Coffee Data Science
Testing the Meticulous Home for Espresso
A Technical Deep Dive
I originally met Carlos at Meticulous in December over Instagram. He had a cool device, and I invited him and his wife Maria over when they were in town. He tried a suggestion of mine the night before and broke one device. Then the other device wouldn’t heat up. So we pulled some two cold brew shots.
The coffee was good, but the conversation with Maria and Carlos was far more interesting. We continued to talk, and when I went to the SCA Expo in Portland, he asked if I wanted to take home a machine to test. This is an overview of my experiences. I have documented them quite a bit on YouTube.
I brought home too much stuff because I also bought another Kim Express while I was there. My counter got cluttered, but this was a temporary experimental setup.
Finally, I began to test.
Evaluation
My main goal was to take the machine to the limits and try to recreate my shots on the Decent Espresso. I ran into some trouble because I couldn’t get it hot enough. After a few weeks of tests, Carlos determined one of the heaters was broken.
I was still able to make some good shots. I didn’t have a bad shot on the machine. The machine reminded me of the Flair because the temperature profile made bad shots rarer.
I was also inspired to look deeper at thermal pre-infusion.
I collected data across a lot of shots I didn’t drink. For this data collection, I used TDS.
Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) is measured using a refractometer, and this number combined with the output weight of the shot and the input weight of the coffee is used to determine the percentage of coffee extracted into the cup, called Extraction Yield (EY).
This chart shows the Meticulous compared to other machines for the same roasts and time period. It doesn’t do as well, but it is close.
High Level Comments
Pros
- The user interface is great. There was some bugs, but it was easier than the Decent.
- It heated up in the time it took to do puck prep.
- I like the way it looks.
Cons
- The piston moved slowly so when it initially opens the chamber, I would have to wait a few seconds for the profile to start. I suspect this is fixable in software.
- The machine is heavy, but that only matters for travel.
- The grouphead wasn’t hot like other machines, but this could be part of what is broken in terms of the heater issue.
This machine brings a data intensive interface to lever machines, and I’m excited as the number of levers has slowly been increasing amongst a sea of other machines.
Videos
I have some videos of the tests that give good summaries of everything I did.
For Fun
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.
