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Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

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  • #16
    Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

    Thanks one and all. No doubt the next move is to get the absolute freshest beans based on all replies above. If that produces the crema Im starving for then I will believe in the machine again, the very thing Ive lost confidence in at the moment.

    Many tips above with tamping etc. which was all greatly appreciated.

    I would love to do a side by side comparison of my machine against another 6910 so if any of you live near Sydneys Northern Beaches (Narrabeen) and are willing to do the same then let me know.

    Any further info/comments will be read so if youve got something to say then keep on a writing...

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

      Tamping is very important. Get a Pullman tamper...probably the single best thing I ever did for crema and consistency since getting onto fresh beans...see left of screen for Pullman tampers - Australian made and excellent value.

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

        Dave if you are using the Sunbeam tamper dont do the polishing twist after tamping.
        That tamper has a rough finish and can break the puck surface.

        Like ozscott said, the 6910 is capable of syrupy pours.

        Here at work (where a 6910 resides) I can make a better coffee than all the cafes nearby...except one.
        And even then it was only one espresso, once, that has been better than any of mine on the 6910.

        On that occasion the barista made a shot no better than mine so his boss elbowed him out of the way, vowing to do better.

        Well when he passed the espresso across the bench I could already see it was better than the first.
        It was the best espresso Ive tasted to date.
        Mind you, he was using a La Marzocco FB80 and was gracious enough to say the machine would make a difference (obviously, compared to the Sunbeam).

        Oh, one more point, he was using my home roasted beans.

        His day to day coffee is the best around here but I still make my own at work on the Sunbeam because its still better.
        Hes not about to try that hard every time I want a coffee.

        So to sum up, theres no reason you cant make better coffee with your machine than most cafes.

        You need fresh beans and some one on one instruction followed by some practise.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

          Originally posted by ozscott link=1225710268/0#16 date=1225751073
          Tamping is very important.....
          Sometimes... But not always.

          The importance of tamp is inversely proportionate to the accuracy of the dose, the quality of the grind, and how clump-free the grind is. With a quality grind (good particle size distribution and free from clumps), even distribution with no voids, and the correct dose (not too little and not to excessive), the tamp loses a lot of importance. Just a good, even, leveling tamp is plenty.

          It also is related to the water distribution of the espresso machine and how gentle it delivers the water, particularly at the beginning of the extraction.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

            The Sunbeam tamper does not get to the edge like a heavy custom jobby and as TG says its not good for polishing. Randy I have found that even with consistent grinding and dosing tamping consistently makes a difference - and getting the coffee level to the best place for the particular shower screen makes a difference. I know that there have been some discussions in the US in particular pouring some scorn on the importance of tamping, but thats just my take on things.

            Cheers

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

              my experience has been with fresh coffee you will be able to get a good pour even with a dodgy plactic tamper like come with most machines. But long term id be looking to get a good tamper as it will help.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                I dont like to weigh into debates like this as my views may be perceived as biased unless I speak against tampers. But I do have a degree of personal and relayed experience in this.

                The whole reason I made my first tamper was because the existing one was too small and the NSEW tamping method I had to employ after grinding 4 day old coffee introduced so much inconsistency. Some would gush, others would choke, even when I thought I was doing the same thing. There was an immediate and noticeable effect from using the correctly sized tamper. Ive now become accustomed to this consistency and it would be easy to forget how different it used to be if it werent for the customer feedback over the last six years which has regularly reminded me of this. The Testimonials pages on our site has literally dozens of comments on this; this is one of the clearest:

                "When I first received my tamper, the improvement in the shots I was pulling was immediate, no way could I refute the benefit I was seeing - this was not a change in anything I was doing, but purely the result of the Gregs tamper over the plastic one that came with my Silvia."

                I wont further regurgitate here whats on our site for all to read. Now you could argue that I and 150 people throughout the world have colluded to invent a benefit thats not there; or you could take the comments as the impartial genuine feedback they represent. There are others here on CS, including ozscott in this thread, who concur. On the other hand there are others who have reported, as Damien suggests, that the tamper isnt important, and some of Lucas recent research collaborates this.

                I dont believe either view is fabricated, so why do report on both sides continue to emerge? I suspect this is due to other variables in the process which affect the homogeneity of the pre-tamped puck (be that uneven grind size, machine with poor water distribution, poor dose / distribution method and a heap of others), and these factors will vary how much of an improvement is seen by a good tamper and tamping process. That is to say, the evidence doesnt suggest a good tamper and tamping process will take you backwards - its just a matter of whether it takes you forward an inch or a mile.

                Greg

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                  Hi Greg, I dont think I quite said a tamper isnt important! I think it is very important, but I think the greatest improbvements could be made by frfesh coffee first.

