Coffee Data Science

Drying Out an Espresso Shot

An experiment started by a toddler

Robert McKeon Aloe
Nerd For Tech

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The other day, my toddler got a chair and started messing around with my superautomatic espresso machine. By the time the machine ran out of water, there were two extra-long shots in one cup. I didn’t want to drink it because it was very diluted, so I thought why not evaporate some of the water?

Why not take some measurements?

It turns out that using a toaster oven to dry out a shot takes too many hours.

A slow film of coffee residue started to form like a lake drying up.

A crust had started to form even before all the water was evaporated.

Data Analysis

I took Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) measurements throughout, and I was expecting the TDS to greatly increase, but it did not. It took some time for it to increase at all. At the end, I had the dry weight of the solids. There was a large error compared to the very first measurement, but that error dropped for subsequent measurements.

I plotted those errors with respect to liquid weight which is backwards in how time progressed for this shot.

I suspect it would have been better to add water than try to evaporate it.

I had gotten too far into the experiment to quit by the time disappointment set in, but it was interesting to see the error between TDS measurement and actual dry solids. I don’t have a good explaination for why the very first measurement was so off. It could have been a measurement error in weight, but I didn’t think to take more than one sample.

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