Coffee Data Science
Maybe Moriondo had the optimal espresso machine design
A thought experiment
Many don’t consider any machine before the Gaggia lever to produce espresso because the pressure was much lower, not anywhere close to 9 bars. However, my recent experiments seem to suggest Moriondo was a few modifications away from great extraction.
Moriondo is credited with making the first espresso type machine which used a boiler to produce pressure to push hot water through coffee.
This machine was a water boiler that brought the water to 1.5 bars of pressure. This means the water temperature was around 113C.
One complaint is that the coffee often tasted burned, which was thought to be caused by the high temperature water. I suspect there are two variables at play:
- Extraction rate
- Higher temperature of the final beverage means a faster off gassing of good stuff
Water temperature has a huge impact on extraction rate, so with a higher temperature, you have a higher chance of over extracting especially for longer ration shots.
If people pulled long shots back then without understanding this concept, the people could have been tasting burned coffee but were just drinking over extraction.
One way to test this idea is to pull a lower yield shot and take some measurements, but this would require a replica of this machine.
For off gassing of flavors after the shot, this is more challenging to test, but the idea is generally known in coffee that you may want to do extract cooling to bring that shots to a drinkable temperature.
I really believe the simplicity of the design similar to the Moka pot is capable of better coffee than we believe is possible.
If you like, follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram where I post videos of espresso shots on different machines and espresso related stuff. You can also find me on LinkedIn. You can also follow me on Medium and Subscribe.
Further readings of mine:
My Second Book: Advanced Espresso
My First Book: Engineering Better Espresso
