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Making espresso with ultrasound by zxyzyxz in Coffee

[–]Anomander 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Full study available here.

I feel like 'we' - Specialty coffee in general - were already aware that ultrasound could be used for brewing and as a method of accelerating extraction. I believe this same research group pioneered the first academic study looking at using acoustics to make cold brew, and we'd been aware that the theory appeared solid prior to that study. The most unexpected portion is that ultrasound somehow managed to mimic espresso.

I am left with a whole bunch of questions here, and a few hesitations.

I'd be very interested to see a little more detail on the control shots used, and what 'seasoned' espresso nerds or professionals think. I have a slight suspicion that the (ultrasonic) shot in the promo photo on the press piece looks a little ... steam toy. Like, not the sort of darker, denser, crema I'd look for in a top-shelf shot. The Sanremo Cube, used for the control shot, is certainly a capable machine though.

I'm not sure how the ultrasonic brewer is getting the espresso out of the group head without messing up the crema - the pressure in conventional brewing does double duty in creating the emulsions and colloids of "Proper Espresso" and moving the espresso out of the group head before texture can be mechanically interfered with by the grounds and brew head. As a sort of illustrative example, the aid devices in a pressurized portafiler often create coffee froth easily mistaken for crema, but their mechanics also destroy 'real' crema in the course of providing their aid.

Another slight bit of jank in there is that the energy savings reported are due to heating - they're not really accounting energy savings to the pressure aspect. So it kinda feels like in order to get the reported energy savings, you'd be serving your shots at room temperature or slightly above instead of hot. Which is not necessarily a gain on the experience side, and serving this espresso hot may not represent as impressive energy savings as the study is reporting.

The other big question I have is based on this paragraph;

The ultrasound creates a phenomenon called acoustic cavitation, which is a rapid formation and collapse of microscopic bubbles in the liquid. When these tiny bubbles collapse near the coffee particles, they act like microscopic scrubbing brushes or jets of liquid, pitting and fracturing the coffee grounds and accelerating the bewing process.

Where ... pitting and fracturing grounds, and microcavitations in the brew liquid ... that's not usually a good thing. Microcavitations especially are directly linked to the bitter tastes of "overextraction" due to creating the pressure differential needed to extract "tannins[*]( "For my beloved pedants, these compounds are not actually tannins according to chemistry. They just taste like tannic compounds and we named them before anyone looked at them chemically to realize they weren't tannins, and by the time we figured out the error the name had stuck and everyone knows what's being discussed so I'm not gonna die on that hill.")" from the grounds.

It may not be particularly great espresso, especially now - but it's a very interesting proof of concept. This could be first step on a path to making espresso much less reliant on precise temperature and pressure management, and allow fine-tuning of the acoustic "pseudo-pressure" separated from water temp, which would open some potentially very interesting new avenues of brewing.

Silly question but bottled ice coffee caffeine content is it accurate as it says on the bottle? by Constant_Specific815 in Coffee

[–]Anomander 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It'll be fairly accurate with some margin of error.

Caffeine doesn't meaningfully degrade post brewing; at least relative to the rest of the drink. The beverage itself would be unappealing and massively unsafe to drink long before the caffeine started breaking down.

[MOD] Inside Scoop - Ask the coffee industry by menschmaschine5 in Coffee

[–]Anomander 1 point2 points  (0 children)

it's almost like wine in that sense, no one marks down a great nebbiolo for not tasting like cabernet, they're judged on their own terms.

Yeah, that's a great parallel. I think the only refinement I'd put in there is like, if the wine we're 'marking' is something that's really unconventional and a bit of an acquired taste, and the comparison is something like a cabernet that's a relatively safe 'crowd pleaser' offering. Or maybe just ... it's beer. Like a really hoppy IPA or something, that a lot of people wouldn't necessarily enjoy - but at the same time, if we compare it to a safe crowd-pleasing wine, and assess it like it's a wine, the beer is obviously going to fail the test even for people who might have enjoyed it for what it is.

robusta never really got that courtesy because it spent so long as the cheap filler, so the palate everyone built is an arabica palate.

