Science Discovers What We All Missed: More Than An Anti-Static Hack
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- Опубліковано 7 гру 2023
- The Google Survey: forms.gle/aggEtudDCnqUVRZr7
The Paper (Direct Link): bit.ly/wetbeans
Supplemental Paper: bit.ly/coffeestatic
Some More Relevant Videos:
Did Science Just Reinvent Espresso?: • Did Science Just Reinv...
The Anti Static Hack: • Coffee Hack: No More S...
Espresso Essential?: • An Espresso Essential?
Lance Hedrick's Deep Dive video on this paper: • BETTER WAY TO GRIND CO...
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I’m not sure why the links aren’t showing for some people. Here they are:
The Google Survey:
forms.gle/aggEtudDCnqUVRZr7
The Paper (Direct Link): bit.ly/wetbeans
Supplemental Paper: bit.ly/coffeestatic
I think the hyperlink is not opening up correctly since it doesn't include the last portion of the address.
fyi u have to copy the link, it doesnt make a Hyperlink since its going on the next line
I used to sell and own a Eureka ORO grinder. They have an anti-static mechanism. They call it ACE in marketing. This might by why the water drop technique didn't have a noticable effect.
Google link is broken even when uniting the link source
Obvious question, what happens if you brew your coffe in the grinder ?
IE, pour boiling water through the hand grinder as you crank it.
Be sure to use (thermally)insulated rubber gloves when you test this James 🤣
New bad coffee trend, drink only positively charged coffee grounds, throw away the identical negative charged grounds.
don't give them ideas
That method should only be used if you are in possession of a kettle which produces left-spin water molecules.
(This makes a sour taste)
Introducing the new Kruve electro-seive
Personally speaking, I prefer the bitter taste of coffee conisting of antiquarks.
It’s always a pleasure to watch these videos. And even more of a pleasure to watch James slowly transition from barista to a coffee research scientist with his own laboratory
My suggestion for the slowing flow rate would be that the coating of water on all the coffee particles drastically increases the capillary action of the coffee bed, which usually I would think is fairly hydrophobic if dry. The oils in the coffee also probably don't help with that. If you try to water dry soil versus slightly damp soil, you see the effect of a thin water coating makes orders of magnitude of difference. So a stronger capillary force from the already present water allows the coffee to be drawn into the packed bed more evenly and reduces the chances of channels forming, leading to higher leaching rates and slower flow rates. This is not contrary to what the prof said. It might be a combination of both.
Dry sponge vs wet sponge.
I'll subscribe to this theory.
Your hypothesis should be wrong according to 12:40. If your hypothesis has a statistically significant effect, then the test made with the grinder at 12:40 should also have a longer brew time.
If that theory was true wouldn’t all grinders see a longer shot time after adding water not just some
How would you spray coffee beans in a large hopper as opposed to a measured single serve?
A month ago I thought, I was a pedantic home coffee guy. After discovering this channel, I'm now weighing my coffee to 0.01g and micro spraying with distilled water and I can firmly say that the rabbit hole is significantly deeper that I ever expected...BUT I can also say that you firmly improved the consistency of my espresso shot.
Is there a reason you are using distilled water? I do not know enough about the spritzing method to know if this is generally recommended, however, I believe DI water does not conduct charge so readily as regular tap or mineral water... Now I'm interested to see a difference in the formation of electroclumps/aggregates between using regular water vs DI water! According to the paper, it seems that the cooling effect of water is more important than its ability to conduct charge, however, your comment has got me thinking.
Do people seriously looking into this problem realise they basically left the Maslow pyramid?
Lol
I’m no electricity surgeon but distilled water has a lower electrical conductivity because it’s cleaner - the coffee itself is going to raise the EC of the water, and tap water is going to have an EVEN HIGHER EC than the same coffee made with Distilled.
So the water will have to deaden the static charge of the beans, plus the charge of the dissolved solids present in your tap water.
As long as it's real espresso not mokka or filter.
It’s fascinating that the spritzing makes a MEASURABLE difference to the extraction of the espresso. I could totally see “well in theory this should have a marginal benefit but in reality it’ll probably never mean anything,” but it’s amazing that they were able to actually measure a meaningful, quantitative change.
The thing about static electricity is that the voltages involved are surprisingly high. Rubbing your hair on a balloon can charge it to 10,000 V (with a very small charge). So, I could easily imagine kilovolts of static building up on these grounds as well.
@@efovex(ik you understand this but for people reading)
What you feel when shocked is the current not the voltage.
The voltage just has to be above the minimum voltage required to cross your skin's outer layer.
That's why you get tased with static but touching the tip of your phone charger does nothing.
Pp😅
a rare occurence in science
You use so little coffee for an espresso that that amount of water is pretty substantial. I wonder if it's a bit like absorbing things with a wet sponge vs a dry sponge.
As a scientist and coffee drinker, I really enjoyed this video.
As a scientist and coffee drinker who did a chemistry minor at the same university that the paper was published, big fan of this video.
As a regular person and a coffee drinker I.... see how dumb that sounds
@@rob-890 I bet you're super fun to be around...
@@Hoserzzz yeah great fun 👍
@@rob-890 Your comment made me laugh so don't feel dumb.
