Hello one and all. I've looked in over two years, on and off and hope it's OK to ask a couple of questions. I'm in the UK, where coffee making and drinking doesn't get a fraction of the attention it does elsewhere. There are far fewer outlets and much less choice of domestic machines available to see / try / get parts for. I've a new, tank fed, Oscar which uses naturally very soft, Brita type filtered water. Rocky doserless. Stock steam wand with all 4 holes blocked with flushed off aluminum rivet pins and re drilled with 2 x 1mm holes, each splayed at about 30 degrees from vertical. Awaiting 'New Isomac' 2 hole tip from Chris Coffee, New York. I use a 20 oz jug to steam 12 oz low fat milk. Beans come from anywhere / nowhere particular.....mainly because......I'm nowhere near you fellas when it comes to finely developed taste / discernment. I only ever make cappuccino - 2 cups at a time - 2 or 3 times a day therefore the coffee is very diluted but still tastes fine to me.

The things I would like to pursue further, though, are:- Achieving better, denser microfoam and a slightly better understanding of whether or not I should be concerned about the kind of flush I ought to be doing prior to the shot. I really don't know whether my coffee tastes good or bad....I don't actually like any straight espresso I've tried. My present shots seem no better / worse than those from my Gaggia Classic, which I used for 2 years....but when used with milk we enjoy it. The crema and physical consistency looks impressive enough to me and I can adjust to get 2 oz's in 20/25 seconds if I tamp hard (my digital bathroom scale won't register the pressure). My pucks are wetter than with the Gaggia, but still solid enough. My new basket when filled and leveled takes about 19g (I have a 0.1g weigh scale). The Gaggia basket a good deal less so....so should you stick to weight or capacity? 19 g sounds a lot. And why are different baskets different capacity? Is there any point getting a LM or Synesso basket? The tamper measures 57mm and is a bit loose in the baskets so it gets a sharp tap or two to tidy up the loose stuff prior to final tamp.

So, should I not worry about brew temps and pressures or how much stuff goes in the basket and just be happy with the taste of what comes out? I've almost given up hoping to produce the sort of foam that makes art. I don't want art but that type of density is something I'd love to achieve.....and I have looked at all the forums and videos - and come to the conclusion I'm not much good at it! Look forward to the new tip arriving. It usually gets a maximum of 30 mins warm up and sometimes 20m. The steam arm needs a short squirt during warm up to clear the airlock (or whatever it is?......no vacuum valve??) I bought the machine hoping to use it out of the box with out tweaks, mods or tyre pressure gauges but will listen to anything I'm told. Do I really want to tweak the OPV??? Hope you'll understand and thanks for anything you might advise.

Welcome!

Take a look at the faq's.
There's a lot of information already there with regard to HX use and steaming milk.

Check out some video's on youtube for techniques with steaming milk. I would recommend getting a bottomless porta-filter and inspect your extractions for problems, again the faq section here will give you all the info you need to diagnose and understand things better. I would also recommend getting some idea of temp from the grouphead and getting a handle on flush & go techniques. Be sure of the quality & age of the espresso beans you choose...if they are two weeks past the roast date, they are going down hill fast! Here is an earlier post on one of the Oscar topics I posted for some HX flush info I used when I had an Oscar. Hope this helps!


It's helpful to read an earlier thread on 'Flush and go' technique suitable for smaller HX machines?
Here is what Dan wrote that I have been using with great results on my Oscar:

HB wrote:Most mornings I move pretty leisurely behind the machine, so it's not unusual that I do a second "mini flush" before locking it. Not to get all Zen on you, but there's a definite intuition for the particular machine. An eight degree drop sounds like a lot, I would expect more like four degrees F. Let me toss out this idea: Let it rebound a second time, but only for 10 seconds. Remember that the HX is fairly small -- on the order of 110ml -- and easily exhausted. Specifically I'm proposing the slow man's routine:

1. Flush to usual brew temperature (~six ounces)
2. Leisurely prepare your basket in around a minute
3. Flush barely two ounces, just a teenie bit past the water dance end
4. Lock in the portafilter. Face towards Seattle and say a short prayer to the Espresso Gods (10 seconds have passed since step 3)
5. Go.

Oh, with all this flush minutia, I forgot to ask: How's the espresso taste?

I have found my step "3" is usually less than 2 ounces before the water dance ends, maybe only 3 to 5 seconds worth and is easy to tell with a naked portafilter. I do have the Pstat cranked up over stock as my temps were measuring consistently low (I use a Fluke with a probe in the portafilter basket).

Hi there... fellow Oscar owner here! The Oscar does not have a vacuum breaker so after the machine has warmed up for about 10min, you need to open the steam knob for a quick blast to relieve the false pressure in the system. If you don't do this the pressure stat will not bring the boiler to the proper temperature. Then let the machine warm up as usual. You can also do this once the machine has already warmed up but you'll then need to let it stabilize for a few more min before you start brewing anything.

You mentioned that you get your beans from "anywhere". This is probably the weakest link in your chain. You simply cannot do anything useful with poor quality or old beans. Old can be as little as 1 week past the roast date!

As for steaming.. do you have any cafe's nearby which can do it properly? If so I suggest watching them carefully and ask a few questions!

Good luck

Thanks for the helpful replies to date.


