SPROMETHEUS!!!! You changed my coffee life with this video!!! I have a rocket Giotto rotary pump… for years I’ve been using it 9 bars. And I truly thought my espressos were awesome!!! Now let me tell you after watching this video I have it a shot, and lowered my pump to 7 bars added filter paper and and over my puck…. And let me tell you! The difference in flavor in espresso is heaven and earth…. I am blown away!!! I never had such a good shot in my life!! It’s like I added some sugar to my shot (in a good way..;) and the complexity of the flavors is huge!!! Thank you so so so soooooo much!!! ❤
Oh and I forgot add that I do 10 seconds of in line pre infusion (my machine is plumbed to 3 bars of I line pressure…) With IMS basket and screen. 18g in 36-37g out
Big take away for me is that the 9 bar shot still had decent complexity and cup quality while having the most body. This is why it is always the standard for shops due to all the milk drinks they are churning out at 12 to 16 oz. For a specialty shop not exceeding a 10.5 oz beverage 7 bars might be worth trying out.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. I often just look at it in such a straight forward perspective, so that’s a good point. Plus, I usually don’t make anything over 8oz haha.
@@Sprometheus i don't even go over 6 oz flat whites tbh. 8 would probably be pretty good but I don't have 8 oz cups, only 6 and 10 and 10 is way too dilute.
This is the single best and most helpful espresso video I have ever watched. Been pulling 6 to 7 bar shots on my Flair 58 for the past week, and they are golden. The espresso almost comes out in globs. The body is so rich and creamy. Literally been fighting nine bars for the last year and a half.
@@Yirgamalabar I pull down to slowly go from 2 to 4 bars maybe 2 to 3 seconds until the entire portafilter bottom is saturated and starting to drip….then I pull to about 6 bars about 1 second later…..the I maintain around 6 bars mainly applying pressure based on what I’m visually seeing and the resistance I’m feeling rather than staring at the pressure gauge. 1Zespresso JK Pro also on the grinder. 1.4.0
I love it when I open up RUclips to research a specific topic, and you’ve literally just made a video answering all of my questions. Spro Sage strikes again!! 🎉
I do a 10 sec pre infusion on 3 bar, ramp up slowly to 9 bar then drop to 6 bar to end the shot. Works amazing for me! Great shots! (The shot is within the 28-32 second range.)
Question: is calibrating to a specific set of parameters (including ratios and pull times) the best way to go in this sort of subjective comparative test? I do get the appeal, but wouldn't it be better to just dial in each pressure by taste to its fullest and then highlight what can/cannot be achieved? Like "at 9 bar I couldn't ever make it clear. At 3 bar I couldn't ever make it sweet" (or whatever). Maybe 9 bar goes better in a 1:2 ratio while 3 bar lends itself better to 1:3 on a longer pull (again, or whatever). Making it too homogeneous can by design favor some type of shots and/or some target pressure, no?
Exactly what I thought, although still an enjoyable watch. In some ways all this shows us is that for a 25 second shot 1:2, 7 bar was best. In fairness you'd get through a lot of coffee to dial in 7 different brew pressures and some serious taste bud fatigue
@@81caasi He ground finer in order to achieve the same recipe: X grams in Y seconds. That's not dialing in, because that flowrate probably benefits certain pressures to begin with
Absolutely love this vid Spro, I love your honesty and humility to say you’re not a PHD in this, but yet you’re willing to go through rigorous testing to share your results and encourage us to do the same!! I’ve never wanted to mess with pressures more, and I just dimmer modded my little Bambino! Thanks brother, love your honest content and for who you are.
On the lower pressure needing a finer grind thing.. this is also a good way to save a shot if you’ve gone too fine on the grind. I’m talking an everyday morning shot where you just want a flat white and not concerned about optimal quality. Pulling back the pressure if you’ve noticed it’s choking will allow more flow and less extraction. It’s the difference between a drinkable coffee and a shot you have to make again. For example, I might see nothing is accumulating at the bottom of the basket during a 1bar pre infusion. I’ll push it up to 1.5bar for the pre infusion to try to wet everything, then rise to 6-7 bar to get some body out of it, but pull back to maybe 3 to 4bar or until I have a half decent flow rate. Higher pressures will push the coffee into itself and make it harder for water to get through.
THANK YOU !!! Just tried 3 pressures on my Izzo Alex Duetto IV and WOWZA...on 3rd try I got THE ONE. Such phenomenal balance with touch of sweetness. I'm so happy right now! The machine came around 8.6 bar and I turned up to 9 bar. After your video I tried 7 bar, 7.8 bar, and landed at 8.1 bar. I make frothed milk drinks with 2:1 ratio between bean weight and shot weight. I almost always use a medium roast. My grinder is DF64 Gen2 with SSP Cast Lab Sweet burrs. I so appreciate this video for encouraging me to experiment. Better espresso than I even imagined possible. I thought I was there (already) when I upgraded from Breville to this semi-commercial machine! Trust me, that was a huge jump. But I've made another giant leap in taste today! Yay 🎉
At home, I run 7bars and I feel like it brings out a lot of complexity and it's very clean. I thought I was alone in this feeling. Interesting to see the same results from others.
@@4wallscoffee coarser seems to work, too, if you're lowering the flow rate to achieve a specific pressure; that's all that's behind a turbo shot, after all. Interesting that when you can control the flow rate to maintain a specific pressure you can adjust grind to effect how even the flow and efficient the extraction is, but when you have a constant flow rate the grind size directly correlates to pressure and even flow by way of resistance short of breaking the puck.
Happy to see a Bianca on the channel. A barista at the roaster I have been going to for about 7-8 years now has always sworn by 6 bar shots, whether on the Slayer or LM machines.I might try setting my pump lower with SO Ethiopian I have right now and see what that does to the taste and shot quality.
I've only been making home espresso since Christmas time, but I have found that I liked to keep the gauge on my flair around 6-7 bars. That just seems to be where the fruitiness of my favorite coffees pop.
After 17 years on my second machine, a Bezzera without pressure gauge, I am "learning" my new shiny dual boiler. In other channels, I only ever heard that raising the pressure will only get you so far - only hinting in the other direction. This video gave me confidence to check out below 8 bar.
My machine was malfunctioning, avg pressure 3 to 4. I felt the shots were flat and bitter. Back to 9 bar: flavor and complexity returned! I will play with it. But high pressures are why I have the machine! Years of low cost “espresso” machines gave me a lifetime of flat coffee, thank you very much!
Great timing! I have been thinking of trying pulling shots with 6 bars on my profitec 600 but I’m waiting on my flow control device to arrive. Thanks for the video man
Having seen your video, I tested the 7 bar shot on my Bianca today, and really liked the results. Similar body compared to the 9 bar shots I usually do but much more interesting and pleasant flavor-wise. Will definitely pursue this path (and adjust the rotary pump pressure accordingly). Thank you!
@@DavidDarrow For my first tries, just the paddle. Now I also adjusted the pump pressure down to around 8 bars, and bizarrely haven't been able to get the same results, using the same coffee.
@@choisyaternata8050 thanks for the info. I’ve always suspected a small variation on mine between the gauge on the pump vs the one on the group head. Wonder if you might have the same and that’s what’s causing your inconsistency? Just a thought. Thanks again. Looking forward to experimenting with this.
My Lelit Mara X by default generates 10 bars -- not one of the levels you test. I suspect there is a way of changing that if I thought that pressure was a variable that could be independently extracted from all the others. It's -- to use an old fashioned and slightly de-contextualized word -- a gestalt. If the beans in any particular dose were always the same as the last or the next, I'd say, yes, there is a "correct" way of pulling a shot. But as it is, I'm inclined to just surrender to the joy and surprise of what results on any given day, at any given time from my more or less consistent method. Ten bars and declining over the 30 seconds of pull. Your work is thought provoking and I'm grateful for it. Thanks!
I would have liked to see 10, 12 and 14 bars as well given that most Breville's are using max pressures of 14 bars out of the box at times depending on how the OPV is set at the factory. This would shed light on the necessity of lower pressures closet to 9. Great video though!
Yeah I considered going higher as well. When I tried 10 bar just for fun it was kind of inconsistent, and messy so I decided to stick with the 9 bar “ideal” as the top. It may be something worth re-visiting at some point though. Thanks for watching and the thoughtful comment.
Yeah, Gaggia also has been well known for the use of higher pressures out of the box to allow pod and pressure baskets to make an "easy" experience for new buyers.