I was not ready for this man's voice... Like a warm cup of coffee
I know right! I kinda hope that besides doing science, he's also a singer
Second that
I am SUPER excited that you got a particle size analyzer, and from a legit analytical science company like Anton Paar. That is an incredible leap towards quantifying the impact of different grinders, burrs, grind RPM, etc, which so far has been limited to assumptions. Wow! That instrument is a significant investment too and I'm thrilled you got to a place where your fame and fortune, so to speak, can be put towards advanced coffee science to benefit all weird coffee people everywhere!
I'm assuming we'll be seeing a lot of grinder studies now using that instrument. Can't wait =)
Really cool. I wish he would show us how the particle analyzer works and what the process is. Super fascinating piece of equipment.
“I have a half dozen grinders…I don’t have enough” this killed me haha
To be fair, somehow to me, half a dozen grinders sounds more than 6 grinders.
I think when collecting data from lots of people, tracking relative humidity in the air might be really important. I keep my house really dry (~30%) for 3D printing, and I see a massive amount of static cling on my grinder, which doesn’t have any bottleneck. So RH may be a significant source of noise.
Very interesting point. I keep a couple small hygrometers in my house and I’ll move one to my coffee station as part of testing. I think ignoring this key attribute would be leaving out a highly influential variable.
We do know that less humidity should = more static charge.
It seems most people don't keep track of internal humidity and that can vary wildly so might not be possible to even account for that
I’m living in a humid city where relative humidity is always above 80%. I think I have never seen a static cling. So I think RH might somehow play a role here. 🤔
Absolutely. For acoustic instruments I keep around 45% and have very minimal static issues.
@@duckpotat9818 Yeah, hygrometers are really cheap, but asking everyone to buy one is a pretty big barrier to participation. But I think you can get a decent quick and dirty model by just using outdoor temperature and RH, which anyone can look up easily.
I would have people report the numbers, and then when crunching, categorize the RH and temperature as "low", "medium" or "high", where "medium" is the range of a typical comfortable indoor temperature. Then you have rules something like:
- Low temp = low indoor RH
- Low outdoor RH = low indoor RH
- High temp + high RH = mid indoor RH
- Mid temp = same RH as outside
And so on. Basically, if you have the heat on inside, your indoor RH is going to be on the low end, because the outdoor air just doesn't hold much moisture in the first place, even at 100% RH. On the other hand, if you have the AC on, that will also reduce the indoor humidity, but not by as much. So just reduce the outdoor RH by one step.
This isn't perfect, of course. You also want to ask if they have a humidifier or dehumidifier, or a swamp cooler, and there will always be exceptional cases. But that should reduce the problem to "outliers" instead of "across the board noise".
I used this spritzing water method a few weeks back before this paper was published. My grinder is the new Fellow Opus. It was the first time I did it with the Opus because I never thought of doing it since the grinder has anti static tech. And I was so surprised that when wet, it took vastly much longer to reach 36g than when it’s dry. Now that this paper has been published, I’m going to try it again!
I had noticed that the timing (and quality) of my espresso extractions varied widely for months. Now you have provided the explanation, and such a simple solution. Since I started misting my coffee beans, my espresso extraction has been consistent in both timing and quality. Thank you!!!
I love the citizen science your channel is promoting, and that you're encouraging mixed and unclear results to be shared. There is a signal here, we just can't see it yet. Keep sharing, keep signal boosting, and keep experimenting!
I think you commented a wrong Video bud^^
@@Caffeine.And.Carvings Nope, this is 100% citizen science in action. It's not being funded, backed, or motivated by corporate interests. It's encouraging normal people to participate in the scientific process. It has no agendas other than to learn more about how coffee 'works', and hopefully find new and interesting ways of brewing a better cup, for whatever 'better' means to you. This is grade-a stuff, I love it.
@@radiantthought You don't need to be corporate backed to do research. In the lab I used to work, we were paid by the state, and the lab itself was inside a public university. In all matters, it was a public job.
However, what you may mean is the more humble but still valid, well structured research like things done by Tech Ingredients and NightHawkInLight. Their mutual research about cooling paints were entire out of pocket, and very personal to both, but still incredibly refined despite being "done with household materials" (Tech Ingredients, in fact, has an entire lab full of high end equipment, but all of them were also acquired out of pocket, so they aren't anymore the usual "household" that one would think of).
In fact, this is the first time I ever heard of the term "citizen science". Perhaps you mean more like the UA-camr collabs that happen across the science UA-cam world, when they request the job from someone of another area of knowledge, like Backyard Scientist (who doesn't have skills in chemistry) calling NileRed in (who does) to make bombs.
@@radiantthoughtscience is science, “citizen science” sounds like the kind of BS flat earthers do.
*as long as misinformation isn't accidentally spread :)
"It's your Grindr, not my Grindr, and informed consent is important..." 😂 It may be time for Hames to reappear.
Love this video. It's great to see coffee educators like you and Lance covering this kind of material. We are nerds, and this is very indulgent! Also, the one electroclump quick text had me cracking up.
I've been struggling with static on my coffee grinder for so, so long. This video is my game changer. THAN YOU VERY MUCH.
I am absolutely certain that if 1% of humanity increased the level of interest and passion in what they did, regardless of what that may be, to even a fraction of what you do with and for coffee the world would be a much better place.
Thank you James for encouraging people, through coffee, to do more, do better and question what they do.
Ooookaaaay. 🙄
Jeeez this is like saying ‘I love you man’ to your friends after a long long night of drinking.
