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)

Do you experience 'sour' in over-extracted espresso ?

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.

I will pay more attention and make some notes.

JHCCoffee

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.

Cuprajake

i get salty if i over extract

mobius

Cuprajake i get salty if i over extract

… but what about the coffee 😉

Inspector

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.

mobius

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.

MattH

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.

caffeinated-carp

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!

mobius

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.

tompoland

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.

caffeinated-carp

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..

mobius

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

mobius Well that sucks for you, sorry to hear that! Hopefully it goes away at some point soon

caffeinated-carp

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

I should host a get together…some blind tastings with various ratios of shots would be fascinating.

caffeinated-carp

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.

tompoland

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

DavecUK

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.

John_Yossarian

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.

MWJB

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.

mobius

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.