RE: Gaggia: Marc over at Whole Latte Love was responding to a lot of comments on a Gaggia Classic Pro video of theirs about brew pressures. He said they've tested the pressures at the group head and on the Gaggia Classic Pro it is nowhere near 14 bars of pressure when using non-pressurized baskets. He said the small vibratory pump is simply incapable of producing that much pressure when using a non-pressurized basket and therefore it's not necessary to change the OPV spring on them. With that in mind, I don't understand why the new Gaggia Classic EVO Pro has a 9 bar spring installed from the factory. That's counter to the argument that a 9 bar OPV spring isn't needed. Maybe it's so the pressurized basket is at 9 bars?
That was super interesting and turned out to be a game changer for me. For some time now I have preferred the sweeter taste of my Picopresso to my ECM Synchronika. Brew pressure was running 9.8 bar and after a quick youtube video on how to adjust (shout out to WLL), I brought it down in stages. Around 7bar gave me the sweet balanced taste that I really like and the best shots I have had from this machine.
I do like the 2bar preinfusion, 8bar to 6bar declining pressure shots that I do on my robot. I feel like this gives me really good shots each time. And then a straight 6 bar for turbo shots.
Since getting my flair 58, I have found myself liking the 3 bar pre-infusion and ramp up to 6 bar shots. Seems to provide the ideal balance of sweetness and acidity for me. The 9 bar shots that I have pulled on the flair have been too acidic for me.
I third this 2-3 bar preinfusion and then ramp to 6 has been my go to. Haven’t tried anything other than light roast tho. Just like everything in coffee, im sure some varieties, regions, or development level might be better at different pressures just like some are better with conical or flat. I guess thats the fun and frustrating rabbit hole of coffee lol
Be careful though: From my understanding, the pressure you measure in the flair is not the same that you measure in the electric machines. In the flair the gage is directly in the brew chamber, which should be about half a bar lower. I mean, 9 bars in the flair is probably closer to 9.5/10 on a normal machine.
My ECM Classika PID won't go lower than 8 bar (I think). I run it at 8 but stock setting is 9. I turned it down only to reduce channeling and it worked. The stock basket is better for channeling than a VST 18g ridgeless, I think due to it tapering down to a smaller pin hole area. I highly recommend the stock ECM baskets to anyone struggling with channeling. It's yet another variable! I think that's why we love the espresso game, there's so much to play around with! It's like a metaphor for life, some days you get a poor shot, some days it's perfect, you fiddle about, pay more attention, work harder at it, and you get better shots more often! ✌️
As someone who's just learning espresso, this was huge for me. I have a flair 58 and a niche and have been struggling. Getting the 9 bars is unrealistic for me to maintain, so I've been hovering at 5 to 6 bars teetering more towards 5 getting perfect brew time and minimal channels, but the taste has been a bit harsh. I've been having to grind extremely fine to get there as well. I'm going to revisit my prep and attempt a 7-bar shot and I'm excited about the results!
(Apologies, wall of text) So. I think you're missing something in here and that's that pressure doesn't look like a flat line, but rather a curve. You have to ramp into your pressure and as the puck degrades you fall out of that pressure. The Decent does the best at displaying it, but it happens on all machines, even machines with static pre-set pressure. What you're kind of isolating with the Bianca is what the bulk of the time of extraction pressure is at prior to puck degradation. What is really hard to measure on something that's not a Decent (again this isn't a quality thing it's just a display and tracking thing) is the time duration of each segment of the curve. That time really, really matters in my experience, especially with what you do with a preinfusion. On more modern style light roasted coffees i tend to do what some might call obscenely long preinfusions (often 10-14 seconds) followed by a ramp into 6-7 bar for the shot, leading to a very long extraction time, but resulting in a lot of complexity in the cup. I love that we can now play with these variables and repeat them, though we could always do this on lever machines in the past.
I have La Pavoni from the 90' and I have a problem with my espressos being too harsh and acidic. So something clicked in my head when you described the low pressure espressos. I was quite sure I'm putting enough pressure, but it's really hard to know. I'll try to play with it, but La Pavoni is such a tricky machine for consistency, from temperature, to pressure and speed. Thank you for making this video 🙏
Great tests! I recently got rid of my espresso setups and have been focusing on and making videos utilizing filter brews only, however when I still had my Flair 58 i always preferred shots in the 6-8 range.
Really love the explanation at the end…it finally makes sense why the deceptively simple picopresso makes such bizarrely sweet shots. Definitely something to play with on lever machines.
La Pavoni lever here. I've been doing 6 bars for years. Actually, my La Pavoni has a hard time rising to 8 or above, even 7 is hard. So I developed a protocole (weight and grind) that works well at 6 bars, and I am extremely happy with the results. Semi dark roast, Tanzania Peaberry.
Espresso ist so interesting and cool. We are currently in an age where technological advancement allows us to challenge the traditional methods that have been preached for years and we have learned about for years. I am so looking forward to seeing what the "new normal" will be in the future !! Thanks Sprometheus for this exciting video !
You’re welcome Edin and thanks for watching! Absolutely, the norms of espresso and coffee brewing in general are consistently being challenged and it’s a lot of fun to be part of the generation of coffee enthusiasts blazing this new path!
I swear I watched a video by you that swore that 9 bar was the sweet spot. As someone who has been doing this at home for a long time, but never feeling I’m where I could be, I really take the videos of people I think know what they are doing to heart. I guess I need to adjust *again*, now to 7 bar & see what the hype might be about.
A quick play at 7.5 bar baseline (the OPV on my ECM Classika doesn't go any lower) and it is immediately obvious, sweeter and more complex. Maybe slightly less body than 9 bar but not really easy to pick out. Definitely a better shot. I have flow control and pull "raining blood" shots (yes I did steal this from your Slayer shot vid, which no one in the comments seemed to pick up).
A bit more experimentation, the OPV adjustment isn't necessary as I can get a great and consistent 7 bar shot just by controlling the pressure with the flow control. I'm really enjoying the effects of the lower pressure, quite a different shot to 9 bar, but I still need to dial in some more to really get the best out of it.
Thank you so much for this instructive video. For myself, I extract shots at 6,5 bars with long pre-brew, 2g in the cup which is over 20sec, then move to full flow for the rest of the shot. I do not recall where I took the idée to reduce pressure, but possibly it was on your channel. 😊
You've convinced me that in order to get the best out of any particular coffee beans, it's good to be able to control the pressure. In each particular case, 9 bar might not be ideal. I recently had a frustrating experience (I use a recent rancilio) with coffee that channeled heavily no matter how I ground it or how many grams I put in the portafilter. I wish I could have tried fewer bars! -toby
I think it depends on the grinder and the profile of coffee particle sizes it creates. If you want to take this a step further you would try different grinds for every pressure. If anyone thinks espresso is easy... think not.
Great video! Personally, I've always thought 9 bar was a value designed to cover for deficiencies in equipment and technique. Bad basket, poor grind consistency, clumpy grounds... just tamp hard and extract high. It wasn't until I got a spirit basket, WDT device and tamp pressure mat that I realized - ya, no. I'm at 6.5 bar with no preinfusion in the spirit and getting the best results ever.
I was forced into this experiment when my last espresso machine got a fault. Not sure if it was the OPV opening too soon of my pump was failing, but either way it was making shots at low pressures... and they still tasted pretty good :)
Like your experiments, conclusions, open questions, guesses. Add to the complexity different roast degrees. Would be great to explore the respective taste profiles and compare different roast degrees with same bar levels with each other.
I've been holding off for several years on following through with drilling a hole in the side of my Izzo Alex Duetto III case because the pressure control adjustment is underneath the cover in the back side (resolve in the Duetto IV with a predrilled hole). I think this and several other videos lately around adjusting bar pressure is pushing me over the edge though. Experimentation will prevail!
I just bought a flair and had a lot of trouble balancing brew time with 9 bars of pressure. For some reason I assumed there was no choice but to go 9 bars. Armed with this video though, I've discovered 6 bars seems to be the sweet spot for the medium roast I'm dialing in right now!
If you have one of the models that has the 45mm portafilter/basket combo then also keep in mind the geometry of the extraction, and thus the resistance provided by the coffee puck, is all different and traditional recipes will lead you astray. Don't worry so much about hitting your times like you might with a 58mm machine. Of course, if you have a Flair58 then disregard all this lol
The way that I have been enjoying my morning espresso is by pressureprofiling. 20s blooming, followed by 10s pre-infusion at 2bars, followed by a 30s shot that starts at 8b and tampers down slowly to 3 bars after a bit. The higher pressure at the beginning make the fines agitate a bit more and increase the resistence, that then reduces as the extraction increases. The flow should start low, peak at 5b and reduce again substantially. Overall this is what matches the most into what I enjoy in my coffee: higher extraction, lower acidity, medium sweetness and lower bitterness.
