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  1. #16
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by KBs PensNmore View Post
    You might have Australia's best water, and Bob the saltiest, but Adelaides water is so bad, it's been re-evaluated from H2O to a new Chemical Syymbol, K9P
    Kryn
    Nah its not that good. Back in the 1970's our suburb used to get all dam/rainwater which was not too bad but now it's mainly groundwater or desal so our tap water is "ordinary"

    According to World Health Organization, total dissolved solids (TDS) levels less than 300 mg/litre is considered as excellent, between 300 and 600 mg/liter is good, 600-900 is fair, 900 – 1200 is poor and TDS level more than 1200 mg/liter is unacceptable.
    Water can also have low TDs but still smell and taste poor. Some folks are more sensitive to this than others.

    Perth Water's TDS is between about 100 and 600 mg/L depending on the amount of Dam/Ground/desal you get in your suburb. Where we live the typical value is around 390 mg/L and my Reverse Osmosis (RO) system pulls that down to under 10, the lowest I have seen it is around 3 mg/L. Although it does help the taste, the main reason I do it is not for taste but to protect the coffee machine boiler. To give you an idea how helpful the system is for the coffee machine, in 15 years I have only had to descale the machine 3 times. Whereas with my previous coffee machine without the RO I had to descale it very 6 months.

    We don't cook or recharge our drinking water containers with RO water, we just draw water after the sediment and charcoal filters which is more than enough to improve the taste.

    The deioniser cartridge reduces the TDS so much my TDS meter cannot even read the TDS remaining in the water. You cannot really drink this water without medical supervision as you can injure yourself from drinking water that is too pure. Also it seems to suck the life out of the water so it does not seem to make as good a coffee as the RO filter water.

  2. #17
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    Good to see another coffee nerd on here.. nice setup you have there Bob.. I have a Giotto and Mazzer Mini which has served me well for almost 13 years.. I have been toying with the idea of doing a rotary pump conversion on it to quieten things down although the missus doesn't want me cutting holes in her benchtop so that I can plumb it in.. mind you the Giotto is quieter than the Mazzer..

    I also roasted my own coffee for a number of years, but due to study and the fact that my green bean supplier sold his business, I started buying roasted coffee.

    I drink milky coffees but my daughter got me to try Oat Milk. Its not too bad and doesn't alter the taste of the coffee too much unlike soy or almond milk.. It also stretches pretty well and is not unlike cow's milk.

    Flo

  3. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    Even without a PID the Cimbali is pretty good at temp control but PID IS on the "upgrade plan"
    I added one to my Rancilio Silvia about 10 years ago - it has a considerably smaller boiler I think. Made a pretty big improvement, and added shot timing with pre-infusion, all of which helps with consistency. The other more recent improvement is a (relatively) cheap Breville grinder has a grind timer and numerical grind-fineness display, which helps with tweaking the grind as the beans age.

    Close, pressure will be monitored so as not to go outside set limits but rather the pressure the aim is controlled extraction flow by varying the pressure.
    So you're going to sense the flow rate?

  4. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flo View Post
    I also roasted my own coffee for a number of years, but due to study and the fact that my green bean supplier sold his business, I started buying roasted coffee.
    I bought a Behmor 1600 roaster, which is sitting in my workshop next to my welding table, having been used maybe 6 times. I discovered that I actually kind of preferred buying a consistently-roasted blend, provided I could get them within a few days of roasting.

  5. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyArc View Post
    I bought a Behmor 1600 roaster, which is sitting in my workshop next to my welding table, having been used maybe 6 times. I discovered that I actually kind of preferred buying a consistently-roasted blend, provided I could get them within a few days of roasting.
    I used a breadmaker and a heatgun and had a thermocouple to monitor bean temps.. One of my future projects is to build a little 1- 2kg drum roaster although I can comfortably roast 500g in the breadmaker..

    I guess the key to buying decent beans is having access to a good roaster who will tell you when the beans were roasted..

  6. #21
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flo View Post
    Good to see another coffee nerd on here.. nice setup you have there Bob.. I have a Giotto and Mazzer Mini which has served me well for almost 13 years.. I have been toying with the idea of doing a rotary pump conversion on it to quieten things down although the missus doesn't want me cutting holes in her benchtop so that I can plumb it in.. mind you the Giotto is quieter than the Mazzer.
    Thanks FLo. The Giotto is a nice machine, one of my other coffee news mates has one and he has made some excellent shots with that.

    Cutting holes in bench top started with the plumbed in CO2 bottle under the house for the soda water maker and as that was desired by SWMBO it was then an easy step for the coffee machine. SWMBO though it was a good idea because the drain pan always seemed to overflow when she was using it.

