Hi
Well I FINALLY bought a coffee machine after years of bitter complaining about everyone else's coffee.
I reckon by the time I'd finished smashing 1.5 kilos of un-dated most likely quite old beans through it's first paces on Sunday I thought I was making a pretty decent brew!

But it's just the beginning for me, and I believe to get a natural feel for it, there's a bit of science to understand yet.

The ProSumer Breville dual boiler, and matching "smart" grinder. I'm happy with them, although the grinder automatically increases the dose for a coarser grind and decreases for a finer grind, a bit annoying when I'm trying to change only one variable at a time to see what the result is.

I found that with the double basket provided and setting the grind to get a nice tasting brew that wasn't blonde and washy, or black and bitter but nice and nutty - in order to get a 48-56ml shot of coffee in 30 seconds (7 seconds of pre infusion and 23 seconds @ 9 bar) I had to put 22g or 23g in the basket. This seems to be the same for 3 different beans.

After all the reading I'm doing, I think something's wrong either with my taste, technique or my machine, because most references to dose are at 16g-18g. (note that in my single basket, any less than 12g and the tamp was hitting the sides and not compacting the puck)

I measured my tamp at about 15kg - 18kg pretty consistently.

I tried about 30 different grind and dose settings and documented all the figures with tasting notes. The best tasting shots came from 22-23g.

Q: could it just be this particular basket and machine simply requires that much dose? (annoying, because it's a lot of coffee!!)
Q: Any suggestions of different things I could try to get a different result?

Thank you!

CrazyDTM wrote:I reckon by the time I'd finished smashing 1.5 kilos of un-dated most likely quite old beans through it's first paces on Sunday I thought I was making a pretty decent brew!

Get some good beans. Using old beans will just frustrate you, you will never get anything decent out of them. As beans age, the extraction goes faster and faster and blonder and blonder with no flavor to speak of. With fresh beans your dose will drop substantially.

+1

Recently many newbie posts show they haven't watched the introductory videos and are unaware of the "Four M's," which are the basic requirements for making espresso. These are an essential starting point.

HB wrote:

• The Four M's
  
  The principle elements of making espresso are captured in four Italian words:
  
  1. Mano dell'operatore (hand of the operator)
  2. Macinadosatore (grinder-doser)
  3. Miscela (blend)
  4. Macchina espresso (espresso machine).

Each of these elements plays an important role and the strength in one rarely compensates entirely for the weakness in another.

Thanks Gary, ive watched all 10 videos that Dan produced for Newbies. Ive also watched a myriad of videos from other sources. I'm making better coffee than any of my friends have ever tasted

Yes i'm new, but im not stupid. Im merely opening discussion, for feedback and ideas from a group that clearly has interest in coffee.

If you want to be narky and sarcastic and condescending, rather than supportive, welcoming and helpful, then newbies like me will be turned away, and perhaps you will miss out on what we have to offer further down the track after applying your advice, and you can stay secure in your little click without the threat of anyone unknown disturbing your peace.

Of course i have fresh beans, i initially used some less expensive beans from a deli which were in a sealed pack undated simply to get some miles on the machine.

So thanks for your making me feel welcome, i'll put all your wonderful suggestions into practice.

Dan

CrazyDTM wrote:After all the reading I'm doing, I think something's wrong either with my taste, technique or my machine, because most references to dose are at 16g-18g.

Maybe there's nothing wrong here. You mentioned the volume is 48-56ml, but what's the espresso's weight? From there you can calculate the brewing ratio, which is more meaningfully comparable to the results of others than weight of coffee divided by espresso volume.

Dan good idea, thanks. Ive got a printout of your chart ready at home, i'll input the data i have and see what comes out. You just gave me an idea: is your chart available in active calculator form? Could be in excel so we could input data and it auto calculates the brew ratios?

I'm sorry if my response made you feel unwelcome. This is what I saw and responded to. Only your later response shows you reviewed the introductions.

CrazyDTM wrote: I reckon by the time I'd finished smashing 1.5 kilos of un-dated most likely quite old beans through it's first paces on Sunday I thought I was making a pretty decent brew!

But it's just the beginning for me, and I believe to get a natural feel for it, there's a bit of science to understand yet.

I found that with the double basket provided and setting the grind to get a nice tasting brew that wasn't blonde and washy, or black and bitter but nice and nutty - in order to get a 48-56ml shot of coffee in 30 seconds (7 seconds of pre infusion and 23 seconds @ 9 bar) I had to put 22g or 23g in the basket. This seems to be the same for 3 different beans.

My comment wasn't just intended for you but to caution any new poster trying to dial in a machine with undated beans. By the way, welcome to H-B!

"Someone" has changed my text here twice, so I'm deleting the post. This will be my reason for leaving this forum shortly.

You'll sooner see the Dalai Lama strangle someone before you see DrGary actually be mean.