Tim, the comment you made about body vs. clarity hits home for me.

The past two months or so.. My main quest has been for more clarity in the cup. But I refuse to achieve this at the loss of body and mouthfeel. If I gain clarity, but loose body, the shot is not enjoyable to me...because it ends up thin and hot, equaling improperly pulled.

I'm having SOMEWHAT of a tough time with this.. though not entirely.. I have also been somewhat successful. I have achieved more clarity in my shots then I recently was capable of, due to a few things. The first was finding the BEST combination of dose in the basket, and headspace, for the E-61. I played with all my baskets, and a bunch of doses.. Ive settled on a dose between 17.5-19.5, using the synesso 14gr ridgeless, and a light-ish tamp(~15lbs, scaled). Shots pulled with this combo, for me, gives me the best combination of clarity without sacrificing body and mouthfeel.

The only way i can increase the clarity more.. Is to run the shots too fast for my tastes(and most peoples). IF I run the shot at 20-22 seconds, for 2oz, +/- .15oz.. The level of clarity that I had hoped for is there.. But the shot otherwise is NOT good. The body is very light, and worst of all, the shot is HOT, unless I pull the temp down,, which turns it sour anyway. Even letting it sit for 2-3 minutes, its still HOT. Now.. I HATE real hot espresso. Dont get me wrong, I warm my cups, and drink the espresso between 30-60sec after it was pulled.. But, when its pulled to fast, its too hot and thin, but I digress.

Now, I HAVE been able to achieve better clarity without loosing the body and mouthfeel Im after. Pulling the shots with longer times, but relatively the same volume. So, for a bean that favors a normale.. Is usually 1.75oz, +/-, between 30-35 seconds, sometimes up to 40(I kill it at 40sec). This gives me a level of clarity Im pretty pleased with, and body and mouthfeel Im very pleased with. To gain more, I loose body, and gain a lot of heat.

Im beginning to think, what is holding me back from achieving anymore is the E-61 group. I also somewhat think it might be the HX temp curve, but out of the two, I'm leaning towards the E-61. But Ive also got it in the back of my head, that neither of these have anything to do it with.

Anyway, Sorry to go off on a side street, so to speak. I didn't think it worth it to make a thread, and your comment really hit on what Ive been after.

Tim, what I've found to be quite interesting is that you can still get great shots from under-rested coffee by reducing the pump pressure to about where you are at (7 - 8 bar). Once it's rested for 4+ days then the lower pressure noticeably reduces the intensity of flavors that are present. On my machine I tend to never go over about 8.7 bar, but I'm using a machine without much pre-infusion but has been retrofitted with smaller gigleurs to soften the pressure a bit.

Ahh.. Interesting you should say that.. I know Tim is one to not put a whole lot of stock into NEEDING resting time for coffees. Ive seen posts a couple times about using coffee right out of the roaster... This may have something to do with liking somewhat lower pressures.

And Im not saying using coffee right out of the roaster is bad.. Not at all.. I do it for brewing all the time... But Ive had zero luck with espresso right out of the roaster.. All I get is blond gushers and a spritzied machine. So, in this regard.. I start to use coffees on its third day out of the roaster.. And usually, for my taste, they start coming to their own as early as 5 days, and as late as 8-10 days.

I don't know that I've made any connection with coffee age and pump pressure. My preference has always been for fresh coffee, after 6 days (or so) it starts to turn downhill. I've seen this on Metropolis Redline and my homeroasts. Right out of the roaster may be a little gassy, but by day two the flavors shine. YMMV.

Something else I'm noting, and I hope you guys can weigh your shots (Brewing Ratios) is that at 9-bar the best shots are in the middle of the normale range (50% extraction) where as at 7-bar the best shots (to me) were in the ristretto range (80% to 100% extraction).

Interesting.

This is more exploratory for me than anything else an endeavor of fun, I'm not looking to create any amazing revelations or "the next big thing" but it has been quite interesting tasting the differences.

One thing that I can not explain is that lately (for the last several months) my basket preparation has been simple, grind into the doser of my SJ, pull the doser handle (medium speed) to create a centered mound in the basket, then with the handle of my cleaning brush I level the basket. Followed with one tamp of my Lava Tamp (convex). The basket beads evenly across the basket everytime and the flow is steady and dead center, no sprites or swinging cones. Which is great, but I used to have to WDT to get shots to flow like this, and now I'm not, but I don't think I've changed anything that I'm doing. I did notice that once I experimented with not using the WDT I had to loosen the grind. I wonder if the larger grind (but its not that much larger) makes for a less clumpy grind? I really can't explain it, not sure if its seasonal, but its been better than 6-months now (of coarse dry winter is coming, lol).

