# Sour espresso - grind finer or increase target weight?



## BeanandComeandGone (Jun 11, 2015)

Hi all,

My understanding of espresso extraction is that acidic compounds are predominantly extracted at the beginning of brewing, with the bitter compounds towards the end.

If we are pulling a shot at 18g in 34g out in 28s and it is too bright/acidic would it be better to:

A) grind finer so that the water is in contact with the coffee for longer (18/34g in 34s) thereby increasing extraction.

B) increase the yield from the shot but keep the time the same? (18/38g in 28s)

C) Increase both the time and yield (18/38g in 34s)

I have seen Matt Perger's video on espresso extraction; it helped clarify these concepts to some degree but I'm wondering if anyone from CF is able to provide me with some wisdom.

Many thanks.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

BeanandComeandGone said:


> Hi all,
> 
> My understanding of espresso extraction is that acidic compounds are predominantly extracted at the beginning of brewing, with the bitter compounds towards the end.
> 
> ...


You putting too much importance on a time.

Try as a first step increasing the brew ratio 18-40 say. Same grind, don't stress over hitting a time.

A drink is the mix of lots of stuff being extracted together. Focus in the end taste not what the first bit tastes like or the last bit.


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## Stanic (Dec 12, 2015)

I would first try a finer grind, make sure you're extracting at high enough temperature too (dark roasts cca 90°C, lighter ones 92-94°C based on roast level)


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## jwCrema (Jul 23, 2017)

Did sour just start all of a sudden or are you dialing in new equipment? If it happened all of a sudden you'd run through what changed last?

When I had an e61 machine water temp too cold made some really nasty sour coffee.

I like Matt's compass once water temp and water quality is known good. https://baristahustle.com/blogs/barista-hustle/the-espresso-compass


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I see this aspect as being much more a characteristic of the bean. For instance look at the taste plot of this one

https://www.redber.co.uk/collections/asia-and-pacific-coffee-beans/products/monsooned-malabar-aa-dark-roast?variant=465588617

It's worth having a google on what those terms mean. Acidity for instance is an after taste.

The advice I received was to initially reduce quantity to control it and if that doesn't work grind a bit coarser. That may work with some beans but might not with others. Beans can have a number of taste factors. Those may only reach the balance they are intended to have at certain levels of extraction. The end result might not suite the drinker. I'm tuning a bean like that in at the moment. It's not sour but if the extraction is too low one of it's tastes is very dominant giving it a very unpleasant unusual taste.

By extraction too low I mean a weaker taste







so maybe I should have said too high. I'm far more interested in taste than the volume needed to achieve it so see it as too low.

So put it all together - when a bean has bean extracted in the range that is intended to achieve it's expected taste it might not suite the person who drinks it - so change bean.

I'd say that bitterness could come out of a bean at any time during an extraction even throughout it.

John

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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

If something is sour adding more to the dose or going coarser ain't gonna be the best bet, acidity is a part of all coffee, sourness is a brew default.

To the Op, few way to increased sweetness.

Increased temp

Grind finer

More water.

Since you are at nominal time I'd put More water through, same grind.

Taste it may be less sour be too weak form you.

If so grind fine and revert to 1:2

Often a coffee that's has a pleasant acidity can be masked by strength. Hence people confuse bitter, sour, acidity.

If in doubt add a dash of water to open up and taste again.

Change one thing only at a time.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Mrboots2u said:


> If something is sour adding more to the dose or going coarser ain't gonna be the best bet, acidity is a part of all coffee, sourness is a brew default.
> 
> .


Quote from the original post

If we are pulling a shot at 18g in 34g out in 28s and it is too bright/acidic would it be better to

Some one on here does reckon that grind and amount can reduce "bitterness" via reducing the taste extraction so within limits it works for him. Grinding coarser will result in a higher volume of extraction in the same time. It can also be done by deliberately running a longer extraction and that may result in a smoother drink. I deliberately did that with a lot of Lavazza we had about us to use it up.

Personally I thought it was worth pointing out that if the bean has the characteristic he describes he's between a rock and a hard place and will very probably need to change bean. Unfortunately a lot of suppliers do not give sufficient information for sensible choices to be made. Another site that does - more often too is coffee-direct. Their consistency of roasting may be better than Redbar as well.







I'm not knocking Redbar. Still probably my favourite supplier.

If the op tries something like monsooned it would be best to bear in mind that a full dark roast is likely to be oily and that chokes up some grinders. Mine takes 30 odd shots to settle down but doesn't choke - beans stick to the hopper though so can stop getting to the burrs and need pushing down. At high brew pressures it may be too strong for espresso drinkers.

John

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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Roasters supply tasting notes, out of interest w ha t more info would you want.

If everyone changed bean that they brewed sour they would be an awful lot or good coffee in the bin.

There seems to be one new thread a weeks with my coffee is sour with people using italian job to has Bean.

Espresso is hard to make and If your not used to drinking it near even harder to accurately dissect strength, taste, sour, bitter.

Balanced acidity is a good thing for me in coffee, but it Isnt for everyone. Tasting notes should tell you w ha t to expect tho.

Fruit notes will have acidity.

Coffee has acidity, its a natural characteristic, you can roast any coffee to a point where others tastes over ride it.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Althouhh I do think roasters don't always. Help with some notes v the orgin of coffeee, especially african. Sometimes they imply no acidity at all which is misleading and leads to threads like these.

I looked at coffee direct some good and confused things about it.

100 fresh coffees. Hmmmm

Acidity scores can be helpful

Flavour score tho? Unsure how that's helpful just as a number.

Strength? That's a function of brewing.

