Had my espresso machine for a week now and still have no clue if I’m doing it right… lol
The only key is taste. A lot of people say that a 2:1 water to coffee ratio pulled in 28-35 seconds is what you want to aim for. That’s a great place to start, but I love some sweeter light roasts at like 40 second shots for 40g of water, 20-21g of coffee, and pretty much no one would recommend that based on averages.
So know what under and over extracted shots taste like, then aim for 40-45g water in 30 seconds with a 20-21g coffee dose, and decide if it seems more sour than you’d like (under) or bitter/cloying (over). If under, adjust to increase the brew time (experiment with both grinding finer and increasing the dose as the 2 best ways to increase extraction time). If you want to decrease the extraction time, your best best is to grind more coarsely.
So learn what tastes under-extracted to you and what tastes over, and then you’ll just have to adjust grind size and dose for each bean for the flavor you like most. Keep those settings and brew by weight until you need to adjust again.
super useful comment! TY!
Happy to help! Everyone deserves great coffee at home!
Mostly I use a stove top bialetti these days. And would really love to have a decent espresso device.
Flair anyone? https://flairespresso.com/
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-espresso-machines
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/appliances/coffee-maker-reviews/g29069348/best-espresso-machines/
I used a flair for a long time and loved it. Find a bean that’s got a lot of body and richness at a very light roast, and then grind it as fiiiiine as you can get it. Then you can crank the absolute heck out of it and overcome any heat or extraction issues with some huge pressure. Gauge add-on is highly recommended, but as far as other solid cups from budget machines, Breville makes great user-friendly machines at around/under $500, my rec being the Infuser/BES840XL
The 58 that comes with a dial has a damage warning above 12 bar
Yeah I had the original, and the pressure gauge for that had something similar at 12+ bars, but honestly I pulled it at like 13-15 bars every day for ~2 years and never had an issue so long as I had put it together neatly and sealed well
I use a flair 58. I love it. Pull any pressure pattern. I don’t use milk though, and it is more work than the popular machines
More work, lower cost, fewer parts to break / replace. I’m talking myself into a Flair.
More work just because you’re the pressure source. But that also means you can use the pressure however you like
You need a really expensive machine to have that kind of control automatically
This almost looks like art right? lolCute butt
If it tastes good your doing it right
James Hoffman did a vid about this machine: https://youtu.be/qkfXNE3mkXA
Yeah I’ve seen all of the videos about the machine so far. My biggest worry is the reliability but if it doesn’t last at least it will be a good start towards something fancy.
If in doubt, grind finer.
That’s part of my issue. Since this machine suggests the grind it is already at the finest grind. Not sure if it is worth changing the temp or the ratio yet but I’m happy with the results so far. I’ve only run two types of beans through it and the bean in the picture is an espresso blend. Tastes alright but now I just need to try more beans to get a better idea on taste… lol I’ve got a bialetti and didn’t fully know how to use it for years. Last time I used it the power was out and I grinded my beans using my car’s electrical port and the BBQ to brew. I’ve been grinding strong drip coffee and just buying my beans at costco(found the costco espresso to be terrible tasting in my drip machine though).
Wait is this the new Ninja machine James shows off a couple of weeks ago?
Also “grind finer” is a running joke that “any problem with espresso brewing can be solved by grinding finer.” It’s obviously not true. 😂
Yes, it is the Ninja luxe cafe. Been doing 2 double shots and using the medium foam setting with enough milk for a latte as my first drink of the day. My previous machine was a breville grind and brew where I had it set for a very strong 20oz of coffee. The grinder on the breville gave up trying to grind the costco espresso bean so I switched back to my cuisinart grinder… lol
BTW, if you’re buying Balzac’s Farmers Blend by any chance - that thing is notoriously difficult to extract properly for espresso on any equipment.
I used a local Ottawa roasters espresso blend(BBCR). I managed to make a sour batch today, I tried to make a quad(luxe) shot but didn’t tamp it well enough. I dialed back the grind and my second attempt worked better but I think I prefer doing two double shots as the puck still comes out wet with the quad shot.
Ah cool. Me and my friends have all tried extracting Farmers Blend from Costco on different sets of equipment and only one was able to do it somewhat consistently and he has slow rampup pump capped at 8 bar of peak pressure. That generally makes extraction easier.
I go with “if I get my 40 grams in less than 25 seconds grind finer”
