Day 15 - Recipes
I’ve invited some friends over to show off. They thought it was for “one coffee”. How naive. Our session turned into a 2h coffee atelier. It was great fun though. The resulting espressi were less great however.
They were one the one hand a bit uneven in extraction. This manifests in shots that are too sour and too bitter at the same time. I’ve heard people describe such a taste as “muddy” too. I need to work on my tamping technique I guess.
Day 14 - I'm back baby
Delivery scheduled today. The DHL guy knows the drill. He uses one hand to fend me off as I try to kiss him while giving me the package with the other one. I hope they pay him extra to deliver to crazy people like me.
The new PCB is quickly wired up. I know the connections by heart. But I also know what happens to people flying too close to the sun so I triple check them anyways. The big moment and BOOM. It works. No fireworks this time.
Day 13 - Despair
A morning without coffee is like using a waterslide without water. Unpleasant. I look at my dead machine. The metal is cold as I touch it, whimpering pathetically. I have no means of making coffee in my home except for a water boiler.
But mama didn’t raise no quitter. Desperate times call for desperate measures. The god of coffee gives and takes. And today he’s testing me.
Sock coffee
Day 12 - I'm a monkey
It’s been only a day since I’ve tasted the forbidden fruit and already there’s trouble in paradise. The screen of my newly modded Gaggia Classic is acting up. It only turns on sporadically. No big issue for me, an expert in electrical engineering.
I’m on a call with my grandma, talking about life. I can easily do two things at once, can’t I? While talking on the phone, I open the machine and try again. Already, it seems to work better. Maybe there’s a wiring issue?
Day 11 - Flow control
I start the day with mediocre coffee. Yes it’s now 9 bar blabla; I still don’t love it. I’m thinking. I’ve created the profile I’m using to recreate what the unmodded machine was doing, at a different pressure level. It comes as no surprise that the result doesn’t change much.
There is a collection of community profiles for the Gaggiuino mod. I read through the descriptions and pick the LMD 9-8 v1.5 profile, mostly because it’s the only one that mentions “darker roasts”.