NEW PRODUCTS, from the Host Fiera Milano (Oct 18th-22nd)

Host Fiera Milano 2013 has just been held, which means exciting product announcements from the global coffee manufacturing companies. Coffee Channel will therefore list some of the more spectacular announcements below, but first off, lets starts clarifying what the Host event is?

Host is the biggest hospitality industry expo in the world and takes place every other year, where thousands of vendors from different industries (Ex., Furniture and home wears, food service equipment, tea and coffee) collides under the same roof. 

1. Victoria Arduino 388 Black Eagle, Espresso Machine

Victoria Arduino - owned by Nuova Simonelli - is the espresso machine manufacture that produces the most aesthetic and delicate machines, and the release of the new concept prototype of the 388 Black Eagle is only a statement of that. This newly announced espresso machine is essentially a re-design of the great Nuova Simonellis Aurelia T3 machine, where the aesthetics is taken to a whole new level. 

James Hoffmann (2007 World Barista Champion), have in cooperation with Nuova Simonelli designed the 388 Black Eagle and the most exiting feature is the machines built-in gravimetric weighing system, which is incorporated directly into the grate above the machines drip tray.

"The gravimetric capabilities of the Black Eagle are designed around individual load cells, stored inside the machine and mounted within the drip tray grates using a simple and easy to remove latch. These load cells weigh the volume in a cup, which is the displayed in a digital read out above the group head, featuring both time and weight data. Software inside the machine tells the load cell what to read and what to ignore for example, the software can distinguish between reading shot volume and a barista´s hand inadvertently bumping the drip tray. Smart software is the key to making this gravimetric system work as advertised." Quote from sprudge.com

The new 388 Black Eagle is therefore a result of James Hoffmanns opinion that beverage mass is the most important factor in extraction and the beverage mass is king - we´re not as obsessed with brew time as we once were.

2. Sanremo Opera, Espresso Machine

The Opera espresso machine is made by the Italian company, Sanremo, based in Treviso. They have together with John Gordan (UK Barista Champion), developed an impressive new beast of an espresso machine. 

The monstrous machine has impressive five individual insulated boilers, one for each of the three group heads, one steam boiler and another boiler, the pre-heates the circulating water over the top of each group. The spectacular about this machine, is that is holds the option of two different flow rates!

3. Nuova Simonelli Clima-Pro, Grinder

James Hoffmann, Colin Harmon, Fritz Storm and Gwilym Davies have together worked on the Clima-Pro project, where they have tested and tweaked for two years. The main concern was that the majority of espresso related problems can be traced back to the grinder (Everything like, speed of service in the cafe, effectiveness of that service, morale of your staff, roast profiling, how we explore coffee and learn about coffee - it all comes back to grinding says Colin Harmon). The group noted that their had been some remarkable changes on the espresso machine side lately, but unfortunately not on the grinder side. 

The group was therefore determined to locate the main factor to improve and found it - ideal temperature for grinding espresso. Along with researchers from University of Alcona, the determined the best grinding range was between 35 and 45 degrees Celsius. The Clima-Pro grinder from Nuova Simonelli is therefore able to keep the temperature at 35 degrees for about 10 minutes, at intensive grinding. 

4. Marco JET, Coffee Brewer

The newly announced coffee brewer is from Marco Beverage Systems, and is a new batch brewer. The JET model is a filter coffee brewer, with a vacuum insulated dispenser and a touch-screen interface, and can brew between 2,0-6,0 l. of coffee per brew. The JET is designed to match the SCAE Gold Cup brewing standards, and is able to deliver less than 1% variance in water volume delivery and +/- 1,5 degrees temperature delivery (at the spray head). The announced JET brewer is currently a prototype, says David Walsh from Marco Beverage System, but the coffee firm is edging closer to locking in the final design. The Jet will therefore hit the coffee market in the early 2014. 

5. Mazzer "Kold", Grinder

The Italian grinder manufacture, Mazzer, has announced their new grinder, which is called the Kold. This grinder uses the same burr-set as the notorious Mazzer Robur, but the burrs is mounted offset on a belt-drive system, so that the heat from the motor doesn´t affect the coffee or burrs - thereby are Mazzer now mainly focusing on keeping the temperature of the burr-set and coffee grounds low. 

You have properly already noticed that the well known Mazzer collar system in the above picture is gone and therefore re-designed, so you know are able to adjust the grind setting at the side-mounted dial. Mazzer have also received a lot of criticism, cause their previous collar system wasn't easy to adjust, so hopefully the new side-mounted adjustment dial is way better. 

6. Marco Single Cup Brewer, Splurty

Marco Beverage System which also announced the JET coffee brewer, has also presented the Splurty. The Splurty is a minimalistic designed one cup brewer, that demands a minimum of counter-top space. The coffee brewer uses the Marco Pillar technology and is designed for Kalita filter baskets, - but is not limited to this particular brewing device - which is being held in place on the machines back panel using a magnetized basket holder. 

The brewing device functions like many other, where the heated water is dispensed over the top of the basket, where coffee volume and timing standards is selected by the user. 

All pictures are from sprudge.com

// Hendrup

Home Made Coffee Syrup

During the last three years I have taught my wife to drink coffee. It started with a latte made ​​with a strong 2 oz brew from my Aeropress.

Now, however, she has become so accustomed to the taste that she drinks her latte with a double shot of espresso .

But, from the very first latte, and still going, she always adds coffee syrup in her coffee . She simply can't live, or consume coffee, without it. We have tried .

Coffee syrup is tremendously expensive , considering what it really is. So I decided to try out the production of my own homemade coffee syrup.

My wife's favourite is the vanilla syrup, which very convenient is one of the easiest to make.

