Aged espresso bean results fast and watery extraction flow?

#1: Post by **gilzero** » December 31st, 2013, 10:34 am

Coffee: espresso roasted, about 1-2 months ago. From local specialty coffee roaster.
Dose: 20g
Breville DualBoiler + Mazzer Mini E

I extract some aged espresso roasted coffee, no matter how I adjust fine, finer, more finer, (I keep dose to 20g everyshot), ALWAYS gets very watery extraction, fast flow rate, not viscosity, thin crema layer.

I wonder: is aging/oldness a direct impact of the watery extraction? If yes, what is the reason behind it?

Thanks for helping diagnosing shots!

#2: Post by HB » December 31st, 2013, 10:52 am

What you're calling "aged" coffee, most would call stale coffee. You're correct that as coffee stales, the grind setting moves finer and finer. Most coffees are in their prime 4-10 days post-roast. Some are still quite good 14 days post-roast. All coffees I've tasted are pretty much the same after a month, i.e., the flavor profile becomes monotonic, dull and woody.

If you haven't done so already, check out the site's Home Barista's Guide to Espresso and Newbie Introduction to Espresso video series. They cover questions like yours and a lot more.

December 31st, 2013, 11:25 am

Hi HB

Thanks for replying and pointing the knowledge base by H-B, great reference.

I read them before, however I wasn't able to find my answer there.

My curiousness is about how does staling cause watery and shot quickly yellowing; What does bean changed, results a bad extraction?

#4: Post by **TomC** » December 31st, 2013, 11:34 am

Coffee oils and aromatic compounds are volatile. After a month, you're essentially trying to extract what's not there anymore. You're pushing hot water thru ground cellulose.

#5: Post by **rjamadagni** » December 31st, 2013, 1:37 pm

TomC wrote:Coffee oils and aromatic compounds are volatile. After a month, you're essentially trying to extract what's not there anymore.

Experienced this first hand last week, by mistake added 18g of stale beans into vario and it choked, stopped midway. I stopped it, checked beans they were all oily, so dumped them into trash. Cleaned vario and added fresh beans, all was well, all was well.

#6: Post by **Marshall** » December 31st, 2013, 1:59 pm

If you are considering "aging" roasted coffee, think "bread," not "wine."

December 31st, 2013, 2:28 pm

But but but doesn't that green fuzz add flavor to bread!

January 2nd, 2014, 10:38 pm

Blue and fuzzy is good if it is Roquefort cheese but not so good eats on bread.

But back to the original question, coffee does not age well. It starts degrading the moment it is dropped out of the roaster. Most coffee's are past their prime in 10-12 days with very few exceptions. For coffee that is nearing its end of life, use a bigger basket, open up the grind a bit and dose up. That will get you what little is left in the coffee.

#9: Post by **_bm** » January 3rd, 2014, 8:42 am

Try a nutation tamp under full pressure without a final tamp afterwards. This makes the puck denser at the basket rim and slows down the flow which allows you to use a normal grind size.

If you grind finer then the shot gets more and more bland referred to the Espresso101.

Regards
bm

January 4th, 2014, 12:46 am

You're still missing the forest for the leaves. If the coffee is way past it's prime, there's little utility in trying to "save" it with machinations. It's not going to improve the cup much, and will do a better job increasing operator frustration. If the coffee doesn't taste flat, dull and disgusting, make a french press with it. Save the trickier extraction methods for proper coffee.