What's the best way to improve your coffee? The answer is simple - make adjustments using hard data.
In this video Luke is explaining how you can use a product like the DiFluid refractometer to measure TDS (total dissolveable solids) and make assessments to improve your espresso. The DiFluid is a pocket sized refractometer that is simple to use and it partners with an app to make sense of the readings it produces.
On his kitchen bench in the video Luke has a cold brew and two espresso extractions from his GS3. One which was brewed at 9 bars of pressure and the other at 3 bars of pressure. He takes us through the process of assessing each of these with the DiFluid and explains the data and what it all means. The difference in results from the 9 bar to the 3 bar extraction is quite surprising.
The DiFluid is a very handy tool for anyone looking to improve their coffee and it certainly has helped us make changes to the recipes that we use here Artisti.
VIDEO
Unedited Video Transcript
g'day everyone today I'm going to be
talking about how you know whether
you're making a great tasting espresso
well firstly you need to know that you
need to be able to measure it and how do
we measure it well it's called TDS and
that is total dissolved solids and
basically that means when you're passing
water through a coffee bed how much of
that actual coffee ends up inside your
cup now to do that we use a product
called a refractometer which allows us
to take a liquid sample from a cold brew
or espresso or whatever you're brewing
and pass light through it and the
refracting light allows us to have a
measurement which is going to be
measuring things like the minerals and
salts that are in there to give us a
number that we can work with to do a bit
more of a science equation on
geeky and Technical in this and because
there's so many other videos already out
there that cover this in the crazy
science side I want to keep it pretty
easy for everyone to understand just to
give you a way to make a better espresso
or coffee brew that you're working with
so TDS means total dissolved solids and
basically if you've got water and you're
passing it through your coffee bed let's
say in a group handle with espresso how
much of that actual coffee ends up in
the cup combined with your water and to
do that we use a product called a
refractometer now there's a whole range
of different products out there the the
Highlight product for the real sciency
geeky kind of person would be the VST
that's definitely a scientific grade
refractometer where you'd have to be
clinically sterile and and using filters
and very particular about what you do
and it'll give you amazing high-end data
and there's a lot of other products in
there coming down to the product we're
using today which is the DI fluid and
it's a simple easy to use small little
product that we reckon is going to help
you assess coffee so no matter what
product you end up using to measure TDS
basically you're going to end up with
some data and when you get data it
allows you to take the series of numbers
and then equate it basically to what
you're tasting and it'll give you a bit
of a reference now if you're getting a
bad taste that number will allow you to
align that and start to think okay if I
need more TDs or less TDS I will be able
to affect that flavor profile to be
either sweeter more body or am I getting
too much acidity so that data just
allows you to start making some educated
decisions on how you're going to make
changes to Brewing so I reckon just
having some data is great it doesn't
have to be super perfect and yes
spending more money will make that far
more accurate but the DI fluid here is
basically a small pocketed USB
rechargeable unit they have a whole
range of little products that you can
use to measure all different sorts of
things now the one that we have here is
the one specific for coffee and it's a
tiny little unit like this which you
could basically take with you wherever
you are it's got a 30 day battery life
and it will be specific for measuring
your coffee so make sure you do buy the
right one there's about four in the
range that look like this that you could
be testing your citrus in your lemons or
your watermelon or a whole lot of other
crazy stuff and when you get into using
the app that it connects via Bluetooth
you can select all of these different
things what what they have done in their
app it does have an SCA standard which
is great so any measurement did you do
once you select whether it's a cold brew
or espresso you're going to be able to
measure your data to what the sca
standard is so that's really cool and if
it's outside the parameters you'll be
able to start to make some decisions and
changes to get back into making a better
in the Box you don't get a lot you get
the reader you get a little cloth which
is used to clean the front there because
it is basically a lens and lights
passing through it you wouldn't want to
use paper towel you don't want to
scratch that so one of these little
cloths that you might find with your
glasses is really good to keep that
clean it may be an alcohol wipe in there
as well in between samples to make sure
that it's nice nice and clean and
doesn't contaminate between samples you
get a little USB cable and a cool little
pouch there to hold the unit and I seem
to have misplaced a little dripper that
does come with these as well now the
problem with the dripper is that once
you use it it's a plastic one it's
contaminated contaminated on the inside
they're super hard to clean so once
you've used it you'd throw it out you
may want to buy some more but then it's
quite wasteful in the industry so I'm
going to teach you just how to use some
really nice clean spoons and sterile
spoons in the process it's a bit easier
as well and we can look after the
environment now I do have another TDS
reader here that we utilize in measuring
our water and the quality of the water
for our coffee machines so this unit
here is going to help us look at the
water quality that we have here today
but it's not good to be able to look at
the complexity of coffee it really
doesn't read that well so not one TDS
reader does everything and I'll show you
what happens there with our water here
we're on tank water so it's a little bit
