First of all this site is a godsend! My wife and I got an espresso machine (Breville pump) and being the rabid researcher I am I realized that this machine was only going to last so long before I upgraded. But recognizing good advice on this forum for what it is, I spent my money on the grinder first (Compak K3) and then happened upon a Cremina for a good price. Didn't think I'd go the lever route but I like to make my own fine wine (from grapes), my own pasta, etc, etc. The lever approach fit well with my philosophies on creativity and food.
Anyway, I get that learning the ins and outs of a lever machine is a process that is difficult to teach and difficult to master and practice makes perfect. I've read all kinds of threads on this site and others and I know that I have come up to speed much faster than I otherwise would have. However, I'm still finding that I'm getting sour shots. Up until recently I assumed that it was my water temperature, but now I realize it's highly likely that the cause is my dose/grind/tamp process. I have one of the Richard Penny hot shots liquid crystal thermometers on my group. I use what I believe to be the standard Olympia double basket in a standard portafilter. I have the Orphan Espresso tamper (flat - no curve) which fits the pf basket exactly. I have a pressure gauge that I can attach to my steam wand and it's set to .9 bar.
I'll go through my process and then ask a few questions:
1. Let the machine warm up until the light goes off. 2. Bleed off false pressure. 3. Let it warm up for roughly another 5 minutes. At this point the thermometer isn't registering. 4. Pump a few blasts of water through the group which has the added benefit of warming up my cup. Thermometer is now at 194. 5. Measure 15g and grind into the portafilter. Regularly tap the portafilter against the metal forks and try to evenly distribute the coffee amongst the basket. The K3 is pretty good about not too much clumping. I find 15g to just reach the top of the basket and it's usually possible to spread the coffee around the pf without having to lose any coffee when you level off with a pinky finger. 6. I then add just enough pressure on the tamper to level the top of the tamper flush with the top of the pf basket. Once I'm sure I'm level I tamp with 40 pounds of pressure and do a light spin and polish at the end. 7. I raise the lever halfway until just before it starts to let out water. I lock in the pf, and do an active pre-infusion (see ladalet's youtube video as a reference) 8. I then hope for two mouse tail like streams of espresso. At this point the thermometer has hit 203F. Things usually start out great, and then maybe 5 seconds into the shot the resistance against the puck is not what it was before and the coffee flows more and is blonder. 20-25 seconds into the shot I think the actual blonding happens and sometimes the flow will bubble - a sure sign of an extraction issue. By now the thermometer has hit 212F.
The puck is almost always intact after the first pull. There is some sign of pitting on the top because of the lower dose. On subsequent shots the group is hotter and it becomes more likely that the puck is cracked. The shot is almost always sour. Interestingly enough, it's usually more sour after the first shot even though the puck is intact and less sour on subsequent shots where I believe the temp is hotter and the puck has cracked. Still - definitely sour.
Over the weekend I got mouse tails all the way through and consistent resistance through the puck and the shot was BY FAR the best I've ever pulled. It made me want to cry! No sourness - just goodness and complexity. I just don't know what I did differently and that's driving me nuts. Now I think I'm adjusting two many variables (dose, grind) all at once in a desperate effort to get a shot of that quality. The good news is I now know it's possible
For those that have a Cremina and are using the hot shot thermometer - are the temperature readings I get in the right ballpark?
For those that use the standard Cremina double basket - what is the weight of your dose?
Any issues that you can think of with my tamping process?
Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. I can't wait to get the next great shot out of this machine!
I can't help with the little temperature strips. I reckon they're a great idea and bought two, but still haven't got round to actually putting them on the machines.....
Anyway, from what you write I would agree - don't go changing too many variables.
What you don't tell us is what beans you are using, but from what you write about your weekend shots you don't sound as if you're too far from what you want.
I'd suggest taking this in two stages:
1)
a) Grind finer and don't keep tapping the portafilter, just rotate it as it fills and maybe move forward and backwards a little to get an even distribution. b) Then tamp lighter - just enough to compact the puck, once you're just applying pressure after that first scrunch you are in my opinion just wasting your time. Apart from anything else, a heavy tamp ius a comon reason for getting high resistance at the beginning of the shot and then less. You want the resistance to be created by the saturated puck, not by an initially heavily-compacted dry coffee plug if you are aiming for a steady extraction. This is probably also discouraging you from grinding as fine as you need to get a fuller extraction (not too bright). c) Keep things simple. Don't bother with any active preinfusion until you have a sense of how the Cremina works with passive preinfusion. The design of the Cremina in any case causes the water to spray into the grouphead with greater force than on any other domestic lever machine I know of - and it will do this consistently. By introducing active preinfusion before you are familiar with the machine, you are introducing another variable that could be throwing you off track. So, for the time being, I would recommend just pulling the lever up for a count of say 8 seconds and then pulling your shot.