Thanks! Genius idea! The 7 bar shot taste a lot better than the 9 bar shot. I have two questions: how many bars is the difference between the pressure indicated on the standard pump pressure gauge and the pressure in the brew group? My second question is: is the rotary pump actually better than the vibration pump when it comes to the final result (especially the taste)? I have a EMC Classika PID. And it has a vibration pump. I hope it is good enough for quality espresso.
This is very informative. Have you experimented with 6 bars of pressure pulling ristretto? I have an odd way to enjoy my coffee. I use 20 grams of coffee grinds at 9 bars in order to extract 45 grams in about 27 seconds. However, I hold a warm teaspoon under the basket in order to catch the first 5 ml of coffee, which is very viscuous oily liquid, that to me is coffee nirvana. I call it a very short ristretto. I use the rest of the pull for cappuccino, which is forgiving. I am curious how pressure affects viscosity, and whether you have an opinion on it.
I'm a little confused. Pressure is a result of flow and resistance. You have to increase either to increase pressure. I'm not familiar with the rotary pump in the machine you are using but it's likely an OPV you are adjusting right? So adjusting that for a lower pressure just means you are diverting the flow through the pump into the OPV instead of through the puck. Grinding finer will bump the pressure up again for the same flow rate. But then again there are factors like the "water hammer". A high initial flow or onset of pressure will compress the puck and increase the resistance of it. A low flow shot with either OPV or paddle set to restrict will allow the puck to expand more, almost like a blooming espresso or Slayer shot. What I'm saying is I don't think you are changing pressure on its own, you are changing the flow of water that is directed through the puck at a given pressure. When the puck "pushes back" with 6 bars, all water above that is in surplus to the water actually going through the puck is going through the OPV. Not sure if it matters in practice but it might be good to consider for people wanting to experiment. Pressure is resulting force of two other factors.
I've got my Gaggia OPV set to 6.5 bars, was thinking about setting it even lower (Shades sends another spring at 5 bars) kinda glad you did the work for me analyzing this Real-Spro, cheers! 😆
@@ColdCoffeePhotography 6.5bar is very versatile with different roast profiles: Dark roasts are smooth, and importantly lighter roasts aren't too sour... also it's more forgiving on the tamp and less prone to channeling - I remember before the mod I have a naked portafilter and I had to hold my coffee up to the portafilter to catch the spray 😂 The only downside I've noticed is the body & crema seems slightly thinner... not a huge deal given the payoff IMO 👍🏻
I wonder how much of a difference the beans and roast profile makes. We are used to adjusting temperature, grind and dose to get the best out of a bag but perhaps machine should be allowing us to change pressure too and I don't mean flow control. I think it's important to distinguish here that this is "peak pressure" and not how pressure is profiled during the shot. Great video, been nagging you in the comments to reveal why you'd had the LMLM at 6 bar and if you'd done the same with the new LM. Now I see you were keeping it for a video! :)
Ive been doing 6bar shots for a while. Well. 2bar preinfusion then slowly ramp up to 6bar. It eliminates harshness and increases clarity. It makes it more enjoyable and easier to taste the flavor notes. Some single origin, high altitude light roasts are undrinkable with a 9bar profile. At least to me. I prefer it for light roasts. They turned out very sweet and mellow. But 9bar is much better for milk drink or medium to dark roasts where body is really important.
Hi. I love the video. When creating your recipe for each bar of pressure. Are you keeping the time variable the same and just changing your grind setting as you adjust at each different bar of pressure? Or does time change during the extraction of each bar adjustment?? Flow/pressure profiling confuses me from the “standard” suggested roaster recipe recommendation. Thanks!
IMHO, different beans probably require unique extraction pressure to achieve the desired flavor and texture. You change the beans, the same extraction pressure will play out differently.
Very interering test. I reduced the pressure down to 7 bar (I usually used 9.5 bar). Taste is much more smooth. Regarding to the test procedure, may I ask if you only adjust the pressure while keep other figure (grind setting, temperature..etc) the same? Thanks.
Sandbagging and grind too tight. so pre-infusion is kinda out. flair 58 +. Got ubanic 70s 60 mm grinder with standard flat burrs. Plenty fines.Dialed in at 4 for medium roast. 195 °for water and middle light on PID., in case anybody wants to know. Took too long to get here, but I got here! Shot finally has that syrupy look thank you very much. I am now a happy man. Yay! Oh yeah, and ease up on that 9 bar pressure thing. Hard tamp
Thank you for this great video! Very interesting... I have a ECM casa V so it is really easy to adjust pressure. With most vibration pumps it's however quite difficult to find out exactly what the brew pressure is without having a Scace machine. Having a brew pressure gauge like you have on your Bianca makes it much clearer. I was experimenting a bit back and forth and landed on the traditional 9 bars as I come from southwest Europe and now living in Germany I need some of the nostalgia of the strong, dark chocolate and sometimes not particularly complex flavors of my coffee roots.
I can just imagine the average barista in any one of hundreds if not thousands of cafes in big and small towns in Italy watching this video shaking their heads saying "Mama Mia" why don't he just pull a shot of espresso. Last time in Italy exploring numerous cafes in multiple towns and big cities they just make great espresso with the standard machine setup and not thinking about bars, clarity, complexity, etc etc etc.
based on not knowing the grind size or lighter or darker roasts ..9 is the magic number..i can't yet check properly ...i will be able to soon ..big love and thank you.
Yeah I found that 6.5 bars (on my VBM) was great for a coffee I used to buy, but when I changed cities (and beans) 8.5 is better now. Also the old bean used to like a longer pull. So as you say get experimenting! Every bean is different.
Absolutely! And for sure lower pressures can definitely shine with those longer pulls as well. When it comes to espresso the experimentation is half the fun.
I may be a bit late to this rodeo, but I lowered the pressure on my Lelit Bianca to 6 bar and... I like it. I didn't read up much on it before, so I was shocked when my espresso was tasting really good at 50-60 seconds, but it seems that's how it's supposed to be. I am also grinding finer and getting less channeling. The shots I've been getting are incredibly slow, but very beautiful (visually). Another thing I noticed is the shots are less harsh on my Niche Zero. In a month I will be receiving my Lagom P64 so I will keep experimenting.
There are several variables with a coffee bean. How much CO2 it produces. How quickly it absorbs water. How much and quickly it expands when it absorbs water. These variables change from day to day. Some beans are more prone to channelling than others because of all this. Putting 1g more or less coffee in the basket completely changes how these variables interplay.
In your experience, does pre-infusion make a difference to the taste of the final cup when changing pressure? I.e. Is it made redundant or require less time at the pre-infusion stage due to a reduction in pressure to 6 bar?
Personally, I still find pre-infusion making a difference in the cup regardless of the peak pressure. For one it allows a slower, softer expansion of the puck, leading to an extraction less likely of having defects. But also, when it comes to lighter roasts, it just really takes the edge off of that up front punchy, or acidic bite.
@@Sprometheus Can you elaborate what PI settings you used? With my Bianca V3 I usually use 5 seconds PI at low flow mode followed by 5 seconds pause. Works well in most cases.
i think that doing all these tests with the same basket is only a starting point . but with new baskets having all kinds of hole sizes and resistance , there needs to be tests that take that into account . seing if a 10 bar shot with a basket that has alot of resistance vs low resistance tastes better , since the grind size will have to change with both of those examples .
@@BigPoppa-t3z technology and coffee in general has come a long way since 100 years ago though. The coffee they would have been consuming is completely different to what it is today. I’ll bet that it’s absolutely disgusting as well compared to what we like today (that’s assuming it’s anything like traditional Italian coffee). Life’s too short not to experiment with things :)
@@BigPoppa-t3z 1920s coffee 9 bars lmaooooo gaggia wasnt even founded yet. Maybe if u had a pipe bomb of a percolator but theres no way 9 bar is 100 years old. Just keep making stuff up bro.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I pull down the lever, I let it there while it’s preinfusing, then I release the lever. Espresso comes out and I have no idea whatsoever what the pressure was :p
thanks for the great content. I do have a question. To have the 6bar, is playing with flow rate paddle of bianca v3 enough or do we need to adjust it at the bottom?
