theReviewGuys

I patiently waited five minutes for my shot of espresso. Most days the wait is twenty or twenty five minutes, and this is usually around 7:45 in the morning, Monday through Friday. Yep, I take a Ferry into the city and I pass by Blue Bottle every morning. I’d be happy to start my day with a shot of Blue Bottle Elixir, but I have to make a living and dragging my fanny into work late because I’ve been standing in line for 25 minutes isn’t going to cut it. So most mornings I stroll by Peets around the corner and get one of their inferior shots or big cup of tasty Joe.

Blue Bottle Cafe opened their San Francisco Ferry Building Cafe a few months ago. Early on they struggled with the basics. That is, making coffee drinks in a timely manner and getting people in and out. At first they opened their side window, with three-group La Marzocco Linea early in the morning and their normal line at the Lever Mirage Triplette three-group manual machine. This was good. Two lines moved way faster than one line. Now however, they don’t open the side window until 10am. And so you have one machine, and a big line of folks. It’s easy to overwhelm a slow moving cafe.

Typically, on a Friday morning or afternoon, I like to pick up a couple pounds of fresh espresso beans for the weekend. I’ll be pulling a ton of shots and making Lattes and Cappuccinos non stop over the weekend, and I want fresh beans. Peets isn’t always so fresh. Blue Bottle is, but most Fridays they are out of beans. Totally. I mean no beans at all on the shelf. Or if there are beans on the shelf then they are not espresso roasts. I’ve suggested to the Blue Bottle folks that perhaps they could consider stocking the shelves Friday morning and taking advantage of all those folks heading home for the weekend. You can’t sell what you don’t have. Well Blue Bottle said I should order my beans online, and that way I get them fresh delivered to my door. Well at $15-$16 a pound plus another $5 or more for shipping, that’s an expensive habit.

I will say however that when I do hold out and stand in line for a shot of espresso, it is amazing. It’s as though an Angel has pissed on my tongue. The intensity, and complexity of the fragrant and floral overtones of Ethiopian and the deep rich undertones of earth and chocolate, leave me weak kneed.

Yesterday morning the line was short and I jumped into line. Looked on the shelf for espresso beans, 17 foot Ceiling or another offering, and as is usual there were none. Sigh. Placed my order and watched my lovely Barista pull five shots until she got one that was good enough for my indulgence. She reset her grinder once, and set a timer a couple times. Each pull was discarded until number five. I deeply breathed in that fragrance from the Heath Espresso Cup, and quickly filled my mouth with the 1/2 ounce of goodness. Every tooth got a coating, as well my tongue and mouth complete. I breathed in through my mouth and my nose and swished and swallowed, and was almost overwhelmed by the amazing flavor. I thanked my Barista over and over and I think I even bowed as I asked if it was ok to lick my cup.

I am obsessed. Stopped at Blue Bottle Cafe in the Ferry Building this morning.

One $2 shot of espresso. Less than one fluid ounce. That’s $256 a gallon of espresso.

And we complain about $4 a gallon gas.

or

$20 a gallon bottled water from your 7/11.

I ordered a whole mess of boat building books back around the year 2000 after deciding that I wanted to build a boat to suit my tastes. I picked up a book on building aluminum boats, several on the subject of the stitch and glue method of building and a few other general tomes on the subject. Hands down the one book that captivated my interest was Renn Tolman’s, A Skiff For All Seasons.

After reading and re-reading the book over a period of a few weeks, I ordered Renn’s Wide Body Addendum and a while later the Jumbo Addendum. I now had three versions of the boat to contemplate building. I’ve bugged Renn and several other Tolman Skiff Builders for details and pictures of their home built masterpieces and now through their generosity you too can study these very interesting and aesthetically pleasing vessels to your hearts content.