different to what our town water supply
would be as well now if you want to get
super technical you need to know about
your water and the measurements of the
actual Water by itself before we start
to actually add coffee to it so they're
two different areas that you'd have to
use some equations of a mass to really
get right into but we're going to again
keep it a little bit we'll see simple
for you today just to make some easy
readings and some great assumptions on
how to improve your espresso so we
decided to buy one of these di fluids
we'd check them out on the internet and
they actually send us two
um so we've got one of these that we're
going to give away so keep an eye out on
our socials how you can win that one and
we're going to use that to assess these
samples so let's get straight into it
just one thing before we get into this
it does have an app so jump on your app
store download it and you can connect
straight to your phone via Bluetooth
it's pretty simple and that app is
what's going to give you all of the data
to make your assessments so what we're
going to do is we're going to start off
by measuring the water that we have here
and I'm going to use just as an example
our normal water TDS reader so we just
turn this on this is just tap water
straight from us it's filtered and I'm
there we go and we're going to pop it in
there and we're just going to wave it
pretty simply and it's going to give us
a reading and we can press the hold
which catches that so it's saying 14
all right so so there's not a lot in my
water it is rain water it's triple
filtered and it has a UV light that
kills all the germs so if we do this in
our Factory Our Town water has a much
higher reading so what we're going to do
now is use the DI fluid to measure our
coffee we just go down to the app and we
pop this little arrow there it says
there we go and you can go through and
measure a whole range of different
things we're going to pop in and search
brilliant so we're ready on coffee and
you can see there's a whole range of
options here we've got the ability to do
a drip coffee or an espresso and as we
come down into our chart we're going to
start to see some of the the values and
where it sits in terms of our reading
now the sca standards are in the blue
there and the NCA are in the brown and
down the side you've got from 1 to 1.7
and across you've got 12 to 26 and you
can see it gives you once you get market
and actually get a reading you can start
to see if you're strongly underdeveloped
or weak developed bitterness or strong
and and then you can make those
decisions how you can get back to where
you want to be or The Sweet Spot from
the sca standards which is what we
normally refer to to achieve a better
coffee now once you've done that reading
there's the ability to save it very easy
and you can start to categorize any
coffee where you are and and keep a bit
of a log very simply you can message
that out to someone via an email or text
or however you want to do that but that
log is there for a long time so if
you've got a blend that you're always
working with and over a year you want to
see to make sure that you're extracting
that well in espresso you can go back
and check the data or again as we do a
single origin over a month and make sure
that the recipe that we've chosen is
still working consistently on each week
when we change our roast or move you
know with different complexities of
roasting with the humidity or the
dryness on different days so you can
always still try and bring it back so
I've done a couple of different samples
here we've just got a cold brew that we
we did here as well which we use the
Brewer cold Brewer we've got our date
it's a Costa Rica which is the Cooper
Tara zoo we know our roast date we
actually use not an EK 43 for this but
it's a zm1 and the setting is it's be
0.54 of a millimeter between the blade
thickness there our dosing is 5 50 we
use 700 grams of water and our drops per
minute is 60 and Caitlyn has brewed that
one as well so we're going to assess
that then I've done two espresso
extractions now this one here just for a
bit of a bit of fun I've got my GS3 so I
just started at three bar for 20 seconds
and then I finished off at nine bar and
then the other one I just went for a
straight nine bar extraction and both of
those are using our standard espresso
recipe 22 and a half grams of dose with
45 grams out so it's a two to one recipe
in 30 to 32 seconds so we'll start with
the cold brew and as I said your data is
only as good as how clean things are so
if you've used your dishwasher and
you've got some chemical on there it's
going to read some of that as well so
ideally an alcohol wipe to either clean
what you're using is great and you want
to clean the top sensor here as well
with an alcohol wipe if you can now I
know my water is is there's not a lot in
there it's only 14 pounds per million of
minerals and things so it's super low so
I've just got some hot water here at the
moment and I'm just making sure it's
dried before I use it with a spoon so
I'm just going to take a little sample
and we're going to pop it straight into
the unit there and you fill it all the
and we're going to make sure we're on
our drip and we're going to hit the
start extraction there as well
so we've got our reading here and we
need to start to dial in a bit of the
data that we have so if we come down to
our dose we can increase it all the way
there we go now our Brew water is 700 of
oh it's going a long way here
there is a slider bar but the slider bar
really doesn't allow you to go this far
on your recipe so unfortunately
it is a little bit tricky when you're
trying to do a big batch so you could
actually Harbor all these measurements
to make it a little bit quicker
there we go 700 confirm and our beverage
which is actually 700 again but I'll
just see so you can only go to 400 on
the slide bar so that's just a little
bit tricky it'll be handy to get to a
higher number a lot quicker
now we're actually a little bit less
than our 700 because there is actually
some absorption which gets caught in the
and let's say it was one gram of liquid
to one gram of grind it was 50 of our
dose grind so let's say we're a little
bit less on our end liquid weight in our
cold brew so there you go now we've got