Same question here. I think i ll try to flow control lever to reduce pressure than if it does not yield good results...i ll lower the pressure output on the pump. I am struggling with channeling.
worth mentioning is to change the bar isnt he changing grind size?? and therefore different coffee surface areas and shot time for each?? I would imagine those two virtually the sole reason for the different taste of each cup.
In my non-scientific exploration of this topic on a Cafelat Robot, I found that lower pressure shots (roughly 6-7 Bar) were sweeter and generally tastier than 9-bar shots.I’m looking forward to exploring this further on a Odyssey Argos lever machine, which can switch between 8 and 6 bar springs, or full manual.
I use the Profitec go and it was set to 10 bars stock. My shots tend to run a bit punchy and pungent. What is the likely pressure at the group head? I adjusted it to 9 bars and will try that out tomorrow and go from there.
Yeah if your just ramping up no or minimal PI then lower pressure 6-7bar is the sweetspot for straight espresso, but put fully saturation PI into the mix and that typically improves the 8-9bar noticeable, so when I run 9bar I always do fully saturation PI or I stop it at max. 7 bar pressure.
Just to make sure I understood correctly what you were saying: 1- If you DON'T do Pre-Infusion then you suggest setting the pump pressure at 6 or 7 Bars and let it ramp up to that during the whole shot. 2- Otherwise WITH Pre-Infusion you suggest to fully saturates the puck first "5-10sec?" then ramp up to 9 Bars? If that's what you meant, then what would be the difference and you preference between these 2 methods?
@@PanzerIV88 Yes I found those to be the most consistent ways, there other techniques like the blooming espresso, allonge or Sprover but those are not very espresso like. But I found higher pressure generally need an entirely saturated puck in preinfusion to work well. It really depends on the coffee if it benefits from the more clarity with better flavour separation of the typical longer lower pressure shots or you want a more traditional shot that underline sweetness, body and round the acidity off a bit is what the coffee benefits most from, you can sometimes also let it tailor off to 5 bar if your machine allows you to do so to give a more constant flow but you definitely need fully saturation PI to regain a more fully flavour spectrum and avoid harsher flavours.
@@mikni4069 Thanks a lot for the clarification, and I guess your right as I've done several tests this whole week and the best shots taste wise was when the grouphead gauge on my R58 was getting 7.0 to 8.0Bar, no manual pre-infusion with the flow control but still have the stock mechanical pre-infusion from the spring in the E61. Every shots at 6.4 bars and less were disappointing even if I kept my ratio 1:2 with 20in/40out in 30sec. I also found that if I'd lower the PUMP pressure I had to grind finer so the pressure at the group wouldn't be too low like 5-6Bar, but then if I'd grind finer then the shot was more like 36sec but clearly better! I get between 0.5 to 1.0bar less on the group gauge than at the pump gauge so I have to set my pump higher according to what I want to obtain at the puck. I will probably go back to 8.0Bar seems like the sweet spot. Tastewise do you prefer lower 6-7Bar pressure with no infusion, or the opposite with 8-9Bar with PI?
@@PanzerIV88 It really depends on the coffee and what I intend to do with it. In Milk I would never do 6-7 bar 1:2.5-1:5 that you typically do with 6-7 bar shots, but for straight light roasted shots it can be good but you really need to pull longer, not necessarily grind finer…. The turbo 1:3 under 20sek is a good example why not necessarily. The PI 8-9 bar allows shorter pulls but again as I wrote it really depends on the coffee why it’s hard saying exactly what is best because for me it really depends on the coffee and purpose with it.
Quick question, I found that my Bianca came out of the box adjusted to around 10bar out the box. What would you recommend the rotary pump pressure to be adjusted to?
Yeah mine came set to 10 bar as well. I set it to 9 bar, which gives me the ability to adjust manually up to 9 when brewing. But if you are using the pre-set modes I’d recommend toying around with a few pressures 7, 8, 9 and see which you like better as it will peak at those when using auto functions.
Thanks for your insight. I set mine to 9 bar, but have been running shots between 6-7 bar at the group, but I find the paddle is barely at 45% open to achieve that. Eh it’s fun to experiment with anyway. Thanks for your insight anyway!
I would like to know how you work with less pressure grinding finer, since the pressure of the coffee maker is automatic depending on the thickness of the ground coffee. Thinner, more pressing generates more pressure, thicker generates less pressure.
Surely the variation could well be due to your grind adjustments as much as the pressure. So the reason you had a dip and a return to flavour between pressure tests is more down to grind adjustments not being as effective.
I just realized my machine has been set on 9.5 bar since I bought it and I’ve never thought to adjust it - but I suffer from channeling and am always experimenting with different WDTs, spinning distributors, etc. with limited success. I am turning down the pressure right away!
Follow-up: I set my ECM Synchronika to 7.5 bar and I like the results - less channeling and I am not totalluy sure but I think there is just a bit more flavor at the edges of the tongue. Highly recommended if for no other reason but to make shots more consistent 👍
I have been also reading a lot about this lately, from what i have researched it is also important to reduce the brew temperature as the extraction time will go longer with the finer grind idea. Did you experiment with longer than 25s extraction time?
A little, but more so on the lower end. As I got to about 5 bar, I noticed the pressure in the group was peaking a little lower. So it took some trial and error to find the pressures that gave me the peak I wanted without using the paddle.
I'm curious, how much did you have to adjust the grind setting between the different pressure settings? I know you said the lower settings required finer grinds but I'd like the numbers for comparative purposes.
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SPROMETHEUS!!!!
You changed my coffee life with this video!!!
I have a rocket Giotto rotary pump… for years I’ve been using it 9 bars.
And I truly thought my espressos were awesome!!!
Now let me tell you after watching this video I have it a shot, and lowered my pump to 7 bars added filter paper and and over my puck….
And let me tell you!
The difference in flavor in espresso is heaven and earth…. I am blown away!!! I never had such a good shot in my life!!
It’s like I added some sugar to my shot (in a good way..;) and the complexity of the flavors is huge!!!
Thank you so so so soooooo much!!! ❤
Oh and I forgot add that I do 10 seconds of in line pre infusion (my machine is plumbed to 3 bars of I line pressure…)
With IMS basket and screen.
18g in 36-37g out
@@Yakov770 seeing this late, but glad to hear this has opened up your espresso experience!
Big take away for me is that the 9 bar shot still had decent complexity and cup quality while having the most body. This is why it is always the standard for shops due to all the milk drinks they are churning out at 12 to 16 oz. For a specialty shop not exceeding a 10.5 oz beverage 7 bars might be worth trying out.
That’s an interesting way to look at it. I often just look at it in such a straight forward perspective, so that’s a good point. Plus, I usually don’t make anything over 8oz haha.
@@Sprometheus i don't even go over 6 oz flat whites tbh. 8 would probably be pretty good but I don't have 8 oz cups, only 6 and 10 and 10 is way too dilute.
This is the single best and most helpful espresso video I have ever watched. Been pulling 6 to 7 bar shots on my Flair 58 for the past week, and they are golden. The espresso almost comes out in globs. The body is so rich and creamy. Literally been fighting nine bars for the last year and a half.
I will try this. Thank you.
That's very interesting. Can you also share your pre-infusion and pause numbers (pressure and timings)?
@@Yirgamalabar I pull down to slowly go from 2 to 4 bars maybe 2 to 3 seconds until the entire portafilter bottom is saturated and starting to drip….then I pull to about 6 bars about 1 second later…..the I maintain around 6 bars mainly applying pressure based on what I’m visually seeing and the resistance I’m feeling rather than staring at the pressure gauge. 1Zespresso JK Pro also on the grinder. 1.4.0
I love it when I open up RUclips to research a specific topic, and you’ve literally just made a video answering all of my questions. Spro Sage strikes again!! 🎉
Haha it’s kismet 💫
I do a 10 sec pre infusion on 3 bar, ramp up slowly to 9 bar then drop to 6 bar to end the shot. Works amazing for me! Great shots! (The shot is within the 28-32 second range.)
Yes, it seems to be the optimal trend those days. But how many of us, normal home coffee passionated mortals, can (afford) to do that 😢
@@jean-michellae9041 true
You can do this cheaply with lever machines like Cafelat Robot or Flair without any problems.
What machine did you have?
From what I understand after 10" pre-infusion, you apply 9 bar about 10" and 6 bar for another 10 seconds. Right?
