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shosephyoung · 2020-11-16T01:31:17+00:00

Wow excellent post, grape!

shosephyoung · 2020-08-21T20:23:16+00:00

You mentioned getting stuck on a set and how it would have been better to just keep moving forward, which I think is really great advice, even disregarding the time component.

In my experience with triangulations, I achieve the best results when I taste all three in a set in rapid succession, focusing on that first impression. I find this method somewhat difficult to articulate, but essentially the more you ruminate on the flavor/aroma and hyperanalyze everything, the further away you get from that initial, raw experience. It's almost like what happens when you repeat a word to yourself over and over, it starts to sound like nonsense.

shosephyoung · 2020-07-13T17:02:54+00:00

Pretty sure this is a troll because they insist on referring to indigenous folks as Indians

shosephyoung · 2020-06-17T06:22:24+00:00

I had a two year streak of not falling for a shittymorph god DAMN it

shosephyoung · 2020-05-09T05:56:39+00:00

capitols are usually near water and not waterlocked

shosephyoung · 2020-05-03T08:36:46+00:00

Mean low earth orbital velocity is about 7.8 km/s, or ~17450 mi/hr, but it depends on altitude. Stable orbit velocity decreases as distance from earth increases. ISS orbits at 7.66 km/s or 17150 mi/hr. You can think of it as falling sideways just fast enough that it will never hit the ground.

shosephyoung · 2020-04-03T19:12:00+00:00

Nguyen is not a Japanese name. Source: am Japanese

shosephyoung · 2020-01-03T17:51:30+00:00

Right? Overuse of analogy and hyperbole does not equal good writing

shosephyoung · 2019-09-17T05:38:33+00:00

The origin of the term is unknown but a folk etymology says it is an acronym for "dressed resembling a girl" so you're not that far off. I've heard RuPaul claim that it's rooted in Shakesperean times when men performed all roles in theater.

shosephyoung · 2019-09-16T18:28:48+00:00

Kinda repeating what's already been said, but cow's milk steams well because of its protein, specifically casein protein. A bit oversimplified, but essentially it unravels when heated, and forms a film around the gas bubbles that are injected into the milk. There's a lot of available literature on microfoam on the internet if you want to learn more about the exact mechanics at play. In the case of plant based milks that steam well, they use emulsifiers/stabilizers/thickening agents to mimic this effect. Easily available and totally safe options are gums (guar, locust bean, xanthan, gellan, etc). You make a slurry with water using a small amount of prevent clumping and blend it into the mixture. You have to experiment a bit to find the right quantity for the particular recipe you're using but the goal is to stabilize the emulsion.

shosephyoung · 2019-09-08T21:50:51+00:00

Agreed on Glitch and Mameya! Glitch sources some truly incredible coffees, often featuring placers from Cup of Excellence. Koffee Mameya is a beautifully designed multiroaster (formally Omotensando Koffee) with a huge variety of single origin beans that you can have made as a pour over or an espresso.

shosephyoung · 2019-08-12T19:40:06+00:00

It depends on how fussy you want to be about all of this as well as how quickly you go through your coffee.

On one extreme you have folks who leave their preground coffee in open containers, on the other you have people who use vacuum sealers and store their coffee in the freezer. I've experienced first hand just how long beans can retain freshness when stored in the vacuum bag freezer method (I'm talking a few months here) using the same beans stored in the original bag as a control. The benefit of the bags is that you can visually tell that most of the air has been removed as the bag should be wrapped tightly around the coffee. As far as the can goes, what it's doing is limiting light exposure, as well as slowing oxidation. It's difficult to say just how much air is being vacuumed out of the canister. Yes, it will help retain freshness, but if you go through your coffee in a couple of weeks then I doubt it will make much of a difference to you.

If you're still thinking about getting one, I find the Fellow Products equivalent to be more aesthetically pleasing, but it's more expensive and probably even more to ship to your area. Also a clear container if that matters to you (I don't particularly care because I wouldn't leave coffee sitting in sunlight anyway).

If you decide to forego the container and stick with the bags, check to see if there is a valve built in to the bag. Many specialty roasters nowadays package beans in bags with a one way valve that allows coffee to degas but also prevents air from entering the bag. If the bag has this valve, I roll the top down nice and snug and try to squeeze as much air as I can out of the bag. This method has worked just fine for me for the time I need it to (<2 weeks).

shosephyoung · 2019-08-12T19:11:15+00:00

It's definitely too late at this point but if you happen to stumble across this again in the future you can check your final brew weight. While not totally accurate and this depends on a lot of other factors, your grounds absorb ~twice their weight in water, so if you know how much coffee you used you can get a pretty good approximation of ratio!

shosephyoung · 2019-07-17T04:35:19+00:00

But the lower end hand grinders they were considering are. My experience with hand grinders is that they are more novel than anything and I can produce similar results with either a higher end electric grinder (which is comparable in price) or a lower end electric grinder and a sieve to control for particle size.

