjective POV in the audiophile world talking about how your house needs rewired because it puts noise into your setup.

I make add flour and water to the starter at night. Add the rest of the ingredients in the morning. Knead in the evening and put it in a basket then bake.

I’d like a bread-maker that I can use for the daytime bit where it warms a little and stirs at intervals I can choose. It needs a pan that won’t have the coating come off after a few months. Every one I’ve tried and have been careful with has done this. I’ve never baked with any break-maker I’ve owned, just used various dough cycles and only my hands go into it, nothing sharp has scratched them.

They hate the acidity or alcohol or something from long ferments.

I don’t even want to bake it in the bread-maker, just control the knead and heat while keeping it relatively environmentally controlled. What I want is more like a complicated stand mixer with a warming element.

I hadn’t really thought about bread machine with sourdough, because it’s “supposed” to be rustic and old world. But having a box that does most of the work and I bake it the next day would probably increase my sourdough production which has averaged zero loaves for the last year or so.

https://www.fda.gov/food/food-additives-petitions/questions-...

> Yes. Based on FDA's ongoing safety review of scientific evidence, the available information continues to support the safety of BPA for the currently approved uses in food containers and packaging. People are exposed to low levels of BPA because, like many packaging components, very small amounts of BPA may migrate from the food packaging into foods or beverages. Studies pursued by FDA's National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) have shown no effects of BPA from low-dose exposure.

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FDA isn't "industry", they're the government regulators in charge of food safety of the USA.

So we swapped from one plastic (BPA) with a century of research to other plastics with no research. They're all going to "leach" into our foods because when food comes in contact with molecules, it will absorb those molecules.

If you cook food in an iron pan, the food will have more iron content. If you cook food in a copper pan, the food will have more copper content. Its just how things work. The question of safety is about studying the effects of iron, copper, or... BPA. And as far as I can tell, only low quality alternative-medicine journals seem to ever have anything to say about BPA.

Some more info on the protocol here: https://3.basecamp.com/3671212/buckets/7351439/documents/499...

I don't think there are any better "formal" docs.

Difference is really that the open design could be repeated way before design based on existing part would go out of produciton.