Help with inconsistent espresso shots.

[u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

Hello, friends. I am a couple of months into making espresso at home. I learned how to dial in my shots and learned how to make them more/less sour and bitter by playing with timing and such. The issue im having is that i feel like my shots are very inconsistent even tho i use the scale and do not touch my grinder after the dial in process. I think a big part of it the way i tamp the puck. I used to do 2 pushes with the tamper i attached. Then i realized that the tamper might not be fully pressing the coffee down so I started using this self leveling tamp followed by the tamp that came in the box with the espresso machine to press it all the way down. Anyways, my shots always come out different with different yields and different times. I have Bambino Plus and DF54. Please help! Thank you in advance

[u/ChemicalConnect739]

CONSISTENCY.

You have to do everything as consistent as possible.
Weigh your beans, weigh your output. 15g is 15g, not 16 or 14.

Beans: Get fresh beans, store your beans properly.
Grind. As beans age, you may/will have to adjust the grind based on changing taste.
Do not mindlessly target a ratio or pull time. Once you have the initial dial in, you adjust based on TASTE.

I thought I needed a leveling tamper, but by paying attention, I can tamp pretty level.
I put my fingers on the edge of the tamper, so that I can feel when one side is higher than the basket.

And periodically CLEAN the grinder.

[u/LivingCorner1421 → u/ChemicalConnect739]

oh and to throw in a variable the coffe will be wildly different if you slow feed or dump your whole dose at once.

[u/Andrew2944r]

Take the top black basket brace off where it says Normcore. Mine did the same shit as if you have a deep basket it will never compact it enough.

[u/all_systems_failing]

What basket do you use? Is it adequately dosed by volume as indicated by the Razor tool? It may not be if the stock tamper compresss the coffee more than the Normcore.

[u/akurawit → u/all_systems_failing]

I’m also wondering if you’re dosing enough. Try a higher dose and see if that helps. Have you also adjusted the tamper to see if that helps.

[u/Competitive-Tea-3973 → u/all_systems_failing]

The double shot non pressurized breville one. There is usually a 1 or 2 mm space left between the razor and the coffee. Do you think i should be dosing more coffee?

[u/CartographerDeep6723 → u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

The razor should just touch to top of the coffee. It is designed to scrape off anything too high.

[u/OrphanDad → u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

i bought a precision basket and it changed my life

[u/all_systems_failing → u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

Is that what you get when tamping with the stock tamper? I wouldn't have more than 2mm of space.

One thing to consider: the Normcore tamper bottoms out on the stock basket taper. If the basket is underfilled, the tamper will hit the taper before compressing the coffee.

[u/Competitive-Tea-3973 → u/all_systems_failing]

The normcore bottoms out yes and thats the reason I started adding the tamp with the stock tamper.

[u/all_systems_failing → u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

Oh, gotcha. You can try increasing the dose then to accommodate the Normcore.

I used a Normcore with the stock basket and an IMS and didn't have any issues.

[u/felixg123]

I believe it's just temperature instability. A limitation of the B+. Happens to me and I have exactly the same tamper and don't touch my grinder once dialled.

[u/marzvrover]

do you do any sort of puck prep? WDT may help you here.

Double tamping isn’t technically the best but also shouldn’t ruin your shot by any means. Having a self leveling tamper makes it to where you really shouldn’t have much of a tamp issue. If you can push the tamper down to where you start to feel it push back then you’re tamping hard enough.

Depending on how long it takes for you to get through your beans (and their roast level, if they’re decaf, etc) you may need to slowly make your grinder more fine, but if you’re making espresso every day it I wouldn’t expect it to suddenly go undrinkable, but rather you notice it’s starting to be more sour so you adjust it for the next shot.

And dose can also be a factor, if you don’t have a tall enough bed of coffee. After you tamp you can put a clean nickel on top of the puck, and then put the portafilter in and take it back out. You should see a very light indentation from the nickel, but you shouldn’t be able to see any other features besides the circle. if you look up the nickel test on YouTube, you should be able to find a video explaining how to do it as well.

