# Discarding the first few seconds of pour?



## ZappyAd (Jul 19, 2017)

I was practicing pulling shots on my classic and did an experiment that I had seen mentioned on various sites (Chris Baca and Matt Perger I think). You pull a 30 second shot but you put a new cup underneath the portafilter every 5 seconds. So you end up with 6 cups at the end each with 5 seconds worth of pour in them. You can then sample each cup to see how the taste changes with time during the pour.

I was using supermarket beans, partly because I didn't have anything else and partly because I was just experimenting. The overall taste of the entire shot isn't very pleasant with quite a strong, almost burnt taste. That taste was very evident in cup 1 of the above experiment, whereas cup 3 actually tasted much nicer and even slightly sweet.

It got me thinking that maybe another way that I could adjust the taste in the cup would be to exclude some of that initial pour (otherwise known as putting the cup under the portafilter after a couple of seconds of flow has passed). Is this a good thing to do? Or is it just that the beans are bad and won't ever taste that great.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

You can do it if you want, but how easy is it to repeat & hit the same cut of the shot each time (unless you use 2 glasses for every shot, switching them at a fixed weight every time). It's perfectly possible to make a complete shot with a good taste & do so fairly repeatably, so I'd focus on this first then tweak further. Discarding the early part will impact on the overall mouthfeel of the shot, the results may be more watery?

The tail end of the shot is normally rather bland & a little bitter, rather than sweet, on it's own...yours being still sweet suggests there was more to come from that puck.


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## ZappyAd (Jul 19, 2017)

MWJB said:


> The tail end of the shot is normally rather bland & a little bitter, rather than sweet, on it's own...yours being still sweet suggests there was more to come from that puck.


The sweet bit was 10-15 seconds so pretty much in the middle.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ZappyAd said:


> The sweet bit was 10-15 seconds so pretty much in the middle.


Your whole shot should be sweet, usually to achieve that you need some of the bland, slightly bitter tail end in there too, to balance everything out & pull back acidity.

It is certainly possible to make very under-extracted shots that have yet to get into the sour range, or need that bland bitter ending, but these are often a bit simple tasting & can lack complexity...but that's not any reason to avoid doing this. I tend to avoid them as they give me acid reflux.

For a normal extraction, they tend to be sweetest a little before you hit drying, smoky, over-extraction. For this you usually keep everything that goes in the cup.

It may be the very first drip(s) hold more lipids & solids than extracted coffee, so it might be possible to reliably exclude this (I don't know), but sounds a bit of a faff to do regularly (rather than to salvage a difficult situation).


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## u2jewel (Aug 17, 2017)

Taste is very subjective, so you should do whatever pleases you the most.

If you are trying to find a certain flavour profile, there are many ways to go about it. Depending on how far 'left' or 'right' of the field you want to go, there are choices and techniques that can help you achieve it.

Choosing certain origins, roast profiles, brew methods and ratio are the more convenient and conventional route. Then fine tune the mentioned parameters.

If one was to say that they've exhausted all the possible combinations of variables, yet still can't achieve the intended taste profile, then for me, salami shots are like a last resort method.

My personal opinion, but just as amputation of a limb might be a necessary evil in medical cases, I feel it is the same here in the espresso. It is an extreme scenario, trying to reach extreme results. No need to amputate a broken leg, if surgery can fix it 

In my case, trying to tame a viciously sour Vietnamese Catimor, after having exhausted (within my limited skill and knowledge set) all roasting possibilities, I had to start-dump (throwing first section of the shot away) or sink it (down the drain). Being a waste hater, I chose the former until I finished that horrid batch.

Having said all that... Since you were practicing pulling shots, it is a fun and revealing way to explore the deep world of espresso. For educational purpose, it really cannot hurt. It is fun


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