You should probably get the same beans you already tasted as espresso in cafe. That way you could search for the flavor profile you tasted at the shop.

pizzaman383 wrote:You might try continuing lowering your temperature setpoint until the espresso tastes sour. It may be that your machine's temperature range is outside where you think it might be.

Yesterday I set the temp as low as the PID would allow me, which is 85°c. The result tasted both bitter and sour. The bitterness was still very much there and even seemed to mask the sourness making it less prominent than I expected.

ds wrote:You should probably get the same beans you already tasted as espresso in cafe. That way you could search for the flavor profile you tasted at the shop.

The first batch of beans was bought in a cafe after tasting the espresso there. And that taste was what I tried to achieve but I ended up sinking all those shots

Another thing to check is to pull the water from your group head without coffee - taste it when hot and taste it when cool and see if maybe the bitterness is just a misdiagnosed metallic taste or something like that?

Its surprisingly easy to confuse sour with bitter, especially if its way off. You may be chasing the temp thing in the wrong direction. 92C is a lowish shot temp already, you might try turning up rather than down and see what you get. Also, are you giving the machine adequate time to warm up? Are you doing a short warming flush prior to your shot? As a quick and dirty way to verify the temperature calibration, is it possible to set it at or above 100C, and if so do you see any flash boiling when the water leaves the group?

Other non temperature things to consider: Don't get hung up on 25 second shots. Go until it blonds. When in doubt, you're better imho to let it run slightly long than too short. The end of the shot is where the caramels are. If your shots take 30 seconds or even longer, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The "right" time is whatever gets you a shot you enjoy. Also, you seem to be aiming for "normale" shots, since you're doing 16g in and looking for 30+ grams out. Which is fine, but depending on the coffee and your personal taste, you may prefer a different brew ratio. My personal taste skews more toward ristretto, and yours may as well, particularly if you truly are confusing sour and bitter. If you can ask your local shop you got the beans from what their brew parameters are.

another_jim wrote:Have you brewed these coffees? It might be useful to figure out what they actually would taste like when done right.

Jim's brief post is on point. You can easily brew your coffee at a controlled temperature using a food thermometer and water coming off the boil. Doing this will get you to the right temperature. You also omit many variables. So if you dial in your espresso machine to that temperature and it still doesn't taste right, something else is causing the off taste.

Nate42 wrote:Its surprisingly easy to confuse sour with bitter, especially if its way off. You may be chasing the temp thing in the wrong direction. 92C is a lowish shot temp already, you might try turning up rather than down and see what you get. Also, are you giving the machine adequate time to warm up? Are you doing a short warming flush prior to your shot? As a quick and dirty way to verify the temperature calibration, is it possible to set it at or above 100C, and if so do you see any flash boiling when the water leaves the group?

Other non temperature things to consider: Don't get hung up on 25 second shots. Go until it blonds. When in doubt, you're better imho to let it run slightly long than too short. The end of the shot is where the caramels are. If your shots take 30 seconds or even longer, that's not necessarily a bad thing. The "right" time is whatever gets you a shot you enjoy. Also, you seem to be aiming for "normale" shots, since you're doing 16g in and looking for 30+ grams out. Which is fine, but depending on the coffee and your personal taste, you may prefer a different brew ratio. My personal taste skews more toward ristretto, and yours may as well, particularly if you truly are confusing sour and bitter. If you can ask your local shop you got the beans from what their brew parameters are.

I usually let it warm up for an hour (occasionally a bit less, like 45min) with the filter locked in.
What's a warming flush? I thought flushing before pulling a shot is done to achieve the opposite effect, to get cooler water, is a warming flush something else entirely? I'll see if I can set it to 100C tomorrow.

Blonding is something I'm completely unable to recognize at this point, I'm really new to this so timing a shot visually is still out of my league and the 25 seconds rule is the only thing I have to hold on to and use as a reference point to get the grinder at least in the correct range. But I have tried to let it run longer for a random amount of time (result was 50g instead of 30g) and it was still bitter and bad.

drgary wrote:Jim's brief post is on point. You can easily brew your coffee at a controlled temperature using a food thermometer and water coming off the boil. Doing this will get you to the right temperature. You also omit many variables. So if you dial in your espresso machine to that temperature and it still doesn't taste right, something else is causing the off taste.

