My espresso still tastes bitter no matter what I do. If I grind much finer it will clog the machine, and if I grind less it ends up ripping through too fast, but still bitter. Is the bitterness just from my beans (superstore lavazza beans—I know they’re not perfect but want to dial in before wasting good beans).
Basically want general advice on my workflow please!
by Dre-K-47
27 Comments
I did lavazza for a bit, those and kicking horse beans from superstore have a bitter/sour stench to them when I compared to the boutique shops I get now. In milk drinks it’s passable.
Try holding the button for 7-10 seconds (I start counting soon as I hear machine makes sound, there’s a delay when button is first pushed). This creates manual pre infusion. May or may not work with the bitterness.
Common adjustments are bitter means not enough extrction and sour means under.
What’s the grinder?
So i find using the predefault single and double was giving me much bitter shots .. kinda happened all of a sudden.. i am not sure why.. but i am drinking so many different types of coffee’s.. hard to say for certain…what triggered it. I have to manually pull certain coffe’s i find certain coffee’s do better at 20g in 50gout but some cannot do more then 40g… Currently Drinking 40g out for kicking horse but the espresso tastes fruity but a bitter bitter when i drink it with milk which is almost always it balances out. i did a frozen shot of 49th Parallel its a local roaster but available in grocery store froze 7 days from roast.. pulled the same grind size when it was freshly opened at that same time frame.. i am using an ims basket and puck paper but when i add milk… its got this bold taste that totally stands out more then Kicking Horse- Mind you was drinking 3 sisters which is not an espresso focused item but i prefer it has a bit of a lighter roast then their Cliff hanger espresso.
It’s more than likely the beans. They will be medium to dark roasted and probably pretty stale.
>but want to dial in before wasting good beans
You can’t skip dialing in new beans. Ideally, you will only burn a couple of shots which is why you start with your last bag’s grind settings, but if that last bag is not great then those previous settings aren’t gonna be a good starting point.
Which lavazza are you using? Their espresso barista roast doesn’t have any redeeming taste notes in my mind but the crema e aroma is buttery and nice as long as you don’t overexteact. Try shortening your shot without adjusting your grind setting? I like about 20s on the espresso barista blend and 25s on the crema e aroma, but that’s subjective. Can you turn off preinfusion? It might be upping your extraction too much and bringing out the bitter.
Ok, first thing. You don’t dial in the machine, you dial in the beans. Every bean, blend, roast is different. Even the same beans as they age require further tweaking.
Forget cheap or expensive, coffee beans are just like any other food or drink item. You like what you like, you won’t like what you won’t like. If you use beans you don’t like, no amount of adjustments will make you like them.
Personally, This is why I only buy beans After tasting them at a cafe, and knowing what to expect out of its taste profile. Then if I’m not getting it at home, I have a point of reference to adjust and make changes.
When you buy any random bag, it’s really a crapshoot if it’s the beans that are no good or if it’s your machine or your grinder or your technique that’s no good.
As a very general rule though, if it’s bitter, it may be over extracted. If it’s sour, it may be underextracted.
What you can do is to aim for a ballpark recipe first. The common one is 1:2 ratio, 18g grounds in, 36g espresso out, around 30s.
Is there a reason you’re using 19g? Is that a 20g basket or 18g basket? If it’s an 18g basket, drop back down to 18g or even 17g to start. It looks like you’re overfilling your basket.
Your wdt needs to be more thorough. Can’t really see from the video, but it just looks like you’re lazily swirling one corner and done. Be more deliberate in churning the grounds, break up clumps as well as spreading it evenly across the basket.
After you’re done wdt, don’t just remove the dosing funnel yet. Use your portafilter and give it one solid htap on the edge of the table/station. This should settle all the grounds into the basket under the dosing funnel. If it’s still overflowing after that tap , that’s usually a sign you may be overdosing.
You don’t always have to fill your basket to the brim, sometimes less is more in terms of flavour.
Friend, treat yourself to some fresh beans from your nearest bean roaster.
All the equipment chat might have distracted you from the fundmental fact: The coffee can only be as good as the beans. If the beans aren’t fantastic, there’s no magic technique to make the coffee fantastic.