Like a lot of sites too much guff before simply notes.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I've found the numbers useful. They seem to imply what they suggest and the tasting notes then give an idea of what that should be like. Worst experience I had on that was old brown java - I'd use the term earthy but maybe I didn't extract what I should have done from it. Also a commercial blend coffee direct do. Nice taste etc but I detected a sewer like odour on my breath after drinking it. I suspect they are a larger company - more expensive than some and even posher bags. I like Redber though - various roasts of many of their beans.

Finer grinding might help the OP but I suspect he may have to throw another factor in - basket size. Taking this site's resident Jampit drinker who tried monsooned. If I remember correctly he found 7.5g was about right for his espresso. There will be a number of beans about where a double is just too big. Some strange things can happen with beans. I'm trying Jampit. If I don't get things right it's an awful drink - may as well eat a spoonful of butter out of the fridge. Get it right and the butter fades away and it's a nice smooth drink -







even my wife seems to like it. Some one else might want some butter. I recollect that the person who drinks a lot of it discards the first 6 secs of flow. There are all sorts of variations. One of mine is a double shot through a single basket - on the machine I use that gives a longer lower pressure infusion period. I can if I want terminate the flow manually before it would do that automatically so a double can become anything down to a single or even less.

Getting it right needs a few things. Basket size, grind and quantity and that needs to leave room for expansion. What I do to get as much as possible out of a bean is get that right and use grind to get brew pressures that aren't far off stalling the machine. Then play around from there. Jampit is stopping like that. Having drunk over 2kg of monsooned I'm not sure. It should have what they call a spicy note and I have found that varies. Suspect it's down to roasting or maybe as I have recently noticed that the group head seal has softened which means I have to take a lot more care to get the portafilter handle at 90 degrees - turning it too far reduces the space for expansion. That has caused 2 things - some grief with Jampit and odd pucks that stick to the shower filter when I get it wrong the other way - too much space.

From the OP's point of view if he works to what I have just described he wont be getting a shot where one note of the bean is dominant because the others that should be there haven't been extracted. If he likes what comes out is an entirely different matter but it is an end point and can be backed off.

Personally I think of a lot of the info around on extraction is rather misleading because the aim in the end is to produce a drink that the brewer likes and nothing else. If some person wants to lay down precise ratios etc then they will need to do it to suite all tastes and all beans. That just isn't possible and as mr boots pointed out probably leads to a lot of thrown away beans. Yeh - I need to buy one or two again. I nearly threw Jampit away.








Makes me think we are all mad using the things.

John

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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ajohn said:


> Personally I think of a lot of the info around on extraction is rather misleading because the aim in the end is to produce a drink that the brewer likes and nothing else. If some person wants to lay down precise ratios etc then they will need to do it to suite all tastes and all beans. That just isn't possible and as mr boots pointed out probably leads to a lot of thrown away beans. Yeh - I need to buy one or two again. I nearly threw Jampit away.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The aim is to buy beans that the brewer likes, extraction is the process of efficiently transferring the typical flavour profile to the cup, with hopefully as few brewing defects as possible. If you buy a coffee that you will never like, then you're just making a rod for your own back trying to bang a square peg in a round hole, to skew it to something you can drink...maybe at settings you will never use again. This makes brewing seem much more complicated & variable than it should be. If your coffee tastes of butter (not in the notes) at a certain extraction, then not of butter at nominal extractions...then the malfunction you are creating makes it taste of butter, not 'the coffee' per se.

If you are buying beans that you like the sound of, in terms of notes, and you are throwing a lot away...stop & change what you are doing. We all have subjective preferences, we all might favour one bean over others, but to make repeated cups so bad they need throwing away (given a ball-park roast) shouldn't be happening. Even coffee I don't have a big preference for, tastes at least better than 'neither like/dislike' when nominally brewed.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Perhaps stop buying Commodity coffee.

The coffee direct site has lots of it on.

Jampit is earthy, dont like earthy coffees dont buy jampit and sumatrans.

Buy better quality coffee and if needed pay a bit more and drink less.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

The jampit I am brewing is not earthy and this one wasn't either

https://www.redber.co.uk/collections/asia-and-pacific-coffee-beans/products/sumatra-mandheling-dark-roast?variant=348901275

Round pegs in square holes - really if some one has brewed a bean and they don't like the result they can do 2 things. Throw them away or try all of the variations on how it could be brewed that ignore what in some respects is twaddle in terms of how beans must be used according to some.

John

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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

ajohn said:


> The jampit I am brewing is not earthy and this one wasn't either
> 
> https://www.redber.co.uk/collections/asia-and-pacific-coffee-beans/products/sumatra-mandheling-dark-roast?variant=348901275
> 
> ...


"all the variations" make it sound over complicated or like 'pin the tail on the donkey', usually it's just grind setting, perhaps ratio if trying something very different to the norm, at a real stretch small change in dose for a real toughie. These are normal dialling in techniques most people will go through when using a new bean.

Beans should be used to make nice drinks with little wastage, anything else is twaddle. There's a lot of different beans out there, making your own coffee just to throw them away seems a terrible waste. Anyone can hone in on a preference & stick to a bean they enjoy & find easy to use, of course, but we *make* the drink with the beans, rather than the beans magically doing their own thing whilst we repeat the same irrational processes over & over for disappointing cups.


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

I suspect I am stuck in Sage filter basket land on Jampit. I think I should grind finer but really need a smaller filter basket than they supply for that. I'll try under filling and a finer grind but previous experience suggests that will just finish up with mess in the basket some of which will vanish down the 3 way valve. Yes I can flush and clean more regularly but they really should provide more sizes of basket.







I'm usually glad that the single is on the large size but not in this case.

However I am getting a pleasant smooth strong drink out of it with just a hint of butter. It's pretty touchy though, under tamp a bit and the butter really come back.

John

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