Have you considered picking a set of shot parameters that gave you the shot you liked best and made minor moves around that instead of having such a wide variation again and again? I think this may be more productive. Perhaps move just one parameter at a time around that central set of parameters.

vickeryj wrote:Today I did the same but with 16g in, 24g out

Fine: 23.4g 37s - this shot was messy, maybe channeling. I got primarily bitter lemon peel, drinkable

Medium: 23g 27s - this was very good, syrupy, dark chocolate, brown sugar, light fruit

Course: 23.4g 25s - this was bad, sour, and I believe under extracted

I'm not happy with the time differences between shots.

Well, you didn't follow Jim's advice. If you want to keep a constant shot time (flow rate), increase the dose when you grind coarser and reduce the dose when you grind finer.

Your target brew ratio is Ristretto, which compounds the sourness problem with the fast-running Coarse shot. I would practice with Normale (1:2) shots before moving on to Ristrettos.

I completely agree with "Peppersass." I think "another_jim"'s Espresso 101 single page guide is so essential that I printed it up and have it readily accessible by my espresso equipment. And I routinely tell new home baristas about it.

Compared to "another_jim" and "Peppersass" the suggestions below come from an espresso novice. Over the past eight years at local Chicago-Milwaukee Home-barista meetups, I have made espresso for three TeamHB moderators (including "another_jim") and many senior home-barista forum members. None have made involuntary facial gestures nor spit out my espresso brew. So I am at least ok. Or they all are great at faking it and being polite:)

To OP "vickeryj," please follow everything "another_jim" and "Peppersass" has posted to date.

Also I would offer these suggestions (in no particular order):
* Please get to know the rule of thirds. /espresso-g ... tions.html
* Please contact your bean roasters for their input. I often ask the roasters' suggestions for a starting point for a bean I have no prior experience with. I am not familiar with the two beans you mentioned.
* Please have a baseline you can readily consume. Are there any nearby quality cafes serving espressos you like? If so then buy their same fresh roasted beans and brew that espresso at home to try to match the cafe espresso. Then when barista is not busy, discuss with them.
* Please attend a local home-barista.com get together (once pandemic restrictions lift). In my experience this is what most improved my barista skills (both for brew coffee and espresso).
* Please get to know flavors. For this I have laminated SCA's "coffee taster's flavor wheel." If you wanted to get really fancy then get Le Nez du Cafe (but this would be quite pricey).

Peppersass wrote:Well, you didn't follow Jim's advice. If you want to keep a constant shot time (flow rate), increase the dose when you grind coarser and reduce the dose when you grind finer.

Your target brew ratio is Ristretto, which compounds the sourness problem with the fast-running Coarse shot. I would practice with Normale (1:2) shots before moving on to Ristrettos.

I know! I didn't want to keep a constant flow rate, but I'm open to doing that. If you see my follow up post I pulled 3 shots with the same grind settings and input and output volumes all of which varied.

I didn't know Ristrettos made the sourness worse, just that my favorite shots were Ristrettos. I'll move back to Normale.

mdmvrockford wrote: Also I would offer these suggestions (in no particular order):
* Please get to know the rule of thirds. /espresso-g ... tions.html
* Please contact your bean roasters for their input. I often ask the roasters' suggestions for a starting point for a bean I have no prior experience with. I am not familiar with the two beans you mentioned.
* Please have a baseline you can readily consume. Are there any nearby quality cafes serving espressos you like? If so then buy their same fresh roasted beans and brew that espresso at home to try to match the cafe espresso. Then when barista is not busy, discuss with them.
* Please attend a local home-barista.com get together (once pandemic restrictions lift). In my experience this is what most improved my barista skills (both for brew coffee and espresso).
* Please get to know flavors. For this I have laminated SCA's "coffee taster's flavor wheel." If you wanted to get really fancy then get Le Nez du Cafe (but this would be quite pricey).

Thank you!

The baseline has been challenging. The espresso I've had from local roasters has been hit or miss. I live in Queens and am happy to travel to any borough if anyone has good suggestions.

I long for in person meetups. I homebrew beer and would be a much much worse brewer without my local club.

I'm trying to learn flavors but I feel like my shots are too inconsistent to be able to pull this off. I'll check out your reference to see if that helps me down my path.

I hesitate to write anything because I am fairly new to home baristing, and I started a similar thread a while back regarding my workflow with the breville barista pro. Since incorporating the advice and absorbing wisdom on this board, things have improved immensely for me. Though, I am at my limits with the built in grinder and have a Niche on order (sounds like you got the grinder sorted!)

In that thread, one of the bigger tips was to stop using the pre programmed volumetric shot pulls and use the manual function. I believe that the bambino is the same - hold the double shot button for as long as you want pre infusion - release for full pressure and run until your desired output - press again to stop. I usually stop a gram or two before my desired output given the lag.

Another big tip for my machine , which also uses the "thermojet" heating coil, was to run a few blind shots to warm the pf and group head prior to the first shot. I always find that if I don't do that, the first shot is sour and not that hot.

jcmonty wrote:I hesitate to write anything because I am fairly new to home baristing, and I started a similar thread a while back regarding my workflow with the breville barista pro. Since incorporating the advice and absorbing wisdom on this board, things have improved immensely for me. Though, I am at my limits with the built in grinder and have a Niche on order (sounds like you got the grinder sorted!)