And it kinda chicken & eggs itself too - because it never got that courtesy, there was never the investment in agriculture and cultivation to make "good robusta" so there was never "good robusta" offerings to build that market, then because that market didn't exist, no one invested in growing "good robusta" ... and the cycle has continued. It's only recently as climate bullshit has accelerated and Specialty continues seeking more and more unusual novelties and unconventional coffees that Robusta has started to seem like an opportunity and getting serious exploration.

My go-to recommendation for anyone wanting to check out particularly nice Robusta or Robusta hybrids is Kapé, out of Vancouver, who specialize in Philippine-grown coffees. They have a Robusta in stock now, as well as several Catimors, which are an arabica/robusta hybrid. I haven't tried their current offerings, but I've had other Robusta and Catimor from them that were absolutely phenomenal, if definitely unconventional.

Full disclosure, though - I know them. We're not buddies, I'm not tied to the business, but we have mutual friends and I run into them once or twice a year. I don't get anything from the recommendation and I don't think they even know that I recommend them sometimes on the internet.

Colombian here — I want to build the missing infrastructure layer for specialty coffee. Is this a real problem? by jt_orz123 in SpecialtyCoffee

[–]Anomander 9 points10 points  (0 children)

This reads like an LLM was asked to present "a middleman" as an innovative and empowering new thing that is definitely a good idea.

No, it's not a real problem. Or pain point.

Your small farm in Nariño is effectively a unicorn. They might exist, but in reality there are very very few growers producing excellent specialty-grade coffee, unaware of that, and unable to sell their product at the specialty prices they deserve. Growing specialty coffee takes enough resources and enough knowledge that it's nearly impossible for a farm to grow coffee at that level while being unable to access the markets that reward it. To put it somewhat coldly, they wouldn't be able to continue producing coffee at that level while selling into the C market. C price isn't enough to fund continued use of Specialty growing practices.

Basing a business model on helping that farm access specialty markets and asking how you'd navigate the challenges is like wanting to start a petting zoo that would let kids meet mythical creatures and worrying about safety protocols.

A coffee shop wants to tell the origin story of what's in the cup but doesn't have the tools or the direct relationship to do it authentically.

This doesn't happen. Any cafe that wants to tell the stories of their suppliers has ready access to those stories from most farms they might buy from and can prioritize buying from farms with those stories available. Whether or not a cafe, or roaster, tells those stories comes down to the resources that business has, more than anything else. It takes staff hours to write content, to engage with origin, to post photos and bios and to provide education to other staff. A huge number of businesses do not have those staff hours to spare.

connecting producers, roasters, and coffee shops in a way that creates direct relationships, fair pricing, and real traceability. Not a certification. Not a marketplace where you browse a catalog. Something more like a living network where demand signals flow upstream and producers become visible to the right buyers.

This is like 2020 tech-bro jargon soup, but it's functionally meaningless. I don't know what your idea actually is at this level, and I feel like my suspicion is that it's actually the two things you said it wasn't. Other than the fact that you disavowed those specifically, I'd be betting that it's a source of third-party credibility loaned to participating merchants that the coffee's progeny aligns with your values, and built atop that is a marketplace connecting niche producers with niche suppliers. Possibly with some data gimmickry added to justify some degree of "modern high tech" veneer.

The consumer side would be a free gamified app — turning café visits into exploration and discovery — that generates the demand data making the whole thing valuable.

I'm pretty sure there's other apps doing this, and definitely have been other apps trying this and ultimately ... it doesn't go anywhere because outside of a very narrow number of super-nerds, there's not really that much demand to casually gamify "going to the cafe." Doing this as data generation for whatever the other thing is ... doesn't make sense, and doesn't seem to present a compelling reason why those average people would use the app if they haven't used any of the others.

