Hi guys, I'm new to this forum and looking for some help in brewing a decent espresso with my new coffee machine; Gaggia Cubika.

At the moment I'm using a packet ground coffee from Lidl. I'm loading it into the cup and pressing it down. When the machine tells me it's time to press the button the coffee comes out with very very little or no crema and tastes incredibly bitter.

I am more than willing to learn and I would like to know what you think I'm doing wrong and what I can do to put things right.

I'm not looking for perfection, just a tasty espresso for latte or cappuccino.

Thank you.

Hi there,
Good choice of machine.

There are a few problems that could be causing this. The first thing I would suggest is check your shot time. The crema is extracted in the last part of the extraction. The ideal time is 20-30 seconds. If it's under that (10-15) then I'd suspect it's either not pressed down enough (tamped) or the grind is too coarse. I'm not familiar with the Lidl coffee's but a lot of the pre-ground can be pretty coarse so tamping is key.

I'd suggest going to starbucks and buying from them and when they ask if you want beans or ground say ground and that it's for espresso so can they do quite fine.

There are other things like water temperature etc but I'd try the tamping and the fineness first and see how you get on.

Good luck

No amount of tamping, asking at Starbucks, or anything like that will produce drinkable espresso from preground coffee. However, if you have a 1/10th gram scale, and the grind is somewhere close to right, you could try reducing the dose, about a half gram at a time, until the rate of flow is right. This will make the shots less bitter.

Or, in other words: no grinder = no drinkable espresso.

Thanks guys.

I tried something last night; I put a few spoons of Lidl coffee into a pestle and morter and ground it down much finer. I actually had a pretty good espresso with a much better crema on top.

I note what you say though. Either get freshly ground coffee or grind it myself is the way to go here.

Thanks

Grinder!!!

HB wrote:Fresh coffee and a quality grinder are key to good espresso.

another_jim wrote: no grinder = no drinkable espresso.

These are not opinions but truth. If you get freshly ground coffee, it will get stale before you come back home.

Is that not the crema in the last picture then?



Agreed a grinder is the best thing to get for the freshest possible coffee however a lot of home users I've spoken to are not keen to spend more money on equipment when they first start.

fortunately he seems to have managed to get some crema with his pre-ground by increasing the fineness of the ground with the 'pestle and mortar method'

I'm glad you got your crema in the end rhurl and good luck with other methods.

coffeeman wrote:The crema is extracted in the last part of the extraction.

coffeeman wrote:Is that not the crema in the last picture then?

On the pictures it is one hell of terrible extraction, and in the first quotation is one hell of a b$%lsh@!t. Is this a joke or what?!
Let's come back to H-B...

coffeeman wrote:The crema is extracted in the last part of the extraction.

coffeeman wrote:Is that not the crema in the last picture then?

CoffeeOwl wrote:On the pictures it is one hell of terrible extraction, and in the first quotation is one hell of a b$%lsh@!t. Is this a joke or what?!
Let's come back to H-B...

I think that the first quote is a mistake and a little confusion as to the nomeclature, nothing more. This is indicated by the second quote.

No need for any such comment as the third quote. Everyone starts and learn as they go.

Coffeeman, the Crema is the mass of bubbles, and as you can see in your pictures; the bubbles are produced throughout the entire extraction and becomes less dense toward the end.