2) If all this works quite well and get the routine off pat, but still want something a little richer try upping the dose to say 16g so you get a cone of coffee above the portafilter basket immediately after grinding, which when tamped as described above takes the tamped coffee to just a few millimetres below the edge of the basket. You may also want to invest in an Elektra Microcasa a Leva double basket, which fits the Creina portafilter but is deeper than the standard Olympia basket, allowing you to dose higher as some of the modern blends prefer.
Thanks for the advice Michael. I'm going to give this a shot. Just curious - what is the reason for your recommendation to not tap the pf when grinding?
I just find it more likely to cause channeling than eliminate it.
And I like to keep my routine as simple as possible.
There are many potential reasons that people have speculated for why it doesn't help channeling - from making it more difficult for the puck to adhere to the basket edge to increasing clumping. I'm not entirely convinced by any of them, but my personal experience has led me to abandon every occasional "tapping" experiment - generally indulged in when also experimenting with updosing.
Good luck with your Cremina. They're fantastic and very versatile machines.
Hi Adam.....sounds like you are taking a very observational approach...nicely done so far. Your story is very familiar for us since we went around and around on a 'too hot too cold' sour shot routine on our current machine and realized that we were having difficulty sorting out sour from bitter and what we thought were sour shots were actually bitter (too hot).
But this is how I work out every machine that we have ever had (and we have had a pretty good variety of both lever machines and grinders)....try the Slap Shot (tm) technique. As a digression, we were asked to pre test the new Baratza Virtuoso Preciso grinder and give our input and without a stable repeatable dosing and tamping method we would have never gotten that Preciso dialed in...took about a day and I think that is pretty good when you drink every shot! 40 pounds tamp...way overboard. Try no tamp. Those disc tampers are just the nutz for a Cremina with the 5mm height and the hard edge to let you really feel the level of the top of the basket. So you grind the 15g and find a good resilient surface...like a hockey puck (being in Canada you might find one if you look).....and THWUMP THWUMP the pf down a few times and then insert the disc and spin a bit, feel the level at the basket edge....no tamping just feeling and being honest about the dose....too low ....too high? If it is too low you need to dose more....volumetrically and not by weight. An remember.....give it the THWUMPS and then finger level off the top before you disc dress the puck....I left that out before.
Now lock in and just pull a shot with the temp concerns that you seem to understand (but 203 on the group is too hot since you are not reading water temp which is sitting there at 240F...you need a cooler group than 203 to suck heat out of the water as it enters the cylinder......too fast then grind finer and repeat the EXACT same Slap Shot (tm) technique....updose the grind, THWUMP it down, finger sweep the top, disc dress and level...observe for 5mm height...if too low up the dose. So once you reduce the variables all you have to concern yourself with is grind setting and temperature of course as there are a lot of variables but I think our tamping ethos pretty much eliminates a lot of variables when trying to find that sweetness and chase it.
Now overdose just a bit, so the disc is slightly higher than the basket lip and lock it in.....is it hard to get the pf to lock in....can you get the handle to about 4:00 with no leaks on the pull....what happens now? In a sense the Cremina has a self packing portafilter....dose a little high and the ramp in the Cremina group combined with the angle of locking in from 6:00 pushing forward (particularly for a right handed person) allows one to lock the pf even with a pretty extreme overdose....commercial levers are great in this way as they generally have a self tamping group and you lock in at 8 and then YANK to the center position or beyond. But well pressed against the screen may seem a good way to describe it. When portafilter gaskets wear they can compress as much as .5 even 1mm so one needs to take this into account rather than a set 15g dose.
Hitting a good shot as you described is a fine start....congrats!
As you can see, Adam, different people have very different techniques.
A couple of final words of advice.
Don't mix and match. At least not until you are very sure how one technique and then another works. Otherwise you could end up getting more rather than less getting confused.