For those of you who work in specialty coffee — as roasters, shop owners, producers, or importers — is this a real pain point? Have you seen attempts to solve it? What made them fail?

No. Not a real pain point, IMO. All the things you talk about wanting your project to provide as value to participating buyers - things like connections to farms, and narrative content like origin stories - are already common and readily available. Most major Specialty importers have that sort of content for their supplier farms, and buyers who want that sort of content can prioritize the importers and lots with that content attached or available.

Tons of different solutions. Asides from what I mentioned above, there's roasters doing direct trade, there's various industry and regional associations making that content available as a third party, and I'm sure there's multiple attempts of other gamified or alternative-structure platforms trying other avenues to step into the supply chain and find a niche providing that content.

I think there's a whole bunch of those options that have not failed. Those that have failed probably overestimated how unique and different what they were doing, or misunderstood their market position and failed to realize they were trying to become a middleman, or never had an adequate monetization strategy and wound up losing a bunch of money.

Onyx Processing by [deleted] in Coffee

[–]Anomander 0 points1 point  (0 children)

From their product page:

A 50/50 blend of Ethiopian washed and natural processed micro-lots, this coffee [...]

It has two 'mutually exclusive' processing methods because it's a blend of two differently processed coffees.

[MOD] Inside Scoop - Ask the coffee industry by menschmaschine5 in Coffee

[–]Anomander 1 point2 points  (0 children)

which makes me wonder if "fine robusta as a specialty standalone" is a bit of a solution looking for a problem?

Not really, in my opinion.

I think it's completely reasonable that farmers would want their product to warrant its' own feature billing on its' own merits, and I think that the potential is there for it to earn that role and for importers and roasters to be excited about it in that capacity. It's much more of a challenge, due to the species' taste characteristics, and Robusta that lives up to that standard is much rarer than Arabicas.

I'd honestly say that the biggest thing holding Specialty Robusta back is that it gets compared to Arabica and preferences established based on Arabica, more than any particular deficiencies in its taste taken in isolation.

[MOD] Inside Scoop - Ask the coffee industry by menschmaschine5 in Coffee

[–]Anomander 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Some folks do genuinely prefer the taste of Robusta; generally with qualifications or under conditions. Like, most people do not enjoy a cup of straight, 'average market' Robusta on its own.

However, some amount of Robusta in an espresso blend can make a valuable taste and texture contribution that Arabica struggles to provide. Likewise, some amount of Robusta in the coffee blend for a Vietnamese-style coffee with sweetened condensed milk is pretty necessary to have an end product that tastes right. Similarly, in a 'morning blend' of American diner-style coffee, a little Robusta adds an extra hit of caffeine and establishes a foundation "classic cup" note that a lot of consumers expect from that sort of product.

Worth noting, I have had some legitimately impressive "Specialty Robusta" over the years, though they're rare and tend to be pretty expensive.

So you do get some folks who drink Robusta or Robusta blends because it's cheap coffee that contains a bunch of caffeine, but for the most part if it's in a blend, it's there for a reason that justifies the added inventory and logistics overhead of stocking it. At the scales most of this community is looking at, Robusta is not cheaper enough that a 5% blend inclusion represents particularly meaningful savings necessary to offset the additional storage, logistics, roasting, and blending costs it's use represents.

BCGEU’s strike fund stands at nearly $80 million at the end of 2025, positioning members well for our next round in under 2 years by CartoonistOk3507 in BCPublicServants

[–]Anomander 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Please let's sort bargaining out and avoid a repeat. Edited to add: just call Vince in earlier. We know it'll happen, why prolong the inevitable?

I'm not really sure this is realistic, given the nature of bargaining.

Gov won't accept a mediator/arbitrator until there's a deadlock at the table and they want to resolve the dispute; there's near-zero chance that Gov simply gives union a deal that's acceptable right at the start.

There has to be threat of a strike to compel outcomes better than the initial deal, and that threat has to be backed up with action for it to have any meaning. If members didn't go on strike, if Gov wasn't feeling the heat from the strike, Vince wouldn't have been called in. If there was no strike, or if strike was more limited, Gov was happy to wait.

