# Amount of Coffee for Espresso in DB



## mark8805 (Oct 17, 2014)

I have a subscription to Workshop Coffee and their recipe is 18g in 36g out, this is fine, however when I grind 18g of coffee into the Double Basket and level with the Razor tool that comes with the DB the coffee is below the level of the Razor tool, I am grinding with a Sette 270W, my question is has anyone managed to get 18g of coffee into the Double basket so that it can be levelled by the Razor tool or does it not matter if the coffee is below the Razor tool?

Only been doing the Home Barista stuff since December so still learning and fine tuning so any help would be much appreciated.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I've had problems with the razor tool on the DB but turned out to be down to me, a problem I have never had before. An odd tamping problem.

I sometimes use the razor to find out how much a basket can hold but need to revisit that due to the above.

From what I can gather and my own use of the double 18g is ok. Personally I like a nice puck that isn't too wet and soggy to knock out easily and cleanly. Providing the dose provides that I am happy. If not I increase the dose.

I have been known to go so high that the used puck shows a slight impression of the shower screen but is still clear when the portafilter is fitted. Only if needed though. Tidy pucks can be produced at lower levels.

Really the razor has 2 functions - it can get people up and running without scales, not a substitute, and it is also provided with one of their grinders - it allows the fill to be trimmed up while the grind timer is set.

My tamping problem made the used puck look like I had under filled - pucks wet / all over the place. I think you will find that the razor tool set the height just short of where it would touch the shower screen. Some would see that as over dosing.

John

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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Quick answer, ditch the razor.


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## 4085 (Nov 23, 2012)

The Razor tool is because Sage encourage people not to weigh in, but just use your eye and deliberately overfill. If you do this, then the razor tool trims the excess off. if you do not do this, then it serves no value whatsoever!


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Weigh the basket on some 0.1g scales, dose tamp & razor. Discard the loose disturbed grinds, reweigh the basket, the difference is your ball-park dose weight.

Tuck the razor away & dose by weight from now on.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

MWJB said:


> Weigh the basket on some 0.1g scales, dose tamp & razor. Discard the loose disturbed grinds, reweigh the basket, the difference is your ball-park dose weight.
> 
> Tuck the razor away & dose by weight from now on.


That in my view sums it up nicely. One aspect I would add is that it might be useful again when a new bean is tried. The density of beans varies. I do probably use 2 extremes in that respect though and also try different sized baskets.

I'd say what Sage do is not really make it clear what brewing coffee might entail. There demo and white gloves people are also likely to be pretty good at producing decent drinks by eye. Sage wouldn't want them to produce rubbish for obvious reasons.

John

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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Out of interest I just used the razor for the DB on a used puck that had just about hit the shower screen. The razor seems to set that height or maybe a touch higher.

Just one puck and not a Sage basket but should give some idea. The rim on this IMS basket is more rounded than Sage so may sit a touch higher but it wont be much.

I can only eyeball how much the grounds expanded - circa 1 to 1 1/2 mm using 13g.

John

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## mark8805 (Oct 17, 2014)

Hi John, can you use any 58mm basket with the Sage portafilter, if so any recommendations?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

mark8805 said:


> Hi John, can you use any 58mm basket with the Sage portafilter, if so any recommendations?


The sage ones are high quality. I'd stick with those for now. Leave the bewildering basket experiments to the puckologists.


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## mark8805 (Oct 17, 2014)




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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

mark8805 said:


>


To answer your question you can use most 58mm baskets , the larger ones either advertised as triples ( which are probably rubbish anyway ) or the VST 20g plus baskets would need a naked pf. Keep your life simple, use eh sage basket for now, the double. Weigh in and out. Forget the razor.


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## urbanbumpkin (Jan 30, 2013)

mark8805 said:


> Hi John, can you use any 58mm basket with the Sage portafilter, if so any recommendations?


I use a 18g VST with mine, it's very similar the sage one. As Boots said you may as well stick with this and tinker with other more important variables.

Puckologists LOL


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

mark8805 said:


> Hi John, can you use any 58mm basket with the Sage portafilter, if so any recommendations?


If that is tamper size so far I have found that I can. Some makes are ridged and those may be harder to extract. It can even vary. One of my Fracino baskets is hard to get out - the 12g one. The others are fine and an aftermarket triple is a bit tight. Ridgeless should be ok if E61 / 58mm tamper size. The catch is no way of knowing what they will hold. Generally some grams more on a Sage.

