After 3 years of ownership of a Gaggia Classic, I decided to invest some effort in getting my espressos more like the nectar occasionally experienced elsewhere. The first thing I noticed was that my espressos were cooler and I assumed that it was the capability of the machine not pushing out hot enough water or at too low pressure.
However, after reading a few tips I cracked the temperature issues by leaving the portafilter on the machine while it warms up - still not hot enough though. Then came the warming of the cups on the top of the machine - closer but not there yet. Then, my wife sorted it by filling the cup with water straight out of the kettle for a minute or two before pulling the shot. Bulls-Eye! Hot espresso
Then came the taste, crema and volume - all of these are inter-related and I started playing with the grind, tamping, start-dump, centre-cut etc etc etc
I had always previously filled the basked to about 2/3 of a fine grind and given it a gentle tamp (nothing like 30 lbs) - this worked generally well for about 3 years - but I knew there was better to be had. The first attempts to get 20g in the basket were a bit of a disaster as I couldn't tamp it enough to fit the portafilter to the head; so I cut back on the dosing. Then when I could fit it, I got about 1/3 oz in 30 seconds of really bitter black stuff - obviously not the way forward and something had to give.
Reading something somewhere, I adjusted the grind to be coarser and started filling the basket full again. It was a little counter-intuitive about how I could tamp a coarser grind than a fine grind, but it seemed to work and I can now full the basket and tamp (energetically) down to a level that still allows me to fit the PF. Imagine my surprise then when my first shot from this pulled about 2oz in 30 secs - WooHoo! Progress.
Now the taste - too bitter. Start-dumping was the way forward (so I read) and started dumping the first black extraction that had no crema and then placing the (hot) cup under the head. No bitterness now, but not much "taste-kick" either - it was all a bit mild.
So now, it's a carefully judged thing to dump about half of the black stuff to retain the kick but lose most of the bitterness. Results are still a little inconsistent though.
Blonding though is still a bit of a mystery to me, I can't really tell when it happens - oh well, more experimentation required
FG
?!
I know I can't judge the actual brew temp by that (too large probe, false location) but I found it to be quite consistent which helps me already a lot.