@@mikehawk1780 Yes, it does! 🤣 .... but it's right though.
They already do that. Just not in the areas YOU'RE interested in. A good proportion of people, for example, doctors and scientists, are passionate about healthcare and science and yet just as passionate idiota still call them frauds and don't trust science.
The reason you're not seeing particle size differences in your particle sized analyser is probably because it breaks up the electroclumps during the measuring process. No idea the details of how the machine works, but it would be far from surprising if it was violent enough to the micron sized particles to break up the electroclumps into their constituent grains.
That's definitely a potential hitch in their theory. They are just assuming that the changes are caused by clumping. But if you can't prove uneven particle sizes because the measurement method interferes with said clumping, it is just theoretical.
@@skeetsmcgrew3282 You'd have to pretty much do it manually I suspect. Get samples to test under a very good microscope and either visually confirm the existence of electroclumps or do a visual size comparison of the whole sample. Although you could probably take a high res picture and have a computer do the comparison part.
It looks like a Litesizer DIA 500. This comes with one out of three choosable dispersion units with the object to separate particles from each other, which indeed could separate the clumps. One is solving it in liquids. One is Dry Jet. One is Free Fall. No idea which one was used in this video.
It's like in quantum mechanics, the measurement problem all over again!
@@maxmuster6390 Thanks for digging into the hardware! Would be good to know what they're using in their machine. I guess free fall might be the only one which doesn't destroy electroclumps?Although if they survive the tampering process in espresso making, then perhaps they're not so fragile...
Thank you James for researching this topic! I'm inspired by the fact that you're exploring this. I really enjoy watching it. Even if in the end there are more questions than answers.
I’m so glad I checked, I was just reading his article from another feed and immediately ran over to your channel. This may help with the grinder cleanups, I’d still prefer the grind a little moist as opposed to a clump, and this may help bring out the flavors from other mixes. Thank you.
Even though I'm not "that into" coffee and usually just guess each time I make it, I absolutely love your videos. It's not just the information, but the candor, the dedication without obsession, and the curiosity. I wish there were clones of you making UA-cam videos on different topics - it'd be a better world.
I would argue that he is obsessed. Not mad but sanely obsessed
Have you checked Alex French Guy Cooking ?
A little bit more dramatic, but also dedicated to understanding the causes behind the observations.
To be fair, there are very similarly obsessed people on UA-cam for all topics, it just takes time trying to find them.. unless of course you have a particular crush on James... in which case you may have to wait a while until UA-cam has an AI "select your presenter" option 😜
If you close your eyes you can experience what it’s like to have Jon Hamm describe coffee physics to you
Nice! 😂
“It’s toasted.”
Mmmhhhmmm ham coffee
Less Jon Hamm. More witsec interview and someone forgot to blur his face.
😂
most excellent piece James. It has always been a delight to watch your many videos - May the new year bring new and fulfilling challenges to you and your team. T
I love these more scientific videos of the science behind the making of a good coffee. Watched thus as well as the decaf one tonight and look forward to possibly more like this
Decided to try this again after giving up on misting beans ages ago. Somehow forgot that I’d since repurposed the atomizer for adding orange blossom water to homemade orgeat. While I can’t endorse deliberately using orange blossom water in your coffee grinder, it certainly made for an interesting espresso and a real Proustian moment while I played “what the hell is that weird perfume flavor?”
And THAT, boys and girls, is how the great discoveries are made!
Thanks for reminding me - I should get some orgeat.
Man, this video is surreal. I don't think I ever had a chance to meet him specifically, but I was just at a small conference with Chris Hendon a few months ago and met several of his students and heard a bit about his coffee research. I don't think I've ever seen someone I've encountered so closely in such a popular piece of media as this. I suspected that he or his work about coffee (though he also studies wine and other compounds more relevant to industrial chemistry) would show up here eventually though. Super exciting stuff!
Thanks a lot for your most interesting videos. They really helped me to understand the coffee making process a lot more. Ordered one of your books and now hope to get deeper into this topic.
I think one aspect has been overlooked in the experiments you described: time scales of the wetting process might have a relevant role in the process of both triboelectrification and fractoelectrification. What was the elapsed time between wetting the beans and grinding them? It takes time for water to diffuse evenly into the beans. A suficiently long period should be allowed for the water to diffuse evenly into the beans in a way that the beans would have a uniform moisture content and consequently promote uniform stress transfer throughout the beans during grinding. If the elspsed time between wetting of the beans and their respective grinding was different for different experiments, the resulting effects related to tribo and fractoelectrification would certainly be different.
Interesting. I've been using this much water already, because a single spritz was never enough to get rid of the static. My grinder after 3 years of doing so is perfectly clean inside, as I just did a maintenance run of it last week.
Same here. For years I've been using 3-4 sprays for 16.5 grams in my conical burr grinder (Capresso 560), and never had issues. This is for an Aeropress.
I did that as well, sprayed sprayed sprayed, until it looks wet, all static is gone and somehow it taste slightly better than just small mist. I thought it was just placebo, it is real then. Mine is Breville BES870 built-in grinder, it has insane amount of static, without thorough spraying, it is always make a big mess. I've been adding a lot of water for 2 years almost everyday, the grinder is still fine.
Yes, I have to use a few spritzes as well because I live in a very dry climate. Never had any problems with my grinder.