Question: is calibrating to a specific set of parameters (including ratios and pull times) the best way to go in this sort of subjective comparative test? I do get the appeal, but wouldn't it be better to just dial in each pressure by taste to its fullest and then highlight what can/cannot be achieved? Like "at 9 bar I couldn't ever make it clear. At 3 bar I couldn't ever make it sweet" (or whatever). Maybe 9 bar goes better in a 1:2 ratio while 3 bar lends itself better to 1:3 on a longer pull (again, or whatever).
Making it too homogeneous can by design favor some type of shots and/or some target pressure, no?
Exactly what I thought, although still an enjoyable watch. In some ways all this shows us is that for a 25 second shot 1:2, 7 bar was best. In fairness you'd get through a lot of coffee to dial in 7 different brew pressures and some serious taste bud fatigue
I think he did dial in each pressure, as he said he ground finer for the lower pressure shots..
@@81caasi He ground finer in order to achieve the same recipe: X grams in Y seconds. That's not dialing in, because that flowrate probably benefits certain pressures to begin with
Absolutely love this vid Spro, I love your honesty and humility to say you’re not a PHD in this, but yet you’re willing to go through rigorous testing to share your results and encourage us to do the same!! I’ve never wanted to mess with pressures more, and I just dimmer modded my little Bambino! Thanks brother, love your honest content and for who you are.
On the lower pressure needing a finer grind thing.. this is also a good way to save a shot if you’ve gone too fine on the grind. I’m talking an everyday morning shot where you just want a flat white and not concerned about optimal quality. Pulling back the pressure if you’ve noticed it’s choking will allow more flow and less extraction. It’s the difference between a drinkable coffee and a shot you have to make again.
For example, I might see nothing is accumulating at the bottom of the basket during a 1bar pre infusion. I’ll push it up to 1.5bar for the pre infusion to try to wet everything, then rise to 6-7 bar to get some body out of it, but pull back to maybe 3 to 4bar or until I have a half decent flow rate.
Higher pressures will push the coffee into itself and make it harder for water to get through.
THANK YOU !!! Just tried 3 pressures on my Izzo Alex Duetto IV and WOWZA...on 3rd try I got THE ONE. Such phenomenal balance with touch of sweetness. I'm so happy right now!
The machine came around 8.6 bar and I turned up to 9 bar.
After your video I tried 7 bar, 7.8 bar, and landed at 8.1 bar. I make frothed milk drinks with 2:1 ratio between bean weight and shot weight. I almost always use a medium roast. My grinder is DF64 Gen2 with SSP Cast Lab Sweet burrs.
I so appreciate this video for encouraging me to experiment.
Better espresso than I even imagined possible. I thought I was there (already) when I upgraded from Breville to this semi-commercial machine! Trust me, that was a huge jump.
But I've made another giant leap in taste today! Yay 🎉
At home, I run 7bars and I feel like it brings out a lot of complexity and it's very clean. I thought I was alone in this feeling. Interesting to see the same results from others.
Is the grind the same you’d use for 9 bar? Or do you have to adjust your grind?
You’ll need to adjust your grind - when you lower the bar pressure, you need to grind finer
I'm with you, I've been doing 7 to 8 bar for the last two years and refrained from saying anything.
@@4wallscoffee coarser seems to work, too, if you're lowering the flow rate to achieve a specific pressure; that's all that's behind a turbo shot, after all. Interesting that when you can control the flow rate to maintain a specific pressure you can adjust grind to effect how even the flow and efficient the extraction is, but when you have a constant flow rate the grind size directly correlates to pressure and even flow by way of resistance short of breaking the puck.
me too, 7-8 bar
Happy to see a Bianca on the channel. A barista at the roaster I have been going to for about 7-8 years now has always sworn by 6 bar shots, whether on the Slayer or LM machines.I might try setting my pump lower with SO Ethiopian I have right now and see what that does to the taste and shot quality.
I've only been making home espresso since Christmas time, but I have found that I liked to keep the gauge on my flair around 6-7 bars. That just seems to be where the fruitiness of my favorite coffees pop.
After 17 years on my second machine, a Bezzera without pressure gauge, I am "learning" my new shiny dual boiler. In other channels, I only ever heard that raising the pressure will only get you so far - only hinting in the other direction. This video gave me confidence to check out below 8 bar.
Congrats on the new machine and entering the realm of lower pressure shots. Honestly, it’s a place I went and never went back to 9 bar.
My machine was malfunctioning, avg pressure 3 to 4. I felt the shots were flat and bitter. Back to 9 bar: flavor and complexity returned! I will play with it. But high pressures are why I have the machine! Years of low cost “espresso” machines gave me a lifetime of flat coffee, thank you very much!
Great timing! I have been thinking of trying pulling shots with 6 bars on my profitec 600 but I’m waiting on my flow control device to arrive.
Thanks for the video man
Having seen your video, I tested the 7 bar shot on my Bianca today, and really liked the results. Similar body compared to the 9 bar shots I usually do but much more interesting and pleasant flavor-wise. Will definitely pursue this path (and adjust the rotary pump pressure accordingly). Thank you!
Out of curiosity, did you actually adjust the pump pressure, or just use the paddle?
@@DavidDarrow For my first tries, just the paddle. Now I also adjusted the pump pressure down to around 8 bars, and bizarrely haven't been able to get the same results, using the same coffee.
@@choisyaternata8050 thanks for the info. I’ve always suspected a small variation on mine between the gauge on the pump vs the one on the group head. Wonder if you might have the same and that’s what’s causing your inconsistency? Just a thought. Thanks again. Looking forward to experimenting with this.
@@DavidDarrow Yes, it's all like this！I have adjusted the ecm sync pressure gauge to 10bar
Ok. I finally got Standart Mag. I couldn’t resist any longer. Merry Christmas to me.
Enjoy my friend! I’ve been a big fan since before they came to me as a sponsor. Just can’t be beat!
My Lelit Mara X by default generates 10 bars -- not one of the levels you test. I suspect there is a way of changing that if I thought that pressure was a variable that could be independently extracted from all the others. It's -- to use an old fashioned and slightly de-contextualized word -- a gestalt. If the beans in any particular dose were always the same as the last or the next, I'd say, yes, there is a "correct" way of pulling a shot. But as it is, I'm inclined to just surrender to the joy and surprise of what results on any given day, at any given time from my more or less consistent method. Ten bars and declining over the 30 seconds of pull. Your work is thought provoking and I'm grateful for it. Thanks!
I would have liked to see 10, 12 and 14 bars as well given that most Breville's are using max pressures of 14 bars out of the box at times depending on how the OPV is set at the factory. This would shed light on the necessity of lower pressures closet to 9. Great video though!
Yeah I considered going higher as well. When I tried 10 bar just for fun it was kind of inconsistent, and messy so I decided to stick with the 9 bar “ideal” as the top. It may be something worth re-visiting at some point though. Thanks for watching and the thoughtful comment.
I'd like a pony. 🙄
Yeah, Gaggia also has been well known for the use of higher pressures out of the box to allow pod and pressure baskets to make an "easy" experience for new buyers.
RE: Gaggia: Marc over at Whole Latte Love was responding to a lot of comments on a Gaggia Classic Pro video of theirs about brew pressures. He said they've tested the pressures at the group head and on the Gaggia Classic Pro it is nowhere near 14 bars of pressure when using non-pressurized baskets. He said the small vibratory pump is simply incapable of producing that much pressure when using a non-pressurized basket and therefore it's not necessary to change the OPV spring on them. With that in mind, I don't understand why the new Gaggia Classic EVO Pro has a 9 bar spring installed from the factory. That's counter to the argument that a 9 bar OPV spring isn't needed. Maybe it's so the pressurized basket is at 9 bars?
That was super interesting and turned out to be a game changer for me. For some time now I have preferred the sweeter taste of my Picopresso to my ECM Synchronika. Brew pressure was running 9.8 bar and after a quick youtube video on how to adjust (shout out to WLL), I brought it down in stages. Around 7bar gave me the sweet balanced taste that I really like and the best shots I have had from this machine.
I do like the 2bar preinfusion, 8bar to 6bar declining pressure shots that I do on my robot. I feel like this gives me really good shots each time. And then a straight 6 bar for turbo shots.
Absolutely. It’s more or less like a lever shot, and those definitely have a lot of character. And 6 bar rarely disappoints.
I do the exact same thing. High % success rate. Reliable, repeatable and consistent - Isn't this what we strive to achieve for espresso?
