I'm a total Noob looking for a good How-To article on Temperature Surfing a Gaggia New Baby. I've been looking and can't find one on my particular model. Or on Gaggia's at all for that matter. (Lots on Silvia, HX's, etc...)

Is Temperature Surfing technique unique to every machine?

I've watched the Coffeegeek video on temperature-surfing Silvia and have been trying to follow the steps outlined there. Is that the proper method for my machine also?

Thanks.

brokemusician77 wrote:Is Temperature Surfing technique unique to every machine?

Usually. I recommend searching the Gaggia Users Group. Your question is either already answered, or one of the group's members could surely answer it.

I'm not sure what the trick shown in the Silvia video is, but here are the steps I take for my Gaggia Espresso (should work for your machine, AFAIK):

1. Prepare the basket and set the basket/portafilter aside.
2. Turn on the pump and flush into my cup until the green ready light goes off.
3. Wait for the ready light to turn back on (after turning off the pump) and dump/clean the heated cup.
4. When the light turns back on, press the steam switch for the number of seconds that you need for this coffee's ideal temperature. I usually do 3 or so, and the Counter Culture Aficionado thread that I found these steps in suggested 6 seconds.
5. Turn off the steam switch, lock in the portafilter, and brew.

I hope this helps. Please keep us posted of your progress. How's the coffee tasted so far?

Coffee's been fine. Loads of crema. Sometimes a little bitter. I live in a small community with a great coffee shop, but no local roaster. They order beans every 7-10 days which are shipped in. The regular beans always seem to be reasonably fresh when I get them. Or at least usable. The decaf beans are another story.

Basically, my method so far has been to flush until the boiler comes on. Once it comes on, I run water through the grouphead until the steam stops hissing. I assume at this point that the water is just below boiling, and then I brew the shot.

Seems to work ok.

that's pretty much what I do with my Silvia, and it seems to work ok. I've stopped paying attention to the light.

You don't temperature surf a Gaggia.

A Silvia is a 800 watt heater in a 12 ounce boiler; a Gaggia is a 1500 watt heater in a 2.5 ounce boiler. The Silvia takes over a minute to to reheat, the Gaggia a few seconds. So a well surfed Silvia is a bit more stable than a Gaggia, but a Gaggia is idiot proof as far as brew temperature goes.

another_jim wrote:You don't temperature surf a Gaggia. .... a Gaggia is idiot proof as far as brew temperature goes.

Good thing for me then.

So should I still perform a cooling flush? As I said, I usually run water through the grouphead until the hissing stops. I think this is still necessary, no?

NVM, question answered. Thanks Beezer.

I was wondering about experimenting with a sort of pre-infusion. This is an interesting take on that. I'll definitely give it a try.

Tried the pre-infusion idea this afternoon.

I've been working with a batch of beans since yesterday that seemed stale. Although it's the same blend I usually buy, and they smelled great, my shots were way quicker at my usual grind setting, and went blonde really quickly.

I prepared the shot the same way as the last few. It still went blonde as quick, but this time, it had a nice even flavor, well-balanced between bitter and sour. (My shots are never sweet, just less sour, or less bitter). You may be on to something with this.

My only question is: Since the boiler on the Gaggia is so small, wouldn't opening the steam valve for a few seconds introduce more cold water, thus increasing the intrashot temperature drop?

Maybe that doesn't matter. The proof is in the cup, right?

Cool! How long do you typically leave it open? 2-3 seconds?

Also, do you stop the shot anywhere in there at all?

Tried it again this morning with near disastrous results.

This time it caused some serious channeling right through the middle, resulting in a fast, blonde shot. Bitter, ashy, the whole bit.

I repeated it without the pre-infusion thing, got a nice 1.5 oz. in about 35 seconds. Cinnamon, rusty, a little bitter, but all around a good shot for my abilities. I would have written the shot off as slightly sub-par, until the last few drops, which had a hint of sweetness to them.

Hi Keith,

If you're relatively new to making espresso, the bulk of your problems, and almost certainly the one you just had, will be caused by your own poor technique. Ironically, this is exacerbated by using home equipment rather than commercial, since home equipment is either unforgiving, like Gaggias and Silvias, or doesn't work for real espresso, like Krupps, Capresso, or Saeco machines with restricted baskets.

