Espresso Archives - Flair Espresso

Espresso University: Guide to Coffee Grinders for Espresso

Jeff Walcott — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 15:31:29 +0000

What grinder should I get for my espresso setup? How does the relationship work between the grinder and its burr set? Should I get a flat burr grinder or conical? In such a fast-growing industry with continuous innovation in technology and so many emerging options, it can be overwhelming to select the right coffee grinder. With this article, we want to help you think through these questions, so that you can make a thoughtful and informed decision that will take your espresso brewing to the next level.

Let’s start by reviewing and discussing a few of the different options on the market for coffee grinders at different budget levels, and looking at their differences.

Normcore Grinder - $90

The Normcore grinder is a hand grinder with a 38mm conical burr. Conical burrs function with an inner cone burr and an outer ring burr. When you crank that handle around on a hand grinder, it spins the inner cone burr, pulling the coffee beans through, crushing them evenly along the way until they come out the other end as coffee grounds. Changing the space between the two burrs is the way we adjust our grind size. The Normcore grinder has twenty-two steps per rotation. For a hand grinder that is not bad, and for most people this grinder will work great. It is important to understand, though, that there will be limitations to a budget grinder like this. It is definitely not truly espresso capable, as it does not have the micro-adjustments necessary to dial in true espresso.

Flair Royal - $159

The Flair Royal is an all metal grinder with a bigger burr geometry. The burrs are 45mm Etzinger burrs. It has a ring to be able to make smaller stepped adjustments, which is so helpful when it comes to dialing in espresso. Being able to adjust your grind in small increments is absolutely critical when grinding for espresso. This is because espresso is so finnicky, and every little adjustment can make big changes in the espresso that you end up with. The Royal is great for that, and one of the unique benefits that it has over others, is the grinds catch cup has the same diameter as the Flair PRO 2 portafilter. This will be a huge benefit if you are a PRO 2 owner or are considering buying a Flair PRO 2 espresso maker.

Option-O Lagom Mini - $374

Electric grinders are very convenient, and while this grinder boasts an extremely compact size, it will do all of the work for you. A huge benefit of this grinder is that it has a stepless grind adjustment system. The adjustment ring that changes the burr spacing doesn’t have clicks, but glides along smoothly. This means that there are infinite adjustments available, perfect for making those micro adjustments for espresso. For how small and compact the Lagom Mini is, it is also very quick and doesn’t take long to grind for an espresso dose.

DF64 - $445

The DF64 is a grinder that operates with flat burrs. Flat burrs rotate against each other just like conical burrs do, except they are designed in the shape of two rings that sit flat, one against the other. The coffee beans are fed through the burrs and pushed out through the small space in between them toward the outside. Flat burrs can achieve great results for espresso. They need a higher RPM, so you never see them on hand grinders, but they are great for elevating the clarity and complexity that you can achieve in your coffee. The DF64 has a bellows system as well, allowing you to pump air through the grinder to expel any grounds that may be stuck inside after grinding.

Niche Zero - $525

The Niche Zero houses a bigger, 63mm conical burr. This is especially helpful for grinding large quantities of coffee, as the burrs resist heating up more than smaller burr sets that you may see in other grinders. These burrs will also typically grind faster simply due to a larger surface area. Another aspect of this grinder that makes it so popular is its focus on low grinds retention. Retention refers to the amount of coffee grounds that get stuck inside the grinder and don’t make it out into your dosing cup. Ideally, you would have zero retention, and that is what the Niche Zero is named after. The Niche is also a very quiet grinder, due to its incredible build quality.

Should You Choose a Flat or Conical Burr for Your Home Espresso Grinder?

Ultimately, the choice between a flat or conical burr when selecting your grinder comes down to personal preference. Flat burr flavor profiles are often higher in clarity and complexity, while lacking some of the texture that you would get from a conical burr. Conical burrs produce this texture because they often have a wider grind distribution (more particles at different sizes with less uniformity) and typically produce more fines. Flat burrs often produce a more uniform grind, especially if you opt for a unimodal type of burr which has an extremely tight grind distribution.

How Does Portafilter Size Affect the Home Espresso Grinder You Should Buy?

You may have experienced the struggle of producing the same quality of espresso when switching between machines or upgrading your setup. One of the biggest factors to consider when thinking about dialing in your shots on different machines, is the portafilter basket size. Different espresso makers will often have different portafilter sizes. For example, the Flair PRO2 has a 46mm portafilter basket, whereas the Flair 58 has a traditional 58mm portafilter basket. Is bigger always better when it comes to portafilter size? Ultimately, the answer to this question is going to come down to your needs and what you are looking to get from your espresso experience.

Portafilter Baskets and Coffee Bed Depth Affect Espresso Grind Size

A 46mm portafilter basket is very capable of pulling delicious shots of espresso. In many instances, it can pull shots that are just as tasty as a bigger, 58mm basket could. What you need to understand is that different basket sizes will produce different styles of espresso.

To explain this, consider the 46mm basket of the Flair PRO2. It can hold doses of 16-18g, even though its walls are closer together with a lesser diameter than the 58mm portafilter of the Flair 58, which also holds 18 grams. The reason they can still hold the same amount of coffee, is because the two different baskets have different depths. The 46mm basket is considerably deeper than the 58mm basket, and this is a very important factor in considering how they will extract coffees differently. The 46mm basket will have a smaller surface area where the water will initially contact the coffee, but the water will have a further distance to travel through the coffee grounds. In comparison, the 58mm basket will enable a larger surface area, but a much shorter distance for the water to travel through the coffee. For this reason, you will often have to grind slightly coarser for the 46mm basket with more depth, and finer for the 58mm basket with less depth.

Picking the Right Style of Coffee Grinder for Your Espresso Setup

How does this apply to the grinder that you select? Well, when it comes to espresso you will have to get a grinder that can grind fine enough and uniform enough for the size of your basket. Most of the grinders we have discussed so far in this article are capable of doing that. However, for something like the Normcore grinder, at those very fine settings each stepped click in grind adjustment is just too large to make the small adjustment that you need. What we would recommend if you want to use the Normcore (or another cheaper entry-level grinder) is an espresso maker like the Flair NEO. The NEO has a flow-control portafilter basket, meaning that it will create the resistance required to brew espresso for you, even if your grinder is unable to do this consistently.

For the Flair 58 or any other machine with a standard 58mm portafilter basket, you will need a grinder that is able to create that consistent resistance in the coffee grounds so that it can build even pressure. The grinder must be able to make very small micro adjustments. The DF64 and Niche Zero grinders discussed earlier are examples of great grinders that meet these requirements.

Remember though, that smaller portafilters are not inferior. One of the benefits of going with a smaller basket size is reduced channeling. A 58mm basket, with its lesser bed depth, creates more opportunities for this as the water has less distance to travel through the coffee and more tendency to take the path of least resistance. With a smaller puck diameter and more depth, because the water has more distance to travel through the coffee grounds, it is more resistant to channeling. If you seek to achieve a similar bed depth in the 46mm and 58mm baskets, you can use very similar grind sizes and profiles between the two. You may want to try this because you enjoy the texture or clarity of a particular brewing profile, or because you just want to play around with your extraction and find what you like best.

Summary: Choosing the Right Coffee Grinder

We hope that this article has given you more of an idea of different factors to consider as you find the grinder that is the best fit for your espresso setup. To sum up, for a 58mm, commercial style basket, make sure you have a grinder that can grind very fine and uniform – fine enough to produce the pressure you need. For a smaller basket, you definitely have more options for more budget friendly grinders, and even hand grinders that are capable of grinding for espresso. If you have something like the NEO that creates resistance for you, you can spend even less on your grinder while still creating pressure as you pull your shot.

The post Espresso University: Guide to Coffee Grinders for Espresso appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Roasting Coffee at Home: A Beginner’s Guide

Jeff Walcott — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 16:56:06 +0000

Have you been curious about what it takes to be your own coffee roaster, and how to start roasting coffee at home? We’re going answer those questions and much more in this article!

Let’s start by addressing the most basic question: Why roast your own coffee at home? There is certainly no shortage of delicious commercially roasted coffee available on the market. Well, you could be living in an area of the world where fresh roasted, specialty coffee is difficult to come by. Maybe you’re looking for a deeper connection to the coffee you brew. Or maybe you simply find the three times savings of buying green (unroasted) coffee compelling.

