Just something I found recently, is many posts talking about epresso being ‘sour’ if under-extracted or over-extracted.

Having experienced under-extracted espresso quite often, I am aware of that sourness, especially if pulling short to fully experience the mouth-puckering intensity.

However, quite often I have pulled a shot that is drying in the mouth but also shows the same ‘sour’ quality, albeit greatly reduced. This had confused me as I previously thought the overall cycle was sour->sweet->bitter but now I’m not so sure. Unfortunately only some articles mention the over-extraction sourness. Most talk about burnt/bitter, which is much easier to taste.

I’m therefore curious what you wonderful folks taste as a shot move towards the over-extraction side of things. I have found that the Barista Hustle description of ‘hollow’ along with ‘drying’ to be quite good, but this can also be confused with ‘thin’ which can be an aspect of under-extraction.

Yes - it’s all subjective, yes - I understand the times/process etc. Just curious for some more anecdotal and subjective feedback on which bad ‘taste’ goes with which side of the sweetness. I’m not specifically looking for shot advice, as experience is what drives me.

(as always, we’ve pretty much established my taste buds are shot, and my sense of smell is gone, which makes my coffee journey even more ‘interesting’ but the process still applies)

I don’t think so but now you’ve got me wondering. I tend to run my shots more like a double ristretto i.e. slow flow rate of 1.0 - 1.4 ml/sec but espresso ration of 1:2. Some would definitely rate my shots over extracted but I don’t detect much in the way of bitterness, just intensity.

I will pay more attention and make some notes.

    i get salty if i over extract

    Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

      Could this also be about what type of burrs you have. When using conical over 45 seconds I get bitter, salty taste and sometimes sour, with flats this wasn’t the case. Same applies to less than 30 seconds shots, with flats that mouth puckering sourness is more evident.

        I just don’t really know what I am tasting - so unless its an extreme I suspect I just dont discern that much detail.

        Also being mostly a milk based (with the odd long black) rather than straight espresso drinker it further dilutes any differences between coffees.

        Inspector as alluded to, I suspect my own taste buds are currently screwed due to covid over Christmas - somebody else mentioned it, and I dismissed it at first as everything else tastes normal, but I’m noticing that except for a couple of ‘sweet spot’ pours, I get ‘confusing’ tastes quite often. Also, a second shot at exactly the same settings etc., will often taste much ‘brighter’ - higher acidity - than the first.

        Also, I’m only using my C40 at the moment, but did experience the same with my Vario+. Again, I can only speak for myself, which is not scientific and most probably ‘broken’ anyway.

        I just find it interesting how people ‘describe’ under/over extraction, especially as everyone has a different interpretation of flavours - it’s similar to how to best describe coffee ‘flavour notes’ I guess.

          Weirdly, maybe I am ill or something as I have never experienced this before regardless of how terribly-done the shots were in my Andreja, but in the past few days I have noticed that I have a sour taste on my tongue that lingers hours after a coffee, which is a bit weird.

          So now I’m thinking - is this the LMLU? (only just got it), the water? (only just started using Ashbeck), how long my water has been open? (probably only 2 or 3 days), or maybe just that I’ve “correctly” dialled in the grind on the LMLU (about 18g in, 36g out in about 25-35 seconds).

          Maybe I’m just ill as I said, but if this is over extraction astringency, it’s horrible!

            caffeinated-carp take a covid test. I certainly do get ‘variety’ in taste due to other colds, allergies, etc. but when I think really carefully about how things smelled/tasted before I had covid, there’s absolutely a ‘difference’.

            The thing is, everything else tastes ‘normal’ for me. At least, as much as I can remember - brains are devious and will adapt very easily.

            For me, I am planning to go out and have more barista-made espressos to once again see how they taste. I think that a ‘perfectly made’ espresso will generally be fine for me - albeit on less acidic beans - but any sort of rise in the brightness can seem extreme. I can still taste a difference as I vary things, but the ‘pleasant’ spot seems to move and/or be far smaller than I often expect.

            I’ve even thought of buying a refractometer to try and establish the relationship between what I think I am experiencing vs what the data says.

            Because people are so different, it intrigues me as to how perception varies. Of course, without having multiple people tasting the same exact shots, it’s all totally anecdotal, but discussion always brings out different viewpoints to consider.

                mobius Might be a good idea. Honestly covid doesn’t even enter my head anymore, it’s as if it has dropped off the face of the planet (or rather the media) so it has also departed from my brain!

                  caffeinated-carp Although would covid make me taste only coffee in this way? Hmm..

