# Timing the shot?



## skylark (Feb 27, 2018)

Sage BE owner. I weigh in at just around 18g. How much am i expecting to get out and in what time? My machine currently giving me around 45g in its timing of 15secs. Possible to increase the time as I read that the shot should deliver in around 20-25 secs, yes? Obviously I'd get more out but is that the aim?

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## Cooffe (Mar 7, 2019)

Chase taste not time. If it tastes massively bitter then you know its over extracted - doubt that's the case in this though. If it's sour (more likely in what you're saying) then you know you need to grind finer. When you get to the ballpark of a well balanced coffee you can adjust the ratio you get inut and fine tune the extraction to pull flavours out that you like. Right now though, I'd suggest dosing 17g and grinding much finer until you choke the machine, and work back from there.


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

I'd guess that your 45g is a little sour?

Forget trying to nail a time within a 5s span.

Amount out equates to strength, which is a personal preference. If drinking it neat, you may be able to extract 70-80g and it still be tasty. If you need it stronger, grind finer & pull less out.

Start maybe aiming for 72g in the time that it takes to get 72g in the cup, allowing for stopping the shot before than & residual drips.

Read the manual on how to manually stop shots, I wouldn't rely on the pre programmed buttons.


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## TomHughes (Dec 16, 2019)

Cooffe said:


> Chase taste not time. If it tastes massively bitter then you know its over extracted - doubt that's the case in this though. If it's sour (more likely in what you're saying) then you know you need to grind finer. When you get to the ballpark of a well balanced coffee you can adjust the ratio you get inut and fine tune the extraction to pull flavours out that you like. Right now though, I'd suggest dosing 17g and grinding much finer until you choke the machine, and work back from there.


 This! Taste is everything. 
I have always been frustrated by the timing of shots, to me a 20-30 second shot tastes like water! 
I pull for 45 seconds! And normally only just hit 1:2 with 20g going in.

But to me it tastes best.

maybe that's because I roast my own beans and generally consume at 2-5 days. I guess if I rested longer more flavour could develop etc.


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## skylark (Feb 27, 2018)

Thanks for all the replies. I'm still learning. Where it's mentioned 'choke the shot' I'm guessing this means to grind as fine as possible until extraction begins to fail?

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## Cooffe (Mar 7, 2019)

skylark said:


> Thanks for all the replies. I'm still learning. Where it's mentioned 'choke the shot' I'm guessing this means to grind as fine as possible until extraction begins to fail?
> 
> Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


 Correct.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

skylark said:


> Sage BE owner. I weigh in at just around 18g. How much am i expecting to get out and in what time? My machine currently giving me around 45g in its timing of 15secs. Possible to increase the time as I read that the shot should deliver in around 20-25 secs, yes? Obviously I'd get more out but is that the aim?
> 
> Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk


 Sounds like this is what the buttons are giving you maybe the double button? You need to grind finer and keep an eye on the pressure gauge. Simplest option with that is don't go past the blue sector but in practice a little past should still be ok. In theory you could adjust grind so that the buttons give what they should do at the default settings. 30 with the single and 60g or ml with the double. Also check the dose of grinds with the razor tool.  You have no idea how much time that would have saved me when I started. This then allowed me to find out what changes of the dose actually do.

The fact that the machine measures volume of coffee out can be a bit disconcerting. It took me a while to figure that out as I assumed it used time. Maybe some one could try something on a BE and the newer gaugeless versions. If they press a shot button to start one does it stop if the button is pressed before the shot ends. I'm pretty sure it will and there is a way of simplifying tuning if it does.I found out that the BE was volumetric when I programmed a 30 sec shot without the portafilter on so flow rates were much higher than they would be through a puck. Guess what happened when I actually pulled a shot with this setting - it went on and on trying to get the same amount of water through a puck. I stopped it after 1min so am pretty sure that a 2nd button press stopped it but maybe be wrong.

While some one says don't use the buttons actually if the machine is used as intended they work rather well.

John

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## -Mac (Aug 22, 2019)

Never been sure about the Razor tool. Surely different beans (even at the same dose) are going to have different volumes in the pf (especially if WDT is used), even if ground in the same grinder on the same setting (thus rendering it less than useful)?


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## TomHughes (Dec 16, 2019)

-Mac said:


> Never been sure about the Razor tool. Surely different beans (even at the same dose) are going to have different volumes in the pf (especially if WDT is used), even if ground in the same grinder on the same setting (thus rendering it less than useful)?


 Yeh I'd say it was junk. I've never seen anyone using a sage/breville who knows their stuff using it!


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## -Mac (Aug 22, 2019)

Yeah, I put it in the drawer on the 2nd day and it's stayed there.


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## Dodds25 (Dec 19, 2019)

ajohn said:


> Sounds like this is what the buttons are giving you maybe the double button? You need to grind finer and keep an eye on the pressure gauge. Simplest option with that is don't go past the blue sector but in practice a little past should still be ok. In theory you could adjust grind so that the buttons give what they should do at the default settings. 30 with the single and 60g or ml with the double. Also check the dose of grinds with the razor tool.  You have no idea how much time that would have saved me when I started. This then allowed me to find out what changes of the dose actually do.
> 
> The fact that the machine measures volume of coffee out can be a bit disconcerting. It took me a while to figure that out as I assumed it used time. Maybe some one could try something on a BE and the newer gaugeless versions. If they press a shot button to start one does it stop if the button is pressed before the shot ends.