I personally find dose weight a more reliable indicator than volume where consistency is concerned. Another problem for me with volume is that in my experience different beans require very different doses to get the best out of them.
Lastly, if you find your shots are either unpleasantly hot or tasting burnt, lower the pressurestat to the setting Olympia recommend, so that it switches off at around 0.8 bar.
Lastly, if you have a "naked" or bottomless portafilter (Doug sells a lovely one for the Cremina made by Richard Penney), then a video of an extraction will speak volumes regarding your technique. It will also allow people to make tailored comments.
First of all, congrats on your Cremina! Be prepared for years of fun. I have an '81 Cremina (I am the original owner) and the hotshot temp strip.
I compared my temps this morning to yours, and I didn't hit your higher temps until the 4th shot - and it was starting to taste burnt to me. So either the pressure stat is too high or you are letting it heat up too long (the Cremina is designed to heat up pretty fast -- I am usually pulling a shot within 6 minutes of first turning the machine on.)
As Doug said, your observational methodology will serve you well. You will learn to get the shot the way you like it - the fact that you have done so once means you are not far off.
I agree with both Doug and Mike from Brighton about tamping (in general): with the Cremina you don't really have to be obsessive about it - it is close to self-tamping.
I strongly agree with Mike from Brighton that you are wise to start off simple: - 15 g is right. - I have been happy for three decades with the original double basket. - Try a simple, more gentle tamp - you mainly just want to even it out. - I too have had bad results from tapping the portafiltre. I stopped doing it. - Try a simple pre-infusion to start with. Lift up the lever and count (Mike from Brighton says 8, I say 10, although I may count faster than he does). Then lower the lever. It shouldn't be a workout. It should come down with moderate pressure. - I count the shot from first contact with the water - it sounds like you are counting twice: once for pre-infusion and starting again for the pull. I count once - at ten I am pulling down, then 11, 12, and so on to 25 or so - then pull the cup away. (This works for me, anyway.)
This makes me suspect that you might be over-extracting (usually bitter) rather than under-extracting (usually sour). If you want to test your tasting, compare a completely under-extracted shot (coffee ground too course, shot pulled too fast) with one that is completely over-extracted (way too much time in contact with the water). A third bad shot to taste is one that is too high a temp ('burnt') (Let the Cremina stay on too long with the portafiltre in place, let the temp on the grupa hit the max.) Distinguishing the tastes you want to avoid is the key to knowing what adjustments to make. (It took me several years to figure this one out, learn from my mistake ...)
Basically agreeing with Mike from Brighton on advice: First get the simple tamp and simple preinfusion down. Then play with the grind until you are happy with it. THEN play with (eg) just the tamp until you are happy, then play with just the pre-infusion until you are happy with it. Consider lowering the pressurestat. Then you can then go back round and dial each variable in again. It is a never-ending process, that will change with each change of beans ... So it is never boring. More than 30 years of pulling lever shots and I still play with all the variables.
Wow - what great advice and it already came in handy this morning! I'm scrapping active pre-infusion for the time being and that has definitely made a difference.
I like the suggestion to intentionally make a few "bad" shots (bitter/overextracted, sour/underextracted) to make sure that what my palate assumes is sour isn't something else entirely.
I will decide on one dose/tamp process and keep it consistent until I've figured everything else out. Then I'll move to the pressurestat if I feel my temps are high. Then I'll play around with dose/tamp and active pre-infusion.
I generally use one of two coffees (Social Coffee's People's Daily Espresso or Detour's Punch Buggy Espresso) and have been using the People's Daily lately. So nice to have great roasters now in Southern Ontario. I will stick with that until I get the process where I want it. (Although my friend is in Rome right now and earlier today bought me a kilo of coffee from Cafe Tazza D'Oro, which, when I brought back from my Italy trip made lights out espresso on my primitive Breville and Krups setup).
I definitely have my eye on the naked portafilter from OE - one of these days I will bite the bullet.
I have a La Pavoni pre-millenium, but my experience with it sounds like a very similar situation to what you are working with, as far as your Cremina is concerned. In reading through your initial post, I noticed a lot of similarities between your comments and what I have experienced myself. As such, I'd like to share some of my personal observations, in case it might help you fine tune things on your end a bit further. Of course, the comments below apply to my La Pavoni specifically, but I think a lot of the information might be helpful to you as well.
