I've had my new espresso setup for a couple weeks. Now that I've had some time to get my feet wet I'm looking for some insight on some of the variables.

I've been struggling to get good shots when I reduce the dose size which leads me to ask whether there's a dose size sweet spot. If I have a 20g VST basket and have dialed in a pretty good recipe with a 20g dose with a 2x yield with a particular coffee can I recreate that same shot with a 15g dose in a 15g VST basket? Or even the 20g basket? What variables would I change if any to achieve that? I'm assuming the hole count and size are the same on the VST baskets with only the depth changing but maybe I'm wrong there. If it matters, I'm subscribing to Matt Perger's advice to only dose more or less coffee to make more or less coffee.

I've been trying to hit a 2x yield as a starting point but I'm finding that the shot starts blonding well before I get to that point. Once the shot starts blonding should I just cut it off? Is there something I can change here to get a 2x yield without the long blonding and sacrificing the balance? Is there a yield sweet spot?

I'm sure I've got a lot more questions but this seems like a good place to start. Any feedback is appreciated.

My basket dose sweet spot is 17g and whenever I'll put less, like 15g = blonding.
So in my experience 15g in a 20g basket is a No-No. Early blonding for me, was when the grind was not on the right spot (but with your grinder, that should be easy to correct). Also, lighter roasts (especially those from Africa and Asia) need to be dialed more precise in grinding (from my limited experience). If you subscribe to Matt Perger's rules than you know that you shouldn't be satisfied with cutting the extraction early, you have to work on the other parameters.
Keep working on the grinding sets (I assume you have a PID on your Silvia) and you will get there.
As a side note (I'm curious):
Wow to pair that monster of a grinder with a Silvia?
Pardon me asking, but why didn't you choose an entry level E61 machine (HX or Double boiler)?
I know that the rule is to have the more expensive grinder possible, but the size of the boiler in the Silvia can't give you the room to work easy on extraction.

Thanks for the feedback. I was actually hitting the dispersion screen nut with 15g of coffee in the 15g basket so I've been playing more with the 20g basket today. Unfortunately, no PID on the Silvia so the brew temp window is probably the weak link at the moment.

Funny story about my setup. The Silvia was actually a Craigslist impulse buy. It was a near-new current model for a great price so I jumped on it thinking I could probably sell it for close to what I paid if not more.

I went for the E8 grinder knowing how important it is to the final product and I didn't want to feel like it was something holding back the quality later too.

At this point, for all the reasons you can probably guess, the Silvia is quickly showing itself to be the weak link. It does fine with grocery store dark roasted beans that don't have much variation of flavor to offer but it struggles a bit for consistency with the higher quality light to medium roast beans I've run through it. It sucks not being able to steam and brew at the same time too.

I'd like to pay my dues and make the most of it for a while before upgrading. My wife lost her mind when I told her how much the grinder was so she'll probably smother me in my sleep if I bought something like a GS3 before she recovers.

Michael303 wrote:My wife lost her mind when I told her how much the grinder was so she'll probably smother me in my sleep if I bought something like a GS3 before she recovers.

Teach her how to drink really good espresso. I kept taking my wife to my local shop to have shots on a Slayer. It finally worked in my favor when I got her making her own beverages and she couldn't replicate what the unique shots at home.


Brandon

P.S. The first time she made her own espresso and it wasn't 100% perfect on our new machine, I too thought she was going to smother me in my sleep.

From what I understand the VST baskets perform optimally within 1 gram of their spec, personally I take VST at their word and dose 18g in my 18g basket and adjust other variables by taste. If we were making spherical espresso in a vacuum you could dose different size VST baskets as rated and they'd all taste the same (assuming they designed them to extract the same throughout the line), but in real life you'll need some adjustments, as you've observed. If you're set on using both sizes I'd dial one in and then adjust the dose for the other to taste the same (you'll probably need to do this for every coffee), but as a newbie (I am as well) I'd probably just pick a basket and stick with it, espresso has enough variables, adding another seems like a lot of extra work.

TxHr wrote:Teach her how to drink really good espresso. I kept taking my wife to my local shop to have shots on a Slayer. It finally worked in my favor when I got her making her own beverages and she couldn't replicate what the unique shots at home.

Haha. Unfortunately, she has very little interest.