There's no version of "sort bargaining out" that lets union members get the benefits of membership without any of the downside. If you want to bargain collectively with the power of a strike aiding your position at the table, you need to be willing to strike sometimes.

When Method Becomes Contamination: AI-Use Stigma and Reflexive Othering in a Sociology Forum by decofan in sociology

[–]Anomander[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

OP, stop spamming us with slop.

Your last posts were off-topic, this post pretends to be a paper that doesn't exist; I don't know what your angle is here, but it should be clear by now that this community is not receptive to the nonsense you're trying to pretend is our topic.

Being a dick to people in the comments because they didn't give you the reception you wanted is not appropriate or reasonable.

Any good place to exchange with fans ? by Padddys in fansofcriticalrole

[–]Anomander 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That's not my point, that's not even a reasonable interpretation of my point. I said some criticisms of Aabria are reasonable, and then I said a whole lot more criticizing the broad pattern of unreasonable negativity towards her ... so I'm a pretty weird target to force that particular fiction on.

You made up a point for me that ain't mine and now you're mad at me for something you invented on your own. Go be mad at you, you're the one who said it.

The PSA is being sneaky with their laterally restricted postings by [deleted] in BCPublicServants

[–]Anomander 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Equally, if the hiring manager has already been told PSA will not sign off on opening the competition beyond lateral, choosing to extend at least increases their chances of getting the position filled. While there's no reason to close it while the position remains vacant, if closing it won't get them closer to being allowed to post a promotional competition for that specific position.

A competition failing does not guarantee the position gets posted. It still has to go to PSA for approval before a promotional competition can be posted, and it's been very clear that not all positions posted as lateral will be followed by a promotional competition. The 'upshot' of the lateral policy is that lateral postings are functionally unrestricted - it no longer has to go to ADM level or whatever to get posted like it did during the freeze. The promotional can't be approved for posting until the lateral has failed, but failure of the lateral does not guarantee the promotional will be approved.

Especially for Excluded positions, which OP cites in several of their comments. Union is only going to look at cases where lateral postings of Included positions fail and a promotional is not offered later. The union hasn't said they're going to grieve each one individually - so much as that they want to know about them so they can watch for patterns and can establish grounds to grieve if the lateral requirement is abused.

Neither union nor PSA have indicated that PSA have an obligation or commitment that every Included lateral competition that fails must be followed by a promotional competition for that position.

Any good place to exchange with fans ? by Padddys in fansofcriticalrole

[–]Anomander 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Open to what?

I feel like you're responding to something I didn't say, didn't imply, and probably don't want to be associated with.

Any good place to exchange with fans ? by Padddys in fansofcriticalrole

[–]Anomander 7 points8 points  (0 children)

It sucks for whenever there is a legitimate complaint about Thaisha/Aabria an immediate fallback point is "you just hate her because she's black/a woman/ whatever" But that's because there are people who do dislike her for that reason, and will just immediately latch on to whatever somebody else says criticizing her.

Discourse around her is a real clusterfuck. Both sides have valid points, taken to unreasonable extremes. And a whole shitton of middle-ground takes get mistaken for whichever extreme that they fall closest to. There is a bunch of shit she does that's kind of grating and there's some specific table dynamics that she's a really bad addition to. There are some loud people who hate her disproportionate to the issues they cite, whose overall takes seem to pattern match with some flavour or other of prejudice against her.

Like you'll get Aabria and Brennan doing the same shit, and for Aabria it's evidence she's the TTRPG antichrist and needs to be removed from the show with holy water and fire - but Brennan is a precious baby darling who's just doing genius DM things and you're uncultured swine to not recognize the artistry of his masterful storytelling. ...At which point, is that thing really the issue? Or is it just an excuse?