In any case, home coffee roasting can be fun and rewarding. It’s also easier and less expensive than you probably think. Now, you won’t be giving commercial roasters a run for their business any time soon, but you’ll definitely be roasting enjoyable coffee and impressing your friends in no time.

Which Coffee Roaster is Best for Home Roasting

Let’s talk about selecting the home coffee roaster that is right for you. Roasting coffee on the most basic level can be accomplished by spreading raw, green coffee across a pan and baking them in the oven, browning them in a skillet, roasting them in a colander over a heat gun, or the barbeque. But of all the rudimentary ways to roast, perhaps the easiest to get started with is a popcorn popper. Out of the box, though, popcorn poppers offer little to no control over variables such as temperature and airflow, and they send chaff flying everywhere.

There are so many great home coffee roaster options on the market, and there are new ones popping up frequently. Here are some of our recommendations at different price points:

Popper from Sweet Maria’s ($90) – This is a much better budget option than a traditional popcorn popper as it decouples heat and fan speeds allowing you to make adjustments on the fly. It also has a chaff collector, saving you from having to clean up a big mess after you roast.
Hive Roaster ($75) – This coffee roaster is a skillet designed to be shaken in circular motions over a heat source to agitate and evenly roast the coffee.
Fresh Roast 540 or 800 ($209-289) – These are great options if roasting at home seems like something you’ll stick with. Like the popper, these are fluid bed roasters using convection to heat the beans. They offer a higher capacity though, as well as more control.
Behmor 2000AB Plus ($479) – The Behmor is a drum roaster that not only gives you the option to roast manually, but also comes with pre-programmed profiles. Another nice feature is the exhaust fan. A properly ventilated roasting chamber will keep smoke buildup inside from ruining your roast.

A wide array of home coffee roasting options are available on the market – just be sure to do your research both on the manufacturers’ websites as well as on the various roasting forums online before pulling the trigger on a home roaster.

At this point in your home coffee roasting journey, the choice will probably come down to your budget, and how much coffee you need roasted each time. On that note, know that roaster manufacturers tend to exaggerate. As a rule of thumb, count on the best roasts happening with batches at least 30% below whatever they say their product is capable of. Also remember that measurements are based on the weight of green coffee going in. By the time you are finished roasting, the coffee will have lost between 12-21% of its weight, depending on how dark you roast your coffee. Do some quick math and consider the coffee consumption in your household. How often will you have the time to roast? Are you ok with roasting a couple batches back to back, or do you want it all finished in one go?

Picking a Fluid Bed or Drum Coffee Roaster

Another consideration is the type of roaster you choose, and how quickly it is able to transfer heat. Fluid bed coffee roasters transfer heat fast and efficiently, and their roast times can end up being as short as 4-6 minutes, typically finishing in under 9 minutes. The long end for fluid bed coffee roasting happens to be on the short end for drum roasters which transfer heat slower. The typical 10-minute roast in a drum roaster might progress as follows: Paling at 3 minutes, yellowing at 4 minutes, browning at 5 minutes, first crack at 8 minutes, about 2 minutes of development, dropping at 10 minutes.

Coffee Roasting Terminology and What it Means

Let’s cover some of the basic terminology of coffee roasting.

Charging – to load your roaster with green coffee.
Charge Temperature – the start or preheat temperature of your roast.
Batch Size – the amount of green coffee being loaded.
Drying Phase – the first third of the roast that is spent evaporating the moisture inside the beans.
Browning Phase – the middle third of the roast, where the more interesting caramelization and Malliard reactions occur. These reactions are responsible for a lot of the aromas present in roasted coffee.
First Crack – the chorus of beans bursting at their seams to release the buildup of water vapor they can no longer contain.
Second Crack – similar to first crack, but this time it is the buildup of Co2 that the beans can no longer contain. The sound is softer than the crackling during first crack, due to weakened and more brittle bean cell structure.
Development Phase – the last third of the roast, starting at the onset of first crack, and ending when you conclude the roast.
Dropping the Coffee – ending the roast by either literally dropping the coffee out of the roasting chamber and into a cooling tray, or in some roasters by turning off the heat and cranking up the fan to cool the coffee inside the chamber. If you don’t actively cool the coffee when it is done roasting, it will keep cooking or “coasting.” Ideally, you bring the coffee down to body temperature in as little as 4-6 minutes to prevent coasting.
Drop Temperature – the temperature at which you stop the roast

How to Source Your Green Coffee for Home Coffee Roasting

Once you sort out the coffee roaster that’s right for you, it’s time to start shopping for coffee to roast! You’ll find green coffee available across the internet. Be mindful when researching suppliers and understand that quality and standards run the gamut. Some of what is being sold to the consumer market may be what the commercial market has rejected.

Coffee starts to fade, no matter how carefully stored, within 6 months of harvest. Most transparent suppliers will list the arrival date of the coffee. If you’re not seeing that date posted, be wary and at least ask for more information. There are also green coffee defects which can be hard to spot at first glance, or before you have already roasted the coffee. Stick to reputable companies with a long track record and great reviews when starting out since you won’t be as practiced at spotting defects to know you’re being swindled.

Sweet Maria’s has been in green coffee business for more 25 years, and they have been publishing educational content for all that time! Their Coffee Library and YouTube channel are a treasure trove for budding roasters learning the ropes. Their green coffee listings include a wealth of information about the coffee being offered, its producer, the region it was grown in. They also share their cupping scores for each coffee, along with their roasting recommendations and an array of descriptors that make it easy for you to select the coffees that align most with your preferred brew method and your taste preferences.

The best you can hope for when roasting coffee is to highlight the intrinsic qualities of the seeds. If it’s an earthy, low acid coffee from Brazil or Southeast Asia, there’s literally nothing you can do in your roast to conjure up bright floral or fruity flavors. These attributes are a product of the terroir – the climate, soil, and elevation that they were grown, as well as the processing method used at the plant. Wet process, dry process, honey pulp natural, and wet hulled processes will all bring out different characteristics of the coffee.

If you’re wondering which origins to get started with, the following list highlights some of the general flavor characteristics of coffees from different continents/countries.

Earthy/Savory with muted acidity: (Asia) India, Java, Sumatra, Yemen [wet hulled process]
Chocolate/Nutty with medium or mellow acidity: Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Hawaii, Honduras, Jamaica [dry & wet process]
Sweet Fruit & Floral with crisp acidity: (Americas) Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru [wet & honey process and pulped natural]
Tart Fruit & Berry with bright and sparkling acidity: (East Africa) Ethiopia, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda [dry process]

How to Plan for Your Coffee Roast

It’s good to have a plan as you approach your roast. Are you focused on preserving origin characteristics in the coffee or do you want to introduce more of the roast flavors? Are you roasting a high elevation washed coffee or a low elevation natural? While the first can take high preheats and a lot of gas out of the gate, the second generally fares better with a lower and slower approach.

Another important consideration is whether you want your roasted coffee to shine as a filter brew, or as an espresso. The filter approach typically focuses on preserving acidity and origin characteristic while avoiding introducing roast flavors. The espresso approach, on the other hand, usually takes into consideration that it should perform just as well straight as when paired with milk or a dairy-free alternative. A little extra development will help to tame the acidity and add some mild roast flavors as well as body. This usually improves the chemistry with milk-based drinks.

If you’re roasting coffee with a popcorn maker, skillet or barbeque, you have only your sight and smell to tell you how much heat to apply, and when to cut it. Fancier coffee roasters may come with probes and software that can track and log, as well as calculate derivatives and percentages that help inform how the roast is progressing. You should definitely use all the available data your roaster provides, but don’t allow yourself to get so disconnected from the coffee or reliant on the technology, that if it were to all leave you at once, you wouldn’t know how to manage your roast.

As we think about managing our coffee roasts, it is important to note a couple of things we want to avoid. One of these is “baking” our beans in the roast. Roasts that progress too slowly, tend to stall or crash because not enough heat is applied at the right time to carry the roast into and out of first crack. These roasts can end up tasting baked (flat, papery, and grain like). We also want to avoid tipping and scorching our coffee in the roast. Tipping happens when the tips of the beans are roasting faster than the middle. This is usually because too much heat has been applied too fast. Scorching happens when the drum is too hot at the time you charge the roast, or you have overloaded the roaster and the beans are not able to mix quickly enough, leaving the beans in contact with hot surfaces long enough to char. It is also important to understand that while you might be having success with a certain batch size with one coffee, when you switch to a different coffee (that might be denser or larger), you might actually have to reduce the batch size to prevent overloading your coffee roaster.

