I recently bought a Rancilio Silvia and Baratza Vario and am doing a great deal of reading and YouTube surfing in order to learn how to pull shots like my local coffee bar. My favorite place by me brews Counter Culture's Toscano and it tastes amazing there - there are clear hints of chocolate and hazelnut and it is simply amazing.

I want to try to replicate that somehow at home on my machine, but am failing utterly. I've posted on here twice before and you guys have helped me learn how to create microfoam and deal with the indentation on the stock Rancilio double basket puck. Now hopefully you guys can help me learn what I'm doing wrong now.

I had been grinding 14g of Toscano into the Rancilio double basket and was getting about 1.75oz in 26 seconds, but my shots kept coming out bitter and a bit acidic - I don't have the best palate, but there definitely was something wrong with these shots.

I just received a naked Portafilter and a La Marcozza ridgeless double basket today and tried some new things. According to Counter Culture's website the ideal parameters are 19.5g brewed at 198 degrees F to get a shot between 1.5-1.75oz in 26 seconds. I know that this is on their La Marcozza commercial machine and the parameters on my Rancilio Silvia will be different. However, after not getting the best results from 14g, I decided to try out 19g and 20g after reading that more flavor comes through when updosing. Shots from these basket sizes kept coming out bitter as well.

According to the Diagnosing Extraction Problems page of The Home Barista's Guide to Espresso overly bitter espresso comes from too high temperature or stopping the pull too late. On my Silvia I am unable to regulate the temperature. I've seen videos that recommend temperature surfing by either waiting 30 seconds after the boiler light goes off to to purge the grouphead of water for 5 seconds before pulling the shot. However I don't know how to make the temperature closest to 198 and neither of these things seem to make much of a difference.

I have trouble figuring out exactly when blonding starts, so I was relying on getting the correct volume in the correct time. When I was getting 2oz shots in 26 seconds the espresso still tasted bitter.

I decided to record my last few shots to share with the community in the hopes that someone might be able to help me figure out what I'm doing wrong.

In this first video I used the LM ridgeless double basket and filled it up with 16g of Toscano (I reduced the dose again in the hope that it would improve the shot after reading other posts of people using this dose on the Silvia). I think the grind was too coarse because 2oz came out in 18 seconds. I still tasted it and it was the worst shot I had ever tasted - so bitter, so acidic, kind of metallic tasting. I used the WDT method, tamped with 30lbs of pressure and tapped it on the counter rather than hitting the sides of the basket.



In this second video I used the same basket, 16g of grinds (finer than the last one) same WDT method, same 30lbs of tamping pressure and got 2oz of espresso in 24 seconds. This shot wasn't as bad as the last one, but it was still bitter and acidic.



So the last shot was still pulling too fast, so I needed to make it finer. I did, but I guess it was too fine. I used the same 16g, WDT method, 30lbs tamping, 30 second temperature surf and pulled the shot for 29 seconds. It ended up being only 1oz, which means it was waaaay too fine. Here's the video.



Next shot - 16g, WDT method, 30lb tamping, 30 second temperature surfing, 21 second pull, 1.25oz shot and it was still extremely bitter and acidic.



So what am I doing wrong? I'm trying to change so many variables, from basket size, to puck size, to grind, but nothing I do seems to change the shot's taste from extremely bitter and acidic and altogether horrible. I know I've got channeling in these videos and I need to work on my tamping, but I can't get 2oz in 26 seconds in this new basket and I can't change the most important thing, the taste.

Thanks in advance for helping this extreme newbie.

EDIT: By the way, I'm using brand new beans that I bought and opened today. They were roasted on 1/13/11. I also cleaned the machine yesterday after thinking that not having cleaned the machine after unpacking it could have been the problem. I used joe glo as directed via the grouphead and ran a full tank of water through the steam wand and grouphead, after having used the machine for over a week. Still didn't help.

I tried two more shots after updosing and the shots are still not coming out. The first one was updosed to 20g, WDT method, tamped to 30# and temperature surfed for 30 seconds. After 27 seconds 1.25oz was pulled, which means that the grind was too fine. It tasted slightly bitter, though not as bad as the shots at 16g. However, the shot was still very harsh and not very good.