Since getting my flair 58, I have found myself liking the 3 bar pre-infusion and ramp up to 6 bar shots. Seems to provide the ideal balance of sweetness and acidity for me. The 9 bar shots that I have pulled on the flair have been too acidic for me.
That’s been my go to as well. With a variety of timelines for pre-infusion, from 15-30 seconds. Crazy the differences it can make.
I third this 2-3 bar preinfusion and then ramp to 6 has been my go to. Haven’t tried anything other than light roast tho. Just like everything in coffee, im sure some varieties, regions, or development level might be better at different pressures just like some are better with conical or flat. I guess thats the fun and frustrating rabbit hole of coffee lol
Be careful though: From my understanding, the pressure you measure in the flair is not the same that you measure in the electric machines. In the flair the gage is directly in the brew chamber, which should be about half a bar lower.
I mean, 9 bars in the flair is probably closer to 9.5/10 on a normal machine.
My ECM Classika PID won't go lower than 8 bar (I think). I run it at 8 but stock setting is 9. I turned it down only to reduce channeling and it worked. The stock basket is better for channeling than a VST 18g ridgeless, I think due to it tapering down to a smaller pin hole area. I highly recommend the stock ECM baskets to anyone struggling with channeling. It's yet another variable! I think that's why we love the espresso game, there's so much to play around with! It's like a metaphor for life, some days you get a poor shot, some days it's perfect, you fiddle about, pay more attention, work harder at it, and you get better shots more often! ✌️
As someone who's just learning espresso, this was huge for me. I have a flair 58 and a niche and have been struggling. Getting the 9 bars is unrealistic for me to maintain, so I've been hovering at 5 to 6 bars teetering more towards 5 getting perfect brew time and minimal channels, but the taste has been a bit harsh. I've been having to grind extremely fine to get there as well. I'm going to revisit my prep and attempt a 7-bar shot and I'm excited about the results!
how did it go?
(Apologies, wall of text) So. I think you're missing something in here and that's that pressure doesn't look like a flat line, but rather a curve. You have to ramp into your pressure and as the puck degrades you fall out of that pressure. The Decent does the best at displaying it, but it happens on all machines, even machines with static pre-set pressure. What you're kind of isolating with the Bianca is what the bulk of the time of extraction pressure is at prior to puck degradation. What is really hard to measure on something that's not a Decent (again this isn't a quality thing it's just a display and tracking thing) is the time duration of each segment of the curve. That time really, really matters in my experience, especially with what you do with a preinfusion. On more modern style light roasted coffees i tend to do what some might call obscenely long preinfusions (often 10-14 seconds) followed by a ramp into 6-7 bar for the shot, leading to a very long extraction time, but resulting in a lot of complexity in the cup. I love that we can now play with these variables and repeat them, though we could always do this on lever machines in the past.
I have La Pavoni from the 90' and I have a problem with my espressos being too harsh and acidic. So something clicked in my head when you described the low pressure espressos. I was quite sure I'm putting enough pressure, but it's really hard to know. I'll try to play with it, but La Pavoni is such a tricky machine for consistency, from temperature, to pressure and speed.
Thank you for making this video 🙏
"Sink shot" - love it ! (as a descriptor, not as a drink)
Haha I can’t take credit for it, but I have no idea where it started but it is the perfect description.
Love single variable tests, thanks! Great video
I appreciate the straight-forward design and execution of this test. And results are highly informative. ❤
Great tests! I recently got rid of my espresso setups and have been focusing on and making videos utilizing filter brews only, however when I still had my Flair 58 i always preferred shots in the 6-8 range.
Really love the explanation at the end…it finally makes sense why the deceptively simple picopresso makes such bizarrely sweet shots. Definitely something to play with on lever machines.
La Pavoni lever here. I've been doing 6 bars for years. Actually, my La Pavoni has a hard time rising to 8 or above, even 7 is hard. So I developed a protocole (weight and grind) that works well at 6 bars, and I am extremely happy with the results. Semi dark roast, Tanzania Peaberry.
Espresso ist so interesting and cool. We are currently in an age where technological advancement allows us to challenge the traditional methods that have been preached for years and we have learned about for years. I am so looking forward to seeing what the "new normal" will be in the future !!
Thanks Sprometheus for this exciting video !
You’re welcome Edin and thanks for watching! Absolutely, the norms of espresso and coffee brewing in general are consistently being challenged and it’s a lot of fun to be part of the generation of coffee enthusiasts blazing this new path!
I swear I watched a video by you that swore that 9 bar was the sweet spot. As someone who has been doing this at home for a long time, but never feeling I’m where I could be, I really take the videos of people I think know what they are doing to heart. I guess I need to adjust *again*, now to 7 bar & see what the hype might be about.
Great video man! Time to do some more experimenting!
A quick play at 7.5 bar baseline (the OPV on my ECM Classika doesn't go any lower) and it is immediately obvious, sweeter and more complex. Maybe slightly less body than 9 bar but not really easy to pick out. Definitely a better shot.
I have flow control and pull "raining blood" shots (yes I did steal this from your Slayer shot vid, which no one in the comments seemed to pick up).
A bit more experimentation, the OPV adjustment isn't necessary as I can get a great and consistent 7 bar shot just by controlling the pressure with the flow control. I'm really enjoying the effects of the lower pressure, quite a different shot to 9 bar, but I still need to dial in some more to really get the best out of it.
Thank you so much for this instructive video. For myself, I extract shots at 6,5 bars with long pre-brew, 2g in the cup which is over 20sec, then move to full flow for the rest of the shot. I do not recall where I took the idée to reduce pressure, but possibly it was on your channel. 😊
You've convinced me that in order to get the best out of any particular coffee beans, it's good to be able to control the pressure. In each particular case, 9 bar might not be ideal. I recently had a frustrating experience (I use a recent rancilio) with coffee that channeled heavily no matter how I ground it or how many grams I put in the portafilter. I wish I could have tried fewer bars! -toby
I think it depends on the grinder and the profile of coffee particle sizes it creates. If you want to take this a step further you would try different grinds for every pressure.
If anyone thinks espresso is easy... think not.
If 6 bars allows you to grind finer, will adding filter paper at the bottom of basket allows you to grind even finer and get a higher extraction?
Extremely interesting video!
Would be interesting to explore past 9 bar.
Appreciate the good work
I would love to see that too. Especially since many machines are set to 11-12 bars from factory.
Great video! Personally, I've always thought 9 bar was a value designed to cover for deficiencies in equipment and technique. Bad basket, poor grind consistency, clumpy grounds... just tamp hard and extract high. It wasn't until I got a spirit basket, WDT device and tamp pressure mat that I realized - ya, no. I'm at 6.5 bar with no preinfusion in the spirit and getting the best results ever.
I was forced into this experiment when my last espresso machine got a fault.
Not sure if it was the OPV opening too soon of my pump was failing, but either way it was making shots at low pressures... and they still tasted pretty good :)
Like your experiments, conclusions, open questions, guesses. Add to the complexity different roast degrees. Would be great to explore the respective taste profiles and compare different roast degrees with same bar levels with each other.
Each video is inspiring. Thanks :)
I've been holding off for several years on following through with drilling a hole in the side of my Izzo Alex Duetto III case because the pressure control adjustment is underneath the cover in the back side (resolve in the Duetto IV with a predrilled hole). I think this and several other videos lately around adjusting bar pressure is pushing me over the edge though. Experimentation will prevail!
I just bought a flair and had a lot of trouble balancing brew time with 9 bars of pressure. For some reason I assumed there was no choice but to go 9 bars. Armed with this video though, I've discovered 6 bars seems to be the sweet spot for the medium roast I'm dialing in right now!
If you have one of the models that has the 45mm portafilter/basket combo then also keep in mind the geometry of the extraction, and thus the resistance provided by the coffee puck, is all different and traditional recipes will lead you astray. Don't worry so much about hitting your times like you might with a 58mm machine.
Of course, if you have a Flair58 then disregard all this lol
Yep I've got the classic Flair. I haven't considered the difference in shape and resistance so thanks for the tip!
The way that I have been enjoying my morning espresso is by pressureprofiling. 20s blooming, followed by 10s pre-infusion at 2bars, followed by a 30s shot that starts at 8b and tampers down slowly to 3 bars after a bit. The higher pressure at the beginning make the fines agitate a bit more and increase the resistence, that then reduces as the extraction increases. The flow should start low, peak at 5b and reduce again substantially.
Overall this is what matches the most into what I enjoy in my coffee: higher extraction, lower acidity, medium sweetness and lower bitterness.