Yesterday I used an Aeropress to brew the coffee at 94C and 92C (at a grind setting that works generally well for AP), both gave a really nice tasting cup, no bitterness.. But I'm not really sure what this tells me. I guess it might be the temperature (which would mean the PID is not working properly) but it might as well be the grind or any other factor that's involved in espresso and not in the AP..

hnnsnrt wrote:Yesterday I used an Aeropress to brew the coffee at 94C and 92C (at a grind setting that works generally well for AP), both gave a really nice tasting cup, no bitterness.. But I'm not really sure what this tells me. I guess it might be the temperature (which would mean the PID is not working properly) but it might as well be the grind or any other factor that's involved in espresso and not in the AP..

I believe your temperature is off. You could thread a thermocouple into the coffee cake and checking the actual brew temperature. Or, more simply, try marching up or down by two degrees until your espresso is similar to what you're getting in the AeroPress.

Checking the temperature is the first job. You may want to drop the dose and go with a finer grind, not a little, but 3 - 4 grams worth and a lot finer. You are way out of the ballpark on something, so its worth making big changes, not little ones.

Get a lemon, cut a piece of peel off, then cut the lemon in half. Taste the peel, getting as much pith (the white part) as possible. Rinse your mouth. Squeeze some juice onto your finger and taste that. Juice and peel both taste like lemon, but the pith is better, and the juice sour. That should be all the calibration your palate requires.

hnnsnrt wrote:What's a warming flush? I thought flushing before pulling a shot is done to achieve the opposite effect, to get cooler water, is a warming flush something else entirely?

A "warming flush" is a technique specific to machines with PID temped brew boilers, for instance many hybrids and double boilers.

If the group is cooler than the temp-controlled brew water in the boiler, the group will cool the water as it passes through. A "warming flush," brings the group up to temperature. The group can't overheat, because it's being heated with temped water from the brew boiler.

I'll see if I can set it to 100C tomorrow.

Some DB machines take a long time for the brew boiler to adjust to the new set-point. The Brewtus is among those. Plan on at least a couple of sessions to dial in, considering you're obviously pretty far off now. Don't mess with the PID unless and until you already know the "offset," or have a specific reason to suspect your temperatures are wrong in a particular direction; this is especially true for a Brewtus because each adjustment takes about twenty minutes before it's stabilized.

Rather, start with a warming flush and see what that does; and then "dial in" for your specific coffee using bitter/sour as a way to bracket then zero in on the right temp. Obviously, you're most likely going to be doing some adjustment; but since temping is a constant of "exceptional espresso," good methodology will make your life easier down the line.

You may well end up going to 100C -- but do the warming flush first. The ideal espresso brewing temperature for something over 90% of coffees lies between 90C and 96C. A beginning brewing temp of 93C won't be too far off. It's a good enough starting point that, with practice, you can come within 1C of ideal in one, and certainly no more than two shots.

Establish the real offset for your machine as soon as it's reasonably convenient to do so. You'll have to rent or borrow a "Scace" temperature portafilter or Eric S E-61 device, but once you've accurately established the difference between what your PID reads and the brew temp at the puck, you'll never need to do it again.

Grind and Dose
We all have different ways of doing things, and mine is different than Jim's.

In my experience, there's a very narrow "right" dose range for a given basket/machine, and once the appropriate flow rate is dialed in, there's usually no benefit to adjusting grind. So, my suggestion is that unless there are obvious signs that grind and/or dose are way off, leave them alone until you've got a handle on the right temp.

So... what are those signs? Bad flow rate -- too fast or too slow -- is the most common. Your flow time for a 66% to 40% brew ratio should be in the low twenties to low thirty seconds; call it 26sec plus or minus 6sec. If your times are below 20sec or higher than 32sec for an appropriate brew ratio, go ahead and adjust for dose and grind.

A very wet puck (as in so wet that it's liquid) is an indication of under dosing.

The nickel/dime test is a good way of establishing whether the basket is over or under filled.

However, the best test is staying within the nominal range for a given basket. I don't remember what that is offhand for the basket Expobar ships, but I think it's 16g - 18g. If you can manage to dose 17g and get the right flow rate for an appropriate brew ratio, you should be close enough.

Finally
The title of this thread is an unpleasant reminder of my first marriage.

Thanks,
Rich

I would love to see a video, it would be easier to guess.