    I also roasted my own coffee for a number of years, but due to study and the fact that my green bean supplier sold his business, I started buying roasted coffee.
    I've dabbled a bit and was co-owner of a baby popcorn style roaster for a while but we were never consistent enough for my liking. Then my mate got a job as a coffee roaster although I did not get much from him. On and off I have been buying my beans from FiveSenses Coffee and am one of their oldest domestic customers and get their VIP discount - we used to go through 3kg a month but have cut that back to 2 in the last few years.

    I drink milky coffees but my daughter got me to try Oat Milk. Its not too bad and doesn't alter the taste of the coffee too much unlike soy or almond milk.. It also stretches pretty well and is not unlike cow's milk
    I can drink oat milk and have it sometimes on cereal, not that I eat cereal all that often as I am on a low carb diet. I'm mainly a block coffee drinker and just have milky coffees to break thinks up a bit. For me the milk has to have a decent fat component to complement the texture of the black coffee. That's why I like cream in coffee although I can understand why the oil spots might put some folks off. I don't worry about the calories as I only eat one meal a day anyway and my cholesterol is OK.

  7. #22
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by RustyArc View Post
    I added one to my Rancilio Silvia about 10 years ago - it has a considerably smaller boiler I think. Made a pretty big improvement, and added shot timing with pre-infusion, all of which helps with consistency.
    The Cimbali is a small machine but as it weighs 33kg it has a decent thermal inertia so the temp does not very much between heating cycles. It's built like a brick outhouse although mine does have a few rust spots on some of the non-SS or brass components. Earlier this year the stop start button failed but I tracked that to a connection where some steam had surface corroded a couple of ribbon contacts, a bit of wet and dry, and a dab of vaseline fixed that.

    The other more recent improvement is a (relatively) cheap Breville grinder has a grind timer and numerical grind-fineness display, which helps with tweaking the grind as the beans age.
    Grinders are indeed often underestimated in the search for good coffee. Last year I finally replaced the burrs on my Mazzer, ~3kg/month, 36kg a year x 15 years = 540 kg, recommended replacement is 4-500kgs on those little grinders. The replacement Burrs were eye watering expensive ($100) bit it was interesting to see how sharp the new ones were compared to the old ones.

    So you're going to sense the flow rate?
    Yep - well that's the plan. It's apparently very tricky to do at the ml/s rate but that's the plan and I like a challenge.

  8. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobL View Post
    Thanks FLo. The Giotto is a nice machine, one of my other coffee news mates has one and he has made some excellent shots with that.
    I've been happy with mine.. and it as certainly paid for itself over the years..

    Cutting holes in bench top started with the plumbed in CO2 bottle under the house for the soda water maker and as that was desired by SWMBO it was then an easy step for the coffee machine. SWMBO though it was a good idea because the drain pan always seemed to overflow when she was using it.
    Yeah that's not going to happen for me.. my daughter and I are the only ones who use the machine even though my wife enjoys a coffee made with the machine!


    I've dabbled a bit and was co-owner of a baby popcorn style roaster for a while but we were never consistent enough for my liking. Then my mate got a job as a coffee roaster although I did not get much from him. On and off I have been buying my beans from FiveSenses Coffee and am one of their oldest domestic customers and get their VIP discount - we used to go through 3kg a month but have cut that back to 2 in the last few years.
    Yeah Popcorn poppers lack control and capacity.. They are basically on or off. With the breadmaker and heatgun I can can control the roast better. I reckon we'd go through 1.5kg a month..

    I can drink oat milk and have it sometimes on cereal, not that I eat cereal all that often as I am on a low carb diet. I'm mainly a block coffee drinker and just have milky coffees to break thinks up a bit. For me the milk has to have a decent fat component to complement the texture of the black coffee. That's why I like cream in coffee although I can understand why the oil spots might put some folks off. I don't worry about the calories as I only eat one meal a day anyway and my cholesterol is OK.
    I prefer cow's milk in my espresso.. If I drink french press/plunger coffee then I like it black.. When I make myself coffee I always use a 20g basket and pull 2 shots.. one becomes a piccolo and the other a flat white..

    I have a mate who has thickened cream in his piccolo's.. the thickened cream has less carbs than full cream milk apparently. Who knew?

  9. #24
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flo View Post
    I have a mate who has thickened cream in his piccolo's.. the thickened cream has less carbs than full cream milk apparently. Who knew?
    Cream has 14 calories per gram whereas full cream milk has about 3, but cream has half the sugar per gram compared to milk. Usually one uses a lot more milk in a full stretched latte than in a drink with a shot of cream plus hot water so calorie wise it works out about the same.

