I make my concentrates with baking soda and Epsom salt in RO/DI water. I mix into one-liter bottles and then pour out what I need when I make my one-liter batches of mixed water. My notes say 1.68 g/kg -- Sodium bicarbonate -- NaHCO₃ 2.46 g/kg -- Epsom salts -- MgSO₄*7H₂O Weighing out to 10 mg is

"18 g in, 36 g out, in 25 seconds" or whatever is merely a benchmark that becomes familiar with time. Experience will get you to the point where you sense that, for example, for the amount of bitterness you taste, two notches finer on the grinder will get you closer to a good shot. Grind, dose, and ...

In addition to my post of the 15th, with the exception of a handful of traditional Italian roasters, "best by" is best avoided. Virtually all supermarket brands are crap. A good roaster is better than a mediocre local one. What does your local cafe that has espresso you enjoy use? I'd look for a med...

Traditional Italian coffees tend to be very easy to extract and often don't taste their best even at a 1:2 ratio. If you extract at over that, you're potentially getting more bitter and nasty than a well balanced shot would have. Using a 7 g basket doesn't change this. Pucks are always soggy during ...

Maybe I missed something. Why are you intentionally heating up your grinder? Not only isn't it a commercial duty machine, but heating up burrs is known to be a problem

If one "feels better" to you both than the other, go for it. They are similar enough and you'll either find your choice sufficient for your desires, that making espresso isn't something you want to further pursue, or that you want to go deeper. In either of the two latter cases, you would abandon ei...

Think twice about if there's anything to be gained. Just look at the number of people here who think it is easy to roast coffee as good as the better professionals with cobbled together gear and no real control or even monitoring

I agree that a Kafatek conical may be a good choice. I'd also look into what Titus has to offer. I believe Frank has a DRM or conical option. His grinders are top-notch as well

The boiler-refill problem is so severe that I've never even considered it as being an issue. You fill the boiler in the morning, pull your shots, you're done

I'd skip any of the high-end flat-burr grinders with preferences that run to traditional roast levels (including into second crack), 90% robusta blends, and Slayer shots. That is the realm of traditional burr sets