                  Welcome to my world of the last 4 months 😅

                  Each day, I go between “I just don’t understand espresso” to “but it ‘has’ worked at times” to “maybe it’s something else I’ve missed” to “Must be covid affecting something” and back to “Nope - just me”.

                  I persist though, in the hope that one day I’ll find out.

                  I did visit a roastery, and had an espresso there, which tasted fine, and then managed to recreate at home just fine. So my current theory is a mix of both as mentioned before - I am affected, but it’s more that it makes the sweet spot much smaller - so acids are far more extreme on my tongue, and therefore any slight incorrect shot tastes much more one way or the other than it should.

                  I just need to pull perfect shots every time !

                  (and then the next day, the same settings taste different)

                  The reason for this thread is that I often taste sour and dry/hollow which I would think was both under and over extracted, which is possible with channeling, but I see absolutely no evidence of that, so 🤷🏻

                      caffeinated-carp it’s probably spotless but if you haven’t done so for a while, have a peek under the shower screen on your espresso machine. Also, those using puck meshes sometimes end up with rancid coffee in them.

                          tompoland Yeh good advice, machine is only a week and a bit old though so should be fine. I did flush with pulo over the weekend, I honestly can’t recall if that’s when it started tasting sour. Hmm. Can’t see I’ve done that wrong though. Maybe I’ll do another cleaning cycle with just water, just to be sure.

                            DavecUK That would be really good actually, I have absolutely zero experience of going to any tastings or really of going to any community events.

                                I do mainly (as @tompoland mentioned before) double ristrettos. They run slowly and usually I am getting sweetness out of it, not always as beans differ. Temperature stability is a beautiful thing and I have forgotten what a “burnt” coffee tastes like. At the same time, for light roast sometimes the acidity can take over and is less predictable. This is why I am a “medium roast” person. Rarely do I go for dark roast but the chocolaty taste is still something I like.

                                If you could, playing with temperature might give you some idea how to address it.

                                Current setup: ACS Vesuvius, Nuova Simonelli Mythos One. Past experience, Nuova Simonelli Apia 1 gr., San Remo Capri 1 gr., Bezzera BZ 35e, Fracino Heavenly. Anfim Super Lusso.

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                                caffeinated-carp That would be really good actually, I have absolutely zero experience of going to any tastings or really of going to any community events.

                                I spend some time cleaning and prepping the house/machines, then we can do an event when the weather warms up…long overdue.

                                Contact me

                                  If the shot is sour & drying/bitter it’s most likely under extraction with too fine a grind & silt in the cup being the cause of bitterness, silty cups can also be sour in a rounder, more pithy way than sharp/tart sourness.

                                  The sour>sweet>bitter progression is not a very helpful tool - few coffees are sweet, a shot can be bitter at any extraction (with/without sourness.

                                  Proper over-extraction is a specific and easily recognisable fault, if fairly rare - it is a smoky, sickly, drying like bitter hop flavour, dominating the cup (or maybe the last sips of an otherwise good shot.

                                  If your shots are sour and are both sour & bitter when grinding finer, go longer on the ratio to extract more & back off the grind.

                                    MWJB If your shots are sour and are both sour & bitter when grinding finer, go longer on the ratio to extract more & back off he grind.

                                    I did just this, this morning, with good results.

                                      Is this not something to do with the law of diminishingly returns, as explained as part of this video (when they push the shot past its ‘best’ point)

                                      I’m sure you’ve seen this, so apologies if so, but hopefully others will find it useful too - personally, I think it’s brilliant and really helped me get my head around things (at least partly!!! Lonnnnnnnng way to go 😂 )

                                        nosiesta Maybe, maybe not, but few people discuss the impact of the non-dissolved solids aspect. These are not counted towards extraction and are more a function of how fine you grind, than what you extract. Perger mentions over extracted shots that can be ‘powdery’, they might be that too, but extracted coffee has no texture/mouthfeel, only the solids have that.

                                        Maybe it’s a distinction without a difference because the fix is the same - grind coarser.

