Siliconslave's how to make espresso thread

Yeah, i 100% will do. Just don't want to spend more until i know i'll use the machine. One thing having a €100 coffee machine i rarely use without adding a €150 grinder i also won't use :p

For now i'll continue to use my slightly large grind from the Melitta and dial in the process. My second cup this morning was definitely worse than the first. For the first i'd used the steam wand to top up the hot water. The second i used the water button, but it pushed it through the coffee which resulted in it being a bit bitter.
Turns out i should be putting the water in first for an americano it seems!
 
Anyone got any advice for a noob? I bought my first ever espresso setup featuring a Sage Bambino Plus and DF54 grinder and i cant do anything except churn out sour shots and flat whites that hardly get any coffee flavour coming through.

I bought a bottomless portafilter and IMS basket, good scales, a good tamper etc and I’ve watched countless youtube tutorials and even though I seem to doing the same things it just doesn’t make any difference. I’m out of ideas now and I’m genuinely considering going back to my Nespresso machine
 
Goose said:
Anyone got any advice for a noob? I bought my first ever espresso setup featuring a Sage Bambino Plus and DF54 grinder and i cant do anything except churn out sour shots and flat whites that hardly get any coffee flavour coming through.
Click to expand...
Describe your methodology.

What beans are you using, where are they from, how old are they, etc. How long are your shots taking to hit the ratio you are aiming for? What ratio are you aiming for? What have you tried thus far and what effect(s) did those changes have?

And are your shots actually sour or are you confusing sourness with bitterness?
 
glitch said:
Describe your methodology.

What beans are you using, where are they from, how old are they, etc. How long are your shots taking to hit the ratio you are aiming for? What ratio are you aiming for? What have you tried thus far and what effect(s) did those changes have?

And are your shots actually sour or are you confusing sourness with bitterness?
Click to expand...
The beans i'm using are from Hormozi, tried two different ones so far, both medium roast. One house blend type and one Brazillian.

I have the DF54 grind size at 15, any finer and the extraction chokes. I tried 20 just now and extraction was way too fast.

After grinding 18g of beans I use my needle tool to break up the clumps before tamping.

I pull a shot in manual mode and aim for 36g of output which usually takes around 27 seconds.

I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between sour and bitter.
 
For learning espresso it is far easier to target medium to dark roasts. I like Rave blends, Wogan blends, Coffee Compass (dark roast option) etc.

Many medium and lighter roasts are inherently going to have brighter notes anyway and are more challenging to dial in for espresso.

You could try increasing your ratio, I.e 18g in, 45g out (2.5:1) or even 54g (3:1).

Essentially don't be tied to 25 to 30s and 2:1 ratio. Each bean is different and will require some experimenting.

To reduce sourness you can:
* Grind finer which will increase extraction and increase contact time
* Increase ratio, you may find you can couple this with going coarser, so you can keep contact time the same, but increase flow
* Increase temperature
 
Last edited:
Goose said:
The beans i'm using are from Hormozi, tried two different ones so far, both medium roast. One house blend type and one Brazillian.

I have the DF54 grind size at 15, any finer and the extraction chokes. I tried 20 just now and extraction was way too fast.

After grinding 18g of beans I use my needle tool to break up the clumps before tamping.

I pull a shot in manual mode and aim for 36g of output which usually takes around 27 seconds.

I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference between sour and bitter.
Click to expand...
I use a Duo Temp Pro and Sage's own grinder, so in principle my setup is no better than yours (arguably worse), and can pull decent shots, so it's certainly not the setup. Pulling 36g in 27 seconds sounds about right to me, so it could well be the beans although I appreciate that Hormozi are well reviewed. It did take me a while to find a provider whose beans work well with my setup - Perky Blenders Acacia beans are really consistent for me.

The other thing that really improved things for me was getting a puck screen and bottomless portafilter. I find that the puck screen hugely increases consistency of the flow, and the bottomless portafilter gave a much cleaner taste.
 
Bottomless PF giving better taste can only be down to a dirty spouted pf, given they are harder to keep clean.
They tend to get coated in old coffee oils, and do need soaking in Cafiza / Pulycaf to clean then properly.
 
BAcon said:
Bottomless PF giving better taste can only be down to a dirty spouted pf, given they are harder to keep clean.
They tend to get coated in old coffee oils, and do need soaking in Cafiza / Pulycaf to clean then properly.
Click to expand...
Possibly! It was one of the Sage ones with the plastic base, so it was a faff to clean. Ultimately a bottomless leaves much less material for the coffee to flow through, so unless you're meticulous with cleaning it should improve things.
 
A couple of days after coming back from my 11th annual trip to the London coffee festival, I decided to upgrade my machine from a rancilio Silvia to a Lelit mara X3, hopefully I've got a good price for it, should be arriving sometime next week hopefully. Prior to said coffee festival, I bought a leveler and a dosing funnel that had improved my technique somewhat, but my latte art skills still leave something to be desired.

Prior to going to the festival I cleaned out my grinder (a MK2 eureka mignon) for the first time since I can remember. Things did not really improve afterwards, in fact it stopped grinding coffee. So I took it to bits and cleaned out the chute as it was completely clogged.