                  As an example, I had a friend who got a new machine. He couldnt get anything good at all from it. He was using bad coffee - and also a plastic tamp. Once I added good coffee - still using the plastic tamp - the results were very good. He could further improve the coffee with a good tamper, but he was not that interested or inclined to spend the money. the coffee with a plastic tamp was far better than most you get served, and good enough for him. So I suppose what Iam saying is that I think a good tamper will for sure improve your coffee (quality and consistency), but you can still get very good coffee without.

                  Damian.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                    Thanks for clarifying Damien. Ive always maintained the tamper isnt the be all and end all, in fact I wrote something pretty similar about five years ago at http://www.coffeetamper.com.au/information/faq.html#other-factors and the article above it. Stale or incorrectly ground coffee is still stale or incorrectly ground coffee, and the best machine or best tamper in the world wont fix flawed raw materials! In my view, the tamper comes in as one of those items that can make a big difference once youve got the other factors right, but its important to get those other factors right or the improvement will be minimal.

                    Greg

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                      This trend when a new machine owner has a problem is that everyone puts on their thinking caps and drums up a bunch of variables that could make a difference, but no one dares to take a firm point of view on what the problem is likely to be. That in mind, its quite refreshing to see that most posters in this thread seem to agree that the coffee is the likely culprit and as yet no-one has decided to bring up unlikely bogeymen like temperature stability. To work out whether or not your coffee is OK, you might like to simply brew it in a plunger or drip filter. If it has a relatively heavy body, not much more than a touch of acidity and a bit of sweetness, but manages not to leave an ashy finish and doesnt have any off flavours, then things are looking good.

                      As for the other factors, its probably a good idea to try to work out the relative importance of each. In that respect, its also nice to see that this thread has been relatively good. Dose is usually an overlooked variable and its nice to see that people are starting to concentrate on it when they start off now. I would say that it is probably the most important thing to focus on after getting good coffee. If you arent concentrating, its pretty easy to dose +/- 2 grams each time. 2g might not sound like a lot, but its about 15% of a 14g double, 30% of a 7g single and 10% of a 20g double. Double those figures if you want the percentages for a 4g variation. I havent measured the corresponding difference in pour times, but you can probably see that its going to be significant. Moral of the story: focus on getting a consistent dose and start off making double shots rather than singles. Much of the value in introductory courses, whether the participants appreciate it or not, is in establishing good dosing technique.

                      When you come to tampers, Randy has it right - the impact of the tamper depends on everything else. As Greg says, its a question of degree. This quote implies that the difference was large:

                      "When I first received my tamper, the improvement in the shots I was pulling was immediate, no way could I refute the benefit I was seeing - this was not a change in anything I was doing, but purely the result of the Gregs tamper over the plastic one that came with my Silvia."
                      If you scratch the surface, the comparison is totally different to a comparison of the sunbeam tamper and the pullman tamper. The plastic tamper that comes with the silvia is grossly under-sized, whereas the sunbeam tamper is at least in the ballpark.

                      I must own nine or ten tampers and Im sure that if I sold them all at their RRP Id be able to buy a sunbeam EM6910. Id love to believe that the particular tamper makes a massive difference, but I have to say that Im cant pick a massive difference in the cup between most of them. Greg alludes to the experimentation that I have done recently - I basically took a 57mm plastic La Marzocco tamper and used it for several weeks at home. I cant say that I felt that my shot quality declined noticeably. YMMV.

                      The sunbeam tamper looks like it has a less comfortable handle than the LM tamper that I used, but possibly a better base. If anyone has one lying around spare, Id be more than happy to use it for a few weeks and report back.

                      Cheers,

                      Luca

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                        Originally posted by luca link=1225710268/20#24 date=1225778415

                        When you come to tampers, Randy has it right - the impact of the tamper depends on everything else.  As Greg says, its a question of degree.  This quote implies that the difference was large:

                        "When I first received my tamper, the improvement in the shots I was pulling was immediate, no way could I refute the benefit I was seeing - this was not a change in anything I was doing, but purely the result of the Gregs tamper over the plastic one that came with my Silvia."
                        If you scratch the surface, the comparison is totally different to a comparison of the sunbeam tamper and the pullman tamper.  The plastic tamper that comes with the silvia is grossly under-sized, whereas the sunbeam tamper is at least in the ballpark.  
                        I presume that person had a standard Silvia tamper which is definitely smaller than the Sunbeam one. Ozscotts comment however appears to relate specifically to the 6910...

                        Originally posted by ozscott link=1225710268/0#19 date=1225762798
                        The Sunbeam tamper does not get to the edge like a heavy custom jobby and as TG says its not good for polishing.   Randy I have found that even with consistent grinding and dosing tamping consistently makes a difference - and getting the coffee level to the best place for the particular shower screen makes a difference.  I know that there have been some discussions in the US in particular pouring some scorn on the importance of tamping, but thats just my take on things.
                        Its then a matter of determining which factor(s) that differentiate the two products is/are causing the difference in results. Noting that I dont have access to such a machine to test this, my gut feeling would concur with OS and tend towards fit and surface finish.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                          Keep in mind Luca (and I havent met you or had you serve me a cup of coffee), but from reading the forums/your blog, I take it youre quite an accomplished barista. A skilled barista can probably produce a decent result with slightly inferior tools because they know how to compensate for its inadequacies. Noobs dont have that ability so something like a dud tamper could make all the difference for them.