Another thing that you generally want to avoid in coffee roasting is second crack. Ideally, you will only experience second crack once or twice, and only by accident. You should attend to the roast well enough to drop it prior to this moment. Second crack is where carbonization is occurring, and by that time you’ve roasted all of what makes the coffee unique out of it. The flavors that you will experience from coffee roasted to this point are heavy roast flavors like ash, smoke, and molasses. The oils within the beans have been driven to the surface, which leads to rancidity as the oils are exposed to oxygen.

To sum up this section, the basics of thinking through your roast are as follows: You apply heat to the coffee seed as fast and as evenly as possible, moving them through the three phases of drying, browning, and development, while avoiding roast defects along the way.

How to Analyze Your Coffee Roast

A good starting point can be to select a coffee you love from a commercial roaster and then aim to approximate the color of that finished coffee from the roaster. It’s imprecise to be sure, but we need to start somewhere. Also, it’s worth pointing out here that what specialty coffee calls dark, non-specialty calls medium, so it’s best to calibrate with something more precise than descriptors like medium, medium-dark and so on.

Here are a couple of product recommendations to standardize the way that you calibrate your roast, and the way that you are able to discuss and compare your roasts with others. To use either of these, you need to grind a couple grams of coffee first, in order to get the average of the color obtained from the roast.

Roast Vision from Espresso Vision ($300) – this tool offers roast level analysis with accuracy on par with solutions costing two to five times as much. It also wastes far less ground coffee to obtain a reading. At $300, it is best suited to the most discriminating home roaster, or someone who has decided to give small batch, commercial roasting a try.
Roasted Coffee Color Card from Sweet Marias ($3.00) – these roast level color cards are best suited for the more casual home roaster, who wants to analyze roast level without breaking the bank.

With all of this in mind, remember that color is only one variable. Two different coffee roasts can be exactly the same color, while arriving at that color through very different roast profiles. Variances can be due to different types of roasters (fluid bed vs. drum roaster), batch size, preheat temperature, batch to batch protocol, and how you drive the roast with the heat and air. The more data points you have, the more easily you can determine similarities and differences between two seemingly identical roasts.

Home Coffee Roasting Recommendations

As you head out on your home coffee roasting journey, here are a few general / miscellaneous recommendations that we know will be helpful for you starting out.

Strive for Consistency in Your Home Coffee Roast

When you start achieving home coffee roasts that you are happy with an you want to replicate in the future, true consistency will involve replicating the external conditions each time, as well as the technical roast profile. If you are roasting coffee outside, different temperatures on different days or at different times will cause your roasts to progress differently each time. When roasting back-to-back batches, the subsequent roast will most likely be at a higher temperature than the first. Dedicating a space indoors with conditioned air and making sure that the roaster is starting the second batch at the same temperature as the first will go a long way into improving your averages.

Master the Basics of Home Coffee Roasting

As with any new endeavor, it is important to master the basics before you move into more advanced areas. For home coffee roasting, this means you should initially resist the urge to play with all the knobs and dials. Use the pre-set profiles if your roaster came with them. Aim for a medium roast level somewhere between end of first crack and before second. This will ensure good development, while still preserving most of the unique characteristics of the coffee you are roasting. Err on the side of more development, rather than less. This is a smart approach, because you can always suffer through an underwhelming roast, but a grassy and vegetal underdeveloped roast will be insufferable. Decaf, barrel-aged, and experimental process coffees are examples of coffees that may require a little more expertise in order to handle, and we wouldn’t recommend that you attempt to tackle them as a beginner.

Use Coffee Beans from Regions You Are Familiar With

Try to source coffees from countries/regions that you are already familiar with, and with a processing method that you are used to. This will help you as you evaluate your roast, to know if something is truly off, vs. the potential that you just don’t vibe with the particular coffee you are trying to roast, no matter how well you roast it.

Home Coffee Roasting for Blends

Remember that different coffees require different charge temperatures and roast profiles to get them to the same level of development. If you are attempting to roast two different coffees for an espresso blend, for example, it would be smart to roast them separately from each other and blend them together afterward. This will allow you to do what is best for each coffee in each roast, without having to compromise one for the other.

Cupping Your Home Roasted Coffee

In the first 24-48 hours after your roast, much of the volatile organic compounds responsible for aroma, and as much as 40% of the CO2 generated in the roast, have escaped the beans and diffused into the atmosphere. Don’t pass on the opportunity to gain a better understanding of what a particular coffee and a corresponding roast profile have to offer. Make sure to do a cupping shortly after the roast completes, and log your notes for future reference.

Rest Period for Your Home Roasted Coffee

While it is important to cup the coffee within the first 24 hours after your roast, you should rest your coffee a couple of days, or even a couple weeks before brewing. Extended rest time is more crucial if you are going to be brewing with the espresso method. The abundance of CO2 leaving the grounds gets in the way of the extraction. The high level of variability during the most active degassing of the coffee makes it very difficult to dial in on espresso. It is also believed that an abundance of CO2 can heighten the amount of perceived sourness, sharpness, and acidity in the coffee. The amount of time you should rest your coffee will also vary based on the roast level. Light roasted coffee will take longer than dark roasted coffee to de-gas, due to a tighter and less broken-down cell structure.

How to Store Your Home Roasted Coffee

When deciding on how to store coffee that you have roasted, a few key factors that you need to consider are oxygen, moisture, heat, and sunlight. You want to keep your coffee away from these elements as you store it, and below are a few recommendations for products that will help you do that.

Airscape Coffee Canister from Airscape ($30-40) – The Airscape uses lids with seals and one-way valves that you can push down as you draw down the coffee, eliminating head space.
Atmos Coffee Canister from Fellow Products ($30-40) – The Atmos has a vacuum mechanism to remove air from the container to slow down staling. The trade-off for a lower oxygen and moisture environment is that the negative pressure created by the vacuum effectively speeds up the aging process by accelerating the rate of degassing and diffusion of VOCs. For home roasters, it’s kind of good thing, because you’ll find you’re almost always running out of coffee and forgetting to roast until it’s too late. Since you don’t want to brew coffee that hasn’t properly rested, the Atmos might be just the ticket to keep you in the game of brewing when your roasting game is slacking.

Whatever you choose, aim to protect your coffee oxygen, heat, moisture, and sunlight by keeping it stored in a cool, dark and dry environment. It is also helpful to minimize the amount of headspace and prevent air exchange.

Happy Roasting and Brewing!

We hope this information was helpful for you as you start out on your home roasting journey! Good luck in your roasting endeavors, and happy brewing! Speaking of brewing, there’s no better way to extract your new roasted coffee than with a Flair Espresso Maker.

The post Roasting Coffee at Home: A Beginner’s Guide appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Espresso University – Demystifying Dark Roasts

Jeff Walcott — Fri, 04 Mar 2022 16:33:09 +0000

For this installment of Espresso University, Flair Espresso has teamed up with Raghunath from Ārāmse, an incredible coffee company from India, to take a trip “to the dark side” of coffee roasts. In this video and blog you’ll learn all about dark roasts, which still make up the majority of coffee that is consumed around the world. Watch below, or keep reading and as always, love what you brew.

Introduction to Dark Roasts
As Raghunath says, when it comes to specialty coffee, the emphasis always seems to be on medium and light roasts, with a focus on acidity and floral notes. But the truth is that those drinking light roasts globally are still a very small percentage of coffee drinkers. The majority still prefer medium-dark and dark roasts that are more chocolaty and bitter.

And, while everyone should pick the coffee that’s right for them, we at Flair would be remiss if we didn’t help educate on all roast levels, especially when it comes to our Flair products. The main takeaway here is to choose what’s best for you, and make sure that it’s sustainably sourced and freshly roasted.