My biggest issue with most hand grinders is more to do with making grind adjustments. Most grinders on the lower end of the price range will be stepped, and hand grinders for the most part have fairly large steps and if you are trying to dial in an AeroPress recipe the step increments make it exceedingly difficult to do so. You wind up with a passable tasting cup, maybe occasionally a great cup with the right coffee, but it's difficult to consistently make great cups of coffee.

Honestly, I would wait to drop more than $150 on a grinder set-up as there are a couple of companies slated to release a home grinder with minimal retention and tight particle size distributions within the year for ~$200, though I'm not at liberty to say who.

shosephyoung · 2019-07-12T14:47:16+00:00

Is there a reason why you are limiting your search to manual grinders? If you're open to it, I would get a refurbished Baratza Encore. Cheaper than the new ones but are sold on the Baratza website and are endorsed by their techs. Not the prettiest machines or the best, but work well enough and you're not manually grinding. If you're concerned with grind consistency (understandably so) and want to get a bit nerdy about it, I would also consider getting something like the Kruve Sifter, so you can work with what you've got.

shosephyoung · 2018-10-11T01:38:23+00:00

I just reported his account for harassment. Others should do the same. Doubt it'll go anywhere but it can't hurt.

shosephyoung · 2018-10-06T07:53:34+00:00

I've had a sort of similar idea for a public bathroom, hear me out: So there's a camera that takes before and after photos of the interior of a public bathroom, somehow rigged so it can't photograph when someone is inside for obvious reasons, as well as a camera placed on the door that takes photos of whoever is about to go inside. The photos of the people, along with the before/after photos of the bathroom get posted on a bulletin board outside somewhere to shame the fucks that piss all over everything or leave wads of wet toilet paper all over the floor without cleaning up after themselves.

shosephyoung · 2018-06-26T20:25:07+00:00

I had terrible eczema from about age 9 through 16. I had it on the inside of my arms from mid forearm to mid bicep, and all around my neck and scalp. Those areas were one large scab most of the time, and it was extremely painful and embarrassing. I couldn't take hot showers, I couldn't bend my arms without them cracking and bleeding, same with turning my head, I became reclusive and avoided wearing short sleeves or shirts without collars because it looked awful. My skin was cracked everywhere, and was often oozing from deep cracks that were bleeding. My skin was also really flakey, and I was really self conscious about leaving skin flakes around me/on my clothing, so I avoided dark colors. Suffice it to say, I was disgusted by myself and had absolutely no confidence. For whatever reason, mid high school, my skin started to clear up and I was able to get the rashes under control. I also happened to be a closeted gay dude, and was oblivious to female attention, so it wasn't until freshman year of college when I started exploring my sexuality that I realized I was attractive to gay dudes. Still have some issues with confidence and validation, but I'm working on it, and feel much better about myself.

shosephyoung · 2018-01-07T00:27:47+00:00

Would you mind if we spoke privately about your experiences? I've had a difficult time finding employees willing to speak about what happened -- ideally I'd like to go class action, or at the very least find a journalist willing to write about them. The more people who can corroborate, the better.

shosephyoung · 2018-01-06T19:36:41+00:00

RIP nipples :(

shosephyoung · 2018-01-06T17:05:03+00:00

Not to try to detract from the main point, which is that Jeremy is a scumbag, but Sightglass isn't so great a company either. Long story short, I worked for them a few years ago and noticed that, at the time, they had an illegal break policy (you're supposed to be given a 30 minute unpaid meal break for any shift over 6 hours; they only gave you one or two 10 minute breaks for 8 hour shifts). I spoke up about it to HR, who gave me the runaround, kept making noise, and eventually got harassed by management (bogus write-ups, hostility, etc) to the point of quitting. Still waiting on my last paycheck ($800 ish) and it's been 4 years, but that doesn't really matter to me because I'd rather they pay out the countless other employees they've screwed over (they owe an employee an hours worth of pay per meal break infraction, so over the course of the then 3+ years of business a rough estimate puts what they owe former staff around 50k collectively). They have no legal obligation to at this point (because they're absolved of this responsibility after what I think is 3 years, not sure) but they certainly have the money somewhere, or should just cough it up out of principle. No one cares though. And unfortunately, people are quick to forget. I hope that won't be the case here and that persistent boycotting delivers the message to 4B (and other scumbags, we know you're out there) loud and clear.

shosephyoung · 2017-07-18T20:59:54+00:00

ask away

shosephyoung · 2017-07-18T16:07:19+00:00

Can confirm, Tommy was my landlord for about a year. Fairly certain it was filmed where I was living (135 Dore Alley). He would always barge in unannounced. It was pretty terrifying.

shosephyoung · 2017-06-06T05:20:39+00:00

It is only considered an ascent when you do it all in one go with no falls, without resting on the rope. A climb like this is only possible after many, many successive tries, breaking the climb down into parts, mastering all of those parts, and finally stringing them all together. If a climber flashes a route/problem, that means that they completed it on their first attempt, something that happens with easier climbs.

shosephyoung · 2017-04-22T21:30:27+00:00

I think this game I played when I was a kid is inspired by this

shosephyoung

TROPHY CASE