A Tolman Skiff is a Stitch and Glue wooden boat. It is built using marine grade plywood, and is encapsulated with epoxy and fiberglass. It’s a tough boat that is a boat of Dory Heritage with a modified V type hull with a very pronounced flare. The hull has substantial reserve buoyancy and is very light for its size. It rides up and over rough seas and is a stable fishing platform and performs extremely well in big following seas that would cause much lesser boats to broach or swap ends. Commercial fishermen have used their Tolman Skiffs to treacherous Alaskan Waters and lived to fish another day. Even when severely damaged from hitting a buoy in open waters, as experienced recently in Homer, Alaska, a Tolman Skiff didn’t sink. Though two fishermen were thrown in the water, they were able to climb back on board and make it back to safety with a giant hole in the bow. They simply tied on a tarp to keep water from flooding in.

After buying a Breville BCG450XL Conical Burr Grinder to grind coffee for my family’s Miss Silvia Espresso Machine, and finding out that it did not grind as advertised, I returned it to the store. I replaced this crummy grinder with a Le’Lit pl53 Espresso Burr Grinder.

I chose the Le’Lit pl53 Espresso Burr Grinder because of the good reviews and the price point. Mind you, at $230 + I don’t think this grinder is a cheap grinder, but compared to $300-$400-$600 Grinders I saw Coffee and Espresso Addicts using, I thought it might work.

Ordered the Le’Lit from 1st Line Equipment. There was a sale and free shipping which sweetened the deal. Got the grinder and filled it up with some stale beans I had laying around to try it out and to flush away any manufacturing crud. From the factory the grind was beyond even Turkish grind and it immediately choked Miss Silvia. After a bunch of shots I finally dialed it in to beyond 25 turns backed off. Replaced the stale beans with some fresh Mistral Espresso beans from Moschetti Coffee and set about to fine tune the amazingly infinitely adjustable grind of the Le’Lit.

Shortly I was pulling the best espresso shots I’d ever pulled. I was in hog heaven.

Since getting the Le’Lit I’ve gone through probably 15 or 20 pounds of various coffee roasts. While the grinder does a good job of grinding mostly clump free and very light and fluffy grounds it does have issues.

The first is the grinder is loud. The metal casing obviously contributes to the noise level since the stainless panels rattle and vibrate while grinding. My wife has moved my grinding facilities to the laundry room where I can close the door to grind coffee.

The second issue is that the plastic hopper broke after a couple months of use. Turns out that the metal surrounding the entrance hole for the hopper has a burr that slowly but surely scratches a line around the hopper mouth. Eventually the plastic mouth breaks off. 1st line promptly and cheerfully replaced the hopper under warranty. The service at 1st Line is very excellent.

The third issue is that the Le’Lit does not like oily beans. They quickly jam up and the grinder makes that runaway sound of an engine suddenly losing load. It’s annoying since you have rattle the grinder around and sometimes poke a bamboo skewer in the hopper to get the beans moving. This one issue is going to make me get rid of this grinder. It’s too much of a chore.

The fourth issue is that the parts of the Le’Lit do not fit all that well. This becomes very apparent as you take the grinder apart to clean it. The spout requires much effort to remove the thumb screw, and even more effort to replace it. The holes do not properly line up. This is also true with other stainless steel panels of the grinder. I’m contemplating replacing the side panels with some wood to quiet the grinder down and to get better fitment.

In the end I’m not sure I can recommend the Le’Lit pl53 Espresso Burr Grinder. If you need to get an infinitely adjustable coffee grinder that is reasonably inexpensive, that will grind fine enough for espresso, and you can deal with the noisy nature of the beast and its seemingly inability to handle oily coffee beans, then perhaps it will work for you.

I bought this grinder for my wife for Christmas along with a Rancilio Miss Silvia Espresso Machine. The grinder was advertised as being an espresso grinder and even a Turkish Coffee Grinder. It is neither. It will not grind fine enough for a decent espresso machine. I took it back to the store and got a refund. At a $100 you’d think that such a grinder would at the very least grind fine enough to pull an epresso shot. Silly me for thinking so.

If you need a burr grinder for normal drip coffee this grinder will work fine. But if you need an epresso grinder look elsewhere.