So what exactly is a dark roast? Every roaster has a different scale for what they consider light, medium or dark, so it can be hard to understand. But, for the purposes of this educational video, when we say dark roast we’re referring to beans that have at least hit the second crack in the roasting process. A straightforward way to identify this visually is to look for oils on the surface of the beans, which make the beans look glossy, or shiny. The oilier the beans the darker the roast!

Dark roasts are more forgiving in many ways, especially in how easily they give up their soluble material and also how much better they are at maintaining puck integrity when pulling a shot. That being said, dark roasts still present some unique challenges that need to be managed in order to get the best out of them. It’s very easy to over extract a dark roast and get a really bitter and astringent brew, so a lot of what we’ll be discussing today is how to avoid this.

So let’s look at the key variables of espresso and how each should be approached when brewing dark roasts.

The Flair 58
Before we dive further into dark roasts, we should mention that today we’ll be brewing with a Flair 58. The Flair 58 is great for this type of educational activity, because it allows for full control over all the variables in the brewing process, including pressure, dose, ratio, time and temperature. The Flair 58’s industry standard 58mm portafilter accepts any basket size, so you can easily modify your dose and brew ratio accordingly. And, with the preheat control system of the Flair 58, you can easily preheat your brewing chamber for better thermal management during your extraction.

If you haven’t seen the Flair 58 yet, check it out below.

Flair 58 Manual Espresso Maker

The Flair 58 is our flagship in manual espresso brewing. Get café-quality espresso at home all while benefitting from the immediate feedback and control of a manual system, which is enhanced with an industry standard 58mm basket and preheat control system.

Add a Flair 58 to Your Cart

Dose for Dark Roasts
The first variable Raghunath describes is dose. As with any coffee, start with deciding on your dose based on the size of the drink you want. Also ensure that you’re using an appropriate sized basket for the dose that you’re working with. The Flair 58’s industry standard portafilter allows you to switch out your stock basket for third party baskets of various sizes. For the sake of simplicity in this lesson, Raghunath uses a standard dose of 18g. One other thing to note, is that dose is something that we like to keep fixed and only tweak very slightly on occasions. With dose it’s best to pick and lock it in.

And here’s a fun fact. The darker the roast the more porous and less dense your ground coffee will be. This means that a darker roasted coffee, once ground, will take up quite a bit more volume than the same dose of a lighter roast.

Temperature for Dark Roasts
If you watch Ārāmse’s in-depth review of the Flair 58 you’ll see they talk about how the combination of brew head temperature and water temperature combines to give the brewing temperature. Dark roasts are a lot more soluble and therefore require lower temperatures to avoid over extraction. So, on the Flair 58 Raghunath recommends sticking to the low preheat control setting and experimenting with your kettle temperature starting as low as 85 degrees C for very dark roasts. If this doesn’t hit the mark for your palate you can increase by 2 degrees C at a time to dial-in.

Grind Size for Dark Roasts
Dark roasts give up their soluble material a lot more easily than light roasts, so Raghunath recommends grinding a little coarser than you do for lighter roasts to both reduce surface area and contact time with water, which will reduce your chances of over extraction.

Brewing Ratios
Now, your brew ratio is basically the ratio of the weight of dry coffee you dose into the basket to the weight of brewed espresso extracted in your cup. Dark roasts allow for much shorter ratios, giving the brewer a textural experience that you just can’t enjoy with lighter roasts.

This is because, during the extraction process acids are extracted first, followed by sugars and then oils and bitter solids. The longer you roast coffee the more the acids break down, which is why dark roasts have significantly less acidity than light roasts. This is why you’ll be able to pull ratios like 1:1 with dark roasts without it tasting like battery acid. Instead, you get a thick, gooey, intense but balanced brew that doesn’t have harsh bitterness and astringency. So we suggest starting at around 1:1.75 and working your way down to 1:1 to find your sweet spot.

Pressure & Flow
Having full control over pressure & flow means that you can play around to quite literally “squeeze” the best out of your coffee. Raghunath recommends trying this side by side comparison, in three parts.

Start with the classic Italian 9 BAR profile where you quickly ramp up to 9bar and keep it there for the duration of the shot.
Then pull a second flat profile but keep the pressure lower at like 6 BAR and see how that affects the taste and texture. You’ll notice that the bitterness is a bit more subdued at lower pressures.
Finally, try a declining profile when you start at 9b and ramp down slowly to 6b as the puck loses integrity. Let you palate decided what you enjoy.

Dark Roast Freshness and Rest Periods
How long past the roast date do you wait before brewing your dark roasted coffee? Dark roasts are more porous and therefore degas quicker and subsequently stale faster than medium and light roasts. The window between roasting and brewing is called resting and Raghunath recommends 3 – 7 days for dark roasts while lighter ones can be up to 3 – 4 weeks. Brew too soon and you’ll have spluttering, choking and uneven extractions. Wait too long and you’ll have gushing extractions with barely any crema and you’ll find yourself having to grind much finer to be able to build any pressure. In both cases you’re not going to be experiencing the coffee at its peak.

Brew at the right time and dark roast pulls look stunning. The fact that they have more built up CO2, when compared to light roasts, means you’ll get a much more generous layer of crema.

Brewing Time with Dark Roasts
Time isn’t a variable we have direct control over but rather it’s a variable that’s affected by tweaking one or more of the other variables like dose or grind size. A finer grind will increase brew time whereas a coarser grind that allows for higher flow will decrease it. It’s also a useful marker to use while troubleshooting.

If you pull two shots back to back, with identical parameters and the second shot takes 5 – 8 secs longer than you know that you’ve either not recreated the pressure curve accurately or your puck prep was different. This isn’t dark roast specific, but is a useful metric to track changes made to the other variables.

Well that’s it for this last Espresso University tutorial on dark roasted coffee. We hope this will help all you dark roast junkies get the most out of your Flair 58 or any of Flair’s other brewers for that matter.

The post Espresso University – Demystifying Dark Roasts appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Espresso University – The Basics of Espresso

Jeff Walcott — Wed, 08 Dec 2021 18:28:38 +0000

This installment of Espresso University features Martina Vigo, barista and co-founder of Flat & White coffee in Argentina, who has stopped by to drop some knowledge on the basics of espresso. And, as you all will come to see, there’s no better tool to learn espresso brewing than a Flair Espresso Maker. The Flair is perfect for those just getting started because the manual lever system allows users to truly understand the process, from bean to cup. But, before we get too deep, let’s start with the basics as Martina explains them and embark on a trip to “espresso land.”

What is Espresso
So, what is espresso? As Martina explains it, espresso is both a drink and a brewing method. Those big machines you see at coffee shops and cafes all around the world specialize in this brewing method, which is characterized by forcing heated water at high pressures, through a bed of finely ground coffee in a short period of time. This process creates a coffee drink known as espresso, which is small in volume and highly concentrated.

The espresso brewing method is completely different from other coffee brewing methods, like pour over or drip coffee for example, and the texture and mouthfeel of the espresso drink that comes from it will be completely different.

But, it’s important to note that regardless of the brewing method, any coffee beans can be used! There are no beans that are specific only to espresso. Any coffee bean, from light to dark roast, can be used in espresso, and bags of coffee that say they are an “espresso blend” simply mean that the roaster recommends these beans for the espresso brewing method!

This should open up a world of coffee to everyone, and Martina recommends that new home brewers try out different coffees and pick the ones they like best.

Grinding for Espresso
So, now that we’ve chosen our coffee, we need to grind it for espresso. Martina says that grind quality and consistency is the number one priority in brewing delicious espresso. But that it’s also the most easily overlooked topic by beginning espresso brewers. Everyone wants a nice espresso machine and tends to put the grinder lower down on the priority list. But this shouldn’t be the case!

Now, grinding for espresso means that the grounds will be very fine, and that a small fluctuation or change in the grind size or consistency will have a significant impact on the taste of your espresso. This is why Martina recommends getting a grinder with micro-adjustments, or one that is stepless, so that it’s easy for the home brewer to dial-in their grind just as they like it.

Why the Flair is Great for Espresso at Home?
As Martina says, the Flair is a manual machine, and home brewers have access to all the variables of the extraction, which allows them to create an amazing espresso just the way they like it. In addition to this, the Flair is a great learning tool. Changing one variable at a time like tamping, brew pressure, grind size or water temperature, can allow the brewer to understand how that change impacts the taste of the espresso in their cup. This type of control is difficult to find in an electric espresso machine, unless you can spend in the thousands of dollars.