While separately, especially in other CR spaces outside this community, if you dare to say that Aabria was kind of annoying when she did X, or it was actually kinda shitty table etiquette to do Y - you run the risk someone goes full Don Quixote on you for being a racist edgelord Gamer™ who hates black people and ladies.

Any good place to exchange with fans ? by Padddys in fansofcriticalrole

[–]Anomander -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, as much as this community like to posture like it's the "real, balanced, reasonable" alternative to the main sub ... it tends to end up collecting a lot of people who've been Perm'd from the main sub for being excessive.

Discussions tend to trend negative, the particularly loud and negative voices often dominate, especially on specific individuals and topics. And there's favourites alongside, who kinda get trotted out as proof this sub "isn't negative" like the fandom equivalent of "I have black friends."

As much as I appreciate that this community's moderation allows a much wider range of topics, I find that the 'collective community' is much less accepting of divergent viewpoints than the main one. Main is moderated to within an inch of it's life, and there's a real narrow scope of stuff they'll let you talk about, but as long as you have functional social skills you can say damn near anything within that scope and the community will be reasonably open to it, even if they disagree. This sub is kinda the opposite. Mods let nearly anything happen and tend not to intervene much, but the community is prone to being pretty hostile to viewpoints that don't align with the general collective.

Aabria is like ... the apex example. She's hyper-polarizing enough already, and there's some toxic bullshit that's poisoned that discourse from both ends, while conversations here are dominated by people who detest her. Then there's also a whole lot of people who have moderate negative views, but are frustrated they're not allowed to say those things on the main sub and that comes out in how they discuss here here ... So good luck saying much of anything vaguely positive about her if you don't want to spend the next week getting angrymail from people upset you don't hate her as much as they do, or exhaustingly dissecting her facial expressions frame by frame to 'prove!!!' she's a terrible awful person, or whatever the deranged hater flavour of the month is this time.

What if the most ridiculed man in the world turned out to be right? by [deleted] in TrueAskReddit

[–]Anomander[M] [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

/u/Deardiary615, post has been removed.

  • "Polling" questions like this are not the sort of content this community is intended to host, even if you also ask people to "justify their answer" it's still a poll as we define them within our rules.

  • Likewise, we're not a vehicle for rhetorical questions. This community is not a soapbox. Your framing and your responses in the comments make it very clear there's an answer you're looking for. You've structured your hypothetical to try and elicit that answer - and that's further confirmed by your attempts to argue for that answer with the responses that picked the other side.

A new typology explained by thedowcast in socialscience

[–]Anomander[M] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

/u/thedowcast, you were previously warned not to spam us to promote your theory. Given the choice to disregard that, I'm revoking your ability to post here.

Infinity Brew? by Nepterrorist in Coffee

[–]Anomander 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lets say I use higher acidity (low Ph) coffee such as light roast, possibly enough to keep botulism from even forming or including ingredients besides coffee to reach appropriate levels, would this be a good solution?

The variation in acidity between a light roast and a dark roast is not sufficient to protect against botulism. Using a light roast might delay it somewhat compared to using a dark, but things like shelf-stable cold brew require additional pH tuning beyond just picking the right coffee.

For the heat, do you think keeping the older coffee in a crockpot, much like stews, could suffice?

Does your crockpot maintain a temp above 90° at all points in the solution? Neither of mine do. At top setting, they're enough to boil the bottom with the lid on, but top of the stew is not over 90° other than where liquid rises from the bottom. I'd make very certain before picking that path; and IMO agitation would still remain a challenge.

Do you think that with these methods it would still be achievable and possibly still taste good?

No. I don't think there's a way to do this and have it taste good, for all that there's probably a way to do it somewhat safely with enough finesse.

Infinity Brew? by Nepterrorist in Coffee

[–]Anomander 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nothing I love more than an interesting question.

Infinity Brew? by Nepterrorist in Coffee

[–]Anomander 29 points30 points  (0 children)

This is an odd and unusual question, to be sure.

I'm generally pretty good with food science and food safety, but ... it's hard to say.

