Dan, you made me realise, what I suspected but could not understand. I had no idea, that stale beans would make any difference at all - I mean in the process of extraction. Somewhere I read that dialing grinder together with machine is done best with some cheap old beans to make it economical. If I add that shots made were extremely bitter, you know it all. These 125g packs are labeled only with the information what is inside (coffee beans of some description) but no dates at all.

I am so much looking forward to get some fresh beans and start again.

Thank you very much!

cmelak wrote:Somewhere I read that dialing grinder together with machine is done best with some cheap old beans to make it economical.

I've read similar recommendations, but consider it false economy. It's wiser to use "the good stuff" for learning so what's learned is applicable to the end goal: Producing good/very good espresso. A newbie practicing with stale coffee will be frustrated by the apparent fussiness of their setup, when in fact the problem is the coffee.

Bottom line: It's much, much easier to dial in a pour using coffee in its prime freshness window. You can usually produce a respectable espresso outside of that window (e.g., two weeks post-roast), but the margin of error is dramatically smaller.