    When I make myself coffee I always use a 20g basket and pull 2 shots.. one becomes a piccolo and the other a flat white..
    I usually use a 12g basket and extract everything a touch short ie ristretto. If I'm making for a crowd I will use the the 21g basket with 22g of ground coffee in it to make two coffees at a time

    As far as mounting the new rotary pump to the motor is concerned, today I attacked the two flanges and bored them out with a TC boring bar (one at 25mm and the other at 53mm). They are both stainless. One I'm pretty sure is 316 but I'm not sure about the other as I got that from the scrap bin at a steel merchant. They are both pretty hard but the TC tipped cutter got me though easily enough. I now need to align them which is not going to be easy.

  10. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Flo View Post
    I guess the key to buying decent beans is having access to a good roaster who will tell you when the beans were roasted..
    Yep, it does vary. I'm fortunate to live about 5 minute's drive from an industrial precinct where there's 3 roasters, and there's 2 more 10 to 15 minutes away. I don't drink that much coffee per day - a kilo of beans will last me about a month, which is getting a bit past their prime, so getting beans that are just a few days old, i.e. degassed and right to go, is the goal, but has proven a challenge. That said, the 3rd, most recent roaster is totally cool about going out the back and getting a newly-roasted bag, so good times.

  11. #26
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    One issue I have with roasters is consistency. You just get to like a particular bean and the way they roast it and they change things, no its "no longer available" or "we're now buying these beans" or... or... etc.
    We have several roasters that are local that I can buy from in an emergency but the one I buy from are 40 km, or depending on traffic between 40 and 70 minutes minutes, away, but they deliver my 3kg monthly order for a whole $4. They roast stuff daily and deliver within 2 days which makes them expensive but they are highly consistent. I have been buying from them since 1995 and have not been disappointed with anything I have bought from the.

    Recently the a young close friend of ours set up a commercial roaster just 10 minutes away and I have bought some beans from him. He's very keen and enthusiastic but only just getting sorted and only roasts stuff that I like about once a week. However, he does seem to be able to get a consistent roast - whether he is able to refrain from extensive "experimentation" or even survives in the cut throat business of coffee roasting is another matter.

  12. #27
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    Yep, the barrier to entry for commercial coffee roasting seems to be getting ever lower, given how many roasters pop up.

    I tend to go for the house espresso blend, as it tends to be the most consistent, since they make heaps of it for supply to cafes.

  13. #28
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Found some time to get back to the motor pump couple/flanger this morning and just assembled and tested it and I am pretty happy with the way it runs.

    The hard connect and some alignment adjustment is done via the SS all-thread rods.
    I will be rotating the motor side flange by 90º CCW so the pump I/O's are pointing upwards.
    Complete2.JPG

    Heres a close up of the coupler - on the above photo it's just possible to see the 5mm grub screw on the motor side of the coupler just to stop it siding on the motor shaft.
    Complete1.JPG

    Initially I used 6mm all thread because there were already 6mm threaded holes in the pump side of the flange plate but I tapped the holes on the motor side flange plate just so slightly non-perpendicular and this then threw the whole shebang out of alignment and there was too much vibe for my liking.

    So I swapped the 6mm for 8 mm and this time I used my home made centre finder in the drill press to hold the back of the tap vertical like this.
    Being able to minutely control the height of the table with my auto table riser really came into its own in this situation.
    CF1.JPG
    CF2.JPG
    The holes in the flange plates are now vertical but there was still a slight mismatch between the opposite hole positions on each flange plate which is why the all thread doesn't look that straight in the photo but it seems to work fine. I had the pump running up to 75Hz without any appreciable vibe and I reckon I can reduce the vibe even further by improving the alignment a bit more if I need to.

  14. #29
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    Hi Bob,

    I would have trapped a piece of plastic tube, either inside or outside the spacer bolts, just to help alignment and to keep the drive clean.

    But we wouldn't have been able to see it then

    Nice job anyway
    Best Regards:
    Baron J.

  15. #30
    BobL is online now Member: Blue and white apron brigade
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    Quote Originally Posted by BaronJ View Post
    Hi Bob,

    I would have trapped a piece of plastic tube, either inside or outside the spacer bolts, just to help alignment and to keep the drive clean.

    But we wouldn't have been able to see it then

    Nice job anyway
    Thanks.

    RE: Plastic tube
    Great idea.
    I can still do that and it might be worth doing for safety sake.
    You will still be able to see the coupler because I will probably do it with clear tubing OR I can make a tube with some 1mm Polycarbonate.

    The final location of the pump and motor will hopefully be in a cupboard where SWMBO keeps her serving ware, glass platters and trays, and ceramic and metal serving dishes etc so the cupboard itself is pretty clean.
    Last edited by BobL; 17th Sep 2019 at 06:33 AM.

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