My wife and I used to happily use our rather inexpensive and not terribly sophisticated Krups Espresso machine to make ourselves our morning Lattes. But after years of this indulgence we put the Krups on the shelf. This Christmas I decided to buy my wife a new espresso machine and so I got to work reading reviews. After a lot of hand wringing and head scratching I decided on a Rancilio Miss Silvia. Reason being that there were a huge number of reviews and folks mostly seemed to like the machine, and I found it’s rather plain stainless skin very beautiful, and it’s “marine quality” brass boiler and no-nonsense commercial bits and pieces attractive. Plus I saw that folks hot rodded their Miss Silivias with PID’s, pressure gauges, etc. Any machine that puts up with folks doing heavy modifications and has fans so enamored that they are willing to fiddle away will certainly rise to the top of my list of good things.

And so I ordered the Rancilio, received it from UPS and then wrapped it up and put it under the Xmas Tree in all it’s blinking glittery glory.

I looked into coffee grinders since every single review of the Rancilio Silvia said it was crucial to pair a good grinder with it. Well, folks were saying that you needed some pretty fancy and very expensive grinders. The old whirly gig blade grinder would cut it. And so I poked around, read reviews and settled on a $100 burr grinder from Breville. Took it home, wrapped it up and it joined the Miss Silvia under the tree.

Since we were traveling on Christmas Eve, we decided to open gifts early. And my lovely wife opened her gifts of the Miss Silvia, the Breville Burr Grinder and other assorted coffee related gifts from myself and the kiddlings. We promptly loaded up the grinder and primed Miss Silvia. I fiddled with shot after shot until we had to leave for our Christmas Eve flight. Until we left I was able to pull some watery shots, but when combined with milk were drinkable (barely).

Back from the Christmas celebrations I settled in to experimenting with various coffee beans, tamps, and grinds. I quickly came to the conclusion that the Breville Grinder was not up to the task of grinding coffee suitable for an espresso machine, even though the box advertised as being for espresso, and the instructions had recommended settings for espresso and even Turkish Grinds. I took it back to the store for a refund, and then ordered the Le’Lit PL53, a grinder that good decent reviews and cost around $230. Kind a pricey for a grinder I thought, but I really wanted a decent espresso, like the one I’d tasted at Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco.

Finally got the Le’Lit PL53 and put it to work immediately. Out of the box it grinded coffee even finer than a Turkish Grind. It choked Miss Silvia. And after much experimentation I ended up backing off the grind setting about twenty five turns. Finally, a decent grind. And all of a sudden I was getting really nice espresso pulls. About an ounce and half of espresso, for a 25 second pull is what I ended up with and it was dense, and not overwhelmingly bitter or sour like many espressos I’ve had at a lot of cafes. Rather, I was experiencing a chocolaty, sweet, floral dose of caffeine with a creamy mouth feel. Oh what joy!

Around the same time I realized that the Peets Coffee I was getting and other beans I got from the super market just weren’t cutting it. They weren’t as fresh as I desired. Then I recalled that somewhere in my town, someone was roasting coffee. And so I poked around and found that Moschetti Coffee was roasting just a few blocks away from me in Vallejo, CA.

I emailed Fabrice Moschetti asking if he sold retail, and explained I was trying to get fresh espresso beans for my family’s espresso machine. He invited me to stop by and to sample his coffee. I met Fabrice, and he had me sample several different blends. One was his Mistral Espresso Blend and another was a Guatemalan blend. It was amazing to taste espresso shots with such fresh beans. What I experienced, was mountains of Crema and the most amazing floral, sweet, chocolatly flavors I’d yet experienced with an espresso. I was blown away.

And, you couldn’t meet a nicer person and such a passionate expert on coffee roasting, than Fabrice Moschetti. I hung out most of a Saturday afternoon, and was treated to a tour of his facilities, and I got to experience the roasting of a batch of Guatemalan. I went home with several pounds of fresh and amazing coffee.

