Hello,

I have just got a SMEG ECF01 Coffee maker. It has had good reviews but I'm struggling with it. I have spoken to SMEG but, they were not any help. Does anyone here have one I could compare notes with? I have a couple of questions...

1. I have been unable to make espresso that is not bitter . I have tried ...
- Lavazza Red & Lavazza Caffe Espresso
- Costa Espresso
- Illy Espresso.
I don't believe that it's the coffee now (I can't keep buying coffee!), so what am I doing wrong?

2. I have figured out how to program it and set the amount of coffee in the cups I have. You can also adjust the temperature a bit as well, although that doesn't seem to make that much difference

3. One of the program settings is to adjust the water hardness, either soft medium or hard. I have set the machine to Soft as we have soft water where I live. Would adjusting this have any effect on the taste? my gusss is that it would only affect how often the machine would need to be descaled.

3. I believe, from various website and youtube videos that the 'perfect' espresso should take approx 30-35 seconds to come out of the machine. Since you can't adjust the pressure (I know at its factory set to 15bar) how can I achieve this?

Thank you
Jonathon

Howdy Johnathon,

Congrats on the new machine. While I don't have any first handy tips for your particular machine, here are a few handy tips to really help isolate and resolve your issues that you mention in step number 3.

A handy jeweler's scale can be purchased online for as little as $10 to $12 dollars.
Nothing fancy like a Pearl is required, just something that can measure to the 10th of a gram.

Maximum weight capacity shouldn't be that much, just the weight of your coffee cup and about 30-40 grams of coffee.

This will be a huge step at being able to measure two things, how much ground espresso you are using in the portafilter for each shot and how much brewed/extracted espresso you are pulling from those coffee beans.

This, plus a simple stopwatch will now allow you to KNOW that "18 grams of coffee is pulling a 36 gram shot in XXX time".

Once you've established that, you can them move on the the first big change, which will be to adjust your grinder to make the grind finer or coarser depending on how quickly your shots are pulling.

Let's say you are using 18g of coffee and looking for a 36g shot (for a 2:1 extraction ratio, two parts espresso for one part coffee) to happen in 30 seconds:

If the the shot only takes 15 seconds to pull, grind your coffee finer.
If the shot takes 45 seconds to pull, grind your coffee coarser.

I suspect that if your machine has 15 bars of brewing pressure that your shots will be running quickly!
It's easy to say "grind your coffee finer" which is mentioned in many places, but do remember when I was first starting out and how challenging it can be to really understand WHY that is supposed to help.

So, get a scale to help measure things, then we can focus on your grind.
Please report back so we can move on from your results.

Perhaps, you'll set your grinder to the finest setting possible and the coffee still runs out too quickly.
We can address that too! But let's save that discuss until next time?

Hope this helps,
Joe

PS. In order to help weight your ground coffee, I find that grinding into a dixie cup makes it very easy to weigh the beans by themselves and not have to worry about fitting the portafilter basket or handle on the scale. A using a cut down Yoplait yogurt container makes for a quick, inexpensive, and EASY funnel to help pour the grinds into your basket, after measuring them. There are photos online about how to do this if you need any help with that. And, speaking of the basket, for now, since I'm assuming that your shots are coming out too quickly, let's tamp things down with a fair amount of pressure. As it's been said before, tamp down until things feel solid, for now. This harder tamp will help slow down the shots. We can revisit this later, too, for for now let's work on keeping the ground coffee, tamping, and extracted espresso as consistent as we can, so we can start to focus on your grinder and grind size as the first variable to adjust.

Good luck!

Stoneditch wrote:I don't believe that it's the coffee now (I can't keep buying coffee!), so what am I doing wrong?

Jonathon, I don't think we can rule out the coffee quite yet. It isn't clear from your post whether you are using pre-ground or whole bean coffee, and, if whole bean, what grinder you are using.

Machine looks like repacked DeLonghi Dedica. It has thermoblock and pressurized baskets. I suppose pressure isn't an issue, these machines have over pressure valve

Anyway, have in mind that combination of pressurized baskets and preground coffee isn't really a way to good espresso. Preground coffee is usually ground too coarse and is stale, so it is flowing too fast, has pale crema and aroma is long gone. You need relatively fresh beans and a grinder suitable for espresso - prices start around 200 EUR (or something like 150 for hand grinders like Feldgrind). In my case, option is also to grind the coffee in the nearby grocery that has quality Ditting grinder available, but it's a bit unpractical ...

