Hey all.
My loving parents decided to pick up a big-ass bag of french roast beans from Price Club / Club Price / Club Costco in Melbourne... with Starbucks on the front... and christ they are the darkest beans I have ever seen, ha!
They are also the bitterest sons of bitches I have ever put through my grinder. After an hour of playing with the grind, everything still comes out bitter -- whether its taking 50s to squeeze out half a single shot or 10 seconds to squeeze out a double. But single or double, the entire family is frowning into their mugs.
(ohyeah, em6910 and the typical sunbeam grinder that goes with it)
After a lot of squinting at the home-barista.com extraction guide Im really wanting to blame the beans rather than the squinting human, frowning at bitter coffee on xmas!
Ive tried stopping dark, that resulted in really thin, dark crema and it still tasted godawful. Grinding too coarse got a double-shot through in about 12 seconds, and the pressure bar barely twitched! Too fine and it just choked the machine.
I was able to get a double-shot out in 27 seconds, but yeah, still tasting pretty damn bitter.
Im imagining that this lovely white bag of beans has been on a slow-boat from America, and has probably spent the last couple of months sitting high up on a shelf as well. Then again, maybe this is what they mean by extra bold on the bag? :P
Can I chalk this up to old beans, thank my old beans for the gift, and move on to another bag? Or must humble pie be my xmas dessert, and I must return to the drawing board and take off my would-be barista hat?
My loving parents decided to pick up a big-ass bag of french roast beans from Price Club / Club Price / Club Costco in Melbourne... with Starbucks on the front... and christ they are the darkest beans I have ever seen, ha!
They are also the bitterest sons of bitches I have ever put through my grinder. After an hour of playing with the grind, everything still comes out bitter -- whether its taking 50s to squeeze out half a single shot or 10 seconds to squeeze out a double. But single or double, the entire family is frowning into their mugs.
(ohyeah, em6910 and the typical sunbeam grinder that goes with it)
After a lot of squinting at the home-barista.com extraction guide Im really wanting to blame the beans rather than the squinting human, frowning at bitter coffee on xmas!
Ive tried stopping dark, that resulted in really thin, dark crema and it still tasted godawful. Grinding too coarse got a double-shot through in about 12 seconds, and the pressure bar barely twitched! Too fine and it just choked the machine.
I was able to get a double-shot out in 27 seconds, but yeah, still tasting pretty damn bitter.
Im imagining that this lovely white bag of beans has been on a slow-boat from America, and has probably spent the last couple of months sitting high up on a shelf as well. Then again, maybe this is what they mean by extra bold on the bag? :P
Can I chalk this up to old beans, thank my old beans for the gift, and move on to another bag? Or must humble pie be my xmas dessert, and I must return to the drawing board and take off my would-be barista hat?
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