This is excellent news
I just have an ocd thing with numbers and I do things in 3 😬🫠
This is fascinating! There's a nugget here about grinding frozen coffee. I've been freezing beans for freshness since I use coffee pretty slowly. An unintended result is that when I take out a dose of 18 grams of beans to grind, pretty quickly they get covered in a nice even layer of condensation because they are so cold. It's like getting a mist and mix for no effort. Hard to control the amount (which is a function of time and the relative humidity in the room), but interesting nonetheless. I've also had no issues with grinding frozen beans in my Breville Barista Express or my Fellow Ode gen 1, and not surprisingly I've had much less issue with static compared to grinding room temperature beans in the same grinders.
What you say seems to me the near perfect way towards achieving evenly moist beans so going to give it a go.😊
The father of a friend of mine was a coffee merchant and he says to freeze coffee beans because it helps stopping the burrs getting hot and 'cooking' the grounds when you grind larger amounts of coffee, or several in quick succession.
I just wanted to drop some extra information that wasn't in the survey since I found this very interesting:
I used a Fellow Opus and had an 18.4g dose (pre-ground) for both dry and wet beans. I used 0.4g of water on the beans to try to match the recommended dosing, but I couldn't be exceptionally precise, and just used the scale to measure a general amount that I dropped in and mixed.
I noticed that my grind time increased from 17.19 seconds dry to 21.75 seconds wet - however the dry grounds lost .1g to static that I was able to keep with the wet grounds, so ultimately the dry grounds brewed 18.3g of coffee to 40g out and the wet grounds brewed 18.4g of coffee to 40g out. There was noticeably a difference in the texture and distribution in the grounds as well - the dry grounds tended to clump together when moved around and the wet grounds were completely loose and would not clump or stick to any receptacles. It was noticeably easier to distribute the wet grounds and dose it into my portafilter. To a point, it seemed to not even need a distribution tool as there was virtually no clumping to begin with.
My dry shot measured 20 seconds to yield 40g and wet took 31 seconds. Neither shot produced any noticeable difference apart from the length of time, there was no impact on crema or any strange occurrences during the shot.
I checked both pucks, and because I use a puck screen I wouldn't expect there to be any channeling, and sure enough neither puck showed any signs of channeling. Both were completely in tact and looked to be about the same volume, though I didn't think to weigh them and see if they had any noticeable difference in that way.
Finally on flavor: both had a very similar flavor, however I would say there was (and it could be confirmation bias) just a bare hint of extra flavor in the wet grounds. Tasting both side by side it was a very minor difference, and it could even just be a shot to shot variation from any number of factors, though I attempted to control everything as much as possible. Overall I personally find that the experiment really just gave me a good reason to use the RDT method because of the distribution and ease in actually prepping the shot rather than any additional flavor benefit. The 11 second difference in shot time was fascinating, but the flavor wasn't significantly changed enough to warrant the technique on that behalf with my grinder and brewer.
Thank you, as always James, for giving something to think about and having us along for the journey!
Thankyou
This is fascinating. I have the Eureka mignon zero and I felt like I’ve noticed a small difference in the extraction time when spraying and not spraying. Going to be doing some experimenting now to really see if it does or not!
How Did it go?
I just got into making espresso at home, and your channel has been a fantastic find during my recent journey. I'm making some stuff at home that is better than any coffee place I've ever been.
The mention of frozen coffee was interesting to me. I wonder if dosing out of the freezer (Or freezing a premeasured dose) and allowing it to defrost a bit before grinding would allow for enough water to condensate on the beans to where an additional spritz of water wouldn't be necessary to observe these benifits? I wonder if maybe that effect played some roll in your findings on grinding frozen coffee beans?
Good question!
I thought about that too also.
I do this and it does seem to help with static. It might also fractionally improve the grind consistency based on another video James made about frozen coffee. I doubt my grinder is consistent enough for it to matter but placebo is a strong effect. 😆
I had the same thought. I'm never organised enough to realise that I'm going to run out of coffee and get the next bag out of the freezer to warm up before I need to use it... so this morning my V60 was half beans straight from the freezer...
Having said that I use a pretty basic Wilfa grinder at the moment so I don't know if I'd be able to tell the difference. I have noticed that over time I've got less and less issues with static, though... which is interesting in itself, particularly because I have a dehumidifier set to 50% rh in that room so it's always fairly dry.
Defrosting the beans make it more "rubbery" and "soft" which makes your ground coffee uneven in grinding which is worst than having a cheap entry level grinder. Which also ruined the reason why freezing coffee exists which is to have a higher evenness in particles because of increased brittleness. Christopher Hendon released a paper about freezing coffee and its benefits way back.
This was fascinating and you did a great job of connecting the science to our real world experiences. And you’re 100% right in asking the most interesting question: does it taste better?
Curious to see the results
Just a simple thank you James for all you do. Endlessly fascinating to me, and rewarding every time I make my coffee.
I love how I was able to get Lance‘s take on this paper and now just after I’m able to get James’s take too. Heck yeah
As a fellow scientist, I find this fascinating! It makes me happy to know there’s scientists out there studying coffee
I think it would also be interesting to look at the temperature difference of the beans before and after. There may be a more observable difference when grinders have reached their hot point and the water has a greater cooling effect through evaporation.
Thank you for putting forth all this effort to teach us all more about coffee!