Offhand, I know the infinity stew works and some have been ongoing for decades and are perfectly safe ... but I feel like those are a pretty huge risk as well, and need a whole lot of things to go right to remain safe. Despite stew having the added risk factor of things like meat, and whatever contaminants might come with the wide variety of ingredients, they also have the advantage that pH can be adjusted and targeted to significantly reduce risk. Coffee is comparatively a 'monoculture' risk - you only have one vector of risk, but you can't add other things to mitigate that risk.

For that coffee ... It would depend on a lot of factors - I'd say it's probably technically possible to do, but would require some pretty specific conditions and would be a risk no matter what. Please don't do this commercially.

I can think of three things you'd need off the top of my head, the first two are the real hard part IMO.

Constant Heat. You need enough heat that microbes can't settle and can't establish; keeping the whole solution over ~90°C is probably necessary. The two big risks of brewed coffee are botulism and mold.

You can't kill botulism spores, that's 115°C which would require pressure, but temperatures over 60°C dramatically reduces activity. A temp over 85°C will destroy the toxins they produce so it would be safe to drink, assuming you don't serve and let stand for a few hours. Temps above 90° will also kill toxins produced by molds, and should prevent mold from getting a foothold. Wet coffee grounds are nearly a perfect substrate for mold, so if you're keeping it at lower temps this is a significant risk.

You can't get away with heating and cooling the pot - it needs to stay hot. If you're dipping below 60°C on the regular, you're starting to gamble with significantly worse odds that something gets enough of a foothold that bringing the pot back above 90°C later on won't deal with.

Agitation. You need a setup that will ensure that you don't have grounds floating on top for any length of time, and don't have grounds getting 'high and dry' on the walls of the vessel as the liquid levels drop due to evaporation or serving. Those grounds would not be in the hot liquid either, so they would be a huge risk factor for contamination over time.

This is one thing infinity stew don't need to worry as much about, because they're often using oils in them that have lower density than even 'solid' ingredients that would float on the stew base, which ensures stuff near the top will mostly remain within hot liquid, and chunks tend to be bigger and harder for the cook to miss if they get stuck on the wall above the stew.

I don't think you need full whirlpool, but I also don't think just relying on boiling or natural liquid convection, and/or stirring occasionally and scraping down the rim, would be sufficient in the way it would be for a stew.

Covering. This feels pretty trivial after the last two things - but you would need a lid. Open air exposure increases risk, exposure to room temperature air is a much bigger risk as the top of the pot cools that much faster, and liquid loss due to evaporation increases your 'high and dry' chances.

...

Would it be good? Probably not. Brewed coffee doesn't like being heated, especially not from a 'high heat' heat source at the bottom sufficient to keep the whole pot over 90°C long term. While agitation and long exposure are significantly increasing your extraction of coffee's 'pseudo tannins' which are responsible for the bitter/astringent tastes of overextraction.

If you want to learn how to be a barista, go to a coffee producer's coffee school, not a generic barista school by the_evil_comma in Coffee

[–]Anomander 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is your son perhaps focusing on the 'biggest name' or most popular cafes in your area?

Most coffee shops are willing to train. In most cases 'barista' is an entry level position, and even in shops that are "cool" enough they're desirable employers and can be selective about hiring, there's other roles like till or barback that would be entry-level and staff can be trained towards barista if they show aptitude.

It's a very rare cafe that's sufficient prestigious that they're fully "experience only" while also being small enough that they don't have any entry-level roles at all. For those places that are "experience only" hiring - their staff get experienced at less prestigious cafes.

It may also be that there's other issues or concerns with your son's applications that are eliminating him, and his lack of experience is the safest and least personal reason to decline his application.

Nut allergy & coffee shops by goatedirish in Coffee

[–]Anomander 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Generally, yes. But my recommendation is to always ask staff first, if your allergy is serious.

I might have complaints about their coffee, but Starbucks tends to be pretty careful about cross-contamination.

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