I am a newbie to espresso perfection (although not to espresso pulling) and have been reading everything I can so that I can improve my technique. I recently bought a new grinder (Mazzer MiniE doserless) and am trying to learn how to get consistent results.

Of course, the key is consistency so therefore I want to keep as many things constant as possible. My approach is to keep my dosing consistent and change only the grind to dial in a good shot. I've read that for a double one should use 12-20g of coffee. From what I've seen, it seems that some people ignore this and simply grind enough coffee to fill up the double basket and then clean off the excess, distribute (via one method or another) and then tamp. But perhaps they have already have calibrated things for their blend and portafilter so that they know they are in the proper weight range.

When I try to dose by volume, I end up with considerably over 20g of coffee. This morning I tried to dose this way. I made the grind a bit coarser and stopped dosing when the double basket was not quite full. I weighed the coffee - it was 29g. I distributed the grinds via a modification of the WDT method. The coffee had lots of crema, but was markedly sour, a sign of under-extraction, I guess.

So, my question is: Should I standardize on weight or on volume?
If I use volume, the weight will be way over the recommended.
If I use weight, the basket will be only 1/2 full, tamped puck down 3/8" from the top lip of the basket.

Any and all comments and advice humbly solicited.

Thanks,
Martin

After about a year of being obsessed with espresso I'm still relatively new but maybe I can help.

I grind for dose and dose for volume. Two rounded espresso scoops (the one that comes with mostly all the machines) grinds to about the volume for a double. I distribute with a modified Stockfleth's move and with the bottom of my extended pointer finger scrape off and level NSEW. My fingers are a bit meaty so the bottom of my extended pointer finger is slightly convex leaving a slightly concave surface to the distributed grounds. I've measured it out a few times and it's around 17-18g of coffee. With a light, 30 lb NSEW wiggle tamp and a tamper weight finish polish the puck rim ends up just under the basket ridge after tamping.

I roast my own so the roast is rarely older than 7 days and I also like a light to med roast. My machine is an e61 HX so after taking the pre infusion and the generous blooming of the grinds into account the puck expands very well and the extraction is consistenly even and all crema.

I'd say try to standardize by volume but weigh your dose for a while to get an intuitive feel for an ideal range for extraction. Even distribution and tamping also make a big difference as well as the freshness of your roast. Find a method that consistenly gives you even results with respect to distribution and tamping and you'll be better able to isolate other variables like dose volumes and grind fineness. Assuring even puck density and grind fineness for the kind of extraction you want is most important, IMHO.

raf wrote:When I try to dose by volume, I end up with considerably over 20g of coffee. This morning I tried to dose this way. I made the grind a bit coarser and stopped dosing when the double basket was not quite full. I weighed the coffee - it was 29g.

What machine and basket do you use?

I am using the EPNW LM ridgeless, and about the most I have packed into it and still be able to lock the PF into a Rancilio Silvia is 22g or so. And that was with some difficulty. Are you sure your scale is accurate? Perhaps you are grinding very fine and the Mazzer does not fluff too much?

I started out by weighing out 16-18 grams, and grinding until empty, discarding the first little bit out of the grinder. I have moved away from that after I felt familiar enough with the process to volume dose. You might try that same approach, and adjust grind until extracion time seems right and see how full the basket is once that is dialed in. When I weighed the beans out, I did not always have a full basket, and would sweep the grinds NSEW and do a Stockfleth's in such a way that the the grounds leveled pretty well even though below the basket rim. Now that I volume dose, I may be getting a bit closer to 18-19g in the basket, I need to check after a level and tamp to see whare I am at.

-Jeff

jesawdy wrote:What machine and basket do you use?

I'm using a Faema "Professional". It is a non-E61 single boiler with a separate steam line that is somehow heated up on demand. I don't fully understand it, but I do know that I can steam and pull shots simultaneously. I'm using a double shot basket - straight sides. Looks to me like all the other double baskets I've seen. Looks the same as a friend's Silvia double.

I am using the EPNW LM ridgeless, and about the most I have packed into it and still be able to lock the PF into a Rancilio Silvia is 22g or so. And that was with some difficulty. Are you sure your scale is accurate? Perhaps you are grinding very fine and the Mazzer does not fluff too much?