In the next shot I used 19g and made the grind a bit coarser in the hope that the shot would produce more volume in 27 seconds. However I stopped it after 24 seconds because I thought it looked like it was blonding early, right? This shot wasn't as harsh as the last one, but it was still bitter and acidic. I didn't taste any of the subtle flavors like hazelnut and caramel that I could taste at the coffee shop.

From the videos it seems to me you're blonding early, which I think is channeling. So I'm thinking dose/distribute/tamp are a factor here. Also consider reverse temp surf. Warm up machine ~30min, run water through steam wand to activate heating cycle (about 5sec). Run shot about 2min after heating light goes out. In the meantime grind, dose, distribute, tamp, go.

Instead of WDT, dose to fill up portafilter, then level off with your finger. Try a light tamp, nutate, then hard tamp ( I personally feel that Silvia performs better with a hard tamp - 40lbs or more ). Check out this video-(scroll down)- Nutation: how to do it right

As weasel says, it seems too blond early.
To really know what you are doing a video of the whole process would be good.

What is the 30sec temp surf? When I had the Silvia I did the normal temp surf that can be seen here

Hi Jason. Your videos look good (assuming blonding is a lighting artifact), with no obvious channeling, so I'm guessing your technique is OK. You have varied dose and grind in an unsuccessful effort to achieve a certain taste profile from Toscano. Temp surfing is a reasonable approach. However...

My experience on the Favorite Espresso Blends review drove home the fact that we all have different taste preferences. In particular, my samples of Toscano had an "off" flavor on my equipment that I could not tolerate, although it did not bother some reviewers. You may be in the same boat. If you burn through a couple of bags without success, there is an obvious (although perhaps heretical) solution: try another coffee.

Living in NY, you should have local access to many great coffees. All of these roasters are worth a try. If you want to stick with CCC, consider Aficionado. Personally I prefer it to Toscano.

Your pours look pretty good...
Since bitter is common thread, what about adjusting temp.

Try to wait longer... or wait+flush.
And adjust that gradually... consistent with everything else.

You should start tasting sour! ...unless u hit the magic spot before and never go lower

I have a Silvia i just fired up after two years since my Duetto has some issues
She pulled me a *beautiful* shot on first try (granted it does have PID... which I adjusted down before I even pulled the shot... just since water stream seemed too hot to me)

Some ideas:

1. Measure the temp of the water coming out of the brew head. The easiest way is with a styrofoam cup and a simple digital thermometer. It's not going to be 100% accurate, but it will let you know what range you're working with.

2. Try splitting up the shot, or tasting samples from it while it's pouring. The idea is to get an idea how the middle, beginning and end of the shot taste. For example there's a big difference between a shot that tastes a little bitter from beginning to end, and one where the bitterness just shows up in force in the last 1/3.

3. Keep notes (although videos are good records too). When I'm pulling lots of shots in a row, trying to get something dialed in I'll quickly loose track of what changes I tried 2 or 3 shots ago. It also forces you to take a minute to consider each change, and to make a few notes about taste every shot.

4. Try another blend. I've had highly recommended blends that I could just never get to work for me, and it's tough to know if that's the way it's supposed to taste, and you just don't like it, or if it's not working for you. Blends like Red Bird and Ambrosia are noted for being more forgiving.

Good luck!

Jason, I just spotted your thread on issues with pulling Toscana on your Silvia. You've gotten lots of good advice from the folks here already but I did want to add a couple of things. Have you tried pulling any other coffee? The reason I ask is what looks like early blonding in the videos may be due to too high a brew pressure. I'm not familiar with the Silvia's OPV but it may be adjustable and it may be set too high. If other coffees pull fine that's probably not it. the only reason I bring that up is that as a rule Toscano for me is a pretty forgiving coffee and I don't usually get that kind of bitterness or acidity from it.

Cheers

Ian

weasel wrote:Also consider reverse temp surf.