                                        Medium & light espresso is hard to over-extract, so often people will start encountering other artefacts, like a little astringency creeping in, powederyness, charred tastes and believe they are at the edge of extraction, when in reality they can be on the low side of normal and grinding a little coarser but extracting more weight out can balance things.

                                        Even if you start getting into a good range at 1:2 to 1:3, you can go 1:5 and still only add a little more extraction.

                                        Even pour over isn’t that easy to over-extract and French press is normally impossible to over-extract…but you can screw all of them up by grinding too fine.

                                          DavecUK charge a modest fee (20 quid?) and throw in a bonus first class air fair from Australia, and I’ll be there!

                                            nosiesta I have seen that video - Barista Hustle has a lot of insightful information.

                                            I don’t think it’s so much about diminishing returns though, as I am assuming - perhaps incorrectly - that there should be a place where the acidity/brightness does not seem unbalanced.

                                            Now again, taste is subjective and words are difficult, so when BH uses “heavy, sugary sweet, crisp and vibrant acidity” as the taste, that has a number of mixed messages for me, and how I interpret things.

                                            I guess, overall, the intention is to learn how to differentiate between under-extracted / sweet-spot / over-extracted so you can get the best cup out. Learning the difference between over and under is therefore critical because the best bit is in-between those, and it should be easy to find both ends and then bring it back to the middle (ish).

                                            However, taking MWJB’s notes as well, it’s clear that determining which level of extraction you’re at is perhaps also not that clear cut, and what is perceived as over-extraction may not be that (unless I’m misreading).

                                            All of this helps - it brings additional insight into the process and the journey by which experience is gained. The ‘trick’ is for each person to find how best to apply such knowledge to their own practice.

                                            … or maybe I just start drinking milk drinks instead, and don’t worry so much as they will cover the majority of the differences I notice in my espressos 😅

                                                6 days later

                                                tompoland I don’t think so but now you’ve got me wondering. I tend to run my shots more like a double ristretto i.e. slow flow rate of 1.0 - 1.4 ml/sec but espresso ration of 1:2. Some would definitely rate my shots over extracted but I don’t detect much in the way of bitterness, just intensity

                                                Tom: What’s the typical shot time for these double ristretto shots? Might you have a flow curve charted? Are you using a lever machine or a flow control machine for these?

                                                My ignorance, but I don’t quite understand the 1 to 1.5 ml of flow metric. Is that water flow at the grouphead or espresso output flow? If espresso output flow, and if 1g espresso = 1 ml of espresso (which may be wrong; I just don’t think about shots in terms of ml volume) then a 18g/18ml “double” in 30 seconds is 0.6 ml per second, vs your 1 to 1.5. Or are you speaking of a 36g/36ml shot, in which case your output flow is 1.2 per second in 30 seconds. This does does not seem “slow” to me, though I may be wrong. My apologies for my ignorance on this.

                                                PS I’d love to pour some of your style/taste of shots, using my Lelit.

                                                    @DavecUK or @MediumRoastSteam I find this thread quite informative and would like to save it for future reference. How do I do that? From my IPhone, using Safari?

                                                    JHCCoffee I’m using the Nurri so La San Marco lever machine. Not sure on the shot duration. I’ll have a look tomorrow and hopefully remember to post back here. But slower than a traditional espresso shot.

                                                    The ml/sec thing is measured with an Acaia Lunar 2021 version scale. It’s the rate of ml per second that falls into the esrepsso cup. The Decent measures this automatically but I use the Acaia scale with the Nurri. Essentially, it’s a slower pour than normal or “resticted” hence “ristretto”. I’m generally happy with anything betwee 1ml/sec and 1.4ml/sec.

                                                      JHCCoffee

                                                      22g in. 48sec pour at 0.9ml/sec. 43.5g out.

                                                      That’s measured by the Lunar from the first pre infusion drip. A bit over extracted though even for me.

                                                      Need to open the grinder up a tad.

                                                        That’s really long

                                                        Have you tried 20-25s shots

                                                        Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                                                          Cuprajake

                                                          sure.

                                                          tried pretty much everything over the years.

                                                          but on the Nurri right now I’m going for longer shots.

                                                          on the decent or puristikas my typical pour time in between 25 - 30 seconds.

                                                          the shot referenced above was longer than I was going for, hence the reference to opening up the dial a bit. the idea is to pull a ristretto style shot but with an espresso volume which means pour time is longer than traditional.

