Hi all,

I did search for this but haven't successfully found a thread dealing with it. (Please point me to it if it's already been covered.)

In a thread on channeling Jim mentioned that "on an E61, if the first drops show up before about 8 seconds, you are grinding way too coarse". The video at the top of page 2 of this thread shows this happening. The OP's pull takes about that long to bead and then starts to pour well. I haven't been able to do this without having my (double) shots take 45+ seconds for about 1 oz and (I think) coming out way over-extracted.

For example, I ground some Daterra a little finer than usual this morning. The first shot was 15.5 grams of beans before grinding; I didn't measure afterwards but my guess is it was about 15.0. This shot took about 10-12 seconds for the beading to start and when I stopped the shot at around 45-48 seconds I barely had an ounce or so of coffee. My second shot was 14.7 grams before, 14.4 grams after. This shot took about 5-6 seconds to bead and again, about an ounce of liquid after about 40 seconds before blonding.

Yesterday I tried after-grind doses ranging from 14 to 17 grams with appropriate grind adjustments but the result seems to be the same. Before trying this experiment all the grind/dose values I have for my current batch of beans all bead around the 2-3 second mark, resulting in about 2.5 oz of coffee in anywhere from 20-30 seconds, depending on which bean and grind/dose I use.

Is this something that I need to correct? Should I continue shooting for the 8 second preinfusion? If so, why is it important?

Some items of note:

• Machine is an Izzo Alex Duetto II which has a rotary pump but using the reservoir, i.e. it is not plumbed in.
• Pressure gauge for the brew boiler shows 9.5 bar when pulling shots (which I think means it's a bit lower at the group, is that right?)
• Tamp pressure is 30 lbs, if I'm using the Espro correctly.

Thanks in advance!
david

If it's not exactly eight seconds, don't even bother to try the shot, it will be terrible

I know espresso attracts OCDish types, but I was giving ball park advice. Anything from 6 to 12 seconds is probably fine. Once you have the extraction roughly right, there is no further correlation between getting great taste and precisely hitting some preestablished benchmark.

Instead, once you are in the ball park, you need to taste your espresso carefully. Great shots are about making precise and targeted changes to your shot parameters based on the taste adjustments you want to make.

Here's the 101 on adjusting shots by taste:

• Too bitter? Grind coarser, use the same dose, make a shorter time, higher volume shot.
• Too sour? Grind finer, same dose, make a longer time, shorter volume shot.
• Too intense, not sweet enough? Grind finer, reduce the dose, make the shot same time, same volume
• Too blah and subtle? Grind coarser, increase the dose, make the shot same time, same volume

It depends on your machine. With a vibe machine, it should take some time for beads to appear. So 6-12 seconds seems quite right here. My experience is that on Duetto or similar rotary machine you should see quite immediate beading (and maybe a couple of drops), followed by "nothing", and then a nicely running shot. Dry puck does not resist flow that well and if water fills the brew chamber fast enough, it will drip through before the puck swells.

At least this is my experience after moving from Brewtus II to Duetto. And I believe this is also backed by Rao's and Vianni's books. Correct me if I'm wrong...

another_jim wrote:Here's the 101 on adjusting shots by taste:

• Too bitter? Grind coarser, use the same dose, make a shorter time, higher volume shot.
• Too sour? Grind finer, same dose, make a longer time, shorter volume shot.
• Too intense, not sweet enough? Grind finer, reduce the dose, make the shot same time, same volume
• Too blah and subtle? Grind coarser, increase the dose, make the shot same time, same volume

I flunked 101 twice and finally got a courtesy pass.
My learning curve got flattened for a time when I started exploring how very small adjustments in shot temp produce taste effects similar to Jim's 4 useful bullets. Similar, but subtly different. So. Considering that sooner or later everyone starts messing with their E61 temp or gets a machine with dials or buttons that make temp adjustments so easy and playful, how many more bullets does it take to account for the temp variable? Call it "201 on adjusting shots by taste."

In barista competition, the competing baristas get disqualified if they change the machine's pressure or temperature. I used to think this was unfair; but now I'm beginning to appreciate that when the machine is well set up, one can do almost all coffees justice just by tweaking dose and grind.

I'm not going Luddite here; there are a lot of great coffees that do better with customized temperature and pressure profiles. However, these adjustments aren't as easy to make or judge. They may end up being something you do once for each blend, following roaster's instructions, whereas the dose and grind adjustments are on the fly, by taste.

Hi. It is my thread you're quoting, happy to help

Since I have problems myself it may be strange that Im even addressing you
but this line made me think:

sdavidp wrote:The first shot was 15.5 grams of beans before grinding; I didn't measure afterwards but my guess is it was about 15.0. This shot took about 10-12 seconds for the beading to start and when I stopped the shot at around 45-48 seconds I barely had an ounce or so of coffee.

Why not test same dose at 1 click coarser grind before changing dose?
Bead time and shot time is both only slightly long.

sdavidp wrote:Is this something that I need to correct? Should I continue shooting for the 8 second preinfusion? If so, why is it important?

