My top tips are: 1) Always keep the portafilter hot in the machine never put coffee in a cold portafilter as this is a heat sink and will mean the brew temp will be too low which creates sour coffee. 2) If the coffee is less than 2 weeks old after roast date it will taste overly starchy / stringent, make sure its at least 2 week old and store it in the freezer air tight not fridge! 3) Do not use tap water in the UK , the water is too heavy always use large bottle of spring water, you can 5L ones from Tesco that do the job fine, it really makes a huge difference! 4) Make sure your machine is hot enough if you do not have a temp controller aka PID than avoid median roasts as they need a higher heat, a darker roast is a lot easier to get better results with bean to cup machines that being said, make sure your machine has heated up properly first and run a blank shot before use to heat everything up properly! 5) Lastly seriously consider getting a better quality machine second hand of ebay and more importantly a higher quality grinder like a Eureka Mignon.
Kev great use of jacko on the subscription icon,,,, im still laughing. 🤣.... i dont know if i watch the vids for the info or the comedy. great work mate. Ps after your reviews and info I purchased a sage oracle back in May, I tried your choc brownie (and a couple of other blends)and the brownie is the best coffee ive ever tasted, im still working out how to dial in each bag. I finished my last batch of choc brownie off and forgot to get an order in so i picked up a supermarket bag to get me by......its awfull!.... ive just ordered more brownie(this time on subscription) and im trying one of your collection packs too. I dont really talk coffee with friends they all just know i wont drink rubbish, i was at a frends house the other day and asked for a coffee, she said "ahh you are the coffee snob arnt you, well dont worry ive got a gaggia and some of kevs beans", i said "have you been ordering from coffeeworks?" she said "yep, and im never going back to normal coffee".....theyve all got the bug, well those that know that nescafe is like rabbit droppings have. keep up the great vids bud. and the roasting too. all the best Wayne.
That's a little frustrated because trying to dial at each bag is annoying these coffee brands are not cheap enough to be sitting here experimenting with.
Hi, another espresso newbie here. I'm on my fourth or fifth bag of coffee through my BDB and I haven't had a decent shot yet. I've been tweaking the settings but I seem to go from choking the machine to too fast (I have a basic grinder the one that came with the dual boiler) but no matter what I do shots are unbelievable sour. Today I bought a bag of dark roasted and turning the pre infusion off and droping the temp to 90C I managed to get a not too sour coffee but I got some channeling. So I guess all my shots are over extracted. I guess I'll need to upgrade my grinder and see if that helps. Thanks for another interesting video
Hi :-). The SGP isn't the perfect pairing for the DB, in my humble opinion, but it should be an OK start. Are you making small adjustments? You say you dropped the temp to 90, what temp were you using before? If it's sourness you're tasting, under extraction, that's usually too low a temp, dropping the temp would usually increase the sourness rather than fixing it. Are you using freshly roasted beans? Cheers Kev
@@Coffee_Kev Kev thanks for getting involved. Today I got my first batch of specialty coffee (so I can rule out the coffee) (I'm running out of things to blame 🤣) I dropped the temp (from 93 to 90) when I changed to dark espresso roast (that was just bitter not sour but drinkable) now that I got a bag of medium roast Geisha I went up to 94C and bumped the pre infusion again to 10 sec but it still sour. I guess the grinder is the next upgrade (hopefully soon) and anyway I'll be in London for few weeks soon so I might get some of your coffee to try when I come back (feels weird bringing coffee from the UK living in Costa Rica😂😂)
Thanks Kev. Very much a noob here. My second hand Ranchilio Sylvia V2 just arrived today and will a few bags of speciality coffee to play with I'm just discovering this. One bags setting can be quite different to the next. I guess coffee isn't all the same. But isn't that half the fun. Great stuff as always buddy 👊
Yeah one bag can definitely be quite a bit different to the next, it's definitely a challenge working with freshly roasted beans and traditional baskets, it's worth it though in my opinion, and it's mostly fun, except at 7.59 AM when you were supposed to be leaving for work at 8, and you're debating giving up and grabbing a take away coffee instead ;-).
Hi Kev, my friend has a Brevel Barista Express, the same as me. The problem with this machine is when she makes an extraction, the preinfusion pressure is OK, but the pressure for the extraction barely makes it into the espresso range. Tryed adjusting the grind size, but made no difference. Could you help me please.
Love your videos! Im looking to buy a sage machine, but I can't choose between the old dual temp and a separate grinder, or a barista express with integrated grinder. I am a cappuccino drinker and I love work the milk, dont need a fully automatic thing. Anybody could give me tips?
I had a sage machine with a built in grinder (Sage Oracle) and I now I have a Gaggia Classic Pro with a Sage Dose Control Pro. Out of both, I actually prefer the Gaggia with a Grinder setup. I think I've been getting better espresso and I've become better a milk texturing since. The Sage Grinder did require me messing with the burr settings (Kev has a video on this) to be able to dial in. Honestly, I'd go with the duel temp and get a decent grinder. If you can afford it, get something better than what I got, a better suited grinder means better tasting espresso.
I have a barista express impress for a month now, and still trying to brew the perfect espresso. No easy to asjust the grinder, and im not getting a good crema.
Great idea in theory. In practise every espresso machine requires a different grind size, and grind size from one grind to another isn't universal either.
Hi Kev, my friend has a Brevele Barista Express, the same as me, the problem with her machine is when she makes a coffee, the pre-infusion pressure is ok, but the pressure for the main extraction barley makes it into the espresso range. Just wondering if you could help me. Ps we tried adjusting the grind size, but that didn't help.
Please don't judge speciality coffee by just one experience, at one cafe. There are so many different reasons that what you've said could be the case. Speciality coffee comes in so many different flavour profiles, there's something literally for everyone. Cheers, Kev.
