I use from light to espresso roasts, sometimes SO from local roasters, sometimes blend like Illy, Lavazza ... Problem with light roasts is that some are very hard to grind on manual grinder to the extent that I'm afraid I'll break the handle. Light roasts were definitively better at something like 1:3; tried various ways, from shorter pulls to over a minute, from no to long preinfusion, without definitive answer what is better ... but it looks like the sweet spot was also around 35-40s

Thing I can't come near with Flair + my grinders is that, while most of the coffee I get in caffes in the town is terrible, sometimes I get nice tasting and relatively light body and sweet coffee which is quite long (1:3 or even more), despite too short extraction time, bad distribution / tamping by barista etc ... Can't get that with my gear no matter what I try ....

Just pulled the best espresso I've ever had, even from any cafe (I don't go to many cafes...).

Amazing. Tamping much harder than I usually do worked for me, I was probably tamping with 3lbs of pressure or however much the steel tamper weighs with the Pro plus some. I probably tamped with 15-20lbs of pressure this time and it helped greatly. At Kinu M47 setting of around 3 revolutions on the clicky version.

I've made contact!

This little guy can perform really really well. Beware I have the classic model, with the small group/cylinder.

14g in- 42g out with 8.5 TDS- 25.5 % EY.

The coffee is one of the best there is, just a bit to early for max extraction, needs at least 1 more week for degassing, I am glad I bought 3 bags.

This little machine puts to shame a lot more expensive stuff, if you are happy with the handle of the manual operation you have to do before pulling (heating stuff, pouring water, using a timer, and a scale). I am already used to gravimetric, auto stop pump programs on my machine.

I have the Flair Signature Series. Outstanding machine. Best non-electric I have used.

Need to push more. No filters or bloom.

9 (TDS) * 41g (out)/ 14g (in)= 26.35 % EY.

I believe I can get better results, I just need to pull more because I didn't use Flair that much.

I've been doing 18g coffee in 42g espresso out... Tastes excellent to me... I fill the chamber up just to the fill line/where it begins to flow into the overflow portion (not sure what to call it).

I didn't manage to make it to my local roaster last week to get the espresso varietal he recommends... Had to buy some stuff from the local store roasted in June I think. Oh well, easy to make taste average but no decent flavors. Not the Flair's fault

In order to pull 16g+ in my classic with smaller group I have to grind really coarse and the EY/taste just goes down by a lot.

Im dialing this Ethiopia light roast, for filter.

16g in/33g out with 12.1 TDS= 24.95 % EY.

A taller bed of coffee in my case 16g is harder to extract more even than a 14-15 g dose. Some little parts in 16g light roasts remains unextracted, as I take a close look at the puck after each extraction. For the classic in my case with light roasts I get better results with 14-15g than 16g.

Did you try smaller doses? Currently I have similarly roasted (judging from your photo) sidamo from local roaster. Dosing about 10g for about 22g out

I believe the optimal dose for my personal favorite roast level would be 14 or 15g. Lowering the dose has a huge impact because a 18g dose in flair means ~ 38g dose on a 58mm machine.

Dropping from 14g to 10g means lowering in a 58mm machine for approx 9g and that asks for a really ultra fine grind. I am not a fan of ultra fine powder grind anymore because I had bad results with fine grind. Ultra fine grind it's ideal for extracting more cause of increased total surface area, but because of the dynamic of the water you extract less, you have a increased chance of an uneven extraction. An ultra fine grind generates on any grinder more fines, that changes the dynamic of the water again.

I made a closer picture in natural light. I tried not to overexpose so you can see the natural color, but still it's just a picture.

Judging by how many cracks the beans have on the surface, and how wrinkled they are, this would be a light roast. A normal extraction with 5 sec preinfusion then 9 bar then drop doesn't extract this coffee.

Denis wrote:I believe the optimal dose for my personal favorite roast level would be 14 or 15g. Lowering the dose has a huge impact because a 18g dose in flair means ~ 38g dose on a 58mm machine.

Dropping from 14g to 10g means lowering in a 58mm machine for approx 9g

Hmm ... on LM, another roaster in town is usually using about 20g for a double and around 9g for single (I actually asked on this forum about doses on LM a year ago, because for a while, they insisted on serving double shots only, which for some reason stopped shortly after I made the question here )

Single "chamber in chamber" basket on LM is about 40mm in diameter, just like on Flair, so in my opinion, everything more than that on Flair is actually overdosing in a kind of standard espresso terms whatever that means ...