With my Duetto II, also using the reservoir, my shots generally seem to take 5-8s for the preinfusion. They taste right so (as Jim noted) I don't worry.

sdavidp wrote:

• Machine is an Izzo Alex Duetto II which has a rotary pump but using the reservoir, i.e. it is not plumbed in.
• Pressure gauge for the brew boiler shows 9.5 bar when pulling shots (which I think means it's a bit lower at the group, is that right?)
• Tamp pressure is 30 lbs, if I'm using the Espro correctly.

I think the brew pressure gauge is actually measuring the pump output, not the pressure in the brew boiler. I usually see 9 - 9.5 bar too. I don't measure my tamp pressure but am pretty consistent with it AFAICT.

Is there some taste defect you're trying to chase down?

Hi all, thanks for the replies, they're very helpful. I sampled too much of this evenings experiments and consequently I'm up far later than I should be. (And now that I've written it, this post is way too long; it's age, I tells ya; take my advice, stay thirty-something!) The downside is that I'm going to regret it when I have to get up in four hours. The upside is I think I just realized what my problem is.

I think this has been yet another lesson in "Know your equipment".

akallio's description of a shot on the Duetto is exactly what I'm seeing, and that made me realize I'd made a bad assumption: I assumed GriffDeLaGriff's machine, because it was an E61 like mine, was a rotary.

Ok, now that you've had a jolly good laugh, all I can say is, I hope the coffee that went up your nose was very, very hot.

I just googled the Cuadra and -- correct me if I'm wrong -- it's a vibe. I should have known better too, having had a Brewtus III-V for about 3 weeks a couple of months ago. After I realized this I remembered that, aside from being quieter, the coffee showed up sooner on the Duetto as compared to the Brewtus and Silvia. So the 6-12 second makes perfect sense now that I remember how my shots came out back then.

Jim, thank you for the 101 -- I'll try those adjustments to fine tune my shots.

geoffbeier, I wasn't trying to chase down a taste defect per se, just looking to improve my knowledge and skill, with the goal of being able to consistently produce a good tasting shot. I've learned quite a bit since I started brewing espresso myself and I'm trying to stay open to other ideas, especially as my ability to taste the coffee evolves.

GriffDeLaGriff, I'm not sure why I went with changing dose instead of grind. Sometimes I vary grind while keeping dose constant, sometimes the reverse. For example, I ran through my Caffe Fresco coffee and my next batch hasn't arrived yet, so tonight I picked up 1/2 a pound each of Brazil Cerrado and Sumatra Estate (both supposedly 4 days old) so that I had some coffee in the meantime. (I've never had these coffees before either, and knew nothing about how they'd come out as espresso, so I was boldly going where I had not gone before. Or foolishly wandering where angels fear to tread; not sure.)

Anyway, continuing the experiment of trying to get beading to happen at around the 8 second mark, I started with the Brazilian at 15 grams. I think it took around 10 seconds for first beads. I stopped it around 45 seconds or so. I had about an ounce of overextracted coffee. Not too good, but I've done worse. Since I've never had this coffee before, I wasn't sure what to expect. Next shot, 2 notches coarser on the grinder. A little faster, but still over extracted. Next shot, one notch coarser and I upped the dose to 16 grams, just for the giggles. A little better but still very slow and overextracted; it too wasn't worth drinking. Enough for now.

About an hour later I went back to the machine to play with the Sumatra. As a starting point, I kept the dose at 16 grams as well as the grinder setting of the last shot. Right away I could tell these beans were going to be different. Whereas 16 grams of the Brazillian didn't fill the basket (before tamping), the same weight of the Sumatra beans almost overflowed it.

Whoosh! Beading happened around 2 seconds and I stopped the shot at 12 since it already filled the glass. And gasey, oy! Ok, way underextracted... but I tasted it anyway. Surprisingly, it wasn't that bad! I decided to try four notches finer on the grinder: beading around the 3 second mark, and 20 seconds or so later I stopped the shot. Tons of cinnamon-colored crema, tasty, but not quite there. I think it was around now that I abandoned the idea of getting it to bead much later and just went with what was working. One more notch finer: I think I stopped it around 27 seconds, and the crema was cinnamon-colored with some dark flecks. This was going to be my last shot of the night so it went into a latte, since I'm also practicing my steaming. However, I tasted it before adding the milk and it was good. The latte had a warm, maybe milk chocolate taste to it. Not quite the same kind of chocolate as the Luna Nuova but good all the same.

In the morning I'll try that last dose/grind again and drink it straight. In the evening I might go back to Brazilian and start grinding coarser and see what I can do with that.

Thanks again for helping a newbie find his way. :p

From what I have tasted on my latest shots, Im gonna try
getting around 1.75oz in minimum 25seconds plus the infusion time.

and the crema was cinnamon-colored with some dark flecks

you gotta love it