To tack onto Jake's last point: I've been that barista whose perfectly dialed-in shots (to my palate) made a customer scrunch up their nose due to sourness (to their palate). Tolerance and interpretation of bitter and sour are subjective. In the case of a customer telling me that what I interpret as a sweet and well balanced shot is in

Any other thoughts or options?

You're missing the point that everyone is making, you're hung up on the "golden ratio" of 1:2 in 30s, this is simply a ballpark for people who are new to the hobby, start there, sure, but then dial in by flavor. As someone else said, they dial in so that their first drop doesn't even hit the cup until

Ultra for espresso is quite limited

To answer some questions about my current Flair 58 workflow/setup... I use a VST basket (I wouldn't consider using a pressurised one for either machine). I tend to do a short pre-infusion of 3 bars, declining to 1, then ramp up to 8 or 9 and slowly decline to 6. I tend to prefer medium roast for espresso

Exactly this. Remember, there is no single profile that is best for all beans. You will still have to learn what approach to take with each coffee. You can let professional roasters run all of the profile roasts and cup them to decide on the best approach saving you the wasted coffee and time learning which approaches to try.

Purchased EPHQ 14 , will find some fresher coffee and let you know how it goes. Thanks all

I have never made cold brew coffee outside of work but at present work is having me help revamp their cold brew. I don't drink it and never bothered working up a good method for myself. The problem is over bitter from the drip blend and overly nutty on the cold brew dedicated beans. The latter

Turin DF64 Gen II. I shimmed and aligned myself

Thank you so much for your review. Very enlightening. Do you any compelling benefit in buying a Philos over a P64 (apart from price)?