"I'm left with more questions, than answers" -Welcome to scientific reasearch, it is fascinating but unsatisfying at times ^^
I've found the coverage of this paper to be really interesting. Lance Hedrick's deep dive was super informative, and your video adds the interactive element with the Form so we can do our own testing. I've not been drinking espresso at home lately but I'm tempted to start again to add my own response.
At last, i understand, why the coffee of our local roaster produces so much static electricity, when grinded with the wooden handgrinder of my grandma. I'm looking forward to experiment with adding water. Thanx for sharing and a happy new year!
James, I would love if you could get a multimeter and measure the resistance of the various materials the griders are constructed from, particularly where the machines directly contact the ground coffee at the end of the grind. My theory is that more conductive surfaces like metals will better dissipate the charges than plastic insulators. I think this likely accounts for that initial difference you noticed between different grinders -- the Eureka Mignon Oro has a metal spout and cup.
In all coffee grinders produced in the world, coffee beans come into contact with aluminum (For me, this is more of a problem. Dishes and cutlery made of aluminum are not produced and are not used in the kitchen.
That is my thought too. Lots of coffee grinders have a lot of plastic. Plastic is a poor conductor of charges.
@@Onovamnadosay that for brazilian industry of dementia LOL, here people cook even on preasured cookpots, it is almost a bomb made of aluminum that rise water temperature by a lot, some of those pots with valve defects even explodes time to time in brazil, the results are not nice. But we here has a serious problem of be dump as hell, not kidding our medium QI is really close to some monkeys. I avoid aluminum for any food porpose, but i not know that coffee grinders used that shit metal to it. Well, time to back into stone grinders i guess LOL, and i'am serious about stone grinders, i know people that still work making those stuff, they mound a base, one stone disc that has some high height and a hole to put normally a wooden bat where you add some mechanical force to rotate the entire stuff, the stone grinder not get any damage from grinding most organic materials, the real issue is when you release some coblestone into it, but dealing with high quality coffee beans i guess it will be totally mitagated soo, nice coffees in a nice not shit metal machinary LOL, may i put some eletric motor to rotate the stuff. I not sure if i will do this, is too much work, but daammmmm aluminum grinders are really bad, why not use those cirurgery metals that not oxide easily, they are much less a issue to be consumed LOL
Long-time lurker, first time joining in, and this finally got me to actually incorporate the spray. No difference for me in brew time (Compak K6), but less retention so I'll keep spraying. Data's also delivered to Google Forms, can't wait to see what's next!
Eurêka ! I think I've experienced that effect. It always puzzled me, the difference in extraction time between two identical doses of coffee with identical grind, on two cups made one after another. The second one almost always takes longer. But now that I think of it : two sprays of water on my first 18g dose of coffee beans, followed by two sprays on another 18G dose of coffee beans BUT IN THE SAME BEAN CUP leads to a second dose with more water (because of the residual water from the first dose). So... Maybe this explains it. I'll do the test for you, first thing tomorrow morning !
Same here! I always thought my grinder is just inconsistent 😂
I see this every morning with my Sage Barista Pro and it was driving me crazy
Me too, no spritz, but the second shot does sometimes take longer with more variable pressure.
I am experiencing exactly the same, but I think there are a lot of things affecting things. For example that when pulling second shot the basket hasn't been flushed and therefore has brewed coffe sitting on the surface of the basket making the the fresh coffee grounds stick more to them, which I believe minimizes the effects of the water escaping along the metal surface of the basket.
I've also noticed that if I distribute the coffee in the basket with a slightly raised amount along the basket edges, to prevent basket surface channeling, I get more consistent shots.
You reminded me - for pour over filter coffee, I discovered that if I bloom the coffee with room temperature water (73F ish), then brew as usual with the rest of the water off boil, the taste is amazing. It retains a lot more VOC content and the aromatics are way better. I don’t usually care for pour overs much, but this changed the game for me. You can experiment with bloom temp, but I prefer room temp.
Cheers. Put it on my to-try-out-list. How long do you leave it bloom at room temp?
Do you think any of this has to do with the fact the initial bloom water is lowering the temp of the remaining boiled water? Like if you did another run with 100% slightly less hot water?
That's interesting.I've always bloomed with the boiling water. I'm going to try this
This reminds me of how soaked rice can be cooked with less water and have an even texture.
With a pour over when blooming the grinds are opening up, increasing the surface and preextracting. Thats how i imagine it
Super interesting - so I did the experiment (added to survey). I have the Niche Zero (64MM conical burrs) and an Isomac Zaffiro (e65) machine - using a WAFO basket. My normal dose is 17g in / 34-36g out at 19 seconds (because of WAFO basket) at ~ 202F for my dark roast espresso blend from Anderson's Coffee in Austin, TX. What I've found so far is that with ~ 4 spritzes of water, it is immediately obvious that that espresso powder is fluffier in the grind cup. Moreover, it adds about 6 seconds to the extraction time. Flavor profile is as good if not better than my normal routine.
Do a video where you ask beginners/intermediate coffee people to submit videos of them making coffee. You could get great info about the most common mistakes, giving you better info when making guides.
Great idea!
OMG I love James for bringing this information to us. My DF64 makes a mess even with 1 spay so I am in on this test
I just finished watching the Lance Hedrick video on the paper and this one, back to back. Both utterly fascinating.
I'm 47 years old and until three years ago I absolutely hated coffee, detested it. So much so I called it Satan's Sputum. However, my only access and experience of coffee was commodity instant.
