Hello,

I am new to making my own espresso at home and am going crazy. I recently bought a Breville Dual Boiler and Rancilio Rocky Grinder. I have tried different beans and have come up with the problem of not getting my shot right. My shot is coming out at 19 seconds with the bar pressure at 9. If i make the grind finer, the bar pressure goes to 11. I am staying as consistent as possible with the amount of ground coffee (18 g) and tamp pressure (40 lbs). What am i doing wrong? Is the pressure very important? Or should i focus on extraction time more? I am using Lavazza coffee, if that makes a difference.

Hope someone can help.

You need fresh coffee beans my friend that would be the first step to better espresso.

/Uldall

This.

Are you using the single, or double basket? Single baskets are a little tricky to get right, so stick with the bigger, double basket.

Also-- purchase a scale to weigh your dose (how much coffee grounds you put in the basket) and maybe weigh the liquid coffee.

I like this one from Amazon-the major advantage over the ASW brand scale is this baby holds the tare/weight for 2 MINUTES!!! The AWS scale loses the settings after 30 s.

http://www.amazon.com/Smart-Weigh-Digit ... 00IZ1YHZK/

A lot of folks here will also advise you to upgrade your grinder--but that's another line of exploring espresso...

Definitely fresh beans, probably an espresso blend to start with.

There are good Italian blends that work well when the are sold properly-sealed, but I doubt your Lavazza is any good. The symptoms you describe are classic stale-Italian-espresso. If you do want Lavazza you need to find a store that rotates its stock, buy bags that are properly air-tight sealed, then freeze immediately after opening.

...hmmm...your OPV should not let the BDB go much above 9.5 bar......you may want to speak with your dealer about getting a new one.

You were correct in grinding finer , but you also need to adjust your OPV so that it limits pressure to around 9 bar.

When you put the grey blind disk into the basket how much pressure does your machine develop? General consensus is 10 bars is the right pressure for blind disk pulls on a vibrator pump machine. There are several sites with information on setting the OPV. If this is a brand new machine might want to think about exchanging it for one that has the OPV set properly @ around 10 bars. 11 is too much pressure and you will not get the best espresso until the OPV is set properly.

Step one. Get fresh beans (less than 2 weeks old!)

Step two. Contact Breville. The OPV is easily adjustable with a little guidance, and you can get your machine in to proper working order. Adjusting the OPV shortly after I got the machine over three years ago is the only thing I've had to do with it, besides regular cleaning. And don't be afraid if the reading runs up to 10 or so during a ristretto pull (tight grind, longer extraction time), it'll still be a nice shot.

Step three. (At some unknown point in future) upgrade grinder.

Step four. (At another unknown point in the future) Buy a coffee roaster, and start roasting your own coffee.

Step five. (...future...you get the idea...) Upgrade your espresso machine.

Step six. Repeat steps 3-5.

Step seven. Repeat step 6....

You're close to dropping off the deep end...or maybe you already have. Welcome!

Thank you everyone! The Lavazza coffee i get is from Seattle coffee gear which they seem to rotate pretty often. I have also gotten freshly roasted coffee from a local roaster and have come up with the same problem. I have been using a scale and been sticking to the 18 grams on the double shot basket. I will contact breville about the OPV. Really appreciate it, and yes....i will probably upgrade in the future!