Finally, the Flair is totally portable, and doesn’t require electricity, so you can handcraft espresso anywhere you are and take your coffee with you.

Flair PRO 2 Manual Espresso Maker

The Flair PRO 2 is the best in manual espresso that still comes in a portable package. Brew anywhere and get café-quality espresso all while benefitting from the immediate feedback and control of a manual system.

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Using a Flair Espresso Maker

So, now that we understand what espresso is, let’s assemble the Flair and go through its parts to get a better understanding of how it works. In the video, Martina is using a Flair PRO 2, which home brewers can pick in one of three colors: black, chrome or white.The first step is to assemble the Flair’s two major components, the base and the lever, which features the portafilter base. These two items can be affixed with a screw if you’re not traveling for a while and want a little more stability. But every Flair works perfectly without this screw.

Then, Martina introduces us all to the Brew Head, which as she says, “Is where the magic happens.”

The PRO 2 brew head comes with a few different parts: like the bottomless portafilter where we put our coffee, the dispersion screen that goes on top of it, and the brewing cylinder which holds the brew water. Inside the brew cylinder is the stainless steel plunger. The stem and Flair’s custom pressure gauge connect to this plunger to lower it during extractions and create the pressure needed for espresso.

All in all, it’s a pretty simple machine, being just a lever! But Flair didn’t stop there, and has provided a range of accessories, which are also beautiful, to make brewing easier! A branded stainless steel drip tray shines in the light while keeping your counter clean, and a stainless steel tamper, dosing cup, funnel, preheat cap and a removable spout are all featured to ensure you get the best brewing experience.

How to Make Espresso at Home

As with every manual espresso machine, the first step is to preheat the parts to ensure the temperature of the water stays high enough for the brew. Martina says you can do this by using the included preheat cap for the cylinder, or the home brewer can use any type of funnel to position the cylinder and portafilter on top of the kettle they’re using to heat the water. This option is faster and more efficient.

While the brew cylinder is preheating the coffee beans can be prepared, making sure that we grind for espresso as discussed previously! And Martina cannot emphasize how important getting a set of brewing scales is, as it will make measuring much easier and more precise. As Martina has mentioned, every small change in espresso variables will change the taste of the espresso in your cup, so a scale will aid in managing these variables like extraction time and output!

In the video, Martina has found that for this coffee 17 grams is a great dose size, so that’s what she decides to grind. The grind setting you’ll need will be different for each coffee, and you’ll have to tweek it daily for the same coffee. You can’t just dial in once and “set it and forget it!”

Once the portafilter is nice and warm, Martina adds the grounds to the portafilter using the dosing funnel. She then uses what’s called a WDT or a Weiss Distribution Technique tool that makes sure the grounds are uniform throughout the basket, with no air bubbles or areas where the coffee can get more or less compacted. This ensures an even extraction.

Then Martina brings in the handy stainless steel tamper, made specifically for the Flair PRO 2. She tamps those fluffy grounds into a beautiful cake, making sure to tamp as level as possible. She then puts the dispersion screen on top, and sets the portafilter into the base.

Once the water is ready and the cylinder is hot to the touch, Martina places it on top of the portafilter and fills it up with the water, just above the plunger so there’s no air gap inside. She then places the scale and an espresso cup below the portafilter, sets the scale to zero and begins to lower the lever!

As Martina mentions in the video, here is where you can get creative. As you pull down the lever, as long as you have your grind dialed in, you’ll start to see the gauge register some pressure. You can play around with this variable, performing pre infusions, ramps, and tapers. This is the part of espresso brewing that’s called flow control, and is a feature usually only found in machines priced at least 10 times more than the Flair!

Martina begins slowly pulling down until she sees the pressure gauge going to 2 or 3 BAR of pressure, then she maintains this position until a few drops start coming out of the portafilter. Then she slowly and steadily increases the force on the lever until the gauge reaches the espresso range! Here Martina stays, until she reaches her desired output measured by her scale. Doing this, the extraction should take about 40 to 50 seconds, which is a little bit longer than regular electric espresso machines.

For this particular coffee and the 17 grams used Martina says she likes to extract 40 grams of espresso yield. This is a ratio of 1:2.3, which is measured by comparing input weight to output weight. Home brewers should change this ratio based on the coffee and roast type they’re using. But, for a medium roast, this is a good starting point for novice brewers.

What is Crema?
And now that the shot has been pulled, we can see on top of the espresso this golden brown foam named crema. Baristas and home brewers can get very fixated on crema because it looks beautiful and is very appetizing to the eye (and the mouth). But what exactly is this crema?

Martina explains that the process of roasting coffee creates CO2 that is trapped in the coffee beans. When the coffee is freshly roasted it has lots of CO2 inside. During brewing, the highly pressurised water becomes supersaturated with the CO2 – as it extracts – and then will begin to release it. These tiny bubbles make a smooth foam that we call crema. The pressure is the key here, this is why we don’t get crema in other brewing methods like pour overs.

Now, fresher beans and a higher roast level will yield more crema. And a darker roast will usually result in darker crema. At the correct pressure for espresso, and with fresh enough beans, crema will be present. But we don’t have to take the amount or the colour of the crema as an indicator of the quality of the shot.

For example a light roast will be more pale in color and have less crema. But if dialed in right, this light roast will still be amazing in taste!

And that’s it! A basic introduction to espresso by Martina Vigo of Flat & White.

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Espresso University – Pressure Profiles for Espresso

Jeff Walcott — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 18:22:47 +0000

In this installment of Espresso University by Flair Espresso, Lance Hedrick, the new darling of the espresso world, discusses pressure profiling (ahem flow profiling) on the Flair PRO 2. This episode is indeed a knowledge bomb – and the information that Lance provides will help any barista, from the beginner to the expert. Watch on and read below to learn more.

As mentioned, Lance uses the Flair PRO 2 in this video to help demonstrate the concepts behind pressure in your espresso extractions. Because the Flair PRO 2 is completely manual, every aspect of the brewing process is under the control of the barista, so it’s a great fit for this educational series. In the Flair PRO 2, as in all Flair manual espresso makers, you have an affordable option to profile in any way you wish. Lower the lever, and receive instant feedback on your pressure gauge to help guide you to the perfect cup of espresso.

Flair PRO 2 Manual Espresso Maker

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But, the first concept we need to talk about, is what Lance calls the “elephant in the room.” To him, pressure profiling isn’t the best term to use, because you can’t get pressure without input flow and resistance. In other words, without a puck of coffee, ground fine enough to create resistance when the water is forced through it, there would be no pressure! So, in this case, Lance feels like the term flow-profiling is synonymous, which will help us further down the line in understanding these concepts and applying them to our daily workflows.

In this video, Lance describes three sections of your extraction as it pertains to flow and pressure profiling:

Pre-infusion
Infusion
Taper

Pre-infusion – This is literally the step before infusion. What happens in this step is that we blast the bed of coffee with water to fully saturate it, but at a lower flow rate, so that we aren’t really starting the extraction. The purpose of the pre-infusion is to prime the puck for the next step, allowing it to expand and filling channels that might occur.

Infusion – Infusion is when we ramp up to whatever pressure we are targeting. Lance prefers, with lighter roasted coffees, a lower pressure, targeting 6-8 BAR. This is because with lighter roasted coffees there is a lower puck integrity as compared to a darker roasted coffee, which can take even up to 10 BAR.

Taper – The taper phase is when we lessen the pressure, or flow, of the extraction throughout the pull as the puck of coffee is eroding. And this is where this video gets really interesting. As Lance says, when we extract espresso, and we force water through the puck, and coffee ends up in our cup, there’s less of it in the puck than when we started! The puck erodes through the shot, meaning there is a lessened mass and therefore lessened resistance.

In Lance’s opinion, and we tend to agree with him here, the requirement of many commercial espresso machines to hold a consistent 9 BAR of pressure through the puck during the entire shot was a terrible step backward for espresso. It increases the possibility of channels at the end of the puck, and raises the likelihood of bitters at the end of the shot.

This is where the Flair shines. Because of the completely manual nature of the Flair, we can easily taper shots as the puck degrades, which is a feature that’s nearly impossible to find in electric machines at the same price point.