So it seems that I've been reverse temperature surfing the whole time. The video duenorth linked to is one of the resources I used to learn how to temperature surf. What I do is allow a little water to come out of the machine until the boiler light goes on, then wait until it goes off. In that video from Seattle Coffee Gear, they only wait 30 seconds after the brew light goes on before pulling the shot, which is what my 30 second surfing meant.

benm5678 wrote:Your pours look pretty good...
Since bitter is common thread, what about adjusting temp.

TristanC wrote:1. Measure the temp of the water coming out of the brew head. The easiest way is with a styrofoam cup and a simple digital thermometer. It's not going to be 100% accurate, but it will let you know what range you're working with.

I had tried measuring the brew temp once before using the styrofoam test, but it didn't seem to work very well. I found another set of instructions here, and seem to be getting better results. What I found was:

• if shot pulled 2 minutes after boiler light goes off, brew temperature is 215 F
• if shot pulled 3 minutes after boiler light goes off, brew temperature is 210 F
• if shot pulled 5 minutes after boiler light goes off, brew temperature is 208 F
• if shot pulled 9 minutes after boiler light goes off, brew temperature is 201 F
• if brewhead purged 5 seconds 2 minutes after brewhead goes off, then shot pulled, brew temp is 211 F

Counter Culture says that Toscano prefers a 198 F brew temperature so I started pulling shots 9 minutes after the boiler light went out. I took some video of it:



This shot was pulled at about 201 F, but I think the grind was a bit fine because I only got 1.35oz after 26s. I stopped it at 26s because the shot looked to be blonding early. I also waited way too long to stop the shot, right? This shot was a bit better than those pulled at higher temperatures, but still very bitter. By the way, you can tell my hand-eye coordination was a bit off on this shot...

This next shot was pulled at a lower temperature, instead of waiting 9 minutes after the boiler light went off, I waited 9:47 in the hopes that that little bit of extra time would improve the shot. I also made the grind a bit coarser to counteract the slow pull from the last shot. Here's the video:



It still came out bitter and I got about 1.8oz in 22 seconds, which was too fast. i stopped it at 22 second because it seemed to blond extremely early. This seems to be a common problem for me.

TristanC wrote:Try another blend. I've had highly recommended blends that I could just never get to work for me, and it's tough to know if that's the way it's supposed to taste, and you just don't like it, or if it's not working for you. Blends like Red Bird and Ambrosia are noted for being more forgiving.

I'm going to go buy another blend today. A bag of Verdana came with my machine and those didn't seem as bitter, but I didn't like it as much as the Toscano I got at the coffee shop. I also tried Illy on it, but that was also fairly bitter. I'm going to go and get another blend this morning. However it's fairly disheartening to think that my machine isn't able to pull a blend that some say is considered forgiving.

woodchuck wrote:The reason I ask is what looks like early blonding in the videos may be due to too high a brew pressure. I'm not familiar with the Silvia's OPV but it may be adjustable and it may be set too high.

You bring up a good point. I remember reading a thread about changing the brew temperature on the Silvia and one person said this made a huge difference for him, but I can't seem to find that thread now. I'm going to try another blend first on the Silvia and if that doesn't help, I'll try and change the OPV slightly. Unfortunately I don't have a brew pressure gauge and it seems like a huge production to build one, and I don't have the expertise. I'll try quarter turns to see if that helps at all. Could too much pressure cause early blonding and bitter shots?

Thanks for all the advise. I'll post more video of the new blend and my attempts after changing the OPV.

Your last pull was running way too long. I just looked at my notes from recent bag of Toscano. I got great tasting shots at 198F and using these two recipes:

1. 18 grams of coffee giving 24 grams of espresso in 25 seconds.

2. 19.5 grams of coffee making 33 grams of espresso at 23 seconds. This recipe gave me very nice dry fruit note and nice sweetness.

You should read my Digital espresso or a way to consistency post on how I approach things, give it a shot.

ben-ari wrote:Could too much pressure cause early blonding and bitter shots?

Absolutely. But I would not change the OPV without having a way to measure it. It is sure way to drive yourself nuts. It is actually not hard to build the simple pressure gauge. My recommendations is not to change OPV setting without ability to measure it.