I do have some IMS posh baskets but only because of available sizes. I don't think higher polish, double inspection ( ? ) and some engraving adds much to the coffee that is produced. I also think that the high ranges mentioned on some will prove to be misleading if like me some one wants tidy pucks.

I'm using a 23mm high IMS "The Single" at the moment. Not sure if I would recommend it as I'm finding I need to wobble the tamper a lot when tamping to be sure that I am getting air out. It holds a bit under 13g of MM so might be more like 14g with other beans. They reckon it holds 10.5g. Problem could be the beans or the basket but I've never had this happen on the bean before.

I had a lot of trouble with the DB single in part because I expected it to hold the same as the single on the BE. It can't be tamped correctly with that weight in it. I'm going to revisit it again but expect it will need the level the razor tool leaves and I generally go a bit lower on the DB. There is little scope for going lower and leaving something that can be tamped. Sage may be using fill level as an alternative to grinding finer - over dosing some would say. In real terms it's just something that can be done. Some will say !!!!!!!!!! WHAT !!!!!!!!!!!!! to that but it is something that can be done - within limits. Grinds expand and the expansion is restricted so flow slows down. Fill level alters flow rates anyway.

John

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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ajohn said:


> Fill level alters flow rates anyway.
> 
> John
> 
> -


I don't understand references to 'flow rates' in espresso, few people know what their flow rate is & if they did, they'd see they are such a wide tolerance as to be next to useless.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

mark8805 said:


> I have a subscription to Workshop Coffee and their recipe is 18g in 36g out, this is fine, however when I grind 18g of coffee into the Double Basket and level with the Razor tool that comes with the DB the coffee is below the level of the Razor tool, I am grinding with a Sette 270W, my question is has anyone managed to get 18g of coffee into the Double basket so that it can be levelled by the Razor tool or does it not matter if the coffee is below the Razor tool?
> 
> Only been doing the Home Barista stuff since December so still learning and fine tuning so any help would be much appreciated.


FWIW their 'recipe' is just a 1:2 ratio pull - and it's the same for both the beans on their website. It is perfectly possible this is the actual recipe they recommend - but it is also possible they have just filled in the 'recipe' part of their website with a standard 18g in 36g.

Whilst you should ditch the razor tool for actually removing coffee - it does give you an idea of what the 'correct' fill height for the basket should be. Too much headspace can be a bad thing, although its not as bad as too little.

You could fill the basket until it tamps at the 'correct' height (height of the razor cut off) then weigh this coffee and pull a 1:2 ratio shot - then adjust from here by taste.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

MWJB said:


> I don't understand references to 'flow rates' in espresso, few people know what their flow rate is & if they did, they'd see they are such a wide tolerance as to be next to useless.


Changes the rate water goes through the grounds just like altering grinder setting does. If some one gets say +/- 5ml in 30sec and they change the fill the mean will shift. If someone fills so that the grinds can not fully expand that will make a noticeable difference to it dependent on degree. Under fill and water may shoot through at some point. My Sage SGP finally threw a wobble. Output had been so consistent I decided to go straight into the basket and not weigh. Going on what came out on the following shot it held back something approaching a gram on 12.7. Messy puck and the water rocketed through. I had to flick the puck out of the grouphead and catch it in the portafilter. Normally if I have overfilled by a certain amount and the puck stuck a little more coffee would fix it. On the DB I find that low fills can do it as well.








Looks like it's finally time to fully clean my SGP.

John

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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ajohn said:


> Changes the rate water goes through the grounds just like altering grinder setting does. If some one gets say +/- 5ml in 30sec and they change the fill the mean will shift. If someone fills so that the grinds can not fully expand that will make a noticeable difference to it dependent on degree. Under fill and water may shoot through at some point. My Sage SGP finally threw a wobble. Output had been so consistent I decided to go straight into the basket and not weigh. Going on what came out on the following shot it held back something approaching a gram on 12.7. Messy puck and the water rocketed through. I had to flick the puck out of the grouphead and catch it in the portafilter. Normally if I have overfilled by a certain amount and the puck stuck a little more coffee would fix it. On the DB I find that low fills can do it as well.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


OK,that's 2 things I don't understand:

Comments about flow rates as a useful guide to making espresso.