Thanks! Genius idea! The 7 bar shot taste a lot better than the 9 bar shot.
I have two questions: how many bars is the difference between the pressure indicated on the standard pump pressure gauge and the pressure in the brew group?
My second question is: is the rotary pump actually better than the vibration pump when it comes to the final result (especially the taste)?
I have a EMC Classika PID. And it has a vibration pump. I hope it is good enough for quality espresso.
My understanding on ECM and Profitec machines 10 bar on manometer is 9 bar on portafilter. So you should adjust OPV to 8 bar on ECM to get 7 bar shot
This is very informative. Have you experimented with 6 bars of pressure pulling ristretto? I have an odd way to enjoy my coffee. I use 20 grams of coffee grinds at 9 bars in order to extract 45 grams in about 27 seconds. However, I hold a warm teaspoon under the basket in order to catch the first 5 ml of coffee, which is very viscuous oily liquid, that to me is coffee nirvana. I call it a very short ristretto. I use the rest of the pull for cappuccino, which is forgiving. I am curious how pressure affects viscosity, and whether you have an opinion on it.
I'm a little confused. Pressure is a result of flow and resistance. You have to increase either to increase pressure. I'm not familiar with the rotary pump in the machine you are using but it's likely an OPV you are adjusting right? So adjusting that for a lower pressure just means you are diverting the flow through the pump into the OPV instead of through the puck. Grinding finer will bump the pressure up again for the same flow rate. But then again there are factors like the "water hammer". A high initial flow or onset of pressure will compress the puck and increase the resistance of it. A low flow shot with either OPV or paddle set to restrict will allow the puck to expand more, almost like a blooming espresso or Slayer shot.
What I'm saying is I don't think you are changing pressure on its own, you are changing the flow of water that is directed through the puck at a given pressure. When the puck "pushes back" with 6 bars, all water above that is in surplus to the water actually going through the puck is going through the OPV. Not sure if it matters in practice but it might be good to consider for people wanting to experiment. Pressure is resulting force of two other factors.
I've got my Gaggia OPV set to 6.5 bars, was thinking about setting it even lower (Shades sends another spring at 5 bars) kinda glad you did the work for me analyzing this Real-Spro, cheers! 😆
How have you found the 6.5bar please? I have the Gaggia with the 9 in and was thinking of changing it down, though I mostly drink medium roasts
@@ColdCoffeePhotography 6.5bar is very versatile with different roast profiles: Dark roasts are smooth, and importantly lighter roasts aren't too sour... also it's more forgiving on the tamp and less prone to channeling - I remember before the mod I have a naked portafilter and I had to hold my coffee up to the portafilter to catch the spray 😂
The only downside I've noticed is the body & crema seems slightly thinner... not a huge deal given the payoff IMO 👍🏻
@@celticdr thanks looks like I'll be having a tinker over the weekend
I wonder how much of a difference the beans and roast profile makes. We are used to adjusting temperature, grind and dose to get the best out of a bag but perhaps machine should be allowing us to change pressure too and I don't mean flow control. I think it's important to distinguish here that this is "peak pressure" and not how pressure is profiled during the shot. Great video, been nagging you in the comments to reveal why you'd had the LMLM at 6 bar and if you'd done the same with the new LM. Now I see you were keeping it for a video! :)
I lust over these nice espresso machines
great thumbnails on your channel btw ... nice.
Ive been doing 6bar shots for a while. Well. 2bar preinfusion then slowly ramp up to 6bar. It eliminates harshness and increases clarity. It makes it more enjoyable and easier to taste the flavor notes. Some single origin, high altitude light roasts are undrinkable with a 9bar profile. At least to me.
I prefer it for light roasts. They turned out very sweet and mellow. But 9bar is much better for milk drink or medium to dark roasts where body is really important.
Hi. I love the video. When creating your recipe for each bar of pressure. Are you keeping the time variable the same and just changing your grind setting as you adjust at each different bar of pressure? Or does time change during the extraction of each bar adjustment?? Flow/pressure profiling confuses me from the “standard” suggested roaster recipe recommendation. Thanks!
IMHO, different beans probably require unique extraction pressure to achieve the desired flavor and texture.
You change the beans, the same extraction pressure will play out differently.
Very interering test. I reduced the pressure down to 7 bar (I usually used 9.5 bar). Taste is much more smooth.
Regarding to the test procedure, may I ask if you only adjust the pressure while keep other figure (grind setting, temperature..etc) the same? Thanks.
Sandbagging and grind too tight. so pre-infusion is kinda out. flair 58 +. Got ubanic 70s 60 mm grinder with standard flat burrs. Plenty fines.Dialed in at 4 for medium roast. 195 °for water and middle light on PID., in case anybody wants to know. Took too long to get here, but I got here! Shot finally has that syrupy look thank you very much. I am now a happy man. Yay! Oh yeah, and ease up on that 9 bar pressure thing. Hard tamp
Thank you for this great video! Very interesting... I have a ECM casa V so it is really easy to adjust pressure. With most vibration pumps it's however quite difficult to find out exactly what the brew pressure is without having a Scace machine. Having a brew pressure gauge like you have on your Bianca makes it much clearer. I was experimenting a bit back and forth and landed on the traditional 9 bars as I come from southwest Europe and now living in Germany I need some of the nostalgia of the strong, dark chocolate and sometimes not particularly complex flavors of my coffee roots.
So what you're saying is I might be able to get my Mr. Coffee espresso machine to produce decent espresso?
I can just imagine the average barista in any one of hundreds if not thousands of cafes in big and small towns in Italy watching this video shaking their heads saying "Mama Mia" why don't he just pull a shot of espresso. Last time in Italy exploring numerous cafes in multiple towns and big cities they just make great espresso with the standard machine setup and not thinking about bars, clarity, complexity, etc etc etc.
based on not knowing the grind size or lighter or darker roasts ..9 is the magic number..i can't yet check properly ...i will be able to soon ..big love and thank you.
Great video, thanks!
Inspirational yes. Informative maybe. Suggestions include multiple shots at each pressure and blind tasting.
Yeah I found that 6.5 bars (on my VBM) was great for a coffee I used to buy, but when I changed cities (and beans) 8.5 is better now. Also the old bean used to like a longer pull. So as you say get experimenting! Every bean is different.
Absolutely! And for sure lower pressures can definitely shine with those longer pulls as well. When it comes to espresso the experimentation is half the fun.
@@Sprometheus Or a rabbit hole lol.
Great video! May I assume in your test with the Bianca V3, the flow paddle is all the way to the right?
Early impression on the df83? Looks really intriguing and Alternative Brewing had some interesting blind taste results
I may be a bit late to this rodeo, but I lowered the pressure on my Lelit Bianca to 6 bar and... I like it. I didn't read up much on it before, so I was shocked when my espresso was tasting really good at 50-60 seconds, but it seems that's how it's supposed to be.
I am also grinding finer and getting less channeling. The shots I've been getting are incredibly slow, but very beautiful (visually). Another thing I noticed is the shots are less harsh on my Niche Zero.
In a month I will be receiving my Lagom P64 so I will keep experimenting.
There are several variables with a coffee bean. How much CO2 it produces. How quickly it absorbs water. How much and quickly it expands when it absorbs water. These variables change from day to day. Some beans are more prone to channelling than others because of all this. Putting 1g more or less coffee in the basket completely changes how these variables interplay.
It would be great to know your thoughts on the DF83. I hope you make a video about it! Greetings from Chile
Thank you my friend.
Of course! Thanks for watching and commenting. Have a great weekend.
@@Sprometheus - You too Buddy! 👊🏻
lovely marax in white back there!
In your experience, does pre-infusion make a difference to the taste of the final cup when changing pressure? I.e. Is it made redundant or require less time at the pre-infusion stage due to a reduction in pressure to 6 bar?
Personally, I still find pre-infusion making a difference in the cup regardless of the peak pressure. For one it allows a slower, softer expansion of the puck, leading to an extraction less likely of having defects. But also, when it comes to lighter roasts, it just really takes the edge off of that up front punchy, or acidic bite.
@@Sprometheus
Can you elaborate what PI settings you used? With my Bianca V3 I usually use 5 seconds PI at low flow mode followed by 5 seconds pause. Works well in most cases.
IMO preinfusion increases coffee contact time and consequently adds more body and less acidity which I prefer.
Did I miss something? Is there no pre infusion in this test?