I'll bet that the scale is very inaccurate, good point. I'll try to fix that. Also, could be that this blend tends to grind very fine. I just received the Mazzer so I'll try experimenting with more coarse grinds and see how full I get the basket. I am suspicious of this since i seem to remember when I was setting up the grinder last weekend I was using some old beans and they seemed to fill the basket much more than the blend I was using today.

I started out by weighing out 16-18 grams, and grinding until empty, discarding the first little bit out of the grinder.

I am weighing the ground coffee not the beans. I am doing this since the Mazzer will tend to trap a certain amount of grinds behind the static screen at the end of the exit tunnel of the burrs. I felt it would be more acccurate to weigh the coffee that actually makes it into the basket.

I have moved away from that after I felt familiar enough with the process to volume dose. You might try that same approach, and adjust grind until extracion time seems right and see how full the basket is once that is dialed in. When I weighed the beans out, I did not always have a full basket, and would sweep the grinds NSEW and do a Stockfleth's in such a way that the the grounds leveled pretty well even though below the basket rim. Now that I volume dose, I may be getting a bit closer to 18-19g in the basket, I need to check after a level and tamp to see whare I am at.
-Jeff

This is where I hope to be once I understand what "normal" is and can be more consistent. I sure don't want to measure every shot I pull!

Thanks for your help.

Martin

For kicks, you might try to weigh the whole beans, maybe add a gram and grind until empty. I discard the first liitle bit as that may be some older coffee being pushed out the chute, and you may have some trapped in the grinder at the end. You might try dosing into basket and weighing the full basket, subtracting the basket weight and see what if any is left behind in the grinder. I think this approach will also help you towards learning volume dosing straight from the grinder, as the coffee is not being transferred one or more times nor compacted in any way before hitting the basket.

There are folks here and on CG that will claim that coffee noticably stales within minutes of grinding, so I am of the mindset of having the coffee ground for the bare minumum of time before the espresso is extracted.

raf wrote:When I try to dose by volume, I end up with considerably over 20g of coffee. This morning I tried to dose this way. I made the grind a bit coarser and stopped dosing when the double basket was not quite full. I weighed the coffee - it was 29g. I distributed the grinds via a modification of the WDT method. The coffee had lots of crema, but was markedly sour, a sign of under-extraction, I guess.

So, my question is: Should I standardize on weight or on volume?
If I use volume, the weight will be way over the recommended.
If I use weight, the basket will be only 1/2 full, tamped puck down 3/8" from the top lip of the basket.

Hi Martin. A sour extraction could easily be due to a low brew temperature. I don't know anything about the Faema Professional, although your description ("single boiler with a separate steam line that is somehow heated up on demand") sounds suspiciously like an HX machine. If so, make sure you read the HX Love article.

29g sounds far too heavy for a double basket. If your scale is that inaccurate - possibly off by 50% - either get another scale or quit worrying about the weight. 3/8" of headroom above the tamped puck is an awful lot. I'd suggest aiming for 1/8" or so, near the basket ridge line.

FWIW, I dose strictly by volume and get reasonably consistent pulls.
________
John

jesawdy wrote:For kicks, you might try to weigh the whole beans, maybe add a gram and grind until empty. I discard the first liitle bit as that may be some older coffee being pushed out the chute, and you may have some trapped in the grinder at the end. You might try dosing into basket and weighing the full basket, subtracting the basket weight and see what if any is left behind in the grinder. I think this approach will also help you towards learning volume dosing straight from the grinder, as the coffee is not being transferred one or more times nor compacted in any way before hitting the basket.

There are folks here and on CG that will claim that coffee noticably stales within minutes of grinding, so I am of the mindset of having the coffee ground for the bare minumum of time before the espresso is extracted.

This is essentially what I do also -- weigh my whole beans before the shot until I'm at 17.5 grams; grind until empty (with a whole lot of shaking and using the Click Clack lid on the Rocky to expel as much leftover coffee as possible); NSEW sweep; tamp. This leaves me with about 17 grams and a puck that is just below the spring mark in the basket. Arguably I could updose more, but I am not fond of the bitter intensity that seems to be emphasized in the cup when I updose beyond 18 grams.

I go through all this weighing business because I am after consistency too -- just to have one less variable to worry about.
I have had good results dosing by volume but I found that volume changes significantly depending on the fineness of the grind so you can end up updosing even more -- not a good recipe for my palate.

So, with weight varying depending on the beans used; and volume varying depending on the grind setting, who knows what's best? I ended up just going with weighing per shot, before the shot (to keep it simpler), after determining the average amount that Rocky eats no matter what I do!