I don't want anyone to read too deep into what I'm doing, but I do hope you will stop step back and think about how you make espresso because you never know, you may wander off your beaten path and find something amazing, I have, and amazing espresso should really be the ultimate goal.

Just an update I hope to be taking delivery of some more substantial measuring equipment to gather some more data, which I'll share.

This morning I lowered the pressure back to to 7-bar (blind basket) and am back in the ristretto range (per Andy's Brew Ratio Guidelines). The shots seem the best in this range, in the normale range they tend to be too light. I wonder if the lower pressure needs the longer steep time (heck I'm not about to speculate about what's happening in the basket) but I will comment on what I'm tasting.

The shots just seem much more interesting. The body is not so much foamy as it is syrupy. The crema is light in volume but nice in color. The overall shot is deep, sweet and delicious. There is more flavors to taste and they all seem to "pop" out from the crema.

At the higher pressure most of the more dominant flavors were there, and the sweetness was still nice, but I almost feel like I have to wade through the foam and crema to find them. Don't get me wrong, I love a thick foamy shot, but I don't want that to hide (what is to me) the most interesting part of a coffee, its origin flavor.

The above comments are made based on an SO dry-processed Ethiopian, home roasted. The comments also resemble what I experienced with Metropolis Redline. I'm going to get back into my old stand-by home roasted Espresso Monkey (Sweet Marias) which I hope will be interesting too.

I'm starting to think that I'm not a "crema chaser" as the crema is really not important to me (right now), especially if I can't explore the rich flavors a coffee has. I do want pleasant body to my espresso very much so, and so far the shots are syrupy and creamy (not so foamy). I'll never have a shot that's all crema, and thus far that's just fine with me. I'm really intrigued by the rich origin character I'm getting in the espresso and I'm also not interested in getting a brewed-like coffee from my espresso machine (which so far hasn't been the case).

Interesting.

Well since no one has told this buffoon to hush I'll wrap it up with one last post before I let this blatant showing of my ignorance fade away.

I had a few shots worth of some SO Ethiopian that frankly was ok for a few days but starting to show some age and just becoming boring. So I bumped the pressure clear up to 10-bar (blind basket) just to play around a bit. Its been a long, long time since I've had the machine up in this range. Once I got the shot dialed in for a double in about 27 seconds (per Andy's Brew Ratios) the espresso was quite lovely. Boring, but thick vicous body and a crema that just sloshed around. It was really quite nice.

What I've learned mostly from this "exercise" is that 1)get the scale out and get an idea of what I'm really pulling and 2)with a timer get the shots "right" and before making any comments. Not to say that the low pressure shots were better or worse, but it was quite fun to see the difference in the espresso across the range.

This was the first time I really took the time to evaluate what I was pulling (ratios) and what the affect of pressure was. I really should have done my homework on my own and kept my trap shut, but hopefully this hasn't been a complete waste for some readers.

Jim you were right, pressure doesn't seem to be a game changer but it was interesting seeing the potential for fine tuning the shot. But frankly I should have been using my scale sooner, weighing what I'm doing before thinking pressure was really the end-all-be-all. Not all is lost, I learned a lot, had some fun and my espresso is getting better by the day (despite my ignorance).

One last post to showcase some actual numbers gathered from some pressure testing. The measuring devices were loaned to me and I used them to test pressures against a blind basket to check and differences between the Anita gauge and the actual pressure at the group. The numbers were quite surprising:



Anita Gauge -- Group Gauge (Blind Basket)

7-bar -- 6-bar

8-bar -- 7.5-bar

9-bar -- 8.7-bar

10-bar -- 9.5-bar


These numbers seem right in line with what I was mostly expecting. Turns out my "7-bar ristretto" shots were actually closer to 6-bar or just below. What I take away from this is really 2-things: first I shouldn't type a thread like this without doing some homework and some serious experimentation and second the espresso was good and quite interesting at the different pressures. I put the machine back on the 9-bar (Anita) gauge setting and am going to leave it there, the pours are still incredibly even with minimal basket preparation and the espresso is really quite good. Pressure seems important (obviously) but I really found a broad range of "workable" pressures.

Hey Tim, Any chance you would mine showing me a picture of the how cart your machine is on looks like from a tad further away? From what I can see in that picture there, it looks like one I was considering... Id like to see what it looks like fully, with Anita on it. IF you dont mind, of course.

Works great and the drawers and cabinets make for excellent bean/equipment storage.

Thanks Tim!

That looks like a very nice area to hang out and enjoy some espresso!

That IS the exact one I was considering, well, one of them. But, now that I see it with Anita on it, it's not going to work. Not deep enough. So far, Ive been unlucky to find one deep enough, that is also long/high enough, AND looks nice. That one looks perfect, and is perfect height and length. . . If only they made on that was deeper. . .

But regardless, Thanks a lot Tim, I appreciate it!