Today was my 3rd and last video in the Evo2 basket size series, it may not be published until later today but it prompted this post. I found myself saying something that I believe is more important than just a passing comment. It reflects things Iv'e found over many years and increasingly so when trying to find a good basket (for me) to use with the Evo. For now ignore shot ratio, as unless it's on the abnormal side (e.g. Allonge). I have found a **fair difference in the amount of coffee used and the taste of the final extracted product.** Even when I reduce the amount of water added to an americano to equalise the coffees strength to account for the reduced weight of coffee. Espressos taste different as well. I referred to this in passing in my video, but now I believe it's important enough to have a discussion about it. When you reduce or increase the coffee in the portafilter, to maintain the same shot time, you have to reduce/increase the grind fineness.. To my mind, this logically **must** have an effect on the final product, the level of extraction and the flavour. I found myself in the situation of using 14, 16 or 18g of coffee in my different LSM group baskets and having to tweak the grind for each. I find myself actually preferring the shots where I use 14g of coffee, keeping the shot ratio the same. The shots are smaller, but "better". The Americanos I also make with those shots, have less water so the "strength" is the same, but again taste "better". I can only put it down to having to grind progressively finer as less coffee is used and getting a higher/different extraction from the coffee. Has anyone else noticed this, is this something you should try yourself?

Interesting topic. You know way more than me about all of this Dave. In my view, there are a number of dimensions to it: * Headspace - can influence body and extraction. I know that the ideal is 2mm (the thickness of a nickel). I need to read this article: * Puck thickness (bed depth) - I need to read up on this here: https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/what-effect-does-bed-depth-have-when-increasing-your-dose-to-make-more-espresso/ * Basket and puck dimensions - I seem to be having greater success these days (for my taste - see below) with an EPHQ14 basket made by Espresso Parts, which I dose to 15g. Its a moderate flow basket (no wholes around the perimeter, round sides, so fewer holes). I will also be retrying the Decent Waisted Basket. * Grind fineness - All of the above influences grind fineness, which one must adjust to control flow. The flow based profile that lately works well for me targets 1.3 ml/sec flow and ends up being about 1.0 ml/sec. Thats a somewhat slow flow, and in my lower hole count EPHQ14 basket, pressure zooms right up to 11 BAR over the duration of the shot and doesn’t come down! I’d like it to come down somewhat towards the back 1/3 of the shot, but then my puck is not degrading to the point of flow increasing and the shot tastes very good. FYI, I prefer medium dark (Full City to Full City+) roasts. And more body, good strength, ample flavour and length. On the full bodied to ample clarity scale, with 10 being a very full bodied (almost syrupy) espresso shot, my taste tends to be a 6 to 10, depending upon what I feel like drinking at the moment and of course the coffee beans. All of the above is lately giving me a tasty shot. The puck is abit too soupy for my liking, but if I increase the dose by even 0.5g, yes the brew ratio declines, but the shot just doesn’t taste as good. So soupy it is, until I ruin things by installing Sheldon’s Spacer Kit (expensive; ouch) when it arrives. Also just put back the FCD and aligned it with the burrs, so my grind will probably get 3 small marks finer and mess up my shot again until I fix it.

How much Coffee in the Portafilter for espresso/americano?

JHCCoffee

DavecUK I noticed Nespresso capsules seem to manage extremely finely ground coffee without over extraction or bitterness. Also some other things.

I dislike the taste of overly long extractions (these I can find more bitter and over extracted)
I prefer the taste with the smaller basket and less coffee 14 to 16g depending on screen (but importantly the ratio still the same

So to avoid overly long extractions and try finer grinds, the simple solution is to use less coffee ground finer. The LSM portafilter with the slightly deeper puck compared to a 58mm facilitates this trial.

I ran four more decaf shots today, after re-installing and re-aligning the Niche Zero - Flow Control Disc, to optimize flow through the burrs (I had previously removed the disc to test impacts on shot consistency). I had been getting very good shots without the FCD and wanted to see if that very good taste would consistently continue with the FCD, using the same decaf beans (Milano Harmony Decaf), the same basket (ESP14 by Espresso Parts - a rounded, moderate flow 14g basket) and the same flow based profile on my Decent.

Shot 4 was a 4.0 grind and produced nirvana in a cappuccino. Score - 9.5 out of 10. The best cappuccino I’ve ever poured or tasted. Also pretty good as a straight shot, except that I’d probably also aim for even more body (a syrupy ristretto shot).

This is confirming what you (Dave) have already concluded, which is smaller dose in a smaller basket = better taste. The dial in window is narrower, but when you nail it, boy do you nail it!

I will next retry my Decent Waisted basket, as it might more closely resemble the LSM basket that David is referring to than my EPHQ14. I say might, because I have not yet watched Dave’s video on it.

But first I think I will try to pull another dozen shots of that great 4.0 grind shot that I pulled this afternoon. Yum 😋

Here are screenshots of the graph.

rxmnt

JHCCoffee I ran four more decaf shots today, after re-installing and re-aligning the Niche Zero - Flow Control Disc

I apologize for this slightly off-topic question, but what do you mean by re-aligning the disc? What are you aligning it with, the burr teeth?

