Pursuit of the ‘God shot’ and the home espresso agnostic
Posted by TheShot on 25 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: CoffeeRatings.com, Home Brew, Machine
Last week, the Guardian (UK) published an article on a home espresso enthusiast’s journey to obsession: In pursuit of the ‘God shot’ | Food and drink | Life and Health. Having reviewed almost 600 espresso shots in SF proper ourselves — most of them pretty bad — we’d like to believe we know a thing or two (a thing or two too many) about obsession. But the pursuit of the “God shot” — the unachievable attainment of the perfect espresso — is a common story among home espresso enthusiasts.
As highlighted in the article, the story typically starts with a “starter” espresso machine — the gateway drug. It then soon leads to machine upgrades, grinder upgrades, and tampers. Conversations with fellow home enthusiasts via online forums (what they were known as before “social networking” became the phrase du jour — and the beginning of the end of the Internet’s second bubble) lead to more areas for obsession, lost kitchen counter space, and financial ruin. These typically include home roasting, naked portafilters, and the point of no return: PIDs.
PIDs, or Proportional-Integral-Derivative devices, are a programmable digital control unit, relay, and a temperature probe combined into one. They enable owners to control the temperature of a boiler to one-tenth of a degree for maximum brewing precision. Now I may be an electrical engineer by way of college degree, but I’ve always seen the PID as the first step of the descent into espresso madness. The point of no return.
Fact is that my home machine is a “simple” manual Gaggia G106 — the modest, illegitimate sister to the author’s original La Pavoni Europiccola. And OK, I also own a Mazzer Mini (pre-doserless model). I’m obviously part way to madness there. But why haven’t I been lured by the siren song of the “God shot”?
I could easily improve my home espresso set up. But there’s this thing called the law of diminishing returns. There comes a point where after every few hundred dollars of investment, how much better does your home espresso really get? And what is the dividing line between simply “enjoying coffee” — and enjoying only something that requires the equipment and budget of a high-energy physics lab that recreates the first few microseconds of the universe’s Big Bang? (My apologies to James: I like that you own a $20,000 siphon bar — so I don’t have to!)
I’m sure I’m missing out on something by not taking my obsession further. But then there’s a lot else in life I could be missing out on too.
3 Comments »
on 26 Mar 2008 at 6:13 am -05:00T 1.Brendon Parsons said …
I hear ya man. For the last two years, it has been a struggle to not upgrade to a better machine. Unfortunately, I did succumb to the PID fever, if not out of laziness (no more temp surfing). However, lately I’ve been avoiding expensive machines by focusing on other, more afforadable brewing methods. Lately, I’ve been enjoying pour-over drip and vacuum pot, and my wallet thanks me.
on 26 Mar 2008 at 6:43 am -05:00T 2.Eric said …
This was probably a good post for me to read at this point. I’ve been starting do go down the point of no return. After buying and refurbishing my MD50 I am now considering PID’ing my Gaggia Baby. I am seeing it at this point a way for me to gain knowledge and help me start down the path of opening my own shop someday soon.
Hopefully that’s a good enough reason to buy more garbage
on 28 Mar 2008 at 4:32 am -05:00T 3.Stephen said …
The pull of enthusiasm is like gravity propelling a skier down the fall-line. I other words:
A new PID - $325;
showing your friends and fellow enthusiasts your new pid - priceless!
Stephen