We’ll leave the rest of the discussion, as well as the demonstration of Lance’s profile, for those that want to watch the video. But, as always, we hope you’ve enjoyed this educational foray into the world of espresso.

Until the next Espresso University video…

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Making Espresso At Home Without A Fancy Machine

Jeff Walcott — Thu, 02 Sep 2021 03:54:22 +0000

Xris is a caffeinated content creator based in Boston documenting his journey into the world of specialty coffee through YouTube videos and Instagram

Making espresso at home can look intimidating. If you’ve put in the research, you might be overwhelmed between all the different options. From sub-$500 single boilers to heat exchangers and dual boilers worth thousands of dollars, the options are plenty and pricey.

Guess what? You don’t need any of that to make and enjoy delicious espresso right from your home. In fact, here’s everything you really need to pull some great tasting shots in just 5 simple steps – without a fancy espresso machine.

Let's Talk About Espresso

First, let’s talk about what espresso is before diving into how to make it at home. Espresso, in the most general sense, is a concentrated coffee beverage that is made by forcing hot water, at high pressure, through a bed of coffee in a very short window of time. The pressure is what makes all the difference! This pressure ensures that the fats, acids and sugars in your bed of coffee extract at a higher rate in a short period of time. This is what creates the thicker, more syrupy texture of espresso. It also means that it is typically higher in caffeine per volume compared to other brewing methods.

While espresso machines at your local café or roaster look very fancy, and they are, they really have one major job; forcing water through your coffee at pressure to create espresso. So, in theory, to replicate this process and brew espresso at home, all you’d need is the ability to generate pressure in your brewing chamber. Easier said than done right? Well, with the Flair Espresso Maker, it’s easily said and done!

The Flair Espresso Maker

The Flair Espresso Maker was designed to be an affordable manual espresso machine that was able to generate the pressure needed to brew espresso – all from your home – without any extra gadgets or doo-dads. It’s just pure and simple espresso, handcrafted manually.

Upon first look, you might be wondering, ‘how in the world can this little lever espresso maker replicate what happens inside a big commercial machine?’ Well, the answer is as above: pressure! The Flair’s lever-based espresso system uses a stainless-steel cylinder with a plunger at the top and portafilter on the bottom. Seals inside the brewing chamber prevent pressure from escaping, and as the lever is lowered, the bed of coffee acts as another partial seal, generating resistance until the pressure builds enough that your brew water is forced through the grounds.

And voila! Espresso in your cup from a humble little espresso maker that you can place right onto your counter.

The Materials You'll Need

Now let’s talk about the process for creating delicious espresso at home without a fancy machine.

First, you’ll need your Flair Espresso Maker! You’ll be glad to hear that the Flair Espresso lineup has options for all budgets, from the affordability-focused Flair NEO to the Flair 58 with an industry-standard 58mm portafilter. For the purposes of this demonstration, we’ll be using a Flair Classic, which was the original manual espresso maker created by Flair way back in 2016.

Flair Classic Manual Espresso Maker

The Flair Classic is the original manual espresso maker from Flair. Brew anywhere and get café-quality espresso all while benefitting from the immediate feedback and control of a manual system.

Add a Flair Classic to Your Cart

Second, fresh beans. This is an absolute no brainer when it comes to getting great tasting coffee. Check out a local coffee roaster for some freshly roasted options!

Third, hot water! Unlike some fancy pour over methods, a variable temperature controlled gooseneck kettle isn’t necessary, but surely helps with the precision of your pour. Depending on the roast level of your beans, you may also prefer to set your water to a desired temperature.

Finally, the grinder. A high-quality burr grinder will always result in the most consistent and fluffy grinds for your espresso: It’s a must when using a non-pressurized portafilter. The Flair Royal is a great hand grinder that travels nicely alongside your Flair Classic and With steel burrs and 72-steps of 0.02mm, you’ll have no trouble dialing in the perfect shot of espresso.

Steps to Follow:

Step 1: Preheat the Brew Chamber

As mentioned above, the Flair Classic is an entirely lever-based espresso machine, no messy cables or outlets necessary. Heck, you could pull a fantastic shot of espresso easily in the middle of a forest with the included travel case!

Be sure to put your brew chamber in a bowl, deep enough to submerge it, and pour hot water to completely cover the chamber or purchase a preheat cap from their website so you can ditch the bowl.

Step 2: Grind Your Beans

To dial in your Flair, we recommend starting with a 12-16g dose and to time your shot in the realm of 35-45 seconds. Too long or too bitter? Grind coarser. Too fast or acidic? Grind finer!

Don’t have a good grinder? No problem! You could easily swap to using the pressurized portafilter, included standard on the Flair NEO, and pick up some of your favorite pre-ground coffee.

Step 3: Prep the Portafilter

Add your coffee grounds into the portafilter with the included funnel, and give it a light tamp and set it up on your Flair Classic portafilter base. If you have something like the Flair Shot Mirror, which I’ve used in all the photos, you can remove the spout to convert your portafilter into a bottomless, letting you see your tasty shot pull.

Add your preheated brew chamber (careful, it’s hot!), fill it up with hot water, and add your plunger.

If you want to really geek out over your shot profile, you can even grab the Flair Pressure Gauge to monitor the pressure profile of your shot! As a general rule of thumb, aim for between 6-9 BAR of pressure. The custom Flair Pressure Gauge even features an espresso target “zone” to help you while you’re pulling your shot. These can be purchased as an accessory, or they come standard on all Flair Signatures, PRO 2 and 58 manual espresso makers.

Gently start your pull, aiming between 30-40 pounds of force (tip: you can use a body weighing scale under your Flair to monitor your force). Make sure you’re hitting those ratios and timings!

If you’re not seeing any drips or a steady flow, you’ve likely ground too fine or tamped too hard. Simply dump the remaining water and clean out the portafilter to try again.

Step 4: Enjoy

Now for the best part. Enjoy your delicious and tasty shot of espresso that you’ve made at home, all without the need for a fancy espresso machine! Without a doubt, the espresso that can be brewed with a Flair manual espresso maker will rival the quality you can get from your nearest third wave coffee shop or fancy espresso machine. With a Flair espresso maker, you can now make all sorts of espresso-based drinks from cappuccinos to flat whites- whether you’re at home or on the go.

The best part is, you don’t need a fancy steam wand either. Also available on the Flair shop, you can grab the Nanofoamer: One of the best and portable solutions to get latte art quality milk foam at home.

Did you know that most cafe drinks are variations of ratios of espresso to steamed milk and milk foam? Cappuccinos typically have a thick layer of foam on top, flat whites – a bit less. Lattes largely have the greatest ratio of espresso to milk, making great iced drinks on warm summer days. Add a few flavored syrups to your pantry and suddenly you’ve got all the options your local cafe has, made right at home without a fancy machine.

The Flair lineup has options for all budgets, from the smaller and simpler Flair Neo all the way up to the Flair 58 featuring an industry-standard 58mm portafilter. Check them out here and start handcrafting your own espresso, right from your home, without the need for a fancy espresso machine.

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Espresso University – Dial-in Light Roasted Coffee

Jeff Walcott — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:27:26 +0000

In the freshest installment of Espresso University, Lance Hedrick, the Brewer’s Cup Champion extraordinaire, tackles the sometimes fickle process of dialing-in light roasted coffee on a Flair PRO 2.

So first things first. What is the Flair PRO 2 and why is it a great tool for dialing espresso at home? In reality, it comes down to three factors: construction, control and price. First and foremost, the Flair PRO 2 is an all-manual lever espresso press that is capable of cafe-quality espresso extractions. The construction of the Flair is robust, featuring aluminum and stainless steel, especially in the brewing chamber, which ensures that home baristas can reach the needed 6-9 BAR of pressure to ensure a well-balanced extraction.

Second, and because the Flair PRO 2 is completely manual, every aspect of the brewing process is under the control of the barista. There are very few espresso machines on the market that allow their users to immediately see and modify their pressure, extraction times and dialing-in process. The Flair PRO 2 comes standard with Flair’s custom pressure gauge, with a targeted espresso zone, that provides instant feedback on what’s going on inside the puck while brewing. This allows for various and advanced pressure profiling like never before.

