I’ve used a home espresso machine, with built-in grinder, daily for at least 10 years. I’m generally happy with the results - there’s some variability but most everything I make is acceptable, and I fairly regularly get something I feel is good. Recently I’ve been getting a lot of “acceptable” and it’s been a long time (many months) since I’ve made one that I’d call “good”. They’re missing that bit of oily lustre that I feel really makes it perfect.
- I drink a single shot over a small amount of hot water
- I get my beans from a local (same province) roaster that say they roast to order
- I like dark roast beans - the roaster calls it their Italian roast
- my house water comes from a well and is naturally a bit hard, but we have a whole house softener
- I’ve never de-scaled the machine because of the water softener - there’s no build up or crusting at any orifices
- I don’t make any attempt to get perfect extraction quantity - I grind, tamp and trim with the tool supplied with the machine. When I first got this particular machine (about 4 years ago) I programmed the extraction time, but a can’t remember the “recipe” I used
- I’ve tried beans from one other local roaster (via a grocery store) with the same results
My experience says it’s stale beans, but I’m buying roast to order, so I’m confused.
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4 things:
- The Grinder is probably worn out - try setting it on a finer setting to see if it makes a difference, which would only be a temporary fix
- Even if you don’t see scale buildup on the outside, it will for sure look different around the heating elements - scale buildup is unavoidable, or you wouldn’t want to drink the water you use for the coffee - good drinking water always contains trace elements, which get deposited where the water gets hot
- The house water softener doesn’t work as good as before / has been serviced lately and works much better than before
- The water itself changed; any activity in your area messing with the water table? Ground water levels themselves dropping a lot?
You’re thoroughly disassembling and cleaning the grinder every once in a while, right?
I have done it, but it’s been a while. I haven’t noticed any change when I’ve done it in the past, but I’ll give it a try.
It was well past due:
For anyone not familiar with this model - that’s the wheel under the burrs that directs the grounds to the output. The burrs were clean - they self clean from being used.
I only drink coffee with breakfast, so I’ll report back tomorrow.
Water may have somehow changed composition. Do you have a baseline tds reading on your “old” water when it was good? Any new refresh on the softener system recently? Often changes in the water are unexpected culprit. Can see if your city has any graphs on local water tables that might explain a correlative change too. Get a tds, kh, and gh reading on your water and play with these a bit with mixing distilled water or coffee water drops / salts to optimize by taste.
Well I fully cleaned and serviced my machine yesterday and my coffee today was maybe a little better, but still lacking. That leaves beans and water. There was a drought here last summer and the water table has changed. I really should test my water and service the softener. But, in the short term - I’ll buy a jug of water next time I’m in town and try making coffee with that.
You can buy distilled water and order a “coffee water” packet to make theoretically perfect coffee water, but it’s possible the taste you had grown acusstomed to requires water at some wacky tds / pH that just seemed to fit and might be hard to reproduce. Anyway, my money is on the water, it really can make a big difference. Good luck.
Zeroing in “Missing the oily lustre”
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Beans have natural variation in batches as seasons change and inventory updates. Old beans, dry beans etc… Could try another coffee for comparison.
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Under extraction: Never mentioned the press, or your grinder. If your press is manual like a Flair, extraction is super sensitive to pressure which is dominated by grind size. If your grinder is aging, either slipping settings or wear on burrs could subtly increase grind size. Put the two together and boom! Underextraction, even with unperceptably small wear.
If you have an automatic espresso machine, could be slight changes in plumbing, like boiler temp (check with thermometer) or pumps. Service, repair, replace or simply retune via settings and controls.
Try one notch higher to bump extraction.
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The most important factor in tasty espresso is a high quality grinder. Idk if that’s going to be very helpful for you, but just important to keep in mind
I can accept that there might be levels of good that can only be reached with a better grinder, but I’ve had much better than I’m getting now with my current grinder - I’m just trying to get back to that.
If you technically want to make sure the issue is stale beans, you need to get fresh green beans and roast them yourself. Or try other bean providers.
Whole house water softeners can really impact extraction, but if you’ve been happy, it’s fine - unless the input water changed or the softener is degrading/needs service.
A 10 year old integrated grinder is probably pretty worn and it’s certainly dirty and difficult to clean.
Temperatures can drift as the sensors age.
Run some citric acid through the boiler and clean the grinder and see how that works. Check the Coffee Compass and dial in a bit better.
I’ve cleaned the grinder and I’ll see how that goes.
This grinder is only just over 4 years old - I’ve had the same model for over 10 years but moved county and left one behind and bought a new one.
I know my water isn’t perfect - I get a bit of salty residue on the chilled water dispenser in my fridge. I might try some (bulk) bottled water.
I really struggle with the coffee compass - I can’t describe (even to myself) what I’m tasting, or relate it to what I’m supposed to be tasting, so I can’t relate it to what I need to adjust. I just know if I like it. I’m the same with wine - I did a tasting course and most of it was lost on me.