JHCCoffee

PS I hope that I didn’t mix up the last two shots (3 and 4) on my kitchen counter. I don’t think so, but will confirm that tomorrow. Once I do, I’ll post a Visualizer link. Note the very high peak pressure (about 15 BAR), which the Decent went to, to hit my 1.3 ml/sec flow target (and the 1.0 ml/sec result shown in the graph), when using a 4.0 grind on a decaf. Shot time was 38 seconds including pre-infusion.

MacPhisto

I’ve taken up the challenge to lower my starting dose. I was at 17g in the 26mm IMS basket on my Evo2. I went initially down to 14g (without a screen) and settled on 15g as a new starting dose. I agree that the flavor profile is generally better than a 17g dose with the same ratio to water.

One thing I’ve noticed is that with a lower dose, tastes of over-extraction creeps in and a slight drop in water temperature helped. I think I dropped .5 to 1 C when I went from 17g to 15g with the same beans.

Is my mind playing tricks on me or is this expected?

DavecUK

MacPhisto One thing I’ve noticed is that with a lower dose, tastes of over-extraction creeps in and a slight drop in water temperature helped. I think I dropped .5 to 1 C when I went from 17g to 15g with the same beans.

Is my mind playing tricks on me or is this expected?

It shouldn’t happen really…as the amount of water is reducing as the ratio is maintained. You should be getting more out of the coffee though…which might result in a change in the flavour, perhaps a touch more bitterness, which you have controlled with a temperature reduction.

This all came about because of my experiences with capsules and pods in Italy and with my friend @MWJB in the UK. I was surprised that these very fine grinds, although requiring shorter shots as there is not much coffee in a pod or capsule, didn’t give an over extracted taste. It’s also true that many pod machines and all Nespresso machines don’t give as high a temp as prosumer stuff. So I started experimenting a while ago now.

I wasn’t really looking for something different…just that these thoughts of dose and ever increasing dose kept niggling at me…a recent post also spurred me into action. Also the rather unnevering fact that Nespresso and pods didn’t taste terrible!

I am convinced there is something here..

History:

Back in the day when I started out, the standard dose was around 14g of coffee for espresso. As the prosumer side grew and crappy grinders entered the home market, people struggled and doses started creeping up in the attampt to get a decent looking/tasting shot. I believe the home grinders were really not great in those days…and for a very very long time they didn’t improve.

Now we have access to much better grinders, better machines with better temperature control…and perhaps it’s best to revisit dose. Especially as modern home prosumer grinders seem more capable of grinding finer and grinding well.

MediumRoastSteam

In a year’s time we will all be talking about how a bigger dose changes the coffee taste (for the better) :-)

Sometimes I do wonder whether, as enthusiasts, we just get bored of the same old. We then try to change things, discover something new, we like and and we keep it. Until we get bored of that and try something different again. :-)

MacPhisto

Sure, and because we’re doing something different, we’re looking for changes and our brains will find one–even if it’s not really there.

I certainly had a few enormous triple baskets laying around that I never use from the days of crazy updosing.

Brainbox

DavecUK

DavecUK Back in the day when I started out, the standard dose was around 14g of coffee for espresso.

This was with a higher ratio?

mathof2

DavecUK This all came about because of my experiences with capsules and pods in Italy and with my friend @MWJB in the UK. I was surprised that these very fine grinds, although requiring shorter shots as there is not much coffee in a pod or capsule, didn’t give an over extracted taste.

Is it possible that some of this effect is due to using roller grinders?

MacPhisto

As for taste differences, I’m certainly grinding much finer to maintain the same ratio–which means I am likely increasing the extraction yield if everything else is being held nearly constant.

James Hoffman had similar comments about dosing a few years ago. My memory is he also highlighted the lack of consistency in both grind size and dose size in the home setting. Modern home grinders can be far, far superior in both these variables. Not sure how that explains the crazy updosing in the third wave coffee shops in the early aughts but it was certainly everywhere. My memory was the original Stumptown (a few blocks from my house) was updosing 23 or 24 grams into a 21g triple basket and extracting at close to 1:1 ratios.

DavecUK

Brainbox They didn’t go so much with ratios, as the WBC rules said (about 20 years ago) espresso was made with 14g of coffee and to the line in a standard shot glass, including crema. Which I thought was pretty stupid as crema was a variable and how long after the shot was it measured. The rules were essentially meaningless.

That said, a 2:1 ratio was really where it was going.

Obviously most of the influencers were still in Nappies, or shorts in those days.

Teaboy

I am doing 14g in a 14g basket now and grinding much finer and I am impressed with the results I had 40g out in about 40 seconds (sorry not exact).

Adrianmsmith

Teaboy

Grind finererrererr 😎

Teaboy

Adrianmsmith fine 😜

DavecUK

mathof2 Is it possible that some of this effect is due to using roller grinders?

I don’t know?

mathof2

I just found this: “Roller mills can also produce relatively spherical particles of coffee, with a very defined and narrow particle size distribution, which is part of the reason that espresso pods can produce such high extractions in a short time”. https://www.baristahustle.com/blog/bench-top-roller-mill/

Chriss29

This is something I’m going to try because at the moment I have a coffee that requires 19g to take up the same volume in the basket as what I’d usually fill with 17g. It’s also strange how well the pucks knock out too. Even when I’ve almost choked the machine it still knocks out in one piece.

It’s a nice coffee too, washed Burundi. One of those which has tasted good throughout the dialling in process.

Has anyone else ever had an experince like this too?