 Yes it does (on a new BE). I'm not against using it volumetrically but find it doesn't work so well for dialling in. I don't use the razor because you can't then adjust the dose. As I said in another thread, I have found the gaps between the grinder settings to be so big that one is sour at 5:1 whereas the next is going bitter at just over 2:1, and that's with adjustment of the dose. Another comment though was that there one step equated to about 2s (using the volumetric buttons, I guess), so it's possible there's something weird going on with my machine. The way I keep track of what changes of dose do is just by weighing the loaded pf.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

As usual flawed reasoning. The density of beans vary so the same fill height will have a different weight according to the beans that are used. I happen to use one that is unusually light so noticed that early on. It also needs extremely fine grinding which also has an effect.

Actually from recent posts in this thread I wonder why people are asking questions as clearly they can't be having any problems at all. I mentioned the razor tool in another thread - a comment came back I had wonderful shots with what that left but Sage tell me to use more what's going on so I told him and what people who haven't a razor tool do to achieve the same thing. Also that ok use more far more if you want and probably mentioned what tends to happen. More can be used and there can be penalties, hardly any providing it really isn't far too much. If people don't want to work from what will be a sensible dose of grinds that's fine by me. People use a coin on other machines - what coin is the interesting aspect.

Anyway some one did check that a button press stops a shot - another way of using it. I'll stick to a suggestion that should work on the lot even without a gauge, even the Bambino. Program a shot of say 100ml through an empty pressurised basket. That will keep the flow rate to sensible levels to allow the flow meter to work correctly and also wont result in water going out of the OPV. This way they can tune as people would on ordinary machines as the built in shot volume measurement should always run longer than needed for any ratio that's likely to be needed and the shot can be stopped manually. Personally once I had tuned a bean to taste I would program a button to give the correct volume because it is accurate enough. Time will vary a bit just as it does when people weigh shots out. Problem with volumetric crops up when water goes out of the OPV - it measures that as well. A little means a button can be programmed to include it but accuracy goes if too much goes that way - problem with flow meters not the machine also where Sage stick it. Buy a full blown commercial machine if you want different.

If some one wants to use the machine manually the same can be done - just program a shot for way too much water going through. This in a round about way was how I found it was volumetric, later confirmed via finding a parts list. I programmed a 30sec shot with the portafilter out. Then ran it against grinds, flow rates much slower. The shot was still running on 1min after I started as the machine tried to put the same amount of water through a puck. So I stopped it. I asked about stopping a shot as I can't power up my BE at the moment and haven't used it for around 18 months now. I keep it so that I can compare it with the DB an various grinders at some point.

If the razor tool is used more can be added for tuning or less. I'd guess a gram more or so.More slows flow. What I did is varied it to see what happens. At some point taste drops off as grinds expansion is restricted too much. The results can go either way better or worse - worse in my case as I wanted the strongest coffee with the correct taste. I also use the razor tool when the hopper was full of beans as the dose changes each time the setting is changed and it can take a while to get the timer set correctly. It can be done that way even eventually getting grind time correct. Still need to check the weigh regularly though and adjust the time. This is why many weigh in - some just accept the variation but probably do set the grind time with care and also use bigger bags of the same bean a lot.

The manuals that come with most sage machines are a bit of a problem. They have to try to tell people what to do but always sticking to the rules they suggest and similar elsewhere isn't a good idea at all. Beans are just too varied. Machines vary as well. I'd suggest trying ratio's between 2 and 3. The highest I have found was the same as a commercial ratio 14g in 60g out.  Surprise surprise it was a commercial bean. Ikg bags for hotels etc. Tried another bag from the same source but this time a speciality blend and a balanced flavour came out with a ratio of 2.5. I like that one. The other was pretty mundane. The bean I use most is brewed at a ratio of 3. At 2 one of it's flavours puts me off, it's too noticeable. Not keen on lower. I cut the shot time to 20secs for my wife as it enhances the sugary aspects. Any bean is much the same. If people don't go through the variations they will never know.

John

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## Dodds25 (Dec 19, 2019)

We want to adjust the dose when we are on the nearest grind setting but it's still not quite right, so we add or remove a bit of coffee as a final tweak without changing anything else. The razor makes this impossible by fixing the level. That does not mean that if you go changing other things like the beans or the grind, the razor will still give you exactly the same dose. It does mean that the razor makes it impossible to bridge the huge gaps between the steps on the built-in grinder by adjusting the dose.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

No I said use the razor to find out what a reasonable dose is not use it all of the time. Huge steps? No comment. Go buy a stepless grinder and if like many find out what it's like using those.

Late edit. I have tuned to what the razor leaves and others have a well. It can appeal to some as it can negate the need for scales what ever bean is used and ratio can be sorted out via taste and nothing else. Some people just don't want to go to the lengths some people do especially what I do, always use a 30sec shot and expect the same out every time. The other variable is time the often quoted 25 to 30 sec leaves scope. 5sec on the end of a shot is a fair amount of coffee. In real terms it's doubtful if 35sec would make much difference. The thing that matters is ratio and the only thing people can do with those is find out for themselves. Also how much variation is acceptable. For a machine with 10secs of pre infusion I would suggest 30 to 35secs but that doesn't mean that 25 wouldn't be better or even 40. Some count from when coffee starts coming out - each to there own. Another variable some use is variation in tamping pressure, frowned up on but also possible. Light tamping as well but I suggest 10kg is the lightest that can be used and heavier may not have the expected effect when the grinder is adjusted to compensate for the increase - if that can be done even with a stepless grinder.

John

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