Start with better beans. Then try better water (even a bottle of mineral water). And then adjust from there.
Merry Coffee adventures, mate!
wtf was that WDT lmao. Overfilling, and smoothing out with your finger, you might as well skip all those steps and your shot will be the same.
I was wondering where to laptop was for. That is one expensive timer you have there
Your dose is too large for your basket. You don’t want your grinds to be overflowing before tamping. I’d start with dropping the dose to ~16-17g and grind a few steps finer so you’re getting similar flow to now. It’ll probably still taste bitter due to the beans though.
Agree with comments above. Drop your dosing to about 17g. Aim for lower ratio 1:1.5 to aim for less bitter taste.
How is it tasting if you shorter the brew time?
Love your timer
I’ll try and explain what’s likely happening here.
1. Excessive bitterness suggests overextraction
2. Shot time too long (overextracting)
3. brew water too hot (also overextraction)
I would suggest coarsening the grind but your basket is already very full, coarser ground coffee doesn’t pack as dense as finer so you’ll have even less room if you grind coarse, so I suggest dropping the dose to perhaps 17-18g and seeing how that brews. Aim for 1:2 – 1:2.5 ratio, and try and keep your shot time between 20-30s. Experiment and see what works for your palate and the coffee.
Notice as you flush the machine, the water is boiling as it comes out of the group. I’m not familiar with this particular breville but what you can do is flush the group for longer, until the water stops boiling, and then make sure you start brewing without waiting too long as it will heat up again pretty quickly. In the video there’s quite a bit of time between your flush and when you start brewing; see if you can minimise that if you’re trying to reduce the brew temp with a flush. You can also try purging from the steam wand, to me I think that looks like a single boiler machine, where steam and brew water come from the same boiler.
This is especially important if you’re using darker roast coffee as it is more soluble and requires lower brew temperatures.
Looks like you’re overfilling your basket. Reduce to 18.0 g and grind finer to accommodate the lower dose. Also, try changing preinfusion time to the maximum allowed on the breville bambino.
Regarding the coffee, you can find several freshly roasted coffee at affordable prices. Just need to hunt for them. You can use those beans to continue dialing in but you can only learn so much from using old beans.
Edit: didn’t notice your coffee of choice. My suggestions are for light medium roast. I would probably just do the dosage reduction and grind suggestions, only.
I hold the double shot button until the pump kicks on, it gives about 8-10 seconds of pre infusion and then hit it again to stop the shot.
too much beans
Could be two things: are you sure you are not bitter/sour confused?
If it is indeed bitter you can try the following: lower your ratio (less output weight).
Alternatively you can try a salami shot and fraction your espresso. That means change the receiving cup every roughly 5 secs for a new one an taste each fraction. This gives you an idea where your problem is extracted
never witnessed so much unneeded maneuvering
The problem is with your laptop
Not updating your windows. This is a known issues
Grind a little coarser. When tamping, don’t “polish” (turning the tamper), and if you still want to do, don’t apply pressure while doing so. If you apply pressure while polishing, channeling becomes more likely. While doing the puck prep, try to wdt the coffee bed deeply and in a way so that the top becomes even (start low and go up in circles), then with the dosing ring still on, “smack” (not too hard) the bottom of the basket on your mat just once, so that the coffee settles with a more or less even surface on the top and you can proceed to tamping without making a mess. If you tamp with that little mountain in the middle, the coffee is going to be more dense in the middle.
You went to get that bed of grounds level and also they seem way to high for the basket.
Your work flow looks good (and a little complicated)and that looked like a good pull honestly. Don’t let those bottomless portafilters fool you into thinking you have a bad pull bc it’s squirting out the side or the flows not converging. Definitely get some fresh beans. Store bought’s not going to cut it.
Overfilling basket, bad espresso machine that shoots all the water out from a single hole behind the shower screen creating a high pressure jet of water that damages the puck and contributes to channeling
Looks like you’re overfilling the basket. Other than that though you’re doing everything fine. You’re just using terrible beans. Go buy something fresh from a local spot.
Look up False Motivation. I use their Turtle “whole” beans. They get roasted right before they ship to me. Amazing quality. Firefighter owned brand.