u/Decent-Ad1999

Decaf beans from PERC coffee and oat milk. Still working on my Rosettas, this is maybe the second one where half didn't end up on the counter.

I know I'm beating a dead horse by sharing my opinion on this, but I don't have anyone I personally know who cares about this level of nuance so strangers on the internet it is!

I wanted to see for myself how puck depth influences taste. The Flair Neo Flex uses a 39mm "portafilter" vs the Gaggia Classic which is the more standard 58mm. The first picture is the puck depth, and you can see it's quite drastic. Below are the parameters and my novice tasting notes:

Puck prep consisted of WDT and tamping for both shots, but I utilized a shower screen w/ the Gaggia Classic. All grinding was done on my Mazzer Mini (which is NOT zeroed properly so my grinding numbers are a bit arbitrary)

Flair Neo Flex

- 15g dose ground halfway between 9 & 0 on the dial.

- Water chamber heated to Tmax of 76.7°C

- Distilled water remineralized w/ TWW light roast formulation for brewing heated to 93°C

- 35g output in 45 sec (~10sec pre infusion > ~5sec soak > pull lever) *Rough estimate of 6-7 bar peak

Tasting notes: little to no acidity. Sweet up front, but no distinct flavor notes. Nutty aftertaste. Clean. Noticeably cooler in the cup than a semiautomatic machine.

Gaggia Classic

- 18g dose ground @ 9 on the dial

- Brewing temp set to 93°C. Distilled water used w/ no remineralization

- 39.4g output in 25.8 seconds; peaked @ 6 bars. *Adaptive V2 profile used w/ Gaggimate software

Tasting notes: more acidity, but not in a bad way, (though this might be more related to the temp). Nutty aftertaste was muted until the cup cooled. Still clean on the palate.

Final thoughts?

First I'll share what I think went wrong:

1. The Flair likely under extracted due to temperature. Notably, I use a DIY heating mod instead of preheating w/ boiling water and my water for brewing wasn't directly off boil.

2. I could've pushed extraction on the Gaggia more, a peak of 6 bars tells me I wasn't even close to grinding as fine as I could.

3. I tried my best for similar recipes, but there's many reasons why that's just impossible. (Water debit, pump vs lever, where temp is measured, etc etc)

4. Differences in dose effecting TDS & what not

Overall, I preferred the taste from the Flair, but for the reasons I mentioned this is worth redoing!