Espresso @infosec.pub CouFou @sh.itjust.works 2 mo. ago

Before and After

Had my espresso machine for a week now and still have no clue if I'm doing it right... lol

23 comments

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!
This almost looks like art right? lol
- Cute 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. 😂
- I go with "if I get my 40 grams in less than 25 seconds grind finer"

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