OK, will do. In the meantime I made some espresso with my old beans, which tasted much better. I'll give it until the weekend at least.

Redbird is generally regarded as easy to pull. Really consider going and picking up a 0.1 gram scale, Amazon probably has one quite cheap. This will give you a window into where your dose really is, over time things can drift and dosing by volume isn't very accurate because bean densities change, and so do dynamics for grinding those beans. Weighing both your ground coffee as well as your shot afterwards should give more clues on where to head.

I had thought Redbird is always dark roasted and shouldn't tend towards sour, so maybe you mean more astringent here..it's tough for most people to tell the difference between astringency and sour, which should mean you're possibly getting under-extraction, but since it sounds like you've tried a lot of grind/dose combinations, you could try playing around with temperature of your shots...Redbird should like a lower temp, but you can also try higher which is generally how to calm down acidity.

Do you have a friend's place you could bring the coffee to and try it there? If all else fails sometimes something simple like that gives you a new idea or something you've overlooked. At least it may help you rule out that the blend either changed or you've got a bad batch.

Pull it longer. Say 35s from first drop to about 75%

EspressoForge wrote:Redbird is generally regarded as easy to pull. Really consider going and picking up a 0.1 gram scale, Amazon probably has one quite cheap. This will give you a window into where your dose really is, over time things can drift and dosing by volume isn't very accurate because bean densities change, and so do dynamics for grinding those beans. Weighing both your ground coffee as well as your shot afterwards should give more clues on where to head.

Yes I will be looking into getting a scale. Hoping I can sort this out before that, since I expect I will likely not get a scale until I find my wife has bought one for me for Christmas.

since it sounds like you've tried a lot of grind/dose combinations, you could try playing around with temperature of your shots...Redbird should like a lower temp, but you can also try higher which is generally how to calm down acidity.

unfortunately I don't have much control over this with my espresso machine. Hopefully I can solve it without having to upgrade the machine.

Do you have a friend's place you could bring the coffee to and try it there?

Most of my friends are either the Starbucks == awesome type or the Keurig type. Not much help there.

I will try the beans again tomorrow, that'll be 9 days since roast. If it's no better then I'm planning to head down to Anderson's here in Austin and I'm going to have a chat with them and see if I can find a source of beans that I like better.

Although Jeff's (Redbird) espresso blend is not my favorite I'm a fan of almost all his other offerings...especially the Ethiopia variants. I've pulled too many pounds of his beans to count over the past several years and can't remember any shot that was drain worthy...unless it was from laziness on my part

It sounds like your issue is probably equipment and skill set related. If you know a barista at one of your local shops and have at least a pound of the beans in hand maybe a little bribe will allow you to taste that bean in all its glory...for comparison and learning sake

mr72 wrote:unfortunately I don't have much control over this with my espresso machine. Hopefully I can solve it without having to upgrade the machine.

Check out "temp surfing" for other SBDU machines. You can try different warm-up procedures, just pull a shot after machine just warms up. Say X minutes from turning on to get it a bit more repeatable. At least it would tell you if it's a temp issue. To increase temp you can turn on the steam button for X number of seconds...etc. You can also wait for machine to be fully hot, wait for boiler to kick on, once it goes off time X seconds. The last one here is more for repeatability than trying to really get a much cooler or much hotter shot.

It's not perfect or amazingly repeatable, but it should give you something different.


Also, pressure you should be able to adjust on your machine if it has an adjustable OPV (over-pressure valve). I had an entry level Gaggia in the past that had one, and it was set way too high. Seemed to amplify any sour or bitterness in almost any coffee...but likely this isn't your problem if you're having the issue with just one coffee blend.

I'm sure you can solve the problem, but in the end...there's nothing wrong with forgetting about a blend that doesn't work for you for whatever reason until you do decide to upgrade. At least in my opinion.

EspressoForge wrote:Check out "temp surfing" for other SBDU machines. You can try different warm-up procedures...
It's not perfect or amazingly repeatable, but it should give you something different.

Yeah I have tried all of that. Basically tried everything I know to try that is supposed to tone down some of the more acidic "notes" in the espresso, which includes brewing hotter. To get the temp as high as possible, I turn on the machine with the PF (sans basket) in place, switch to steam and wait for the light, run the steam wand for a few seconds, wait for the light again, then add my ground coffee in the basket and pull the shot. I haven't measured the temp but I am reasonably sure this is the hottest this machine will get without modification.

Also, pressure you should be able to adjust on your machine if it has an adjustable OPV (over-pressure valve).

I don't know if it does or does not. There's nothing externally adjustable.

but likely this isn't your problem if you're having the issue with just one coffee blend.

That's what I thought too. FWIW my other beans made fine non-acidic espresso without having to jump through the temp hoops above. Just warm up on brew mode while I grind, then pop the PF on and hit it. No issues, nothing special, easy peasy. I went through nearly 1kg of beans all you guys would call awful along with a pound of Red Bird Blackbird this way and never had a problem with bad-tasting shots. However, my Blackbird did get delayed in the mail, I wound up getting it probably >8 days post-roast and the RB Espresso arrived just two days post-roast.

in the end...there's nothing wrong with forgetting about a blend that doesn't work for you for whatever reason until you do decide to upgrade. At least in my opinion.

Absolutely. I am just in a possibly-vain effort now to make use of these beans

mr72 wrote:Absolutely. I am just in a possibly-vain effort now to make use of these beans

French press, vac pot, aeropress? I don't use my aeropress much, but it's great for travel and to evaluate roasts or beans etc. Gives you some idea on how they will come out as espresso if everything goes right.

Don't know if this is of any use to you. I have a low end Gaggia Classic. I do well with my own roasts, but I once bought an expsensive bag of Black Cat and could get nowhere with it until I really updosed. Suddenly I got the orangey choco notes instead of grapefruit. Sadly it was the second last shot in the bag. It seemed quite counter intuitive to me. One of the many reasons I turned to roasting my own