Now I watch an hour and a half of coffee science videos from 7am on a Sunday morning 😂
Brilliant piece as always James, and I love that immediately you encourage your viewers to participate in the science.
I started with an Aeropress after watching your Ultimate Aeropress technique video. Graduated to a Clever Dripper, again after watching your video about it. And I'm hoping to buy my first espresso machine in the next few weeks. The obsession continues
Do you now call it ‘God’s semen’?
This is fascinating, it makes a noticeable impact on the grind in my Kingrinder. The manual grinder producing an appreciable amount of static grinding dry.
"My most intellectual turtleneck" - this is why I follow this particular coffee channel :)
Excuse me. What company makes that turttleneck?
Holy cow! I don’t have a spray bottle for this, so I took an Elevate Mocha Java, and did one regular, did one with manually spritzing 0.6 grams water. 23 grams, 45 grams. Went from 33 seconds to 38. But oh my! I drank straight shots. It’s like they were from different bean! Straight up there were bitter overtones and acceptable flavor notes. The wet grind had virtually no bitterness, brighter and fruity. I am buying a sprayer right now and I will do this more carefully, but even what I would call a “hillbilly” attempt was amazing! I have been having micro channels forming in the past despite very careful technique. So we shall see how this works out! I have a Ceado grinder, moisture shouldn’t be a problem. Thanks for this excellent report, this really moves the ball down the field!
I wonder if the condensation that occurs when keeping coffee beans in the freezer and bringing them out for grinding leads to more of the same as spraying with water
This is also what I suspect. In addition I feel the electrostatic charge in frozen coffee should be different from room temperature coffee beans.
I’ve tried breathing on my frozen beans before grinding and it does in fact make a pretty big difference, I assume due to the moisture. 😂
If you just take them out and grind them from frozen, they’re pretty dry. I think the amount of water from condensation ordinarily would be well less than one spritz.
Just tried it with a pourover. 30g light roast beans, 8 sprays of water, Baratza Encore grinder on my regular setting for pourover. Had a little trouble with some of the beans sticking to the hopper, but I eventually got them all through. Used the ultimate pourover recipe in a Hario V60 plastic cone.
I don’t have any numerical results (it is Sunday morning after all), but it is definitely the best-tasting pourover I have ever brewed from these beans.
I think that spraying beans in general simply improves coffee extraction a bit in most cases. Unless you have some ultimate grinder, that is able to take care of whole electric charge issue.
Just a theory, but Im guessing that having in general less static and less clumped ground coffee simply improves extraction on its own. Cause all types of brewing work better with more uniform and less clumped ground coffee, hence why RDT and WDT exists.
I find with my Encore that if I use more than one spritz it gets a bit gummed up and clogged. I typically grind 65g at a time for a pot of drip.
@@artofficialfluteI also use a Baratza Encore. 20 g medium to dark roast beans in the brew basket, 4 spritzes, shake the basket to distribute the water, in the hopper. No jams and very little retention. I've seen at most 0.1 g difference in input beans vs output grounds. I aim for 1:2.5 bean to output ratio, so I'm seeing about 50 g output coffee.
I wipe the basket dry too, to ensure there's no excess moisture when filling the basket with grounds.
Perhaps our spray bottles differ in how much water outputs per spritz. Alas, my scale isn't granular enough to measure such a small amount of water.
Though it is only observational data with no real way to quantify for filter brewing, by doubling my water amount (4 spritzes vs 2), I have noticed a significant reduction in static and a seemingly better bed of coffee in my filter. It also seems that the bloom phase is more vigorous. My palate is mediocre at best, but I think the resulting acidity is lower. Again, the results are solely observational, but I think there is a benefit to using more water for filter coffee, as well.
@@brenttotten9109 Do you see any gumming up of the Encore grinder with the 4 spritzes?
I've been doing this for my espresso for a while now, because in my experience adding 5 or 6 spritzes of water has reduced the probability of channeling a lot. But I also always get wildly inconsistent brew times, so it is good to know that not using a consistent amount of water is probably the reason for that.
James, As usual, you are a veritable fountain of excellent information. I truly appreciate the honesty and integrity of your coffee contributions. BTW… I’m addicted to your channel. Thank you 🙏
I tried this on my Moka pots today (6 and 9 cup) and noticed a couple of things:
1. A longer brew time than usual (my usual is no spray)
2. I also noticed a lot more "crema" if you can call it that
3. On the 9 cup the safety pressure valve was releasing little bits of steam as it was brewing. To me that indicates higher internal pressure as this has never happened before, but could also be a bit of crud stuck in the value allowing it to release.
4. After the brew, the "puck" was much harder than usual and didn't break apart after falling into the trash which is uncommon.
As for taste, I'm a bit worthless because of my ongoing sinus infection, but I can at least say they taste good.
I used a Baratza Encore on setting 10, set up how the manual tells you to, and I use a Moka pot method very similar to what James recommends (with an areopress filter and all).
James and Co., thank you for doing what you do. I have a background in science research and your emphasis on evidence and your style of communication are brilliant. Your content is such a pearl amongst the sand with how much sensational and basless content there is on the internet nowadays. It truly makes me enjoy coffee much more.
I use a Chestnut C3 Pro hand grinder, usually for aeropress coffee. 22 g beans to 400 g water. I tried out the water squirts and it definitely looked like the grind was more even and very little clung to the grinder which was very nice. 4 squirts of water onto the beans before grinding. I’m sold!