                          -ACog

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                            Originally posted by luca link=1225710268/20#24 date=1225778415

                            As for the other factors, its probably a good idea to try to work out the relative importance of each.  In that respect, its also nice to see that this thread has been relatively good.  Dose is usually an overlooked variable and its nice to see that people are starting to concentrate on it when they start off now.  I would say that it is probably the most important thing to focus on after getting good coffee.  If you arent concentrating, its pretty easy to dose +/- 2 grams each time.  2g might not sound like a lot, but its about 15% of a 14g double, 30% of a 7g single and 10% of a 20g double.  Double those figures if you want the percentages for a 4g variation.  I havent measured the corresponding difference in pour times, but you can probably see that its going to be significant.  Moral of the story: focus on getting a consistent dose and start off making double shots rather than singles.  Much of the value in introductory courses, whether the participants appreciate it or not, is in establishing good dosing technique.

                            Cheers,

                            Luca
                            Being an absolute beginner myself and coming from a background where precision measurements of quantity and time are paramount and technique is king, my first instinct was to standardise my technique as much as possible, as pedantic as it makes me look to observers.

                            In my first week of using my machine, it became very clear that very minor variations of technique, when combined, make a HUGE difference.

                            Take, for instance, Lucas 2gm/10% variation in estimating the weight of grounds in a 6910 triple basket. Add a mere 2 or 3 + or - second variation in pour time, a relatively minor + or - 2kg variation in a 15kg tamp, an ill fitting tamper and less than optimum bean quality to a "newbie" operator like me with no internalized reference points to work from, and you have a combination designed for pure frustration.


                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                              eventually with practice its instincitve and gut feel plays a big role, so perhaps looking for exactness in this process may never please - and occasionally you get it not as good as the regular pours, but with the dose tap, dose tap, dose level and tamp method you will get small variations from shot to shot...I find it cannot be avoided (unless you weigh each baskets worth and then put that into the grinder by itself and do each shot the same which I know some people do but I dont like it and in a coffee shop it simply couldnt be viable).  But in reality most shots using the dose tap dose etc method, with practice, will produce really good consistent coffee.  Unless the doser is full, which is rare at home, this method with a doser grinder has to be more gut feel and experience than anything else because each sweep spits out a different amount when grinding for a baskets worth.  You get experienced with this over time and can generally get it very very close with the timer switch.


                              Cheers

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Frustrated as hell!  EM6910 crema

                                Originally posted by ozscott link=1225710268/20#28 date=1225785921
                                eventually with practice its instincitve and gut feel plays a big role, so perhaps looking for exactness in this process may never please - and occasionally you get it not as good as the regular pours, but with the dose tap, dose tap, dose level and tamp method you will get small variations from shot to shot...I find it cannot be avoided (unless you weigh each baskets worth and then put that into the grinder by itself and do each shot the same which I know some people do but I dont like it and in a coffee shop it simply couldnt be viable).  But in reality most shots using the dose tap dose etc method, with practice, will produce really good consistent coffee.  Unless the doser is full, which is rare at home, this method with a doser grinder has to be more gut feel and experience than anything else because each sweep spits out a different amount when grinding for a baskets worth.  You get experienced with this over time and can generally get it very very close with the timer switch.


                                Cheers
                                The OP said he was a relative "newbie" owner of a 6910/0480 combo with only 3 months usage and hasnt done the free barista basics course.

                                With the greatest respect and deference to your greater experience, your comments re the doser are irrelevant, the 0480 being a doserless grinder.

                                Which is exactly the point.

                                With no reference points as to whats "right" to begin with, a new user is relying on pure luck, and experimentation. Without any measurable outcomes as to weight, time, pressure, humidity, temperature etc an "newbie" may occasionally jag an acceptable pour, as long as all the variables remain constant and nothing "goes wrong"
                                ESPECIALLY when so many of the variables have the same or similar outcome on the shot.

                                For example, I defy any "newbie" to grind into an EM6910 with a EM0480 10 times in a row and get within Lucas 2gm/10% range then guesstimate exactly 15kg tamp pressure 10 times  then guesstimate 10 exact 30ml/30 second pours in a row THEN match all of them to happen at the same time WITHOUT some sort of mechanical aids OR endless time, patience and beans.

                                IMHO finding out by experience what doesnt work and why is more important in the long term than buying the latest and greatest automatic.

                                And, youd better enjoy the journey because the perfect destination doesnt exist.

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