And in that spirit, I just finished enjoying an excellent cup, slightly off the beaten path for me. 50/50 blend of dry-processed Ethiopian Goji roasted just to the start of 2nd crack with a Kenyan peaberry roasted to a solid City+, maybe bordering on Full City, but shy of 2nd crack. (Both roasted by yours truly within the past 7 days.) 17g beans ground in my Virtuoso with the burrs barely touching, plus ~120ml water at 203F, brief but vigorous stirring with an Aerolatte whizzer, vacuum filtered through paper (essentially identical to an Aeropress setup, except with mild vacuum instead of mild pressure) with a total contact time of ~45s (measured from water hitting grounds to air hissing through puck). Diluted with ~100ml additional water and drunk at my preferred temperature of 140F, it was a strong cup, with a deep bittersweet foundation almost but not quite overpowering the mild, fruity acidity of the Kenya.
I did not get out my conductivity meter, but previous measurements using nearly the same parameters and process resulted in approx 17% extraction by the solubles-in-the-cup (SCAA chart) method or 20% extraction by total-solubles-dissolved (Alan Adler) method.
MarkPrince Moderator Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 5,144 Location: Vancouver Expertise: Professional
Espresso: Frankenstein'ed LM Linea Grinder: Anfim Super Caimano Vac Pot: 1922 Silex Drip: Krups Moka Brew Roaster: Hottop
Posted Wed Nov 4, 2009, 1:02pm Subject: Re: Aerobie Aeropress
I'm going to take this thread very much OT for a second, and set out some real hard facts here.
First of all, Alan back when you first launched your Aeropress, I personally gave you permission to do something we rarely let happen on CoffeeGeek - I let you talk about and promote your product in our forums. I did so because it was a brand new device and something quite different from the norm.
In retrospect, from a business owner perspective, that was a big mistake on my part. It was a mistake because of two reasons. First, you garnered absolutely invaluable publicity potential out of it because as you know, word of mouth advertising and the free-flowing of information and discussion here is worth 1000% more than buying a few banners and such - and there has never been any compensation. Second, even though you've garnered all this publicity, as far as I know, you did a short, one ad-run on CG as a proper sponsor for a short time, but then stopped and that was quite some time ago. You still garner a lot of word of mouth advertising, goodwill (for the most part) and publicity for the Aeropress on CoffeeGeek, but you are not a site supporter.
I mention this because of the second major point I want to raise - you feeling that Andy is breaking the forum rules.
I take any reported incident of rules breaking quite seriously, especially when it comes to personal attacks. No matter how I feel about any individual (friend, foe, pain in the butt, industry luminary, whatever) I will look into the complaint and try to be as objective as I can.
In this case, in the quoted examples you posted - Andy was "attacking" the idea for the most part. The few ones that seem to skirt the forum rules show he's frustrated at the person, and lets his frustration show a bit in the posts, but he's still attacking the ideas, not the person primarily.
I also know your history on CoffeeGeek Alan - quite well. A couple of circumstances stick out.
- we practically begged you to buy the Illy Espresso Chemistry of Quality Book. So you could educate yourself on what espresso really was. You did one day (to a chorus of hurrahs) dissapeared for several days, and when you came back, you quoted one obscure secondary comment from the book that, when taken COMPLETELY out of context to the rest of the book, could be seen as confirming your belief that the aeropress produced "espresso". You otherwise completely disregarded the rest of the book (at least that was apparent in your postings). That was incredibly frustrating, and I believe the moment I said publicly on CoffeeGeek that I was giving up on debating you any longer.
- prior to that, we (myself, Andy, others) debated with you ad nauseum about the science of espresso and what espresso was. For months, you would selectively ignore the facts typed, and focus on small out of context elements in the discussion to reinforce your points about believing the produced beverage from the aeropress was "espresso". Again, its quite frustrating to the participants.
This may not be objective, but I can certainly understand someone being very frustrated with you and your posts on CoffeeGeek. I've often said that Andy is a better man than me, and in a way he's proving it here. I've long since given up debating with you because you don't debate fairly or reasonably - you focus on tight specifics, ignoring the rest. That is an incredibly frustrating and challenging debating style for any participant to work with. Andy still does. Many others (older participants in this thread) have given up. For that, I give serious kudos to Andy - he's fighting the good fight, and while he is making things a bit personal in some old (and current) quoted quips, he's still within the rules. As one of our moderators put it, "Andy may be a little crude (in some of his out-of-context quotes from Alan) but we're (the moderators) not the "Demeanor police" or "Friendly Police."
Alan, you've gotten, as stated above, invaluable promotion and discussion of your product. You've gotten invaluable endorsements from many, many folks. And you continue to get this without being a commercial supporter of a website that wouldn't exist if we didn't have commercial advertising partners. In a way, these advertisers are paying for your promotion.
Because of this, I'm fairly astounded that you would take public in a very pointed way your hurt feelings about having your ideas attacked - and singling out Andy in such a way. You've gotten a very free ride on CG for several years now, and because of that, if there's any gray area in rules bending, I'm more likely to err in the favour of the person without any personal interests involved than I am in the direction of the person getting the free ride.
Sorry if that sounds unfair, or such, but it is what it is. And thats it for the OT. If Alan or anyone else wants to respond to this, take it offline - email me direct at info@coffeegeek.com but do not post it here. Any other OTs will be seriously considered for deletion in this thread.
Mark PS - there's only two companies / products I've ever given this kind of leeway to in the forums. Ironically enough, one of the two did a minimal advertising run (Aeropress); the other has never advertised on CG. Its a state of affairs I probably won't ever let happen again.
paulbel Senior Member Joined: 26 Apr 2008 Posts: 58 Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: aeropress Grinder: moulinex blade Drip: sometimes
Posted Wed Nov 4, 2009, 1:41pm Subject: Re: Aerobie Aeropress
thank you for this, Mark
MarkPrince Said:
In this case, in the quoted examples you posted - Andy was "attacking" the idea for the most part. The few ones that seem to skirt the forum rules show he's frustrated at the person, and lets his frustration show a bit in the posts, but he's still attacking the ideas, not the person primarily.
MarkPrince Moderator Joined: 19 Dec 2001 Posts: 5,144 Location: Vancouver Expertise: Professional
Espresso: Frankenstein'ed LM Linea Grinder: Anfim Super Caimano Vac Pot: 1922 Silex Drip: Krups Moka Brew Roaster: Hottop
Posted Thu Nov 5, 2009, 1:26pm Subject: Re: Aerobie Aeropress
I have deleted several off topic posts in this thread today. Some I really didn't want to delete, and some that definitely needed it.
This thread is about the Aeropress, and please keep the discussion on topic. If you want to discuss something off topic, please use our off topics forum, and start a thread there:
To be sure, a couple of your statements got under my skin. But I truly appreciate your thorough and open-minded approach to this topic. I should have taken that into account and responded to you without the sarcasm.
So please accept my sincere apology. I would like to resume the discussion about extraction yield, in a separate thread, in the very near future. Hope to see you there.
-Andy S picture page: http://flickr.com/photos/andy_s/sets/
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