our data you can see it's plotted it on
the map and you'll see that it's sitting
in the strong and towards the bitter
extraction so it is quite a heavy cold
brew there is no doubt I know this one
and this recipe it was it's quite heavy
there's a lot of thick mouth feel going
on so for us to change this we would be
able to start to either increase the
amount of water or decrease the actual
amount of coffee to hopefully get it
down right into the middle of the sca
so you've got your data and you can hit
the save button and you can run through
and start to record all the different
data the name of it your Brew time what
device you've used the equipment who the
Roadster is the degree of roast and you
can obviously save that for the future
so I'm just going to quickly pop that in
keep it nice and easy but I can go and
have a look back at some data here as
well so here's one that we did earlier
for the cold brew as well
I'll expand that out and you can see
what we got so we've we've got a 1.74
TDS of another one which we did this
25.2 grams so I actually halved the
whole recipe just to make it a bit
easier and quicker for myself the drip
um what the whole Brew time actually was
the temperatures extraction well we use
cold brew so it's ice and cold water so
it should be pretty close to zero
we've used them as a grinder our grind
um find about it was quite a strike
slightly strong taste it's a monotonic
acid that I was tasting through there it
was a cinnamon roast the actual roast
date where you've actually got it or the
estate which is the San Marcos and the
actual species of The Bean the Katura
it's a natural process as well and then
just some flavor notes that came through
so it was a bit tart up front is what I
was saying with a nice spicy toffee but
it's definitely a heavy mouth feel in
this coffee so you'll be able to look at
that in the future with all of your
other recipes really easily once you've
stored them in there so what we're going
to do now is measure our standard
espresso extraction here first and then
we'll go back and measure the one which
we did at three bar to start with using
my GS3 so we're just going to take our
okay and we're going to spoon that in on
get a little bit more of that
there we go now you can filter all of
these as well which makes it a much
better reading I've popped down the
bottom here what our recipe is the 22.5
grams of grind or add dose and we've got
our 45 grams of in liquid weight so
sample here to get a measure there we go
and we can see here that we're sitting
right in the normal section so right in
the middle pretty much where we want to
be our recipe is the two to one that's
how I've extracted this coffee so on a
little bit on the stronger side so we've
managed to get a fair bit more out of
there the 2DS is 10.88 and our
21.76 so there you go it's quite a
heavier coffee we can see that the
temperature is 24 degrees
so I'm pretty happy with that we're
going to get quite a fair amount of
solid flavors out of that actual
so let's go and see what happened when I
started with three bar I'd be really
interested to see if that concentration
again my water is pretty clean so I
don't have to worry too much about that
I know it was only about 14 parts per
million I'm just going to quickly zero
much heavier thicker extraction
same recipe just changing that huge
there we go so we've got 15.27 TDS
and it's off the charts there you go so
the extraction percent is 30.53 so we
nearly doubled the extraction percent
running that at 20 seconds
at three bar so we've really got a lot
more flavor out there by having a slower
pressure into that coffee through the
GS3 so whether that's something you'd
like or you don't like you definitely
want to taste these samples and then
start to make some changes according to
what you enjoy off the data you've been
so there you go that's a bit of a
um science experiment you might say the
cold brew was very different to what
we're having happening in our normal
recipe versus that really
um slow intense three bar extraction
brew that we got there now if you're
looking at doing a cold brew or some
sort of alternative Brew method which is
a bit more of an infusion or an
immersion style Brew what you'd be
looking to do is change your recipe so
the amount of coffee the amount of water
and the time that you can process that
through and that will give you a better
way to analyze what's happening with the
data you get on espresso well usually
you've got a pretty fixed recipe as we
do our grind in grind out and our time
and our water temperature but what I'd
start to look at with espresso is start
to look at how you're actually actually
processing and putting your coffee into
your group handle so whether you're
going to look at using a wdt an NCD see
how you distribute your coffee and
obviously your grind settings so it's
really more about that processing that
you've got control over with espresso
rather than your recipe change so if you
really want to get super geeky in this
there's a lot of other videos out there
Lance Hendrix has done a fantastic video
there where we covered the VST and two
other models and this di fluid and
really went into a lot more Tech about
that so we'll leave a link down below
check out his video it's pretty
insightful but you've got to know your
algebra so get ready for that one and
thanks Lance it was lovely meeting you
there at mice and thanks for everything
you're doing with the industry mate keep
up the great work so there you go I hope
that's given you a bit of information
about how you can look to improve your
espresso with adding a little bit of
science into there as well if the DI
fluid is something you want to look at
hey jump online in us there are about
150 bucks about 300 Australian and it's
just so small simple and easy to carry
with you no matter where you go so it's
like a little mini science lab giving
you some pretty good data to start with
again it's not going to be the most
accurate for a scientific approach but
again it's just got you some data to
start making some changes so that you
can create better espresso or cold brew
or whatever that you're Brewing so
thanks very much if you've got any
questions about it pop them down below
we'll happy to answer them we'll catch
