# beans and roast



## davey (Dec 16, 2009)

Appologies for the pun.

Have been buying beans from hasbean coffee. I am using gaggia classic and iberital mc2.

I have found with all 4 types of beans I have bought from there the roast has been quite light. By that I mean I am having to grind the beans quite coarse to get the correct flow, even with a light tamping with some beans. With a fine grind its too slow flow I would get like 5mm at the bottom of the cup as its choked it.

On each bean page they have roasting advise and I put 2 and 2 together that some beans are best lightly roasted to get the best out of them thus making them not so good for an espresso machine as you have to do a coarse grind?

Are my assumptions correct on this?

So to use the coffee in my espresso machine is best to just look at the beans that state espresso beans or good for espresso. Also am I correct in saying these are always the cheaper beans and the premium beans have the light roast?


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## Eyedee (Sep 13, 2010)

Have you thought about sending an email to Steve at Hasbean and discussing your needs with him. I feel sure he will advise you and suggest the best beans to suit you from his available stock.

Ian


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## davey (Dec 16, 2009)

I may well do that


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

A few questions before I attempt to answer this question;

What beans are you using?

What is the roast date?

How many grams are you grinding into the basket?

There is no correlation of roast colour to price.

I look forward to your reply


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## davey (Dec 16, 2009)

bought in october

Brazil Fazenda Cachoeira da Grama Bourbon Pulped Natural 2009-2010

Colombia Nariño Consaca

bought on 19th november and it says on packet roasted 19 november.

Costa Rica Finca de Licho 2010-2011

Guatemala El Bosque Amatitlan Red Bourbon 2010-2011 Crop

I dont bother weighing each time my routine is fill it just over top and smooth it out, now its level with top or just under. The top rim of the metal tamper tells me the level that it will have to be tamped, taking note of the tamping pressure used to enable it to fit under the group head. I used to have a habit of overfilling it on occation and having to roughen up the top of the shot and blow some off the top lol, but I dont have that problem anymore.

I had some other beans from http://italiancoffeebeans.co.uk which were much dryer roast wether they were roasted more or just an old bag as it was a free sample IDK maybe a little of both but I had a really fine grind and a hard tamp to achieve the same flow as the has beans. So that led my to this conclusion because I thought WHY is there SO much difference between these with flow of water when variables are the same.

I will see if hasbean steve can give me any recommendations for espresso machines.


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## BanishInstant (Oct 12, 2009)

It might be worth weighing how much coffee you are using so at least you have a starting point to work from.

I order quite a bit from HasBean and my initial procedure is to start at some basic settings for weight, grind fineness and tamping pressure and then adjust as necessary. The first few brews are not ideal but with gradual tweaking the variables it quickly improves.

Is the brew far from drinkable, or do you think it could do with improvement?


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

Hi Davey

I have recently run both of those through my Gaggia Classic.

The Finca de Licho has wonderful sticky sweet honey notes, a lovely coffee, and nice as an espresso

Try grinding quite fine and using approx 16g coffee (likely to be less than you're currently using) and give it a firm (but not hard) tamp.

Tip the portafilter upside down and if the coffee doesn't fall out you're in the right ballpark for tamping pressure

See how much coffee you get based on a 25 second extraction (for consistency - not as an absolute for all coffees)

If less than 1 shot then coarsen up. Use the guide on the hopper and increase by 1/2 numbers until you get to roughly 30mls in 25 seconds, then taste.

Let us know how you get on

I wouldn't bother trying to change machines or grinder at this stage as this is a proven combination. It is likely to be technique that can be improved


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