It's super easy and cheap to make your own syrup. Furthermore both my wife and I thinks, that the new homemade one tastes better and stronger than the ones we have bought so far.

So, here goes with the recipe

Ingredients:

400 g of white sugar

3 (dl) cups water

1 pinch salt

2 fat vanilla pods

That's it !

Steps:

Split the vanilla bars and scrape out the seeds.

Add bars and seeds in a large pot with the sugar, water and salt.

Turn on the heat and bring the contents to a boil.

Time it. The syrup is ready after 5 minutes of boiling.

Don't stir it, just leave it to boil.

Let the syrup cool slightly in the pan.

Then pour it through a fine-meshed sieve - into a bottle you like.

The taste of this recipe is very sweet, so you don't need to add much syrup in a latte. Furthermore, this way your absolutely sure that it's free of additives.

Notice all the fine vanilla grains floating in the syrup, you wont' find that in the ones you can buy - and don't worry, their supposed to be there.

I haven't tried out any other flavours. But in theory you could add anything you like in the sugar/water mix.

Enjoy

Espresso Extraction; Measurement and Mastery by Scott Rao

The book is only available as an e-book and can only be purchased through amazon.com, which has the following description.

"Measurement and Mastery is the highly technical follow-up to The Professional Barista´s Handbook. Baristas who have mastered Scott´s earlier work will enjoy this compact ebook´s new material and numerous original ideas. EEMM examines topics such as pressure profiling, portafilter basket design, and advanced use of the coffee refractometer. Scott also discusses the current popular topic of how to produce delicious coffee at extractions as high as 23%, an idea he pioneered in 2010." 

We know that not all coffee knowledge can be found in coffee books, but of course we have bought it and will post a review in the nearest future, meanwhile enjoy our Instagram update. You can also have a quick look inside the book; simply click here.



Have a great weekend everyone!

//Hendrup

Mazzer Major/Kony/Robur "interlock" mod

When you ask around in the coffee environment, the grinder is often pointed out being the essential part of achieving a good espresso, but the average home sets limits for which grinder you are able to choose, due to the height of the kitchen cabinets.

Therefore some buyers are bound by the height of the grinder, which is quickly inserted as below, 
Mazzer Major - 61 cm.
Mazzer Kony - 65 cm.
Mazzer Robur - 72 cm.

Due to this problem, I have received some questions about the Mazzer grinders - especially is the Mazzer Mini extra short bean hopper, will fit on the Mazzer Major?

Well lets start with the interlock modification. The Major, Kony and Robur grinder has an interlock collar, where the back of the collar has a tab that enters a slot on the grinder - if the tab isn´t slotted, the motor doesn´t run.

I will demonstrate below how to remove this interlock and thereby be able to use the grinder without any bean hopper at all.


1. The interlock assembly is held on with two screws, simply unscrew them - as shown on the below picture.

2. Lift the plate up off the body - the switch is attached to the outer plate. The red contact is the actual interlock and if its press down, the grinder will run.

3. Put a chunk of something in there to hold the switch down - I use a piece of eraser, because its elastic and can be cut into a appropriate size, but you can also use other pieces.

4. Now simply place the plate back onto the grinder and screw the screws back. You are now able to grind without a bean hopper and can therefore also attached a smaller hopper without an interlock collar - read more below the picture.

So back to the question regarding if the Mazzer Mini extra short bean hopper, will fit on the Mazzer Major? Well, it will fit, but note that the diameter of the short hopper throat is smaller than the Majors collar opening, so it will rattle around when grinding. To solve this problem you can wrap the Mini hopper with a band of electrical tape, so it will hold everything tight. So the answer is yes :)

The Mazzer Major height with a Mazzer Mini extra short bean hopper is 51 cm.!

Hope this guide was helpful.

// Hendrup

Jailbreak Blend

I'm well into the 2 kg bag of green Jailbreak Blend, I received from HasBean.

The blend contains 

(40%) Guatemala Finca Cuidad Vieja Los Jocotales Red Honey Bourbon

(40%) Nicaragua Finca Los Miligros Washed Caturra

(20%) Guatemala San Patricio El Limon Washed Caturra

This is the mk6 blend 

I have had some difficulties at the beginning, in how much heat to add. My first two roast got pretty uneven, because of the different sized beans of the three bean sorts. But when I found the right settings to my coretto I could go for the start of 2nd that Has Bean recommends. 

I also got a small bag of roasted beans, which I used as reference to my own roast. 

At my third try of 300 gr batches I got close to the color of the pre roast, but it didn't get in to second.

At this color I got to 199 c temperature 

Roasting more batches, I found that the best temperature for me is 211 c. It's a bit darker than  what Has Bean roasts, but it just hits 2nd and then I cool it.



With this temperature I get a espresso roast very suitable for capucinno. Just a tad darker and stronger than the pre roast. That's why I love roasting at home. The possibilities to change a great blend to my own preferences. 

The blend is round and very mild, with a hint of fruit and bright acid. 

The taste is balanced, rich chocolate, bright plum and the feel of almonds in the very end. Gives a full cream feel with steamed milk, especially when cooled down. 

I have done brighter and darker than my favorite 211c. 

The brighter 200-204c is also great, but not with milk. Many of the bright flavors are more powerful, the body is lighter and the acidity kicks in way more. 

Going darker than 211 isn't good for this blend. Getting half way in to 2nd is too much, almost all flavor is burned away. 

It's a great blend of high quality beans. When roasting at home you have the possibility of doing light and dark. That gives you an opening of roasting a batch for milk based drinks and one for stand alone espresso. The blend is great for both things when roasted for the purpose. The pre roasted beans are very tasty as well, but mainly for straight espresso. I liked my own roast better than the pre roasted though.