Finally, the price. Sure there are some espresso machines on the market that allow similar feedback and quality. But these typically cost many hundreds, and often many thousands, of dollars. The Flair PRO 2 can be yours for roughly $300 dollars, making it a steal when compared to the competition.

Flair PRO 2 Manual Espresso Maker

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So, back to dialing-in light roasted coffees. First, we should start by defining a lightly roasted coffee. When Lance refers to a lightly roasted coffee, he considers these to be light brown in color and much more difficult to break with your fingers. For the most part, lightly roasted coffees are more dense and more difficult to grind and extract. In general, this is because more lightly roasted coffees are less soluble. Because lightly roasted coffees are less soluble than their darker roasted counterparts, it means the barista has to manipulate their variables to push the extraction as much as possible!

So, how do we get the flavor out of these more lightly roasted beans? The answer, according to Lance’s experience, is a few things:

First we are going to grind a bit more finely than with darker roasted coffees.
Then we are going to preheat the chamber more intensely than we would with a darker roasted coffee.
And finally, Lance recommends using brew water that is just off the boil, as he needs to ensure the temperatures are as high as possible for these coffees!

To begin this dial-in process on the Flair PRO 2, Lance recommends starting with 16 or 16.5 grams of coffee. In this video, he’s starting off using his Niche Zero grinder set to a 24. So if you’re lucky enough to have one, that’s a great place to start. You may notice that the 24 setting on the Niche Zero is more coarse than the typical recommended grind size for espresso on other machines. You may have heard us say that light roasts require a very fine grind size, so this might be confusing.

Allow us to explain. Yes, light roasted coffee requires a more fine grind size when compared to darker roasted coffee. But, the Flair PRO 2 brewing system uses a portafilter basket with a smaller diameter – 46.5mm – as compared to a standard commercial 58 mm basket. So, as compared to an espresso extracted at a coffee shop, the puck on the Flair PRO 2 is more narrow and deeper, which necessitates a slightly more coarse grind to ensure saturation, contact time and appropriate extraction.

For lighter roasted coffees, Lance prefers to start with a three part extraction:

Pre-Infusion – at roughly 3 BAR for 10-12 seconds
Spike/Ramp – moving quickly from the pre-infusion pressure to ramp up, or spike, at roughly 8-9 BAR for 10-12 seconds
Flow-rate Control – slowly reduce the pressure in the chamber as you maintain the original flow rate of your shot until you’ve reached your desired output

But, as you’ll see in the linked video, Lance typically likes to let his coffee dictate how the extraction will go. And this is where the Flair really shines. Listen to the feedback the Flair espresso maker gives when pulling your first shot, and then make any modifications as necessary.

So, let’s take a look at the three espressos Lance pulled on the Flair PRO 2 before he found his sweet spot:

Shot #1 – 16 grams in and 30 grams out in 60 seconds. This shot was very sour, which indicated a need to extend the ratio – or get more output for your input. With lighter roasted coffees, a shorter ratio (less than 2:1) may mean a sour coffee, so the second shot will require a more coarse grind and a higher flow rate earlier on to ensure the sweetness is extracted from the beans.

Shot #2 – So for the second shot, Lance went four clicks more coarse on his Niche, to grind setting 28. He was still using a 16 gram dose, and decided to increase his output to 40 grams out in 55 seconds. This shot was still a bit on the sour side, and Lance decided that he wanted to elongate, or increase, his brew ratio even more, closer to 3:1.

But, before completing this it’s important to address any fears about utilizing a 3:1 ratio in your recipe. Fear not all you doubters! These lightly roasted coffees have lots and lots to give.

Shot #3 – Finally espresso nirvana. The look on Lance’s face says it all! This extraction was the same 16 gram dose, at the same grind setting. But, to elongate here, Lance allowed the extraction to flow for an additional five seconds, getting very close to one minute. This yielded 45 grams in his cup, and a delicious shot of espresso with lots of fruit.

Before we finish, we wanted to also provide some pro tips for espresso brewing before closing up this chapter of Espresso University. These are below.

PRO Tip #1 – When dialing in and repacking your portafilter, make sure that you wipe the inside of the basket before extracting. Water beads make channels!

PRO Tip #2 – Something else that needs to be addressed when extracting espresso: Time doesn’t matter as much as taste!

PRO Tip #3 – Use a WDT tool to help distribute your grinds evenly before tamping. These can be homemade or purchased, and work wonders in terms of reducing channeling.

So there you have it, a step by step guide to dial-in light roasted coffees using the Flair PRO 2 manual espresso maker. We sincerely hope that you enjoy these Espresso University videos, and we can’t wait until the next installment.

If you’re thinking about buying a Flair PRO 2, you can learn more about this brewing machine, and make your purchase, here!

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Flair Announces a New Partnership with Lem Butler, U.S. Barista Champ.

Admin — Mon, 19 Nov 2018 13:43:27 +0000

We at Flair Espresso are happy, humbled and excited to announce a partnership with Lem Butler as the first Flair Ambassador!

When we at Flair started work on the Signature PRO model in 2018, we knew we had something special. Our experience in the manual espresso market had taught us valuable lessons about what our highest level and most discerning customers desired in a top-of-the-line manual espresso maker. All of our Flairs are extremely capable, able to craft well-balanced shots, but this new model would take the game to the next level, a PRO level. We were adding in key feature enhancements like the ability to use expanded brewing ratios, an updated stainless steel experience that is beautiful while adding functionality, the addition of our custom pressure gauge to maximize the use of profiling while brewing, and our breathtaking bottomless portafilter.

All these enhancements were designed with a professional barista in mind. We wanted to give even the best all the tools they needed to rival and equal shots they brew from their own equipment at their shops and at competitions. At the end of our design phase we were thrilled with the outcome, but we needed verification. We don’t take the term PRO lightly and had to be sure. So, we went to the best. Enter Lem Butler.

For those of you that don’t know, Lem is a giant in the espresso and coffee industry. He’s got years of experience first with Counter Culture Coffee, and now as the co-founder of Black and White Coffee Roasters in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Oh and he just so happens to be the 2016 U.S. Barista Champion and claimed 4th in the World on the Dublin stage that year. We couldn’t have found a better professional to test our machine with if we molded one out of clay.

So we sent Andrew Pernicano, our Director of Support and Social, to New York City to visit Lem during the New York Coffee Festival and introduce him to our humble (but mighty) manual espresso maker and a prototype of the Signature PRO. Long story short, he was impressed, but we won’t ask you to take our word for it, read the below Q & A with Lem to learn more about the PRO, his partnership with us, and his plans for the future as Flair Espresso’s first Ambassador.

Q: What was your first impression of the Flair?

A: I started following Flair on Instagram last year because someone had mentioned it to me. When I first saw it in action, on a live Instagram video, I was super impressed. Look at its mobility. You can take it anywhere. I had some reservations but for the mobility and the price point it was worth a look.

Q: Have those reservations changed now that you’ve been able to brew with a Flair?

A: Andrew brought the Signature to New York. I was super impressed. They had several different grinders on the table and Andrew was trying it with all of them and the coffee just tasted amazing. With all other portable machines I was never impressed with the flavors. But I was stoked on the Flair. It actually got me thinking outside of the box. Time is relative. If you have a minute long shot and it tastes great than go for it.

Q: What is so great about the new Flair Signature PRO?

A: The build quality is great. It’s sleek. It’s sexy. And it packs up into this nice portable kit. But what’s most important is the flavor. Pressurized brewing brings out different ranges of flavors in the coffee. Those first couple of shot from the Signature PRO the florals hit me. The sweetness hit me. And that’s what’s really important. The other stuff is just icing on the cake.

Q: Who would you recommend the Signature PRO to?

A: The main selling point is for those that really enjoy espresso. If you really want to duplicate a shot of espresso that you get from a high-quality espresso maker, the Flair Signature PRO will get you there.

Q: How do you plan to use the Signature PRO in your daily routine?

A: What I want to use it for, for my own personal use, is to travel. But here at Black & White I want to use it in our education program. One of the biggest questions I get is “I want to make a coffee at home but I can’t make it taste like I get at a good shop.” So when I started using with the Flair I was like, “ding-ding!” Because it’s accessible. Anyone can have it. And with the expensive machines it’s not going to translate. Who can buy those for home!? With the Flair Signature PRO we can show the differences in extraction and then people can take it home with them and replicate this.