Decent……….quickly found the lower pressure pre infusions worked for myself and wife and follow lever principles if we go analogue at some juncture
i think that doing all these tests with the same basket is only a starting point . but with new baskets having all kinds of hole sizes and resistance , there needs to be tests that take that into account . seing if a 10 bar shot with a basket that has alot of resistance vs low resistance tastes better , since the grind size will have to change with both of those examples .
I like to keep my espresso brewing as simple as possible, so I usually stick with the tried and true 9 bars.
If it works and you like it, no need to fix something that isn’t broken.
It’s been around the same 9 bars for over 100 years. I agree some beans can be pulled at a lower pressure. I feel the light roasts.
@@BigPoppa-t3z technology and coffee in general has come a long way since 100 years ago though. The coffee they would have been consuming is completely different to what it is today. I’ll bet that it’s absolutely disgusting as well compared to what we like today (that’s assuming it’s anything like traditional Italian coffee). Life’s too short not to experiment with things :)
@@BigPoppa-t3z 1920s coffee 9 bars lmaooooo gaggia wasnt even founded yet. Maybe if u had a pipe bomb of a percolator but theres no way 9 bar is 100 years old. Just keep making stuff up bro.
Brew pressures 🤩
Lessssssssppprrrroooooooo 🙌🏻
I have an older gaggia where the OPV can be adjusted with an allen wrench... have it at about 8 bar, gonna have to try these lower pressures
Right on! Let me know how it goes. I have my Gaggia with a 6.5 spring and had some really solid, lighter, single origin shots with it.
@@Sprometheus I have my gaggia at 9 currently - would 6.5 be worth it if I mainly stick to medium roasts?
I have no idea what you are talking about. I pull down the lever, I let it there while it’s preinfusing, then I release the lever. Espresso comes out and I have no idea whatsoever what the pressure was :p
thanks for the great content. I do have a question. To have the 6bar, is playing with flow rate paddle of bianca v3 enough or do we need to adjust it at the bottom?
Same question here. I think i ll try to flow control lever to reduce pressure than if it does not yield good results...i ll lower the pressure output on the pump.
I am struggling with channeling.
worth mentioning is to change the bar isnt he changing grind size?? and therefore different coffee surface areas and shot time for each?? I would imagine those two virtually the sole reason for the different taste of each cup.
In my non-scientific exploration of this topic on a Cafelat Robot, I found that lower pressure shots (roughly 6-7 Bar) were sweeter and generally tastier than 9-bar shots.I’m looking forward to exploring this further on a Odyssey Argos lever machine, which can switch between 8 and 6 bar springs, or full manual.
That been the general gist of mine as well. I also am looking forward to trying out the Argos!
@@Sprometheus Great topic to explore, by the way, thank you!
Same experience on a robot here
I believe this is due to where the pressure measurement is taken on thr Robot. It's taken more direct than at the pump(?) on a traditional machine.
What temp did you brew at. In one shot I saw 203 on the display, but wasn't sure if that was just a b-roll shot you had. Thanks.
I use the Profitec go and it was set to 10 bars stock. My shots tend to run a bit punchy and pungent. What is the likely pressure at the group head? I adjusted it to 9 bars and will try that out tomorrow and go from there.
using the robot... my profile is actually an increasing pressure/flow shot, not declining like everyone else assumes it to be. from 4 bar to 10-12
One of the things I am going to try with my new Sanremo YOU. Very interesting empiric research.
Yeah if your just ramping up no or minimal PI then lower pressure 6-7bar is the sweetspot for straight espresso, but put fully saturation PI into the mix and that typically improves the 8-9bar noticeable, so when I run 9bar I always do fully saturation PI or I stop it at max. 7 bar pressure.
Just to make sure I understood correctly what you were saying:
1- If you DON'T do Pre-Infusion then you suggest setting the pump pressure at 6 or 7 Bars and let it ramp up to that during the whole shot.
2- Otherwise WITH Pre-Infusion you suggest to fully saturates the puck first "5-10sec?" then ramp up to 9 Bars?
If that's what you meant, then what would be the difference and you preference between these 2 methods?
@@PanzerIV88 Yes I found those to be the most consistent ways, there other techniques like the blooming espresso, allonge or Sprover but those are not very espresso like. But I found higher pressure generally need an entirely saturated puck in preinfusion to work well.
It really depends on the coffee if it benefits from the more clarity with better flavour separation of the typical longer lower pressure shots or you want a more traditional shot that underline sweetness, body and round the acidity off a bit is what the coffee benefits most from, you can sometimes also let it tailor off to 5 bar if your machine allows you to do so to give a more constant flow but you definitely need fully saturation PI to regain a more fully flavour spectrum and avoid harsher flavours.
@@mikni4069 Thanks a lot for the clarification, and I guess your right as I've done several tests this whole week and the best shots taste wise was when the grouphead gauge on my R58 was getting 7.0 to 8.0Bar, no manual pre-infusion with the flow control but still have the stock mechanical pre-infusion from the spring in the E61. Every shots at 6.4 bars and less were disappointing even if I kept my ratio 1:2 with 20in/40out in 30sec. I also found that if I'd lower the PUMP pressure I had to grind finer so the pressure at the group wouldn't be too low like 5-6Bar, but then if I'd grind finer then the shot was more like 36sec but clearly better!
I get between 0.5 to 1.0bar less on the group gauge than at the pump gauge so I have to set my pump higher according to what I want to obtain at the puck. I will probably go back to 8.0Bar seems like the sweet spot.
Tastewise do you prefer lower 6-7Bar pressure with no infusion, or the opposite with 8-9Bar with PI?
@@PanzerIV88 It really depends on the coffee and what I intend to do with it. In Milk I would never do 6-7 bar 1:2.5-1:5 that you typically do with 6-7 bar shots, but for straight light roasted shots it can be good but you really need to pull longer, not necessarily grind finer…. The turbo 1:3 under 20sek is a good example why not necessarily.
The PI 8-9 bar allows shorter pulls but again as I wrote it really depends on the coffee why it’s hard saying exactly what is best because for me it really depends on the coffee and purpose with it.
Ive had espresso as high as 12 bar with a very slow flow rate and still tasted good. What matters the most is flow rate/ratio
ok so bottom line is espresso extracted from low pressure like 3 or 4 bars is safe to drink?
At what setting did you have the paddle for the 6 bar. If 9 bars is all the way open. I have the exact same Maschine so would be super helpful. 🙏
Quick question, I found that my Bianca came out of the box adjusted to around 10bar out the box. What would you recommend the rotary pump pressure to be adjusted to?
To your taste ?
Yeah mine came set to 10 bar as well. I set it to 9 bar, which gives me the ability to adjust manually up to 9 when brewing. But if you are using the pre-set modes I’d recommend toying around with a few pressures 7, 8, 9 and see which you like better as it will peak at those when using auto functions.
Thanks for your insight. I set mine to 9 bar, but have been running shots between 6-7 bar at the group, but I find the paddle is barely at 45% open to achieve that. Eh it’s fun to experiment with anyway. Thanks for your insight anyway!
@@Noplacetobe just trying to get a feel for what other people have done, I like other perspective.
I would like to know how you work with less pressure grinding finer, since the pressure of the coffee maker is automatic depending on the thickness of the ground coffee. Thinner, more pressing generates more pressure, thicker generates less pressure.
Surely the variation could well be due to your grind adjustments as much as the pressure.
So the reason you had a dip and a return to flavour between pressure tests is more down to grind adjustments not being as effective.
I just realized my machine has been set on 9.5 bar since I bought it and I’ve never thought to adjust it - but I suffer from channeling and am always experimenting with different WDTs, spinning distributors, etc. with limited success. I am turning down the pressure right away!
Yes my Bianca too
Follow-up: I set my ECM Synchronika to 7.5 bar and I like the results - less channeling and I am not totalluy sure but I think there is just a bit more flavor at the edges of the tongue. Highly recommended if for no other reason but to make shots more consistent 👍
I have been also reading a lot about this lately, from what i have researched it is also important to reduce the brew temperature as the extraction time will go longer with the finer grind idea. Did you experiment with longer than 25s extraction time?
Did you see much variation in what happened at the group pressure gauge on the Bianca while adjusting the pump pressure?
A little, but more so on the lower end. As I got to about 5 bar, I noticed the pressure in the group was peaking a little lower. So it took some trial and error to find the pressures that gave me the peak I wanted without using the paddle.
I'm curious, how much did you have to adjust the grind setting between the different pressure settings? I know you said the lower settings required finer grinds but I'd like the numbers for comparative purposes.