Hi there, here's an update, as I'm seriously confused with all of this. Bottom line question: am I supposed to be aiming for the ~30 second shots with the twist?

First: decided I want the vario-e when it comes out, so I'm sticking with the virtuoso until something like end of july or whatever. In the meantime, I continue to play around with the twist, practice latte art, etc. It's fun.

I have now tried a number of coffee places with espresso, and I think I'm very close with mine, as a number of them seem to be a little sour, but they have a "balance" of sorts between sour and bitter which I can get - assuming the grinder will fix this. If my shots are bitter, it's only in aftertaste, and it's the acrid kind at the back of the throat like you get with eye drops that sting in the eyes and the taste goes down nasal passageways into the throat. Unpleasant.

Anyway, I've got down a decent consistency with a Brazilian coffee from Portola on the twist and my virtuoso. But I ran out, and had some "Tanzania Edelweiss" from intelligentsia freshly frozen a couple weeks ago and dethawed overnight, thought I'd give it a try. Over the last three days (two double shots each day) At the same grind (12) of the Brazilian, I got a major gusher... shot in 15 seconds - the taste wasn't as sour as I thought, kind of creamy, and temperature wise was kind of cool. Weird and interesting. I tightened the grind a few clicks, and still same thing. Finally down to a "5" and when I pulled the trigger, took 28 seconds before first few drops started to come through. Then a kind of drippy flow came through and 45 seconds later it finished, and through the whole process, there was no "blonding" always a kind of dark, syrupy striping. The taste? Not bitter and not sour, just... like regular brewed coffee, nothing special. I opened the grind up to a "6", light brown gusher. Back to 5, and got this weird chalky syrup thing. The taste was consistent respectively. I do WDT and my tamps are level, pucks all look fine.

I'm very confused now. If I were to have a normal grinder at the right espresso setting, will the pour look like what I see on you tube with the syrupy tiger stripes in 30 seconds (right now I'm not seeing that), or is it better to go for the longer pulls with the twist? I'm too impatient to wait until end of July... grrr... hurry up baratza! With the Brazilian, I was getting syrup drops after about 5 seconds, then after 15-17s the thing would blond and I get all 1.5-2oz of water through in just under 30s.

By the way, based on what I've read here, I ordered some "ambrosia" espresso blend, seems like it is a good starter, to arrive next week.

Thanks for your time.

Hi Jed,

The rule of thumb is 25-30 secs, but that's a rule that can be broken in some circumstances. It just depends on the bean. By the way, this is the case for a shot made with any espresso machine, not just the TWIST.

The grind setting required for a great shot varies constantly, so you need to dial it in to find its sweet spot. You'll find that much easier to do with the Vario than the Virtuoso. In my experience the Virtuous's grind stops are set too far apart for this purpose, so one stop will often be too coarse and the next too fine. This provides results that are much as you describe in your post.

Finally, yes, you should be able to get to that tiger-stripy goodness with the Vario. I would also hazard a guess that the reason you're seeing early blonding with the Brazilian (an unusual turn of phrase) is because of a high variance in particle sizes from the Virtuoso. This shortens the extraction as the water simply can't "get" to as much of the ground coffee as it could when all the particles are generally smaller. This characteristic is usually referred to as the surface area of the grind (being the 3D surface across all of the coffee, not the surface area of the top of the basket). Greater surface area equals more extraction.

Best regards,
Stephen

I can't get a balanced shot from a Mypressi without preheating extensively, grinding very fine, and using boiling water (208F here at 2,000'). There's no chance in going beyond a 50% ratio, so it's 16g in 30-32g out for me. My best shots are 45sec+. I imagine that the finer grind allows better extraction at what is ultimately too low a temperature from the NO2 expanding.

Hi,

Final update - I purchased the OE pharos hand grinder some time ago, and after spending several weeks learning how to properly use it (I had issues with burr alignment, finally fixed!), bottom line is that I simply don't like straight espresso, however, the various milk drinks and americanos have improved over time and become very consistent in taste to the point where I enjoy them on occasion.

With the pharos and twist combination, I've settled on a 14g dose; originally started with 18g, but it took too many sink shots to get the right balance and seemed much more finicky (shot after shot too fast, next too long then right then too long, etc); the worst is when it's a bit too fast, espresso gets that yucky medicinal-like astringency to it. The 14g with pharos allows me to go slightly finer for a 28g double and is easier to control the extraction time variable for me to find the right flavor via slight grind adjustments. The reason for this may be tamping, as I still use the tamper that came with the twist, and it's easier to get a level, consistent tamp with fewer grinds. I discovered that at 18g, 1 in every 3 or 4 would spritz everywhere, but with 14g, I don't think I've had a spritz yet.

When I'm too lazy to grind with the pharos, I'll run beans through the virtuoso. The only difference I can tell is that the pharos' results are more consistent and have a "cleaner" taste in the milk and water diluted drinks. I'd go so far as to say the virtuoso is "good enough", and if one makes it stepless, one will get better ability to find that midpoint.

Hope this is helpful to others who may be in a similar situation as I had been.

Thanks to everyone for their help and suggestions!