First, having a bottomless portafilter is extremely important - if you don't have one already - as far as diagnosing grind/tamping issues. Without being able to see how the water pushes through the portafilter basket screen (especially at the very start of the extraction), you are effectively operating in the dark. Being able to see the extraction begin - as well as progress through its stages - will help you track down channeling issues, etc. Not only that, it will give you a far better feel on when to halt the extraction based on color, flow & viscosity. It's a must have in my opinion - especially when you are first learning and/or dialing in a new bean, etc. I recently made my own naked portafilter, which ended up being a great benefit as far as being able to see what was taking place during the extraction.
As far as temperature control, unless you are using a machine with a PID or something, you can drive yourself mad chasing temps around (especially on older machines with a simple "get the water real hot" boiler design). On my La Pavoni, I just turn it on to the "I" setting (i.e. the low setting) and leave it. In the past, I have tried to modulate the on/off switch, but these days I just let it run on the low setting and hope for the best. On my machine, typically the water which exits the group head is about 180 to 190 degrees once it hits the glass sitting below the group head. I don't worry too much about a few degrees up or down, especially since it's very hard to control it. In my opinion, it's "in the ball park". Short of buying a $2000+ machine with a PID controller, I just go with what I have to work with.
The biggest variables I have found are:
1. The bean 2. The grind 3. The tamp
In my experience, you can have a near perfect tamp & grind, but if you are using $6.99 per bag robusta beans from Cost Plus (that have probably been sitting on a shelf for 6 months or more), then you are in deep water before you ever raise the lever. Either find a locally roasted espresso blend and/or try ordering some beans on line - perhaps the ever popular Lavazza Super Crema whole beans from some place like Amazon.com. The beans make a big, big difference, especially in the area of crema production and flavor complexity.
Once you have a decent bean to work with, then the next two big variables are grind and tamp. My view on the subject changes from time to time, but lately here is my basic thinking: what I'm trying to accomplish is not so much to force the water through tightly compacted grinds of exactly the right size, but rather to try and create a bit more of a momentary suspension in the basket, where the hot water and grinds merge together under pressure as the flow is produced by the lever. To accomplish this, it requires a much lighter tamp - almost to the point of no tamp at all. Some people may disagree here. However, in my experience with the La Pavoni, at least, I have found that this approach produces much better results.
Myself, I use the analogy of water flowing through rocks vs. sand. If you use a coarse grind with a very heavy tamp, it's more like you have rocks tightly packed together and then water is flowing around those rocks. In that case, if you vary the size of the rocks, you can alter the flow characteristics of the water, not to mention how much surface area they come into contact with. In my experience, I have found that the harder you tamp, the more critical the grind size becomes. In effect, the more tightly you compact the grinds, the more you are narrowing your window of success as far as grind size is concerned. Why do this?
Frankly, I want the biggest window of opportunity I can get, when it comes to pulling a shot of espresso. Through testing, I have found that decreasing the tamping pressure improves my chances of success quite a bit. As a result, I have switched to using a very, very light tamp lately (probably only around 3 to 5 lbs, if that). I almost just use the weight of the tamper itself (which is about 1.5 lbs in my case). Here's the specific tamper I use, in case anyone is curious (it's 49mm, although I think 49.5mm would work a bit better for the La Pavoni's basket).
Anyway, I use a fairly fine grind (somewhat on the powdery side I guess you would say, although not overly so) and then I just sweep the grinds level with the double shot basket (49mm in my case). Then I use a toothpick to distribute the grounds evenly and tap the basket on the counter a bit. From there, I set the tamper lightly on the top and let just the weight press the grinds down. Then knock the sides a time or two and repeat - this time using ever so slight a tamp (again, maybe just a couple of pounds; almost just the weight of the tamper itself, but with a slight force down - nothing crazy). Then a tiny polish and that's it.
I put that in the group head and raise the handle about 90% of the way before locking it down. Usually I leave the handle up for about 4 or 5 seconds to allow the water to enter the group head. At this stage, there may be a slight, passive pre-infusion taking place, but if there is, it's more of a byproduct than an intent. After about 5 seconds or so, I start applying pressure on the lever - which should have only moderate resistance as you pull the shot. If you are having to put a lot of weight on the lever and/or it's a work out for you, then the grind is probably way off. The lever should come down fairly steadily - with some resistance - as you apply basically just mild and consistent pressure. When using a naked portafilter, you should see the extraction form and come together from all areas of the basket/screen equally. If not, then you most likely have some channeling issues to sort out.
