Newbie Professional Barista in the making...

Meg1970

Hello everyone, I’m a huge coffee fan/addict. After returning from a holiday where I was subjected to the most amazing coffee I’ve ever tasted I decided to upgrade to a Sage Barista Express… I’ve never made bean to cup myself, so any tips would be most welcome ☺️

MediumRoastSteam

Hi. Where was that holiday? We need to know! Welcome.

Meg1970

MediumRoastSteam Hi. It was Cyprus but I’m told it was Italian coffee, fantastic hotel and the coffee was very professionally made. I’m an americano but my other half is a latte lover, we both agreed it was the nicest coffee by far. I’ve always drank filtered coffee, but this prompted us to upgrade. Still practicing!

delta76

A few tips out of my head:

buy fresh, good quality beans from a roaster. For starter don’t get fancy ones, but don’t cheap out. Try new things as you learn to take notes of the beans
No espresso machine is too clean. Keep your group head and your portafilter as clean as they can be
Get a kitchen scale with high precision and measure input and output

Meg1970

delta76

delta76 Hi thanks for the tips. Still getting to grips with machine (since yesterday) was up till past midnight with the amount of coffee drank during practice runs 🤣. Why the need for the scale, does the machine not do the measuring? Excuse my naivety, I’m a complete novice!

delta76

Meg1970 it makes it much easier to dial in a new bean. When you dial in new beans you will want to lock in as many parameters as possible.

As starter, aim for 1:2 ratio within 25-30s. So you grind 15gr of coffee ground then pull 30gr of espresso. Scale helps you with that, it is ok for have 0.2gr or 0.3gr or even 1gr off mark, but not 3 or 5gr.

Meg1970

I’ve got my grinder/dialer set to 4, grind amount is set to about 3rd way. This has been tweaked since this morning’s coffee’s as I found them a bit bitter & strong. Got a better crema on 3rd one, absolutely no more coffee for me today 🤣 so hopefully I’ll get a better cup tomorrow. I’ve started with a rave brand, their signature blend, but I suppose practice and time will tell. I poured whole pack into the coffee holder on the top of the machine. Should I not have done this ?

delta76

Meg1970 the trend is now single dosing, but it would be difficult for you to do so with your BBE. I would suggest to pour only 50gr of beans each time into the hopper, and keep the remaining in the sealed bag. The hopper of BBE is quite good in term of sealing but not as good as the resealable bag.