IN ORDER NOT TO SEEM AS THOUGH I'M IGNORING ANY FURTHER REPLIES......I'm away for a couple of days and will pick up anything anyone else posts and acknowledge them on my return. Thanks.

FAQ's noted and continue to be read (there are loads, aren't there). Have looked at the many videos and will, of course, continue in the pursuit of better foam each time.

Point taken re. Vacuum breaker.....I tried, in my post, to explain this - but not very well! and now have a clearer understanding. I don't find it to be much of a problem in practice.

Re..... "1. Flush to usual brew temperature (~six ounces)" I have no means, at present, to determine the temp. That's part of the problem. (Maybe the styrofoam cup and thermometer is required??). Also note suggestion re. bottomless p/f.

I don't live in the city and only have Costa fairly nearby. Difficult to get a variety of proper coffee made for you here.

I use a mix of two types of vacuum packed supermarket beans and freeze them in ziplock bags and grind immediately before use. There aren't as many local roasters here but there is one which, following your suggestion, I will try. The real problem is - I'm not sure I'd know whether I'm producing GOOD coffee by getting better beans.....I really don't enjoy any espresso I've ever had but love a cappo. And would I know a good coffee if it jumped up and bit me on the backside? In some ways perhaps I should be grateful to have such a surplus of ignorance when it comes to what good espresso tastes like. I also can't stand spirits and again could be considered lucky to have saved all that money I'd have spent on the hard stuff....but I can't see too many whisky drinkers agreeing with me!

There is also a slight problem in determining the direction of Seattle. We have a National Park called Dartmoor very close by - I believe that's roughly where I need to be facing.

Thanks for your attention.

Check your bags of beans for a roast date printed on it somewhere. Good quality roasters will always have one. If there's no roast date you can be pretty sure those beans have been around for weeks or even months.

IMHO most people who say "I do not like espresso" really mean "I have not had good espresso". Seeing as 99.9% of the espresso produced is terrible it's not their fault. Most of the cafes in my city of Vancouver (arguably one of the most coffee-crazed cities around) can't even get it right. Evey single one of these espresso haters that I've introduced to good espresso via a proper cafe has "bean" converted.

RE. "Check your bags of beans for a roast date printed on it somewhere. " ......There's just a 'Use By' date which is many months hence. They're metallic type bags with a relief valve built in to relieve pressure. I will get better beans - it seems pretty obvious.

I did, last week, go to an open air street market where local meat, fish, veg producers have stalls. A local ish coffee shop / deli owner had a gas powered commercial machine in his converted vintage Citroen catering van. He made me a pleasant cap. and following polite conversation he treated me to 'one of his best' single espresso's made from, apparently fresh, good quality beans from a Cornwall roastery. TBH it was OK but not significantly better than some of the stuff I've made myself and I still didn't think Wow, this is it! The Costa shot I had in town a while ago was....OK but I guess you wouldn't have expected a great shot yourself from there?

TBH, if need be, I could buy a shiny Prosumer E61 HX or DB with a PID. See http://www.bellabarista.co.uk/coffeemachines/ They're nowhere near me but would deliver. But I wasn't sure I'd have done any better than with the Oscar except they would have been more readily adjustable and/or come with pressure gauges and better made......but ultimately it's me who makes the stuff and if I'm not expert at it then would they help that much???

I'll keep on at the foam with different techniques / different tip, when it arrives, and better beans from the roastery mentioned previously.

There ARE places in the UK to get good beans.. IDK how close they are too you, but Im sure mail-order is available... For what its worth, the majority of members here, in the US, mailorder our coffee weekly/biweekly..

Try:
HasBean
Monmouth
Square Mile
Coffee Collective

Thats all I personally know of thats in the UK.. im sure others might be able to add a couple more places.

Bags of coffee with a "Best By" or "Use By" date on them, are stale, low quality, old beans. What you need, is a bag of beans, roasted by a good roaster, that has a stamp on them that says "ROASTED on, mm/dd/yyyy", and use them within 10-12days of the roast date.

Thanks.

Wadebridge is 66 miles (1 hour. 40mins) Little too far for regular collection but worth remembering when I go that way... in fact I'll make a point of visiting Hugo on your recomendation!

Have heard of Hasbean and am looking at my options - either posted to me or collection from a roaster on the South Devon coast.

Are you saying, ISJMS, that a Krups machine is to be preferred to an Oscar? I'd be interested to know more about the suggestion. If I thought that I could have got better coffee and more copious steam (bearing in mind my preference for cappuccino) from a machine costing 75% less than the Oscar, then I'd be more than a little miffed.

The upshot then, to date, revolves, unsurprisingly, around beans and I appreciate having my thoughts directed to this.

Do you Oscar users produce good dense foam, capable of art, with any particular milk? Given we have, sometimes, 3 or occasionally 4 caps a day I don't want to overdo the dairy/fat quotient too much... hence, up till now, using a filtered skimmed milk known here as Cravendale which I do have quite good results from. Being skimmed it seperates quite quickly and is a little bit 'thin' but it's OK

IT'S PAST MIDNIGHT HERE NOW (bed time). As mentioned, I'll not be able to acknowledge any replies for a couple of days BUT THANKS VERY MUCH for your replies which I appreciate.....please post your thoughts and I'll look forward to seeing them towards the end of the week and responding.