KeroZen
Chronic vapaholic
I think with convection, past a certain bowl depth, stirring is unavoidable. When you look at the bowl material from the side, as if it were a cylinder, you can see a clear color gradient, with the side closer to the heater darker and the opposite side lighter.
This gradient is always present, but when you micro-dose and have the cylinder reduced to a thin wafer, it's not a problem anymore and it's "good enough" to consider everything properly extracted without stirring.
It's also more evident when you compare the same load inside a 18mm stem system vs inside a 14mm one. The 14mm system will yield a deeper cylinder and the gradient will be more obvious than the shallower 18mm bowl cylinder, for the exact same amount of material that is.
With conduction it's true that the ABV is always super even. But on the other hand, the interface with the bowl walls will tend to be overcooked (the infamous roasted ABV / popcorny taste) and get much darker (not really visible when you unload as only a part of the ABV grains is darker and it gets all mixed) But if you could remove the bowl content "as is" without altering its structure, it should be more obvious.
It's exactly like when you cook a beef steak on a hot pan / grill. The interface is brown while the inside can stay rare or red. Eventually the inside will cook too, but the interface will always be darker. Whereas with convection, it's more like vapor cooking the steak... or well, rather like if you had the steak held above a vapor stream (as real vapor cooking is more uniform and doesn't create the gradient described above) Don't know if that makes much sense heh.
This gradient is always present, but when you micro-dose and have the cylinder reduced to a thin wafer, it's not a problem anymore and it's "good enough" to consider everything properly extracted without stirring.
It's also more evident when you compare the same load inside a 18mm stem system vs inside a 14mm one. The 14mm system will yield a deeper cylinder and the gradient will be more obvious than the shallower 18mm bowl cylinder, for the exact same amount of material that is.
With conduction it's true that the ABV is always super even. But on the other hand, the interface with the bowl walls will tend to be overcooked (the infamous roasted ABV / popcorny taste) and get much darker (not really visible when you unload as only a part of the ABV grains is darker and it gets all mixed) But if you could remove the bowl content "as is" without altering its structure, it should be more obvious.
It's exactly like when you cook a beef steak on a hot pan / grill. The interface is brown while the inside can stay rare or red. Eventually the inside will cook too, but the interface will always be darker. Whereas with convection, it's more like vapor cooking the steak... or well, rather like if you had the steak held above a vapor stream (as real vapor cooking is more uniform and doesn't create the gradient described above) Don't know if that makes much sense heh.
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