Copenhagen Home Barista Jam

On Friday, February 17th was the date for the first Copenhagen Home Barista Jam. Since I was hosting and my apartment is not a very big one, I had to limit the number of participants - ten chaps in all. This was just as well because the turnout of machines and grinders was smaller than I originally expected. We made do with three machines - My Andreja and Pavoni as well as a La Valentina. As for grinders we just had my Mazzer Mini E. This turned out to be just fine for the evening.

The selection of tampers present was quote nice, though. From left to right, starting from the back: Impod interrogativo (58mm convex), Espro (58mm flat), Impod esclamativo (58mm convex), tall Reg Barber (51mm flat), short ball Reg Barber bubinga (58mm convex), a tall Reg Barber look-alike in rosewood (58mm flat), Greg Pullman deluxe (slightly oversize 58mm flat), a tall Reg Barber with a copper base (58mm flat) and last but not least the all stainless mystery tamper (58mm convex - possibly from Sweet Marias?) that was significantly heavier than any of the others with over half a kilo in weight.


I still preferred my Greg Pullman over the others in both looks and balance, but that's just me. The original Reg Barbers had an air of quality superior to the look-alike but they were still no match for the Impods that had the best quality of finish overall. The tall Reg Barber in 51mm does look slightly ill proportioned and ideally I'd like to have the Impod esclamativo in 51mm for the Pavoni...

Kim, the owner of the Valentina had been having some trouble with milk frothing on the machine and we tried analysing what the problem might be. I did notice that it was a tad faster in heating the milk with the stock steaming tip than my Andreja but also that I got bubbles in the milk a lot more easily. Curiously, despite the faster milk heat up for some reason I found it more difficult to swirl the milk with the Valentina. This made breaking up the bubbles in the milk more difficult. I'm sure I would have improved with some more practive, but others appeared to have similar problems. In other words the froth was ok, but not great. Jesper and Kim even tried the Gold Pro tip but to no avail. The consensus was that the Andreja was easier to work with. However, three of the participants (in addition to Kim) who either own or have owned a Valentina noted that their experience of the Valentina did not match with the performance of Kim's machine. Unfortunately there were no obvious clues as to what could have been wrong and the jury is still out on this one...

While the focus (at least for me) was on the machines and techniques for most of the evening, it was also interesting to experiment with coffees. We used Ristriet's Uno for most of the evening but tried Kontra's espresso blend as well as Stefan's own roast. On the more extreme side of coffee experiments, Henrik and Rune roasted some robusta (100% Indonesian Java Grade 1) on site with a Hearthware Precision and we brewed it when it was still warm. No surprise that there was plenty of crema as shown by the picture. One wouldn't drink 100% robusta but it was interesting to experience the pure robusta taste nonetheless (it wasn't very - ahem - let's just say it was distinctive).

For me the big surprise was how little noise, smell and smoke the roaster actually generated. A lot less than I had expected. It really was not that bad when the roaster was by the window and I think I could even manage with it under the stove hood. I had been thinking of trying roasting my own coffee but had dismissed as not being viable in an apartment. Because of the pleasant surprise at the jam, I am now more or less decided on going ahead with roasting myself. Time will tell how it is going to work out.



Rune also brought some freshly roasted 100% Indonesian Mandheling decaf, which was very good for a decaf (and as far as I know a very highly rated one at that). It certainly generated good crema, but it was somewhat light in colour. I was not thoroughly impressed by taste, either. I tasted fruitiness and some nuttiness, but something in it just din't work for me. I'll have my espresso with caffeine, thank you... ...and so it was back to the Uno blend...

The highlight of the evening was the unofficial "Copenhagen Home Barista Championship" (CHBC) - a playful, not so serious contest for those interested in participating. We had six "copetitors" and four volunteered as judges. No WBC rules here but something more practical for our purposes: Prepare one cappuccino and one straight double.

The panel of judges (deliberating in the picture) evaluated each contestant with one thirds weighting on their technique, cleanliness, speed and with two thirds weighting on the taste and appearance of the drinks. To add a little twist to the competition, everyone had to use the machine they are not familiar with, i.e. those who owned or had owned a La Valentina used my Andreja while I among two others worked with the La Valentina.

Both machines were well warmed but for the purposes of the event but we did not attempt at equalising their settings. We verified the brew pressure settings with a portafilter-mounted brew pressure gauge from Risteriet - the Andreja was limited at 9.5 bar while the Valentina was at the original 12 bar setting (putting it at a slight disadvantage in my opinion but then again this was no serious competition). I was happy to see that the gauge on the Andreja is accurate and that the OPV is staying at the setting after the OPV creep that I was experiencing some time ago. Same water, milk and coffee was used for both machines. One was free to tweak the grind setting if deemed necessary and one could freely select the tamper to use. The filter baskets were a ridgeless double on the Andreja and a La Marzocco ridged double on the Valentina - both were used in the double spouted portafilters.

I was the first to go. Talk about not being used to an audience and cracking under pressure. Hands shaking, forgetting to pre-heat the cappa cup, forgetting to dry the tamper piston for the cappa shot and ending up overstretching the milk a bit. Hmm... excuses, I know. But I learn from my mistakes. Observing the others and discussing, swapping ideas was also an interesting learning experience for me. No two participants had the same exact techniques and routines. I think I picked up a few things that will be useful for me going forward, making me a better home-barista.

The results? I ended up third out of six.

Peter, a Pavonista himself, has limited experience on pump driven machines but his meticulous distribution and tamping technique paid off and he ended up second. He also pulled the best tasting espresso of the bunch with my Andreja.

The 2006 CHBC winner was Jesper (pictured) from Risteriet and deservedly so. The cappa looked and tasted great and Jesper's experience really shone through. Congratulations!

Towards the end of the evening, the more experienced Pavonistas also gave my Pavoni a workout. Henrik and Thomas (pictured) pulled a few good shots after some tweaking. Thomas also demonstrated some temperature management techniques (switching it off and wrapping a towel soaked in cold water around the neck of the grouphead) for the Pavoni and the fifth shot out of the machine was not overheated - to the contrary actually! Interesting.

I think the evening turned out well and I'd like to thank everyone participating and give my special thanks where they are due: Firstly for Kim for hauling his La Valentina to my place and secondly for Risteriet sponsoring the coffee (as well as Stefan for bringing in his own roast and Rune helping in getting this evening together). I look forward to the next jam which is potentially going to be held at Risteriet (at a future date to be confirmed).

P.S. I didn't want crowd this post with too many pictures but even though I had some problem setting it up (can't get the images to display at identical sizes, sorry for that), I added a few more as a slideshow that can be accessed via THIS LINK...