Pulling shots to 30s then seeing what you have in the cup. 

If you change nothing time & flow rate will vary. How much does the mean have to vary to cause all shots to under-extract, what's the stdev in time?


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

1) Flow rate sets what comes out in what ever time is used so the term just a description of what happens.

2) No comment

3) I've no idea. I set the buttons. Time on the DB, probably volume related on the BE. If taste changes after obtaining what I want something has changed. It generally doesn't.

John

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## urbanbumpkin (Jan 30, 2013)

3a) Why are measuring the shot by time and not by weight?

3b) The SageDB can be set to do both time and Vol in settings. Why do the BE by Vol and the Sage DB by time?

3c) Refer to 3a


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ajohn said:


> 1) Flow rate sets what comes out in what ever time is used so the term just a description of what happens.
> 
> John
> 
> -


But it's open ended, there's no reference in dose to tie it down.

E.g. you could say 1g/sec works. Based on this all 30sec shots would be 30whatevers, all 18sec shots would be 18whatevers, all 60g shots would be 60whatevers.

That isn't going to work unless a longer brew ratio allows a shorter contact time for the 18sec shots.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

urbanbumpkin said:


> 3a) Why are measuring the shot by time and not by weight?
> 
> 3b) The SageDB can be set to do both time and Vol in settings. Why do the BE by Vol and the Sage DB by time?
> 
> 3c) Refer to 3a


Clive, why are you asking? Have you learnt nothing previous posts and questions


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## urbanbumpkin (Jan 30, 2013)

Mrboots2u said:


> Clive, why are you asking? Have you learnt nothing previous posts and questions


LOL. I think I needed to document the Logic diagram that's going on in my head before it implodes.

It eventually worked in War Games....but I'm no Professor Faulken


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## mark8805 (Oct 17, 2014)

Thanks for all your answers, have tried 18g and 18.5g and reduced the grind size and to be honest it produces a more intense flavour, the only thing is that the tamp height is very low producing an indentation of the screw in the used puck, never had this before using 20/21g so now I am gonna plump for 19g/38g, incidentally I use the Eazytamp so my tamp pressure is the same every time, never intended to get into the finer scientific ways of pulling an espresso shot just wanted a good cup of coffee so I think if it tastes good then I must be doing something right, good luck to all you brewers.


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Do you get the indentation before or after you have pulled the shot?

The typical test for 'headspace' is to pop a penny or similar on top of the puck when dry, lock in and remove the PF and see if the penny is pressed in. 'correct' headspace should cause the penny to make a light indentation but not be pressed into the puck.

An indentation after extraction is nothing to worry about, coffee expands during extraction, some more than others.


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## mark8805 (Oct 17, 2014)

The indentation is after I have pulled the shot.



Dylan said:


> Do you get the indentation before or after you have pulled the shot?
> 
> The typical test for 'headspace' is to pop a penny or similar on top of the puck when dry, lock in and remove the PF and see if the penny is pressed in. 'correct' headspace should cause the penny to make a light indentation but not be pressed into the puck.
> 
> An indentation after extraction is nothing to worry about, coffee expands during extraction, some more than others.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

mark8805 said:


> Thanks for all your answers, have tried 18g and 18.5g and reduced the grind size and to be honest it produces a more intense flavour, the only thing is that the tamp height is very low producing an indentation of the screw in the used puck, never had this before using 20/21g so now I am gonna plump for 19g/38g, incidentally I use the Eazytamp so my tamp pressure is the same every time, never intended to get into the finer scientific ways of pulling an espresso shot *just wanted a good cup of coffee so I think if it tastes good then I must be doing something right*, good luck to all you brewers.


That just about sums it up really.

LOL Finer points - no people playing about with nothing better to do.

When I have a ball park weight aimed at achieving what ever I do try adjusting it either way and may adjust grind as well. On some beans not leaving sufficient space for the grounds to fully expand may increase taste levels, even more may cause that to drop off. I may also alter the ratio just by varying shot time -







some one mentioned that this will alter the taste of the drink - wonder what they thought I did it for.

Going on the 2 other machines I have used the DB is a bit different when there are impression on the puck. Even very low fills can produce them usually leaving a very fragile puck. Given how I usually finally set the fill that's making things tougher for me but I can do the same thing via taste. The fact that you didn't get them with 20/21g is probably down to the grind size you were using. I've seen that effect on the BE.

John

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