Over the holiday period, I used more coffee than I expected and was faced with a dilema - do I use those emergency coffee beans at the back of the pantry? I thought, why not, that's what they are there for - for times like this, just in case I run out. The coffee beans I am reaching for are now 8 months old - roasted 8 months ago. When you think about it, that's not so bad - supermarket coffee and most of the coffee from big coffee brands in Australia are 12 months old by the time you get them home anyway. 

I poured the beans into the grinder at home, sure they were a little more glossy than usual, but they smelt okay - sure, it wasnt the immediate blast of aroma that I am use to, I expected the flavour to be down a little -but a fair compromise for fresh roasted coffee beans I convinced myself, in my time of need.

Grinding these coffee beans produced a little more clumping than usual, so I adjusted the grinder a touch to accommodate, loaded up the coffee portafilter basket and started the extraction. What happened next I was not prepared for - the usual volume of crema was gone - in fact, there was almost no crema, and what crema there was dissipated pretty fast.  After steaming the milk to a nice texture, there was no surprise that the coffee looked flat, and there was almost no contrast when combined with the milk. My coffee was pretty boring, not awful, but definitely not exceptional. 

I learned something new today - fresh coffee beans make all the difference! My coffee making skills are pretty good and I find my coffees to be consistent, but these less than fresh beans changed everything - no longer was I enjoying spectacular coffee, but 'average', 'okay' coffee - that's just not good enough I thought!

So, I decided to take some time out, roast up a new batch of coffee beans and the difference was amazing. 

I love questions from customers about coffee, and here is one that I would like to share with you from Steve.

Steve asked the question about the impact of a pressurised coffee basket in his new coffee machine, and if he should change it to a after-market non-pressurised basket, improve his coffee.

Here is my reply.

Hi Steve.

Thanks for your email.

You have nailed it - the point that is letting you down is the pressurised basket. Let me first explain why some coffee machine manufacturers use presurised baskets in the first place, and the difference between non-pressurised coffee baskets.

A pressurised basket is different to a non pressurised basket by having only one single hole in the bottom of the basket, vs many holes in a normal basket. The idea is to force the coffee through the one tiny hole, and in the process, creating a fake crema. Thats perfect for the machine manufacturer, becasue even with stale supermarket beans, they can say "look how good the crema is from our machine", but it will lack taste - its just micro-foamed coffee.

Using fresh roasted beans will improve the flavour of your coffee, but the basket being pressurised means that you dont get any good feedback on what is really happening with your coffee extraction.

Breville make non pressurised baskets for their Cafe Roma boiler machine - the machine retails for about $80, but the spare bpart can be ordered seerately for under $10. if it fits your machine, thats what I reccomend as a solution.

When you pay more for a machine, really all you are getting other than facy looks, is a more stable and consistent tempreture and pressure, and better heatup times, which while important, is not absolutely necessary. You will get a much better benefit by changing your basket to a non pressurised basket, and using a coffee tamp. then you can experiment with technique to perfect your coffee.

your aiming for 30ml of coffee in the cup, over 25seconds. If you get more than 30ml, your grind is too coarse, or your tamp too light. I like to try and keep as many things consistent, ie;

30 ml of coffee (per shot)
7grams of coffee (per shot)
25 seconds extraction
15kg of tamp pressure (try using bathroom scales to get an idea of what 15kg of pressure feels like.
I also like to always use a double basket, per coffee extraction, into one cup (so 14g of coffee and 60ml).

Let me know how you get on.

Regards,

James Axisa
Chief Espresso Officer 
www.baybeans.com.au
Mobile: 0428 555 535
Voicemail callback: 02 8208 3477 
[I answer your emails, just hit reply]

Bay Beans coffee is roasted fresh for you the day you place your order - we do not keep any coffee beans on a shelf. In contrast, supermarket coffee can be 12 months old before you even buy it, so you're way ahead with Bay Beans fresh roasted coffee beans already. I suggest beans are at their peak for one month, but I know of people that regularly keep coffee beans for three to six months. Its completely up to your taste.

Bay Beans coffee is packed in zip-lock, one-way valve, foil lined bags for ultimate freshness.

Roasted Coffee releases CO2 which means that over time the pressure inside the coffee bag increases “blowing the bag up like a balloon”. To solve this situation one way degassing valves were created. The valves are made of PET. These valves let the CO2 escape without allowing air to re-enter the bag, resulting in a fresher bag of coffee. When the pressure reaches 0.1375psi (9.5 millibar) the valve will release the air from bag automatically until the pressure decreases to 0.0375psi(2.6millibar). Degassing valves are a coffee industry standard and are highly recommended. We only provide the best quality valves from Switzerland and Italy.