Turns out after cleaning it there weren't half a lot of retention, I think that at least 15 to 20 grams of ground coffee are still sitting inside that grinder.

So my question is, do I buy a zero retention grinder as another upgrade, or do I buy the upgrade kit for my grinder which is in the link below.

https://www.eureka.co.it/en/accessory/id/167/

Your thoughts and opinions please.
 
I have had multiple eureka grinders, I currently have 2 Specialitas in fact.

In the past I've tried single dose kits with a Specialita, admittedly not the Eureka branded one link.
But it's not suited to it in my opinion. It's optimised as an on demand grinder though and that is how I think they should be used.

I found when used as a single dose grinder, that the bellows would clog up the anti static prongs in the chute. Then in the following shot Id get the shot, plus the previous shots clumping of the anti static prongs. It was inconsistent and irritated me!
The adjuster is also not adapted to switching between beans, which should be a feature of a single dose grinder, changing back and forth between beans as required. As the dial is tiny and small changes make a big difference it makes it very difficult to repeat previous settings easily.

However I am currently using a Specialita alongside my Niche Duo. I use it as intended, with a couple days worth of medium dark roast espresso beans in the hopper. It's very consistent and I really cannot fault it.

So imo, I'd remove the upper burr, then also remove the lower burr and carrier, clean it all up.

Then rebuild., then align your burrs as per "The Wired Gourmet" on YouTube. Search for burr alignment. It's easy to do and super effective.
 
Grimley said:
So my question is, do I buy a zero retention grinder as another upgrade, or do I buy the upgrade kit for my grinder which is in the link below.
Click to expand...

BAcon said:
In the past I've tried single dose kits with a Specialita, admittedly not the Eureka branded one link.
But it's not suited to it in my opinion. It's optimised as an on demand grinder though and that is how I think they should be used.
Click to expand...

I had the same experience with a Eureka Facile using after market single dosing options (also admittedly not Eureka branded).

Retention was worse using a rigid single dose hopper, and with a set of rubber bellows. The bellows even seemed to blow coffee into areas away from the intended grind path. Adding a DIY tilted base seemed to make no difference at all.

I agree the Eurekas are not built for single dosing, and I'm skeptical the recent zero/low retention models have been modified sufficiently for this use case. I believe I saw the Hoff voice similar concerns on a comparison video.
 
nice upgrade from the silvia to the mara.
I've been pretty happy with my mignon as an espresso grinder with a simple 3d printed single dose hopper (like this) retention isn't zero, but its good enough day to day with occasional cleans.
There are defiantly better 'zero retention' grinders out there like the Niche (£560), Timemore 064s (£600), mazzer philos (£1200) etc etc. but really depends how much your willing to pay for limited improvements :)
 
BAcon said:
Bottomless PF giving better taste can only be down to a dirty spouted pf, given they are harder to keep clean.
They tend to get coated in old coffee oils, and do need soaking in Cafiza / Pulycaf to clean then properly.
Click to expand...
more being able to take the spout off that facilitates cleaning - mine is apparently thread-lockedc and despite extensive vice work never managed to unscrww it.
(earlier posts)
cafiza alone not so good, I use cotton buds to reach some areas, but not being completely chrome plated also hinders cleaning.

retention - updated recently to a small ~6mm dia nylon bottle brush for cleaning grinder coffee path after every cup ... just make sure burrs haver stopped turning.
 
Main benefit for single dose grinders for me is the ability of turning back and forth between grind settings for various beans as required. Niche Duo is superb at it.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Ok the drill was great! But I might get a smaller one just for this rather than buying a full on grinder.

I let it heat up with the steam switch engaged, so it's sitting there for maybe 15 minutes with steam switch engaged. This has given me mega-steam, which is awesome.

Is this OK, though? Just hoping I'm not setting up a bomb in the kitchen...
Click to expand...

Bitate on this. But you can also change the thermostat so it doesn't turn off till hotter, allowing it to keep on longer. Only a few quid and few minutes to change.
 
dirtychinchilla said:
Bitate? Can you link to this mod?
Click to expand...

Bit late- typo :/

www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk

Brew and Steam Thermostats

Whilst we are strong advocates of just removing the thermostats on a Classic and replacing them with full PID control, we appreciate that there are often cases where a replacement or upgraded thermostat is required or preferred - and we therefore offer the following thermostats:Standard 107C...
www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk

Not where I got mine, link in email I have is dead as about 5 years ago. But I changed mine to the 155c one. Seemed better, not by huge amounts but better.
 
Begbie said:
Bit late- typo :/

www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk

Brew and Steam Thermostats

Whilst we are strong advocates of just removing the thermostats on a Classic and replacing them with full PID control, we appreciate that there are often cases where a replacement or upgraded thermostat is required or preferred - and we therefore offer the following thermostats:Standard 107C...
www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk www.shadesofcoffee.co.uk

Not where I got mine, link in email I have is dead as about 5 years ago. But I changed mine to the 155c one. Seemed better, not by huge amounts but better.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks! I'm actually just making Americanos most of the time now for some reason, so haven't steamed much milk of late!
 
The last 250g of the Bethania Hortensia. (Nicaragua).

4a8ec635b4b3.jpg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom