Frustration Dialing In Shot Taste With New Lelit Elizabeth

JHCCoffee

Hope you can help. I’ve been frustrated in trying to dial in the shot flavour with a coffee that I’ve enjoyed for years, with my new Lelit Elisabeth. The shots tend to be sour, definitely not sweet or caramel or sweet chocolate. They lack complexity and do not have much of a finish. They even taste a tad stale, even though the coffee is 4 days “old” (ie unfrozen and opened 4 days ago). I have tried the “tried and true”ways to reduce sourness, such as grinding finer to slow the flow and thereby lengthen the shot time; and increasing the boiler temperature. Its helped abit, but there is still abit of sourness there. The only thing that I have not tried is to increase the grounds to output ratio, as it is somewhat ristretto at 1:35 to 1. But I do like a fuller mouth feel.

Here is my technique and recipe, using a Eureka Mignon Specialta grinder. Flush any retained grinds with 2g new coffee. Then grind 16g (sprayed with water mist, to reduce static). Then deep WDT and puck rake with homemade WDT tool (eight x 0.35mm acupuncture needles), then tamp with self leveling tamper (full tamp pressure). Boiler at 107C to get water at grouphead at 96C (thermistor measured). Steam is on and set at 130C. Pre-infusion is 3 seconds bloom and 5 seconds steam, total 8 seconds. Shot ended manually at 20g, to get 22g out. So brew ratio is 1.38 (coffee to grounds). Have not yet measured extraction with refractometer, but will if necessary.

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee Boiler at 107C to get water at grouphead at 96C (thermistor measured).

What does this mean? Can you just tell me:

The temperature the machine is set to;
The offset value for the brew boiler in advanced settings.

JHCCoffee They even taste a tad stale, even though the coffee is 4 days “old” (ie unfrozen and opened 4 days ago)

When did you buy the coffee? What was the roast date? When did you freeze? How did you freeze? How do you defrost it?

Decaf coffee is often rather tricky to dial in and get it right.

At a glance, I’d low the temperature to 93C, skip pre-infusion and aim for 33s from the time you hit the brew switch. that’s a starting point.

JHCCoffee

All other settings are as per DaveC. Coffee is Goldstar - decaf. ⅔ Hawaii and ⅓ espresso, at City Roast. All decaf. Coffee is open for 4 days, since defrosting.

Del_UK

What pressure is the OPV hitting? I found about 8-8.5bar gave me the most body in the shot without too much over extracting

JHCCoffee

Del_UK

I recall that it was 9. How would I easily reduce it? OPV valve? Or?

Btw, I have been pondering about wiring in a rheostat at the electrical input to the pump, for pressure based flow profiling, which I did for my earlier Breville Duo Pro (along with other mods) to eek out all of its capabilities) but am nervous about its impacts on other Lelit systems and its programming. And impacts on its warranty. But wish to focus on learning to dial in this machine as is, before doing that, if I do that at all.

Sorry to change the topic. Let’s continue to focus on taste enhancement.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

EC is set at 10. Not sure exactly what this does. Does this have any impact on temp at the group head, or does this just deduct 10 from the actual boiler temp, to estimate group head water temp.

FYI, the boiler is set at 107. When I use a thermister probe for temperature measurement of the water as it leaves the group head screen (with no portafilter in place), I measured 96 to 97.

My mistake on the coffee. This particular pound bag was roasted on July 26, not frozen, and opened on July 28. It went into a canister that has an inside disk that slides down then locks into place, to reduce airspace, but is probably not airtight.

Used up this coffee on August 1, and have just this August 1 evening defrosted a bag (that was roasted on July 26 and frozen on July 28) for today’s misadventures.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

PS … If I lower the boiler temp to from 107 to 93, then the temp of the water as it leaves the screen and enters the puck will likely be 83 (if I use a thermister to measure it). I read that this water temp should ideally be 96. I also thought that my earlier lower boiler settings of 96 then 103 was the potential cause of the sourness, so increased it to 107.

Not sure how the offset (OS = 10) works here, as display shows boiler temp at 107.

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee - Understood. Looks like you are doing everything correctly. At a guess, I’d blame the coffee. Have you had such coffee before?

DavecUK

JHCCoffee FYI, the boiler is set at 107. When I use a thermister probe for temperature measurement of the water as it leaves the group head screen (with no portafilter in place), I measured 96 to 97.

Let me try and understand what you’re doing, you are setting the temperature on the LCC to 107, and then measuring the temperature coming out of the portafilter with your thermistor at 96 on 97. Is that correct?

Don’t confuse the answer with offsets and what the boiler is and what that is, just is it the temperature you were seeing on the LCC, that you are setting to 106 or 107.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

It’s been my go to coffee. But it is the first and only coffee used with my Lelit. Tasted much better with my earlier modded Breville.

Would increasing the brew ratio help? Say to 16 in, 24 out? Or 26 out?

MediumRoastSteam

JHCCoffee Yes, the boiler is set to 107. The screen shows a boiler temp rising to and stabilizing at 107.

JHCCoffee Not sure how the offset (OS = 10)

The Offset setting in advanced settings is EC. It should be 10. This means that, if the LCC reads 93, the boiler temperature is 103 (93+10 = 103)

This wasn’t clear to me, that you were setting the temperature in the LCC to 107. If that’s the case, then your boiler temperature is 117! That’s way to high, resulting in a very bitter cup of coffee!

Set the LCC to 93C and go from there. Put your thermistor in the drawer for now :-)

Please see: https://sway.office.com/S5J4d9Jp4Y9LdVFx and https://sway.office.com/YUuIpMmQlYAFkxIO?ref=Link

MediumRoastSteam

It’s a new machine, so you need to experiment. Let your tastebuds guide you.

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

Thanks and appreciate your ideas.

Looking forward to hearing from a few others on this as well.

JHCCoffee

Thanks Dave. Yes, the boiler is set to 107. The screen shows a boiler temp rising to and stabilizing at 107. A thermister placed in the water flowing from the group head shows 96 to 97C.

DavecUK

JHCCoffee Set the LCC to 93 for a brew temp of 93 (recommended and tweak it from there. Or 92 for a brew temp of 92. Etc.

Use my advanced settings and put the thermistor in a draw.

Worry about grind, ratio, shot time etc..

JHCCoffee

DavecUK

Thanks Dave. Appreciate your timely responses and experienced advise!

Rob1

Your EY is going to be low. My guess is your EY was lower in the past and you were under extracting without sourness, now your EY is a little higher due to a slower ramp up of the machine/pre infusion? and you’re getting sourness. Grinding finer is likely just going to cause other problems assuming you’re getting your ratio of 1:1.3 in about 30 seconds (as in you’re probably already pushing the grinder). You can increase EY by increasing the ratio or decrease by decreasing the ratio or grind coarser. This is guesswork though as I have no idea what your previous machine was doing different to the current one.

JHCCoffee

Rob1

Thanks Rob. Taste already improved by lowering temp to 93 at group head (I misunderstood the way the offset setting worked) and going to a 1.5 brew ratio. Will try 1.75X. Will also haul out my refractometer to confirm EY.

Rob1

Also…have you flushed the boilers, have you changed the water you use?

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam

Giphy - clean up order GIF by PRTG

JHCCoffee

MediumRoastSteam

Now I get it! The 107 I had set was actual water temp at the group head, and the 10C offset pushes the machine to a boiler temp of 117. Way too hot!

When I dropped the temp to 93, and increased my brew ratio to 1.5, taste improved a lot.

Will now experiment with 1.7 ratio ratio, etc.