The best course of action is to source a bottomless PF for your machine, buy a couple of pounds of throw away whole bean coffee, and grind, dose, load, level, tamp and pull shot after shot (don't worry about the temperature, pressure, cream or anything else) until the flow from the bottom of the basket is good and repeatable.

At that point, the change in taste you get when you try something new is more likely to be the result of what you tried then from the uncontrolled variations in your technique.

All taste arguments aside, it is a lot easier to pull consistent shots with lowish 14 grams in a double basket, than with highish 18 grams. If you see no coffee at all for the first five seconds of the shot, and then the flow starts, you are on the right track.

Thanks Jim.

I was hoping to get a bottomless PF with the new machine, however, that would have broken the budget. I won't be getting any new equipment for a few months (touring has slowed down for awhile. Time to tighten the belt). But that's my next major-ish purchase. (Need to get a blank basket so I can backflush, and a pitcher with a more pronounced spout than the one I have first).

I took off the spout on my PF, so that I can get a better idea of what might be going on in there. So far, I've been pretty consistent with my shots. Not good, necessarily, but consistent. (Except when I switch to decaf). I regularly get one nice stream coming right through the middle of the hole for the duration of the shot with lots of Tiger striping. A few dark, chocolatey drops after 5 sec. Stream usually starts around 10-15 sec. Shots tend to run a little long. 30 sec for 1.5 oz. If I go any courser with my grinder, they run 25 sec, but start almost immediately and go blonde around 15 sec. I've been experimenting with dose, but instead of a scale, I put the whole beans in the PF before grinding and eyeball it. Not very scientific (Add a gram scale to that shopping list).

I can pull shots like that pretty consistently with my current blend/setup. It's just that it doesn't always taste that great, but still better than what I get in most cafe's. Maybe that's all I can expect from this setup.

To be honest, I get pretty discouraged/confused when I read people talking about tasting, floral, leather, tobacco, caramel, chocolate, blueberry notes, etc.. My shots are often just bitter or sour with no real character. Even if I do manage to hit the sweet spot between bitter and sour, they usually just end up tasting watery or bland.

Hence the questions about temperature.

I think the problems likely are the beans.

I get them from my local coffee shop who gets them from Fratello in Calgary (Developers of the Slayer). Trouble is, they order beans every 7-10 days, so it's a total crapshoot for what I'm going to get. I think I'll have to start ordering beans.

I've been very curious about making my own bottomless PF. I never use the spout, since I always brew a double straight into my cup (don't want to waste a spot of crema). One bottomless PF would be fine for me. I'm just worried I might wreck my PF in the process and then have to buy a new PF on top of what I'd have already spent on a hole saw and a Dremel to grind it smooth.

Taking the spout off is a pretty good interim measure, and it will tell you how the pour is doing later in the shot. It will however, still obscure problems earlier in the shot.

If you feel that you are getting fairly consistent, you best bet on the Gaggia (or if you want to become a good all round barista, as opposed to a machine technician) is to concentrate on changing dose, shot time, and shot volume to control the taste. I would really advise strongly against getting too hung up on pressure or temperature at this point, just do a consistent 1 or 2 second cleaning flush and make the shot.

Bland usually calls for higher doses, cartoonishly strong flavors for lower doses; get used to either weighing or accurately eyeballing your dose. Too bitter usually calls for faster and higher volume shots, too sour for slower and lower volume shots. The bulk of good barista technique is having enough routine and muscle memory to make these changes fairly precisely and consistently.

Sounds like new beans, a scale and a bottomless PF would make the most difference to my shots right now. Adjusting my grind varies my shot times by 5-10 sec on account of pretty wide steps, so I have to rely on changing the dose to dial in my shots. A better grinder seems like a must, but that's a long ways down the road for me.

The trouble with being a home barista is that you just don't pull enough shots in a day to gain the muscle memory/consistency in routine that a professional barista would have from pulling a couple hundred shots a day.

I console myself with the thought that even though it's a lot of work to gain the necessary consistency, the end result will be a lot more rewarding than if I'd bought a super-auto (and it's a lot more fun even with all the sink shots).