                                                            One thing I’m learning from this - or should I say is being reinforced - is that the time really is just a marker to compare other data against. It’s almost useless as the ratio increases and/or the flow exceeds 5ml/s unless you’re tracking in tenths of a second, which I don’t believe many (most?) people are.

                                                            It can certainly tell you that something is ‘way out’ from expectations, but then you probably don’t need a time to tell you that. Otherwise, taste is much more of a control mechanism.

                                                            As a marker, looking at pre-infusion times, time to first drip, etc. are all useful indicators of consistency, but beyond that it’s just another data point.

                                                            I still time my shots, and most land somewhere within 22-38 seconds, but that’s simply correlation rather than causation. If a shot is outside of that range, or towards the edges - ignoring every other reason - I may make a change to see how it could improve, but not on the basis that what I have is wrong. I’ve learned so much by reaching a ‘tasty’ shot, and then constantly experimenting with the other variables (temp/grind/dose/yield) in both directions, to see where it takes me.

                                                            Maybe when I’m ‘experienced’, I’ll stop worrying about the constant dialling-in, and just be happy when I hit the first ‘good’ shot. But then, why don’t I just buy an automatic machine… the journey is now the main reason - great coffee has become the conclusion.

                                                            EDIT: Today was a great example - I (foolishly) cleaned my C40 at the weekend, even though I’m not changing beans, thinking that the ‘clicks’ would be a good enough calibration. They weren’t and so the first shot at the ‘same’ settings gushed. Of course, I didn’t need to see the time to know this (45g/18s) as it spattered everywhere as well due to the flow. I knew from the ‘difference’ that something was wrong, so then adjusted my grind and the next attempt was back to where I expected. Not using the time as a fixed requirement, but as a marker to where my other settings have been landing.

                                                            COVID can certainly do a number on your sense of taste, so the sour thing you’re describing can be a result of that alone. Hope you recover fast.

                                                            mobius I guess, overall, the intention is to learn how to differentiate between under-extracted / sweet-spot / over-extracted so you can get the best cup out. Learning the difference between over and under is therefore critical because the best bit is in-between those, and it should be easy to find both ends and then bring it back to the middle (ish).

                                                            My sense is that the under-over extraction axis that’s often described as a range from sour to bitter is best thought of as the major taste profile of the espresso. If you have an espresso that tastes too bitter, which would lead you to think that it’s over-extracted, but you taste some sour notes, it’s still probably over-extracted.

                                                            The other thing to consider is that there could be other sources of sour taste notes in an espresso besides the extraction. I know I’m probably an outlier, but we regularly use beans from our local coffee shop/roaster that were roasted just the day before I buy a new bag, and I start using it right away instead of waiting for the 2-3 weeks after the roast date that conventional wisdom says. I know that because of the freshness, the CO2 content of the beans is likely higher than is typical, and food chemistry says that this should translate into sour taste notes (not overly sour like an underextracted shot).

                                                            I tend to make espresso that leans towards the overextraction end of the spectrum, and can taste sour notes that seems like what you’re describing in your original post. I think it’s that’s a property of the beans.

                                                                wilburpan COVID can certainly do a number on your sense of taste, so the sour thing you’re describing can be a result of that alone. Hope you recover fast.

                                                                True - I’m still somewhat sceptical this is the problem though, as everything else tastes ‘normal’. My sense of smell is still greatly reduced though, so perhaps that is enough.

                                                                The beans are all generally 10-days+ rested, and I can find more ‘balanced’ cups now. I still generally don’t get the flavour notes, but I wonder how much of that depends on the smell as well.

                                                                I will continue trying to determine how the relationship between taste and over/under manifests, but I also reach the point where I just want to have a few days of the ‘balanced’ point I’ve found :)

                                                                    mobius I’m a pediatric oncologist, which means that I have experience with medications that change your sense of taste. This has also happened to me with meds that I’ve been on.

                                                                    I can say that changes in taste from meds and/or illness can range from completely losing your sense of taste altogether, to everything tasting different from what you’re used to, to very specific changes in taste while other things taste the same. In my case, a medication made food that had a high carbohydrate content (bread, pasta) tasted much sweeter than normal, but everything else tasted the same.

                                                                    I’m not saying that you’re wrong about what you’re tasting not being due to COVID. I’m just saying that it is completely possible that COVID is affecting your sense of taste in this specific way.