I imagine this is even more complicated with the Mini E, since it uses a timer for its dosing and there again grind fineness will affect the amount ground. So, I'll be interested to hear other thoughts about this issue, as I am keenly interested in the Mini E myself! But, my thought was that if I did end up buying the Mini E that I would still measure per shot, and grind until empty. Talk about a waste of electronics!

BTW I also determined that the scale used is critical -- I've migrated to a pocket scale (it's called "My Weigh") for jewelers --and drug dealers, I imagine! -- but it is very accurate to the .1 gram and comes with a 100 gram weight for calibration purposes. It was less than $25 and well worth it.

randomperson wrote:I imagine this is even more complicated with the Mini E, since it uses a timer for its dosing and there again grind fineness will affect the amount ground. So, I'll be interested to hear other thoughts about this issue, as I am keenly interested in the Mini E myself! But, my thought was that if I did end up buying the Mini E that I would still measure per shot, and grind until empty. Talk about a waste of electronics!

As mentioned in Exercises for tuning your barista techniques, I go back and forth between volume and weight dosing, especially when testing new equipment. I don't care all that much about the particular weight (i.e., 16.5 versus 17.5 grams), just that it's consistent. Volume dosing by level-cutting a basket that hasn't been settled (no "tap tap") will be extremely consistent; for the double baskets I use, the grinds without settling are around 14-15 grams (some coffees are more dense, e.g., Intelligentsia's Yemen Sanani and decafs). When I evaluated the Mini E, I set the timer to half the normal dose for most coffees and ran it twice. Depending on the coffee, I would discard a little or push the momentary switch for a couple seconds to "top off" the basket. This wouldn't be necessary if you changed blends infrequently.

I dose by volume but use weight as a guide to achieve the ideal volume.

I started to do this by the necessity of using a deeper and narrower 49 mm basket. On the one hand, the typical heap above, tap, fill gaps nsew, then level the top never got enough grinds into the basket to give me consistent volume. On the other hand, I could not create a consistent heap above the basket by eye to stockfleth a consistent volume into the basket.

So I weigh out the beans per shot and grind and brush all into basket and in a heap above. Tap 3 times to even out the grinds and stockfleth all into basket. Then tamp. Here's the first place to look for feedback. Coffee too high in the basket - decrease the weight next time. Too low in the basket - increase the weight next time. The next place to look for feedback is in the cup. What is the contribution of the dose (independent of grind, distribution, tamping, etc.) to the shot and does it need to be adjusted?

IMO this adjustment of weight to achieve ideal dose is no different than other adjustments we make shot to shot. If we don't hit the right grind on the first shot we change the grind for subsequent shots. If we have temperature control and the shot is too sour or bitter we change the temperature to compensate on the next shot. So likewise, tweaking the weight from shot to shot to reach the ideal volume is a similar adjustment.

This method has the following advantages:

1. You learn the right weight for the right volume and how it varies. The biggest change factors I experience are type of coffee and age of coffee. For example my typical dose of Monkey blend is 16.4 g and Decaf Donkey blend is 16.8 g. And the weights creep up over time to keep the volume constant. So if I have any coffee that lasts more than a week I'll be dosing 16.6 and 17.2 respectively for these coffees. Other variables are roast level, humidity, and "extreme" coffees like monsooned malabar or blends that rely on them (Dolce).

2. Coffee is always freshly ground just before using.

3. You can switch coffees for every shot without having multiple grinders or extra grinder cleaning.

4. Very little coffee is wasted. This seems to bother me more than the many profligates who hang out here .

Disadvantages:

1. Extra step of weighing. I also use a 0.1 g scale, weigh in a little stainless steel cup, then toss into grinder. Really not much more difficult than using a standard scoop to fill the grinder.

2. Extra step of sweeping out grinder per shot. Do you know how looong an empty mazzer mini keeps spinning after it is shut off before you can brush out the chute?

espressoperson wrote:2. Extra step of sweeping out grinder per shot. Do you know how looong an empty mazzer mini keeps spinning after it is shut off before you can brush out the chute?

Doesn't that happen whether you dose by weight, volume, counting beans, whatever? Oh, nevermind, the thing is slowed by the beans that remain in the hopper, and under the grinding surface. Yeah, I'm with EP, one shot at a time, or "One Shot One Kill"...

; >