To learn more about the Flair Signature PRO stayed tuned to our Instagram page and subscribe to our email list. More great things will come from this partnership!

The post Flair Announces a New Partnership with Lem Butler, U.S. Barista Champ. appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Bottomless Brewing with Flair is Here!

Admin — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 13:36:53 +0000

Innovation is a key component of our business model at Flair; we are constantly listening to customers and heading back into the design studio to come up with the next great offering that will improve the ability to brew professional quality espresso with every pulled shot.

Over the past few months, we’ve focused on growing our line of espresso makers, adding the Signature Series, in both Chrome and Black versions, to ensure that there is a Flair for every aesthetic and coffee station motif. Recently, we’ve switched gears to focus on providing our coffee brewing connoisseurs with the top level in brewing tech, that not only looks great, but also provides the most discerning of baristas with the ability to immediately understand the quality of their extraction. Of course, we’re talking about a bottomless, or naked, portafilter.

Starting in July, Flair will upgrade and replace our Easy-Clean Portafilter with our newly developed Bottomless 2-in-1 Portafilter. That means that every Flair Signature Series will come standard with naked brewing tech! The 2-in-1 feature of this new portafilter means that the user can decide if they’d like to keep or remove the spouted bottom, easily switching back and forth between naked and spouted brewing. The 2-in-1 aspect also means that this portafilter will still feature the easy cleaning of the ECPF all while being optimized to allow the barista to see the bottom of the portafilter basket.

Months of development and prototyping has brought us to this point, and we’re incredibly proud about this offering. There’s nothing quite like seeing the coalescing of streams from your extracted shot tiger-striping on the bottom of the basket. It’s quite mesmerizing and beautiful. But behind this beauty is a fair bit of science as well.

Outside of aesthetics using a naked portafilter will allow each and every Flair-ista with an enhanced ability to brew the perfect shot. By viewing the bottom of the portafilter basket during extraction, the brewer can immediately see any issues like channeling, uneven extraction, or spurting. Most of these issues can be rectified through the practice of equally distributing and packing fresh grounds into the portafilter, which we discuss in our troubleshooting article for those that have already purchased a Bottomless 2-in-1. If you want to know more, please visit that article by clicking here.

And, in keeping with Flair’s tradition of professional quality products at affordable prices, we’ve gone out of our way to ensure the Bottomless 2-in-1 Portafilter could be offered to our customers for the low price of only $24.99!

In short it’s safe to say that, with the launch of the Bottomless 2-in-1 Portafilter, Flair has continued to elevate it’s product portfolio to epic levels. We work each and every day to provide the best customers in the world with the ability to create Espresso Made Right.

If you have a Flair already and would like to enhance your brewing capabilities, please visit our Accessories Page.

If you’re new to Flair and want to take advantage of Bottomless brewing for the first time, please visit our Espresso Makers Page and shop the Signature Series!

The post Bottomless Brewing with Flair is Here! appeared first on Flair Espresso.

CO2 | The Spark Plug

Admin — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 13:32:30 +0000

Let’s get one thing out of the way right up front: crema in and of itself says little about the quality of your espresso, and is really only an indicator of the freshness of the beans and the quality of extraction. Also, certain roasts and beans are conducive to better formation of crema, but not necessarily cup flavors.

That said, we at Flair want to emphasize that if you are looking for more crema atop your espresso, it’s best to focus first and foremost on sourcing freshly roasted whole beans and grinding them moments before extraction with a quality burr grinder. These ‘moments’ matter as is demonstrated by the following video showing the difference between extracting 30 seconds, 30 minutes and several hours after grinding the same beans— that were home-roasted less than 48hrs prior to these pulls.

The crema you see in the freshly ground example is arguably too much. Yes, too much of a ‘good thing’ can be a bad thing. For this post, however, we merely want to call your attention to the fact that you will find no crema-love in pre-ground or otherwise stale beans because they have lost nearly all their stores of crema-generating CO2 gases–a byproduct of the roast. While the degassing period of whole beans takes place over several weeks, the degassing period of beans immediately after being run through a grinder accelerates to just minutes and hours. Grinding beans is a highly destructive process that liberates the CO2 stored in a multitude of pockets of the porous beans while also increasing the surface area now exposed to the environment. This speeds up the transmission of gases as well as triggering a significant loss of aromas. Within a few short days the freshly roasted coffee has already lost 30-40% of that CO2 and the remainder within a few short weeks.

The easiest way to conceptualize this it to think of what happens to a can of soda within minutes after you crack the top. It goes flat of course. I’m certain you’re quite familiar with how long you have to enjoy that soda before the time to pour it down the drain arrives,. You should start thinking the same way about your coffee in relative terms of freshness and crema potential. Once ground, coffee should be extracted within seconds –definitely the first 15 minutes – for best results. This is one reason why preground coffee—whether off the shelf at your local grocer or from your local coffee shop even the day before—will never yield crema, rich aroma and flavor. The other reason, though, is no coffee shop or roaster will ever be able to provide a single grind that will work optimally for the myriad of espresso machines out there. As we said at the top of the post, crema is an indicator of freshness and proper extraction, and preground coffee fails to deliver on both fronts.

In future posts we’ll discuss the merits of resting your beans for at least a few days prior to extraction, how more lever pressure than the recommended 30-40 pounds does not in fact improve espresso quality, and many other topics to help you up your espresso game.

In the meantime, if you’d like to go down the rabbit hole a littler further, the following article will more than satisfy your curiosity and need for hard data:

Time-Resolved Gravimetric Method To Assess Degassing of Roasted Coffee

*share with friends using buttons below*

The post CO2 | The Spark Plug appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Introducing the Flair Signature Black!

Admin — Thu, 22 Feb 2018 13:29:35 +0000

It’s lonely at the top. That’s why we at Flair decided to give the Flair Signature, our flagship manual espresso maker, a bit of company. Starting February 22nd, the Flair family is growing to add the Signature Black to our portfolio of products.

Made from the same high-quality materials as all other Flair Espresso Makers, the Signature Black features a modern matte finish with the Signature’s premium copper-plated portafilter base. It’s an elegant compliment to the chrome of our original Signature, and provides discerning customers with the ability to keep a darker styling in their kitchens or at their coffee stations.

But, just as with most things at Flair, we decided to outdo ourselves. The launch of the Signature Black also coincides with the launch of our new Easy-Clean Portafilter. This improved portafilter features a removable spouted bottom that makes cleaning easier and faster. After brewing just remove the spout, rinse from both ends, and set aside to dry.

The Easy-Clean Portafilter will come standard with every Signature Series Flair, truly elevating it to new levels of brewing greatness. But no matter which Flair you choose, you can feel confident in the same great espresso every time you lower the lever.

We at Flair know espresso, and our Signature Black is one more way to Make Espresso Right.

The post Introducing the Flair Signature Black! appeared first on Flair Espresso.

Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop. Introducing the Flair Signature!

Admin — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 13:25:50 +0000

The last couple of weeks have been very busy and exciting at Flair HQ. We launched a redesign of our website and two new products all in the span of a few days!

While the website’s new design is meant to be functional and efficient, providing prospective customers with all the Flair information they need, the real purpose of the redesign was to match the timeless beauty of the Flair Espresso Maker and the new products that were joining the lineup.

We still love the look of our original Flair, but it was clear that many of our customers would eagerly welcome an alternative to the black and red finish. If your kitchen is clad in stainless steel and an industrial metal look, you’ll really appreciate what we’ve done with the Flair Signature!

The Flair Signature is our flagship model of the Flair Espresso Maker. Featuring an all-metal, lustrous finish with copper accents the Signature will be the centerpiece of any kitchen. The Signature will come with a stainless steel tamper and can also be purchased as a bundle with an additional brewing head. At the end of the day, the same amazing performance and high quality espresso will be the end result no matter which model you choose, as the design and base materials are the same.

Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop. Stay tuned because we are not resting idly on our laurels knowing that we’ve already delivered a revolutionary product to the espresso world! We are hard at work on several other additions to the Flair ecosystem, and can’t wait to share with our Flair Family! Keep checking this space and check out our shop for details.

The post Can’t Stop. Won’t Stop. Introducing the Flair Signature! appeared first on Flair Espresso.