The grinder is a total kick in the pants. The dial goes to 11, but there is no timer, no doser, no chance of catching more than a few grams directly into a portafilter. I have a set of 16oz stainless steel cups, some safety glasses, and a ground strap.
Highly touted, and highly pooh-poohed. How come? It seemingly defies the magic extraction gold box, described by the much vaunted Illy edited 50's research. Although it will really suck the solubles out of a medium roast, it really seems to shine on the lighter roasted, harder to extract stuff.
Yesterday I ran a few ultra fast pour-overs -- two separate 240g lungos, (yes, that is 8 fluid oz) from an 18g VST basket (loaded with 18.0 g no less) and they were ... drinkable. Anybody that knows what a decent shot should look like will flinch. Much different (better) mouthfeel than brewed, very raw and exposing but at the same time very extracted. As if you sailed past french press, and came up on espresso from the other side.
After spending way too much time with a dripper cone and a thermocouple, I set my espresso machine PID down to 190F for better results on the big shots, and I may even try lower. The temp drops quite a bit on the big flows, even though I keep it to 25-30 seconds.
I've been too busy recently to give it a proper beating, but promise some pics this weekend. Maybe I can lure SYP up here to Corntown labs with some wild claims of sideways coffee shots. All backed up by photographic evidence, of course.
