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Newbie struggling with Crema from the Dynamic Duo.
Is this a bean, pressure, temperature, grind or timing issue? Or all of the above?
cheer.
Mate of mine has the same combo. Great for the price!
I'm only a month or so into the hobby too but reading up these forums helps a lot . Few things I'd point out are:
1. Crema results from the CO2 in the beans. CO2 is higher when beans are fresh and declines over time.
2. Most fresh roasts are good to drink from 4-7 days onwards. They do start declining in flavour after 10-11 days age. Still, can be good for 2-3 weeks from roast date.
3. Storing the beans the right way helps preserve freshness for long. Something like an Airscape container works well.
4. Take the risk to get out of factory settings. You will need to play around with grider settings to get the right extraction.
5. As a newbie, I look for a honey like consistent flow and use a stopwatch to see how long it is taking.
6. I cannot get single shot baskets to work well and totally avoid them. Double shot is the way to go for a good extraction.
7. Dosage is very important. I think 21g works well for your machine. Distribute it well before tamping.
8. Tamping evenly is also very important. Get used to a 15kg pressure and try to apply that. Check your bathroom scale to get used to it.
Also, your machine is dual boiler and has a pressure gauge. Check the bar pressure. I think between 9.5 and 10.5 is good.
Hope this helps!
Cheers.
Last edited by Garrus; 1 July 2018, 10:51 PM.
Reason: additional information
Assuming you have version 2 of the smart grinder, and have adjusted the burr to it's finest adjustment level, I consistently find that I get good results from mine at 29 fineness setting, and about a 16 second dose. That of course will depend a lot on the beans, but it's where I start.
And you're not using the pressurised basket right? That thing is just for poor souls who use horrible shop bought coffee beans with a bad grinder or pre-ground coffee.
I find with my beans I get great crema oozing like honey for the first week, the second week it tapers off slowly... I always make sure I need to do another roast by then.
I recently got a pack of "specialty roast" beans along with my machine and grinder as a bonus item. They were roasted 2 weeks ago when I got them, and the crema was just OK, it got worse and after I'd say 3-4 days it was pathetic...
the roast date is 31/05/2018. They're pretty fresh.
If you ordered from CoffeeSnobs BeanBay this morning they would have been roasted today (Sunday) and will ship tomorrow. If you order from us today they will roast fresh and ship on the next roast day, Wednesday.
That's fresh, sometimes too fresh!
3.5 week old beans that you have will be drinkable but getting old. Ideally try and use most coffees from 1 week old to 3 weeks old.
That two week window is where most coffees are stable, consistent and peaking in flavour and character.
Once you have fresh coffee in that time window then fiddle with grind and dose settings.
The first question should be, what is your expectation pf decent crema vs what you are actually extracting? That would be the best way to begin diagnostics.
Padre normally are in the lighter side of roast. You may want to increase your brew temp, dose higher, and pull closer to a ristretto profile.
End of the day, it is only about what you want from the extraction.
Thanks Yelta, might have to look in to scales to get the settings right.
Hi herzog, the roast date is 31/05/2018. They're pretty fresh.
Some beans are fine at 3 1/2 weeks (though they wouldn't be at their prime), others are definitely on the downhill at that point. I'd eliminate the possibility that it is the beans and grab some that are, say, 7 days post-roast.
Assuming the beans are reasonably fresh the answer to your question will most likely lie with grind and dose, a cheap set of scales available on Ebay will help with repeatability, something that will weigh between 0 and 100 grams is quite adequate, should be available for about $10.
Dose consistency is important, I'm not familiar with your Breville machine, however there are a lot of Breville owners on the forum who I'm sure will be able to put you on the right track.
Some beans do extract with a lot more crema than others.
Newbie struggling with Crema from the Dynamic Duo.
Morning all.
After eyeing off the Breville dynamic duo for years, we finally bit the bullet when we could get both for under $1000 last weekend.
We’ve kicked off with some Padre espresso beans from our local favourite cafe, not doing too bad for relative newbies, but I’m struggling to get decent Crema from the factory settings. Is this a bean, pressure, temperature, grind or timing issue? Or all of the above?
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