Hey there. I've learned a lot from this site, so many thanks!

I purchased a Gaggia Classic and Baby Mazzer a couple weeks ago, then just received my first order from counter culture (espresso toscana). I have a bottomless PF coming this week, which I am eagerly awaiting.

There are so many variables in extracting a good shot I thought I'd list the tips and techniques which had the most significant impact to me. I'm not including the importance of a good grinder, which I can easily confirm is paramount to a good shot. In any event, I'd highly suggest you learn these things first, rather than putting it off until you figure out that you cannot pull a consistently good shot.

1. Dosing. Use a scale and use the technique of smoothing the coffee around the edges of the PF. Note that I don't really do anything fancy--just kind of level it with my index finger, ensuring there's a "seal" around all the edges before tamping.

2. The Grind. Time your extractions to help with identifying when blonding is occurring. If you're like me, you're having a hard time determining when to stop the shot b/c when the stream goes blond is kind of subjective as well as hard to see under the machine (I still use a flashlight). So if you time your extraction precisely at 25 seconds and, once you see and taste your shot, it's overextracted (and it's more volume than it "should" be) adjust your grind to a little more finer grind, or vice versa. Here's where a good grinder with infinite adjustments will really help you out.

3. Tamping. I was over-tamping at first, I guess because I like to prove my manliness to a hunk of metal So I literally took my tamper and went to the bathroom scale to see what 30 or 40lbs felt like. I must have been tamping at 60lbs before. Anyway, add to it the named technique of tamping in the middle, then North-South-East-West, and there you go.

4. Coffee. Once you can get a good shot consistently, buy good coffee from a good roaster like http://www.counterculture.com. It will open up a whole new side of coffee you never knew existed. Imagine reading the taste description on their site, buying and extracting that blend, then being able to taste all those things they mention. Even "good" local roasters in Austin over-roast and the coffee loses its complexity and distinction. For me, it was always, "light" or "dark"--with no real interesting flavors showing through. The difference is like going from Budlight to a Miller Lite versus a micro-brew IPA to a Porter then a wheat.

All the other tips, like changing one variable at a time, are obviously crucial. Maybe that should have been my #1.

Thanks again, and I'd appreciate any more tips as well as corrections / clarifications to what I've newbily written. Jack

Welcome to HB.

You have listed good tips, but good fresh coffee should be first. If you don't start with good coffee you will not make good coffee.

Gus, to be sure.

I guess the tips I listed are those I sort of disregarded or viewed as not as important as good coffee, or changing one variable at a time--know what I mean?

So these are the "happy surprise" tips; or the "secret agent" tips. Those which are more important than they at first seemed to me.

Secret agent tip number 1. Start with good freshly roasted coffee from a skilled roaster. Do not try to learn with old supermarket coffee or poorly roasted coffee. By buying good fresh coffee first, you can enjoy great coffee even before your espresso gear arrives, and you will be all the more ready for it when it does arrive.

2. Keep it fun and don't get too carried away if you can help it. After all, It is only a fancy fun way to make coffee, it is not rocket science.