So I opened my birthday presents this morning and I got a Hario Drip scale, so I'm now able to get a handle on my weights in and out. Prior to that I had found some equilibrium in dosing where I wanted things, and my shots have been consistent, but not quite where I want them. So I was excited to be able to quantify the dosing and output in a more finite way.

The big surprise was that I was a lot closer to where I wanted to be than I thought. I got 19 grams out of the grinder this morning at yesterday's fineness and timer settings. and I think I am getting a bit more than double that out. Like 44-50 grams at a 2-2.5 ounce volume in 30-35 seconds. That is in the triple basket and I upped the grind time by about half a second from what I had been doing with the stock Gaggia 14 gram basket meaning I was probably getting about 18 grams in that basket.



I guess it's good news that I was already sort of on target, but where to go from here? I upped the dose a tiny bit to 19.5-20grams and reduced the fineness by one setting. I'm still in more or less the same place in terms of flavor, but I'm shooting for a bit more sweetness, and a bit less sour than where I'm at. The elusive "sweet spot" literally seems to be right on the edge of where I'm at. My numbers look good more or less, so now I just need to figure out where to tweak to get the sweetness to come in and chase out the last little bit of sour. I guess I'll start where I'm at in terms of dosing and play with grind and time a little and try for consistent shot weight. Maybe I need to slow it down just a little so I'm getting a little less water in the same amount of time?

Whether you will succeed in "Chasing the last bit of sour out" depends on your coffee. Some blends and SOs are inherently brighter than others. To reduce acidity, reduce the dose in relation to the amount of espresso and grind finer. Overall it will increase the extraction percentage and bring more sweetness into the cup. If it dulls the taste because too many of the flavors are masked by the sweetness, restore the dose and try to increase the brew temperature to suppress the sourness.

Alright! Now we're getting somewhere! I'm currently brewing Moka Java from a local roaster. Generally I like moka java a lot for drip. It's not my favorite for espresso, but it's usually good. This roaster is new to me.

So this morning I dropped the dose to 18gm and made the grind finer by ~1 click got 38gm out in 32 seconds, and it's a much better balanced shot. Still not quite my idea of perfection, but there are other beans I like better than these, and perfection can probably be found in them.

Thanks for the advice Bert, and yay scale!

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Bit off topic.
Kind of laugh when I hear the term Mocha-Java. M.J. was the world's first coffee blend comprising of coffees from Mocha, now Yemen and Java now Indonesia. Coffee rust wiped out the original Arabica variety from Java (Indonesia). Today's M.J. branded coffee blends are made up of mostly coffees varying from Sumatra, Ethiopian Harrar, Indonesia and Yemen to achieve the desired taste profile. I'm no expert on coffee blends or history but there are many online resources with related information that you may find a good read.

Not really that off topic. I've been trying a lot of different beans since I got a non-pressurised capable grinder a couple of months ago. I do have a favorite so far, but my favorite blend from my favorite roaster is not available to me, and the blend he does sell at retail is not always available. So I've been trying to find something I like as much or better.

I've tried a bunch of stuff from a few local roasters, as well as a couple from Blue Bottle. I don't know a lot about the different varieties to guess what is likely to work well for my tastes for espresso, so I've been mostly going with espresso blends. These are the beans I'm working with now. I chose them because I'm curious about the roaster, and I've had decent luck with other mocha javas.

randomorbit wrote:Alright! Now we're getting somewhere! I'm currently brewing Moka Java from a local roaster. Generally I like moka java a lot for drip. It's not my favorite for espresso, but it's usually good. This roaster is new to me.

So this morning I dropped the dose to 18gm and made the grind finer by ~1 click got 38gm out in 32 seconds, and it's a much better balanced shot. Still not quite my idea of perfection, but there are other beans I like better than these, and perfection can probably be found in them.

Thanks for the advice Bert, and yay scale!

Other idea is to improve your yield, having high quality baskets, ensuring even distribution and tamper techniques will bring a great deal to yuor shots.

Bottomless portafilter has actually been helping loads with that. I've tried both the stock basket and the triple that came with the bottomless, and basically arrived at the conclusion that I like to dose the same, but use the deeper basket. The pucks are a bit soupier, but I've found shaking the portafilter in a circular motion, and giving a tap on the countertop gives me better distribution than leveling with my finger, and that method works better with the deeper basket. My worst prep gives me a tiny sprite, my best prep gives me a beautiful slim funnel dead center. I'm getting more consistent as I go, even my worst distribution isn't making a huge difference in flavor. As a control experiment I also tried doing no distribution, and just mashing the tamper down on top of the mound straight out of the grinder chute, and that DID give me significant sprites, but nothing like the messy explosions I was lead to expect.

I don't think my wife wants to use the bottomless, because she's not going to want to deal with being squirted if she doesn't do good distribution, so I leave the stock basket in the stock portafilter for her, and I know the grinder is dialed in to give her at least decent results with the same dose in that. I might invest in an 18 gram precision basket at some point that would probably work better than the triple basket, but I don't feel I'm having any particular problems with distribution or tamping.

I ave been using an 18g dose in the 18g VST basket (36g out) with a Kenyan SO espresso the last weeks, and thought it was good but a tad sour and could be sweeter. Tried turning up the temp a little but didn't fix it

Today I switched to a 19g dose in the 20g VST basket (aimed for 38g out but landed on 39g) and that was perfect, really something different than what i ever got from the 18g basket, mouthfeel got better as well. Extracting more tastes better! I also get more consistent shots after I got the TampSure kit for my Pullman tamper, and it's not tamping down very hard.