A few weeks later I’d been to Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco, and was raving about their espresso. Fabrice was very interested in sampling the coffee company that has enormous buzz. And so I got a pound of Seventeen Foot Ceiling and brought it over to Fabrice. He closely examined the beans and showed me the almost unroasted beans that had a lot skin left on them. He suspected that this was to create additional crema. Then we settled down to a tasting session with one grinder filled up with Seventeen Foot Ceiling and another grinder filled up with Moschetti Mistral. Shot after shot were pulled and Fabrice’s long time roaster, Mario also stopped in to sample and compare and contrast the Mistral versus the Blue Bottle Seventeen Foot Ceiling. Both had a very pronounced floral quality which Fabrice attributed to the Ethiopian beans. The Mistral Blend features Organic Free Trade coffee beans from Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Ethiopia. While the Seventeen Foot Ceiling was a very rich, bright and big coffee, the Mistral held its own with its rich chocolate and smooth taste and velvety mouth feel and amazing floral quality. I’d put the Mistral up against the Blue Bottle offering any day.

I’m hard on shoes. I tend to wear them day in and day out without swapping out to another pair. I walk, jump, crawl under the house, ride a motorcycle, stand in them while fishing all day on the ocean in a small boat, wade out to retrieve my boat and generally beat the hell out of them.

I also have rather tender feet. I don’t like going barefoot, and I usually have to add supports to my shoes to take care of the plantar faciaitus.

I prefer shoes/boots that are mid height and cover my delicate ankles.

Recently I needed a new pair of hiking boots, and I decided to try out a new brand. I’d read good things about Keen shoes, and saw that they were considered to be feet friendly with their roomy toes, and protected rubberized toe area.

The Keen Targhee II Mid appealed to me with their rather utilitarian earth shoe sort of look about them and the roomy comfortable fit looked mighty appealing.

Went to a couple of outdoors sort of shops including REI. REI was out of the shoe, but they did have other models that I could try on to see how their fit was. According to other online reviews I’d read about Keen shoes, it was reported that they tend to run half a size small. So, the normal size 11 I wear would not fit me, and testing a couple models out at REI confirmed that a size 11 1/2 was called for. So I went home and ordered a pair from onlineshoes.com (get affiliated). Got the shoes in a couple days, and by far they were the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever worn out of the box. It was like walking on a cloud, yet they felt secure on my feet, and had the support I needed around the ankles. I almost felt like I had springs on my feet. Amazing.

Well, I’ve worn things for about five months now and they are good and worn out. They squeak like hell when I walk, and a liberal application of foot powder did not stop the squeaking.

??Cracking of the rubber just above the sole. Shoe laces worn out at three months. They show their age and hold dirt from the camping trip I took recently. Sole is worn so that my feet are planted in a cockeyed manner.

Good things:
Roomy in the toe and mid portion of the shoe. Feet do not at all feel cramped. Comfortable out of the box with good support. Rubber toe protects my feet when I’m on the boat, or hiking, or working in the garage with all sorts of ankle biting powertools and clutter.

Not so Good Things:
They did not last any longer than my $80 HiTek Hiking boots, though they are more comfortable out of the box and in the long term.

Made in China. - How come we can’t make shoes in the US and buy them at a competitive price? What happens when China becomes a sworn enemy and we go to war with them? Who makes our stuff?

Seem to be well made.

Pricey compared to similar shoes. $120.00

Steve- super hoppy, but bitterness is balanced by intense rich flavor. Enormous fruity aroma from the mountains of Hops. *****
Dario - Good. *****
Erika - Good, I like it. Wasn’t too bitter. ****

Steve: flowery aroma. More bitter than the Rich Copper Ale WYBIA Yes

Dario:Can’t smell. Tastes good. WYBIA Yes.

Dave: Tasty. Very drinkable. Light. WYBIA Yes.Refreshing, enjoyable, Lighter , Fresh.Good. Yes. Grassy flavor.

Dave - good color. little more aroma that Fat Tire. Flat. Caramel. Too foamy. ** Reluctantly.WYBIA Nope

Dario - too flat. Strawberry aftertaste. Very little taste. Rich color, expecting more taste. ** WYBIA Nope

Steve - Hint of pine at back of tongue. Flat in bubbles and flavor. Little Hoppy at the back. **. WYBIA Nope