I was at the limit with my previous grinder too. I would literally hold the adjustment between stops for some coffees. Not ideal, but it made serviceable lattes. The Mignon is terrifying in its twitchy and infinite adjustability. I think a Niche would probably have been a better grinder, but after I missed the last round of pre orders I gave up. Plus the Specialita was a lot cheaper from ECS.

jcmonty wrote: In that thread, one of the bigger tips was to stop using the pre programmed volumetric shot pulls and use the manual function. I believe that the bambino is the same - hold the double shot button for as long as you want pre infusion - release for full pressure and run until your desired output - press again to stop. I usually stop a gram or two before my desired output given the lag.

I think this was my problem with the machine cutting off. I think I wasn't holding the button down long enough and it was doing the preset instead of manual. Now I hold the button down for 4 seconds until the pump clicks on and I just pulled a 45 second shot from when I let go.

jcmonty wrote: Another big tip for my machine , which also uses the "thermojet" heating coil, was to run a few blind shots to warm the pf and group head prior to the first shot. I always find that if I don't do that, the first shot is sour and not that hot.

When you say blind shot, you mean with the cleaning blank in place? I run shots with an empty portafilter. I should measure the temperature of the shots to see if I'm getting variation. Thanks!

I pulled 6 shots this morning trying to follow Jim's advice, but only 2 of them were within my desired parameters of 1:2 in 30s.

#1 15g/32g (not quite perfect ratio) 31s.
#2 16.5/33g 36s (ran a little long)

#1 I think had sharp bitterness, but was better than most shots

#2 Was really good. I was able to taste some nuance, though my palate is not good enough to pick out specific flavors.

I'll try this again, but each time I switch grind and weight settings I'll likely need to pull more than one shot to get it he desired ratio and time. Which means I'll burn through coffee pretty fast, but that's cheaper than upgrading my machine!

Blind shot - meaning something to provide a bit of pressure to get the temp PID to output full temperature as if there was a puck. I have tried the cleaning disk poked with a few holes as well as swapping for the pressurized basket . Basically anything to get the system warmed. It surprises me that this isn't really discussed more as an annoyance with the thermojet. It's great that it can heat water in "3 seconds", but still it takes a while to warm everything up in a bit.

I am curious what you find measuring temps. When I don't have any resistance (I.e empty single wall PF), the water definitely feels less hot. I believe there was some discussion around this on the forums regarding these machines.

And fwiw - my shot times tend to vary as well. Sometimes as much as 8-10s with everything else the same (dose, puck prep, grind setting, etc). I have stopped caring too much about time and focused on flavor in the cup (especially given the limitations with the built in grinder). Granted, my palate is novice, but it's definitely improving.

vickeryj wrote:I didn't know Ristrettos made the sourness worse, just that my favorite shots were Ristrettos. I'll move back to Normale.

Ristrettos don't necessarily make sourness worse, but they can if you're pulling a light or medium roast that needs more extraction. When you shorten the shot, you're reducing the contact time, which may result in under-extraction and sourness.

Many darker roasts actually work pretty well with Ristrettos because the problem with dark roasts is usually over-extraction (bitterness). Pulling these roasts Ristretto tends to reduce the level of extraction and reduce the bitterness. A common trick 10+ years ago, when most espresso roasts were on the dark side, was to "updose" the shot (e.g., packing 25g into an 18g basket), grind coarser and pull ristretto. All these factors reduced the extraction and bitter roasty flavors. Baristas hoped this would uncover more fruity or floral origin flavors, but unfortunately those tend to disappear when beans are roasted longer (darker.) So the trend over the past decade has been to roast lighter and lighter, which preserves delicate origin flavors but makes getting a full extraction more challenging. As you might guess, sometimes the answer is to do the opposite trick: reduce the dose, grind finer and pull Lungo.

Ristrettos are more concentrated, too, which can provide a nice flavor punch if the extraction is balanced (i.e., sour and bitter balanced.) You would think the way to get there with a light roast would be to grind really fine and pull shorter, but at a certain level of fineness you get diminishing returns -- the shot will actually extract less due to blockage from too many "fines" (or the machine "chokes".) Some have been able to pull Ristrettos with light roasts using flow profiling, usually by grinding ultra fine and greatly reducing flow rate during preinfusion so it lasts 10-20 seconds. That increases contact time and extraction, and at the same time gently opens up the puck so the machine won't choke. Flow profiling is an advanced technique that requires a machine capable of doing it and solid skill with "standard" espresso extraction techniques.

It looks like temperature in the cup is reasonably constant. 154 on the first empty single pressure basket pull, 157 on the second and third and 157 with coffee.

Thank you for the detailed explanation of Ristrettos! Especially with my issue with my machine stopping the shot before I want, that helps me wrap my head around what's happening.

I'll keep practicing the Normales, as they do seem to be easier to dial in, but I look forward to getting better and being able to pull Ristrettos that I consistently enjoy.

Thank you all for your help and input so far. Ironically covid is what gave me the time to start making espresso at home, and it's also the thing that's stopping me from experiencing it in person outside of my house and talking to people. If it wasn't for this forum I would be hopelessly frustrated