I just started doing 3-4 sprays about 2 months ago, it made a huge difference in the blockage I was getting in my grinder, I almost bought a new grinder because it was so frustrating having to shake bang and remove top to brush out grinds. Thanks for the video
So many people have mentioned that their grinder is clean with spritzing the beans. Wish I had been doing that when I had my grinder. I hope all the people afraid of their grinder getting gummed up from spritzing their beans 3or 4 times see these comments.
For many years I've been using a Mazzer Major (83mm flat burr) that I modified for single dose with low retention. I've always used .4 to .6 grams of water because the extended pull time seemed to give a better tasting espresso. Never realized this was a secret mystery 🙃
Same........Daniel Wong single dose mod on Mazzer Major and I use 3 spritizes from a spray bottle on 14.7 grams of coffee. I then use WDT, grinds are fluffy and espresso is very tasty.
Interesting how many people are already doing this and that it makes a better tasting coffee too.
Same grinder set up for me. I do 18.gram extractions and the 3 spritzes. Improved the shot flavour immensely. Same flow time as unhydrated beans.@@procrusteus
Works well for me. I use the 1ZPRESSO hand grinder and now I have almost no grounds adhering to the burrs at the outlet, grinds don't cling to the bottom receptacle either. Visibly less clumping. Grinds flow smoothly out of receptacle into the Porta filter unlike before when I had to tap firmly to remove them.
This is absolutely fascinating!! I don't see any issue in experimenting to try to make coffee better at all.
I've noticed this effect! I don't have a little spray bottle, so I've been using the steamer wand and the beans get pretty wet. I noticed the slower flow rate and thought it a little odd.
As for the grinder, I just had to leave the lid open or it would get some condensation. Been doing this for a while now, no issue with the grinder.
Niche grinder, pavoni professional lever espresso machine.
As for taste, I have't noticed a huge difference, but I also manually manage flow rate during the brew, one of the advantages of a lever operated, imo.
Yes a really fascinating novel topic, perhaps increasing extraction of the TDS will improve taste perhaps not, perhaps it will with a lighter roast but not a dark roast. For example I found when using paper filters to increase extraction of a dark roast espresso it made it taste way to stringent and rich but with a lighter roast it improved it. It will be interesting to see what results you come up with from everyone chipping moreover, I really dig this fresh unique content with some hardcore science!
I have a hand grinder a Staresso Discovery I imagined it still creates some static, I'll have to experiment and let you know. Thanks for all you do to help us on our Espresso Journey.
Two new coffee makers I'd love to see you review and hear your take on. The Orb One, which works like a moka pot but has a couple of significant innovations... and the Kuku maker, which separates water temperature from water pressure, allowing for a wide range of variation and experimentation.
From Lance to James, wet beans are the new craze!
lol, srsly, watched Lance's when it came out and now we're here
For removing variables for filter coffee, you could use one of those cafe automatic pour-over machines. You could even do different numbers of water spritzes on like four different doses and start the brews all at the same time.
I'm about to do it with my pulsar but this might be better
The turtleneck, the hand on chin, the nods, exceptional work James!
For my experience I find that during the winter months, when the heat is on, the house is very dry, and I have in inordinate amount of static electricity in my grounds. So far, I have used a big stainless steel canning funnel to get the grinds into the hopper of the drip brewer and that seems to dissipate the static charge. I then upend my grinder and give it a tap to get as much of the grinds as I can to fall out of the grinder into the funnel. I will give the mist a shot and see if this takes care of the annoying static charge. Great video James thumbs.
Great to see more science being publicly available.
Who has time for a spray bottle when you can just buy a $4500 grinder like Lance?
that manual grinder is such a nice luxury, love it
My $650 Eureka Specialita does not have a static issue, I've never RDT and right now with the heat running its very dry in my house. 37%
@@sethsalberg3678 37% is dry? 😬 my house is between 16-24% this winter, which doesn’t feel good at all
@@sethsalberg3678 my friend, they're referencing a joke from Lance, you're being way too serious about this
About the results from the particle size analyzer not changing with spritzed beans: such analyzers results depend on how you fluidize (suspend/homogenize) the sample before loading it into the machine. That will be different than how those grounds interact with water flowing over them when they're already in a lump in the coffeemaker (ie, in the coffee maker the *effective* particle size will be finer, since without the spritzes it forms clumps). Those clumps can be broken up in the process of preparing the sample for analysis.
To test this, you could freeze a lump of wet grounds post-brewing, take a cross-section of it, then look at it under an optical microscope.
My grinder is rather slow and has a single speed and spraying more water made a huge difference for me. Dry beans took 30 seconds and wet beans took a whopping 44 seconds. I'm going to adjust the grinder to fit this method and test it over some time and see if I prefer this. Very interesting results.
THIS is exactly the kind of episode I live from James.
Looking forward to experimenting with this - I have not been sprizing of late and am currently chasing grind size as I'm getting what I think is under-extraction and a sour soapy espresso from my DF64. I'm also wondering how environmental factors play into this as well. My kitchen is not a lab and is not climate controlled so humidity and air temp are going to be factors in the variability of the results - which might also explain why I keep getting different results using the same grind, beans, distribution techniques and variability in the extraction time on my gaggia.