Myself, I don't pay a lot of attention to time as far as the shot goes. I mean, yes, you probably want it to be in the 15 to 30 second range, but I go more by color than anything else. I'm more concerned with appearance & consistency of the shot as it comes out of the screen (and of course the final flavor). As far as volume, my aim is usually right about 1 oz in a shot glass when using a double shot basket. Generally, I cut the shot off after it starts going blonde a bit. Usually this means the lever still has about 1/4 of its "full pull" left over. In my case, I usually pull the rest of the shot into a second shot glass, as a means of further diagnosing the extraction. Typically that part of the shot is watery and has very little crema. Sometimes it's helpful to taste it also, since extending the shot would, of course, add those flavors back into the first 1 oz or so of espresso.
Right now, my shots have been coming out pretty decent. Maybe an 8 or 9 on a scale of 10. They seem to be running a hair sour, but I think that's probably due more to the beans I'm using currently than anything else. It may also be due to temp, but I am not 100% sure. What I can say is that using the very light tamp has improved how the extraction comes out. When I have a chance, I'll see about posing a video of an extraction using the lighter tamp method.
As far as using a light tamp vs. the 30+ lb tamp: my thinking is that it's acting more like water through sand (to go back to my water flowing analogy) than tightly bound rocks. Instead of the rocks staying fixed in place as the water passes by, the lighter tamp is more like water flowing into sand and meshing with the coffee a bit more (almost along the lines of using a French Press, perhaps). Since you are getting more of a mini suspension for a moment, I think there tends to be a little better transfer between the coffee grinds and the water (thus this may help extract more of the oils/compounds from the ground beans). Also, as long as the grinds aren't so small that they clog the portafilter basket screen, it seems things tend to be a bit more forgiving as far as the grind size goes. In my experience, this also allows you to fine tune the final flavor of the espresso a bit more easily via changing the size of the grind (i.e. a bigger window of opportunity with the grind).
The only real drawback I have found to using a very light tamping pressure is that the puck will not really drop out of the portafilter basket as a single unit any longer (as it does when using a more firm tamp). However, the texture and flavor of the espresso should take a noticeable jump in quality, which is far more important than how my spent pucks look.
Anyway, that's been my experience recently. Like I say, I'll try to record a good video when I have a second and post it here.
I wanted to add a couple of things to the post above, after having experimented around a bit more today with fine tuning my shots. In reviewing the video I posted above, I noticed I was getting too much foam with my shots. So, tonight, I played around a bit to see if I could eliminate that. What I did was increase the tamping pressure just a bit and lower the temp on the machine a little (by turning it off once it got up to temp).
The other thing I did - and this seemed to really improve the shot - was try some active pre-infusion. Basically, what I did differently this time was to pull the lever up and give the water a chance to soak into the coffee grinds. I also pushed the lever down just slightly, in an effort to coax some water down into the basket. I tried it a few times with good results. Each time I maybe gave the water 5 to 10 seconds to filter down into the portafilter basket (with a little extra push on the lever, but not much) and then I moved right into pulling the shot.
Using this technique, combined with not going over board on the tamping pressure, really produced some great resulted. In fact, I think I might have pulled my best shot ever tonight. I wish I had a video of it, but I didn't have my camera setup. However, it came out of the portafilter basket screen like melted butter! It was awesome to watch. It was by far the thickest, nicest looking shot I have ever pulled on my machine and it tasted fantastic. I pulled about 1 oz and cut the flow off when it started to go blonde. It was just a hair sour, but I think that was probably due to these beans I'm using, because it seems like they tend to produce just a hint of sourness over sweetness in my experience.
The other thing the active pre-infusion seemed to help combat was some of the mild channeling I have run into here and there. When I gave the water a bit more time to soak into the grinds, the beginning of my extraction was much more uniform and even across the bottom of the screen (so that was another plus).
Anyway, just wanted to add that. I should have another video soon. I have some different beans on order and they should be here next week.
Keep us posted on how things are shaping up over there!
by Shorttdogg on Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:54 pm 
