this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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Coffee
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It's all placebo effect. That James Hoffman guy is the worst. "In our taste tests..." Are your taste tests double blind? I highly doubt it.
"You gotta jiggle it three times after 36 seconds then add 13 drops of 210.3° water between the filter and the brewer. Equally spaced, of course."
The worst part is the pseudoscientific rationalization about what each step does to the final product.
"This step balances the acidity and oxygenation."
It's hilariously ironic that the example you use is the one guy using actual science. The OG with a caffeine analyser, refractometer, particle size analyser and who will strap temperature and pressure probes to anything and everything to measure how they perform.
If you haven't had the opportunity to try different coffees prepared different ways, then that's unfortunate for you. If you have and you can't taste the differences, maybe that's on you? The only people I've ever met with so little ability to distinguish tastes were smokers.
Using some gadgets in a kitchen isn't science. Science is a process through which you perform research in a way as to eliminate bias. Hoffman doesn't do science. None of those things you listed determine how good the coffee will taste. And modifying any one of them might have no effect at all. The only way to know is by doing unbiased taste tests while controlling variables.
What a shitload of stupid straw man arguments that don't even deserve a reply. I said nothing about my personal ability to discerns flavor. I was commenting on pseudoscientific youtubers who don't publish their taste testing methodology and are prone to bias. It's well documented that when a person thinks something is special (including a preparation method) they rate it higher.
So anyway, do you find using three jiggles or four gives the optimal taste when using a plastic V60? I'm dying to know.
Yeah no shit. The point of those "gadgets" (infantilising the equipment doesn't make it any less scientifically relevant) is to objectively measure whether changes in methodology are having an effect. That way you're not relying on a person's taste and inherent bias to tell you if it's making a difference. How is that not science exactly? Honestly, do you even watch Hoffman's content or did you just see a few tasting videos and conclude that it was all nonsense?
That's right, none of the objective data can tell you how it tastes. A change to contact time might have increased extraction by 10%, but how do you know whether that actually tastes good? You have to either taste it yourself, or have someone else taste it and describe it to you. Which is what Hoffman does, with blind tastings, and often with the result of challenging his own preconceptions. I'm curious exactly how you propose to eliminate bias further than that?
Now who's straw manning?
Of course not! I drink Folger's Crystals. Why would I need his useless content?
Oh no, I guess we have to tell all the scientists in the world that if their processes and procedures don't conform to your standards and make complete sense to you that they wasted all their education because they aren't doing real science. Lol, the scientific method and process if done right will work to eliminate bias, but eliminating bias isn't the sole purpose. The main purpose is getting good reliable results that are repeatable, even if the result disproves their original hypothesis.