I live in ocean level city, mostly swamp like place, very high humidity and low ambient preasure on. When i visit another city, just turning a mountain and get up a little hill, the coffee man of a nice new coffee shop i just made coffe turism travel say "You can make the same coffe, with the same machine and setup, but if you are in two different places, mostly they will be totally different drinks" I tell him how in my town most places do poor coffees, and in that town and a big city over the mountains in the north did a really magician coffee all the time all the places. Also, how the coffees when i visit a really dry city was soo amazing, and the barrist looks like i'am kinda kidding, mostly like a totally newer to the coffee drinking live was just comparing a normal gourmet drink with petrol like grand pa did since in war time on day D using solved coffee or something LOL. But that little piece of information just turn a light on in my mind, i always try to keep all my beans really dry, but my machine was in a humidy room, maybe i should try something to fix it a bit
My setup is a Rhino Coffee Gear hand grinder and an Aeropress. I've not got a spritzer so I washed out my glass measuring jug so it's damp on the inside. Swirled the beans around in that then in the grinder. I feel consistency is appreciably better. The only other change to my routine is to let the grinder air for a bit to get rid of any moisture in it before my next brew. Have yet to try with a pourover.
My Graef CM 800 made no distinction between wet or dry beans, I sent in the form. Thanks so much for all the videos.
I’m not a coffee drinker but I love the nerdiness of this channel 😊
This is why I keep coming back. The balance between the goofy fun stuff and the citizen science videos and scientific paper analysis. It's all about the balance. And the slurps. 😂
Did you test the extractions of dry vs wet beans? Would be interesting to see if the extraction changes are correlated to the flow changes or if the two effects are independent of each other.
Although I only ever French press, I am thoroughly enjoying the reduction in coffee dust when I grind. I haven't noticed any change to the flavour but the dust reduction has me converted.
As a ChemE, I am nerding out so much on this and I love it. Thank you
Would love to know how the metal dispersion tools might impact this effect. My guess is that you have used them in both instances but would be interesting to see if any of them managed to break up the electoclumps
The Ionizer on my Opus grinder wasn’t working. Slowly I started spritzing with more and more water. This eliminated charged coffee grinds from spreading all over the countertop. Some coffees are especially dry and made more of a mess. Glade to hear this is improving the extraction. I use a Hario Switch for pour overs.
I was really pleased to see the particle size analysis because that is an obvious potential complication. Water addition might, but evidently did not, affect particle size distribution and particle size distribution certainly could affect flow and extraction behavior. I am looking forward to more grinding experiments with particle size distribution measurements.
I am sure i read it somewhere that spritzing water shifts the peak to the finer end
@@elvenaprilnico James has a particle size analyzer now. In this video he briefly reports some results that do not indicate a significant particle size distribution effect of water addition. See starting at 17:20.
One major issue is the way the water is applied to the beans: whereas usually the water is spritzed on the coffee, in the paper they used a pipette to apply water and shook the beans in a sealed container.
In what way is it an issue?
Eh, shaking for long enough will bring you to the same level of homogeneity than spritz/mix. This is a non issue.
@@j.g.9045the effective surface area of the water. It really depends on how vigorously and how long the beans were shaken to be comparable to a spritz.
@@ElSuperNova23how long is long enough? What about how hard you're shaking? Or the shape of the container, or what about HOW you shake it? These are all additional variables introduced by using a pipette instead of a spritzer.
That's not a 'major issue' that's just a variable. Variables don't invalidate studies.
Exceptional content as always, James - thank you.
I just submitted and it definitely increased the time on my Sette from about 27s to about 32s. The taste was ABSOLUTELY better and sweeter! I'll keep doing this and try it with my ODE2 for Pour-Over as well.
Electro-clump is such an amazing and specific term that James has created... Perfect.
Would be a great name for a band😂
Isn't that Elon musk's game-changing new kitty litter?
Good morning, James Longtime listener, first time responder. I have a Rancilio Silvia and a Baratza Sette 30 using 18g. After 4 spritzes of water I found fluffier grounds in the portafilter after grinding. At 27.3 seconds I stopped the brew with 34g (the point I stop brewing without water on the beans), however the weight out was 38g with the spritzed beans. I found the flavor of the espresso richer with the spritzed beans.
I had used the single spritz a couple years ago and didn't find enough change to warrant the additional step.
Thanks, JS
Thanks James it is a very interesting video. One thing I would like to know is that in the espresso workflow, when using WDT, the coffee powder is stirred with a metal needle. I believe that WDT has both an effect similar to electrical neutralization by an ionizer and physical agitation and mixing.
I now suspect the variability with RPM changes is related to the turboelectrification thing! Thanks for the video James
The Weird Coffee Professor 2: The ElectroKlumps
Hey @james not sure if I'm going crazy, but I don't see any Google Sheets link in the description. Where can I find the survey?
i own a grinder from ceado. it comes with titanium covered burrs specificly against water damage or rust. they also recommend 2-3 spritzes with the spray bottle that comes with the grinder, which was more than what I was used to, but worked pretty well...
I use a 1z presso J manually grinder as my daily and I’m intrigued if this will make a difference, particularly as it’s not a machine grinder. I’ll be sure to fill out the form! Excellent video, James - fascinating as always.
Me too, was thinking we are able to speed or slow down grind times which also influences the various factors. Never mentioned manual grinding, I’m curious too