First of all, thank you to those of you who took the time and trouble to reply to my plea for help
jpatrickramos, dmw010 and vit

So, to answer your questions...
jpatrickramos
I do have some digital kitchen scales that work well which I have been using. They weigh in increments of 1gram. I take your point of scales that go to 0.1grams. Really? you have to be accurate to 0.1g?
The machine allows you to set how much water is dispensed for the 1 and 2 cup buttons. I had these set to 50ml and 100ml. Now if I aim for 2:1 for a double shot that means I will need 50g of grounds for 100ml of espresso. That can't work for me because the max I can squeeze into the portafilter is around 16/17 grams. That being the case, 2:1 gives 32-34ml of espresso. So I'll need to adjust the amount that is dispensed and will report back.

I do understand that if I use a finer grind then I can put more coffee into the portafilter and therefore it should take longer for the machine to force water though.

Right now I do not have a grinder. I'm sure that this is a cardinal sin here but, I do have some fresh coffee that a friend ground for me yesterday. It is a De'Longhi KG79 burr grinder which was set to fine. Now I know that this can vary but, I would say that the grind was like a soft castor sugar. The other pre ground coffees that I have (Lavazza Red, Lavazza Espresso, Costa Espresso, Illy Espresso) are ground to the same size.

Now, being from the UK I have no idea what a Dixie cup is, although thanks to google I do now. To measure how much ground coffee I put into my portafilter I put it on the scales and touch the tare button (this resets the scale to 0) I then put in 16g of coffee and tamp it down. I have seen various articles on how to tamp and really how much pressure you apply to the tamp. I'm trying to achieve 30lbs (13Kg's) using the tamper supplied with the machine.

dmw010
I'm using preground although I do have some ground that a friend did for me yesterday. Look at the 3rd para above.

vit
Pressurized baskets? Do you mean an enclosed portafilter that you fit into the head of the machine? Also are you really saying that I would need to spend 200 EUR (£175) to get a grinder suitable to make a decent espresso

The quest continues, thanks everyone.
Jonathon

Pressurized basket has whether some valve assembly on the bottom or double bottom. In case of DeLonghi Dedica (and your machine I suppose), it's double bottom. There are lots of holes from the inside and only a few (or one) on the outside. It's to restrict the flow with the coffee not ground fine enough. However, taste and crema are not the same

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuzHS5SXaJk

Cheap grinders like DeLonghi KG79 usually don't grind fine enough for espresso and size of particles is varying a lot, so coffee will be flowing too fast and won't taste good. Lower end Baratza models are supposed to be some kind of minimum for espresso

Yes, it's good to have a scale with 0.1 g precision, because 1 g more or less coffee in the basket means big difference in the flow, but without grinder and freshly ground (within an hour or so, but preferably immediately before making the coffee) relatively fresh coffee, it won't be of help

Jonathon, I admire your persistence from your back and forth in the above posts. You've found this site, which is good. But this rabbit hole goes pretty deep.

My suggestion is to read this espresso "how-to" on this very site: The Home Barista's Guide to Espresso

If, at the end, you're still in, you will have a greater understanding of what you're doing and the recommendations that people are making. If you get through the first page and think that the author just takes espresso a little too seriously and it's all a little overboard - well this site is populated by people just like that who are going to encourage you to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.

In other words, this may not be the coffee site you're looking for. Or it may be the start of a great journey. But either way, it will help you understand the advice you're receiving.

Hello Popeye,

Happy to follow this Rabbit hole until I start seeing floating cats or packs of cards marching about. In which case I have tried too many espresso's.

So, I have a freind who ground some beans for me in his Delonghi KG79. On its finest setting I found the coffee still bitter, but at least it ran through ok. My thinking is that I need to go for a finer grind which is what I have been doing. That seems sensible to me unless anyone else has any other suggestions?

Right now I have settled on getting small quantities of beans ground to different sizes from our local Deli. I started with their recommendation of a size for espresso, which choked my machine. Then just working up in increments until I start getting espresso that I can drink. I don't know what make/model of grinder it is but I started at 9 and have tried 11 and 13 as well. All these choked the machine. Will have to go back tomorrow and get some more. I thought that a pressurised basket in a portafilter was more forgiving in the grind size. Is that right?

Thanks
Jonathon

Jonathon, did you read the grinder info here: Introduction to Espresso Grinders - Espresso Guide

Your deli is not going to have good coffee. Anything ground more than an hour (and that's generous) ahead of time isn't going to work.