Hi.
Following my recent foray on this site, I have now moved up a grade in my forum?! Santa brought me a Sunbeam EM6910. My suspicions about my (lack of) knowledge/ability in my other thread have been confirmed!
After finally getting some beans and unpacking my machine, I had a quick read of the instructions, ran water through the machine, ground some coffee, put it in and ... atrocious! I hadn't checked the setting on the grinder (my old EM480) and it was between 15-20 (well on the way to 'coarse') (the packaged 440 is still packaged). I did use the single floor basket (as I pointed out in one of my posts, knowledge of this is quite recent for me - I was obviously using a double floor basket with my old machine). But I didn't properly measure the coffee - just ground it straight into the PF, tamped it (but not with a lot of pressure), inserted the PF. The water flowed through like a waterfall giving me a black coffee with no crema at all.
I made a new one, with the grinder set all the way to fine and tamped quite heavily. This time, I seemed to have gone too far and got another cup of rubbish with a really poor crema (but at least an imitation of crema - progress ... )
THEN, I decided to maybe use a bit of science. I started measuring how much coffee I was putting. I am using the single cup basket and have gone down from 17g to about 14 or 15g. It seems to be getting better. I am getting a better crema but not perfect. I also started checking the gauge on the 6910. With 17g and a very firm tamp, the needle went right to the extreme end of the middle section (but not into the red!). I found that if I tamped lightly, the needle didn't make it to the middle section of the gauge. Both situations resulted in ordinary results! Even I know that ... ;-)
So, with all the variables, (weight/volume, coarseness, tamp pressure) I could keep experimenting. But could someone kindly give me some pointers about a (new) starting point in terms of weight/coarseness/pressure. And recommendations about what variable to change first depending on my results? And no need to ponce about with niceties - I have thick skin!
cheers
Arfa
PS: to the member who PMd me: your inbox seems to be full. Too much Christmas cheer?!
Following my recent foray on this site, I have now moved up a grade in my forum?! Santa brought me a Sunbeam EM6910. My suspicions about my (lack of) knowledge/ability in my other thread have been confirmed!
After finally getting some beans and unpacking my machine, I had a quick read of the instructions, ran water through the machine, ground some coffee, put it in and ... atrocious! I hadn't checked the setting on the grinder (my old EM480) and it was between 15-20 (well on the way to 'coarse') (the packaged 440 is still packaged). I did use the single floor basket (as I pointed out in one of my posts, knowledge of this is quite recent for me - I was obviously using a double floor basket with my old machine). But I didn't properly measure the coffee - just ground it straight into the PF, tamped it (but not with a lot of pressure), inserted the PF. The water flowed through like a waterfall giving me a black coffee with no crema at all.
I made a new one, with the grinder set all the way to fine and tamped quite heavily. This time, I seemed to have gone too far and got another cup of rubbish with a really poor crema (but at least an imitation of crema - progress ... )
THEN, I decided to maybe use a bit of science. I started measuring how much coffee I was putting. I am using the single cup basket and have gone down from 17g to about 14 or 15g. It seems to be getting better. I am getting a better crema but not perfect. I also started checking the gauge on the 6910. With 17g and a very firm tamp, the needle went right to the extreme end of the middle section (but not into the red!). I found that if I tamped lightly, the needle didn't make it to the middle section of the gauge. Both situations resulted in ordinary results! Even I know that ... ;-)
So, with all the variables, (weight/volume, coarseness, tamp pressure) I could keep experimenting. But could someone kindly give me some pointers about a (new) starting point in terms of weight/coarseness/pressure. And recommendations about what variable to change first depending on my results? And no need to ponce about with niceties - I have thick skin!
cheers
Arfa
PS: to the member who PMd me: your inbox seems to be full. Too much Christmas cheer?!
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