Latest Tips on Pouring Better Tasting Espresso

JHCCoffee

For those of us that don’t have any immediate equipment upgrade plans, why don’t we get a thread going on tips and techniques to make better tasting espresso. Things that you do or have done that created that great tasting shot. Alone or in combination. Or great “recipes”. But focused on the beverage that we bought all that expensive equipment to produce.

HarveyMushman

Not a groundbreaking tip but mine would be minimise your variables.

For me, that means never touching the machine temperature, basket type, factory shower screen or flow rate (/profile) and trying to stick with one dose (18.5g +/- .5g). I then have one variable - grind (and puck preparation I suppose but I keep that as consistent as physically possible).

By doing this it means I only have to change one variable to find the sweet spot in a given coffee and I’ve not yet found a coffee haven’t been able to really enjoy once the grind is right.

I think people must really struggle trying to align a large number of variables at once - basket type/size, brew temperature, flow rate, grind size, dose size etc because they all interplay with each other. You see people buying a new machine and ditching the basket and shower screen and faffing around with the temperature literally before they’ve even made one shot on it.

If you want to explore, get it dialled in with minimal variables, then add one at a time. I’m not saying adjusting the other factors don’t help, of course they can, but trying to see how they help by changing them all at once is just going to lead to frustration and wasted coffee.

JammyDodger

I think minimising your variables is absolutely the right way forward for reducing sink shots and getting to know your machine. I would 100% recommend this is you like to dial in a bag of beans and stick with it. It’s great advice. I’d also argue that to make great coffee using a wide variety of roast levels, some variation is necessary.

Without going into loads of detail (because everyone’s set up is so different as to make specifics of limited value):

Darker roasts:
Lower temperature, lower flow rates, lower ratios.

Lighter roasts:
Higher temperature, higher flow rates, higher ratios.

It wasn’t until I had developed the (now somewhat obvious) knowledge that more developed roast levels become comparatively easier to extract and vice-versa that I stated to make shots that really sing.

I appreciate you guys don’t need me to tell you this, but in case anyone new to the hobby stumbled across this, with darker roasts you are trying to minimise extraction so as not to bring harsh, bitter, ashen flavours out of the bean.

Conversely with lighter roasts you’re trying to squeeze as much extraction as you can out of a bean that can be rather unforgiving and reluctant.

To be very clear, I don’t believe that my thoughts are an opposing view from @HarveyMushman’s excellent post above. Far from it. I think we are looking at two different ways to skin the proverbial cat, both of which are useful to think about depending on the sort of coffee you like and the type of machine you have.

JHCCoffee

JammyDodger Darker roasts:
Lower temperature, lower flow rates, lower ratios.

I drink medium dark decaf. One thing that I’ve found is that it is harder to extract strength and flavour from decaf.

I’ve tried to keep flow rates in the 1 to 1.5 ml per second range (typically using profile settings of 8 ml/s fill, 0 ml/sec bloom lasting 12 seconds, followed by a 9 BAR compress with a 1.3 ml/sec flow limit, then 1.3 ml/sec declining to 0.8 ml at the tail. I typically end up with a 1.5 ml/sec flow rate declining to 1.0.

While I prefer lower ratios (say 1.4 to 1.8 ) to get more body and strength, I’ve had to offset this with somewhat finer grinds (also typical to decaf) and somewhat higher temps (stabilizing at 88 to 89C, which equates to 93C to 94C on say a Lelit Elizabeth) to get sufficient extraction. I’ve tried 86 to 87C but began to get sour notes, against which I’d could grind finer, except I suspect I’d end up on the back end of the grind too coarse/grind right/grind too fine curve. But I suppose I could try slightly lower temps and an offsetting slightly finer grind, just to see.

Flow profiles that tail off towards the back ⅓ of the shot can also help reduce those bitter and harsh notes. I guess that is why lever machines produce those sweet shots.

The lower ratios that I prefer with my medium-dark decaf beans also reduces the bitter and or harsh notes (that typically occur towards the end of a pour), but at the expense of other flavour extraction.

So I suppose that if we can extract more pleasant flavour notes earlier on, through more even distribution or greater pressure or higher temps mid shot (if needed), then we can cut off the shot earlier to cut out those bitter/harsh notes and have more body. And still keep those flavours. :)

Thoughts?

Cuprajake

My only thing is don’t go off looks of the shot.

Taste it and go from there.

God shot does not equal god taste

JammyDodger

JHCCoffee I drink medium dark decaf. One thing that I’ve found is that it is harder to extract strength and flavour from decaf.

I have sadly found it’s harder to extract anything I really like from decaffeinated beans. I somehow always feel them to be a pale reflection of what they could have been. This may however just be a commentary on the decaf beans I have tried in the past. Recommendations of good beans are welcomed!

JammyDodger

JHCCoffee So I suppose that if we can extract more pleasant flavour notes earlier on, through more even distribution or greater pressure or higher temps mid shot (if needed), then we can cut off the shot earlier to cut out those bitter/harsh notes and have more body. And still keep those flavours. :)

Well perhaps… as I suggested, darker roasted coffee is generally improved by limiting extraction. The more you extract, the more likely you are to pull those less desirable flavours into the cup. I don’t follow you however that increasing pressure or temperature in the middle of the shot would improve things, as you would just speed the extraction further. If you’re getting bitter compounds you’re extracting too much.

drdre89

Adding more variables to the equation is more fun. Life is all about having fun.

JHCCoffee

drdre89 Life is all about having fun.

Ageed, atleast for me 😀 = ☕️= 😀. I also like to get good taste 😋☕️ , which when I don’t get for a while is sometimes 😖, but then overcoming the challenge is still 😀.

But to avoid 😖 its good to change one or atmost two variables at a time. The dialing in guide to first set the dose, lock that in, then set the ratio to your bean or taste, lock that in, then adjust grind and or flow, generally works well.

Except when I like to ignore / break the rules, which is often. 😈

JHCCoffee

One thing I am going to drop (for a while) is the Blind Shaker. I’ve given it a fair go. It does seem to increase the density of the grounds in the puck and (based upon taste only - I haven’t done any refractometer tests) increase espresso strength. But unless you release the grounds perfectly into the basket, you get clumps and visually uneven distribution; it’s rare to not have surface clumps with the Blind Shaker. I break these up with a quick surface rake, but I just don’t like having them there. And I do generally see evidence of less than perfect distribution.

So I am going back to WDT for a while. This will likely produce a somewhat less dense puck (I noticed that my shots ran faster with WDT and slower with the Blind Shaker) which means that I will have to grind finer. But atleast my shots will return to being consistently more even.

I had eliminated distribution (and channelling) as a variable, along with tamping as a variable, along time ago. The buzz generated from a certain influencer’s hyperbolic video made me give the Blind Shaker a whirl, but I am going back to my tried and true.