[u/Capital-Pollution709]

I have a bambino plus and a cf64v. A few things I do to ensure consistency:

Beans- some neopolitan blends (and probably others) use a mix of arabica and robusta and the bean sizes are different in the bag. This sometimes causes settling of the beans so I try to stick to beans that are consistent throughout the bad in terms of size and roast. My go to beans are Passalacqua Cremedor or whole food extra dark roast

Grinding - obviously dial on your grind size and make sure nothing on the grinder is loose. Also if you have a knocker on the grinder use that for every grind so that each grind gets rid of any grounds in the funnel. That makes dosing more consistent. (Or measure after you grind)

WDT or line shaker: speaks for itself. Always use one or the other

Basket. I use a bottomless portafilter with a nice single wall basket with straight sides. It is magical.

Leveler - it might help but I stopped using mine and didn’t see a difference

Tamp- with my basket my tamper leaves a good bit of headroom but it’s self leveling and consistent and doesn’t interfere with my basket

Puck screen - more to keep everything clean but I always use it so maybe it helps with consistency

Bag progress - as the bag ages, even when kept in a good container, I find I may need to adjust the grind every so slightly.

[u/t0mt0mt0m]

Different beans may require different grind settings for your setup. i have Post-it notes for optimal settings for each bean type

[u/hadryounes]

Did you try WDT?

[u/tlow215]

Using a blind shaker helped me a lot with getting consistent shots. I cut out WDT entirely and just tap the portafilter on the sides to level.

[u/Carlton_Banks_Vests]

Bambino, definitely run a blank shot first. Nothing in the basket, just let it run through. Gets everything warmed up nicely and increases the consistency. Also, just tamp once. Finally, I find overfilling (19-19.5g) work best on the Bambino. You will have to adjust your grind size slightly.

[u/cltzzz]

For me it was the grind size. I finally got the consistency at 30 click(kingrindger) for the beans i’m currently drinking. Probably have to do it all over with a different mix.

Also not putting my body weight on the tamp help

[u/TheCoffeeGuy13]

Coffee isn't a "set and forget" system of manufacture.

There are so many variables in the process that changing just one of them, will affect the result. From the roast to bean quality, to grind to humidity, all of these things you need to allow for.

It can change daily, or hourly, depending on your situation.

The coffee you made yesterday is quite different to the one you will make today.

[u/FrontWork7406]

Couple of notes:

Honestly, I've never worked at a shop that used self-leveling tampers, and I've never had luck with them at home. The more moving parts an item has, the higher likelihood that it will become inconsistent or break. Generally, I would seek to remove any and all unknowns and variables until you have achieved consistency.

Coffee also extracts differently as it degases. Think of each pour in your ground coffee as a 1-way road. Water can't flow in while gas is coming out. This typically results in quicker extractions over time. Constant rebalancing is a reality in espresso.

If it is the former and you're open to an experiment, pick up an inexpensive solid tamper and give it a shot. Lean your hip against the counter, position your tamping arm like a piston (forearm perpendicular to the bench), and use your thumb, index, and middle fingers equidistant around the perimeter to determine level. One hard tamp, straight down, straight back up. See if that fixes things. Otherwise, if it's the latter, the problem is solved through expectations.

[u/Pristine-Tart6328]

The bambino plus is tough to get consistent results. I have one but ended up switching to a Gaggia I picked up on FB Marketplace and it’s much more consistent.

[u/LopsidedEnvironment1]

Looks like a silly design. Lemme explain the science first.

Normally if you have channelling issues, it's because the density of your coffee bed is not even. Normally at the sides, there are gaps or a lower density, that's why coffee comes out from the side and may not merge at the centre where density is the highest.

If you genuinely want to solve this, you can do nutation, which is rotating the tamper to push the coffee at the side before you do your tamp. You will notice that the tamper drops deeper in because it has found more space to squeeze in. You can do it with any tamper.

If you insist of buying something, a convex tamper will help because it thins the centre.

People often overthink about the tamping. I've trained like thousands of people.
As long as your tamp is firm, even and consistent, it's okay, you don't need to be that sure that you need to reach a certain weight. You can use the tip of your fingers to feel the rim and see if it's even.

That tamper looks silly because the height of the coffee bed can be different and you can't feel if you got it even.

[u/milked_silver]

You shouldn't really have to tamp two times. Also, how are you storing your beans?

[u/Competitive-Tea-3973 → u/milked_silver]

Beans are in the airscape container so idt thats the issue.

[u/milked_silver → u/Competitive-Tea-3973]

Are the beans you're using fresh (~4 weeks after roasting) and are you living in a humid climate?

[u/Competitive-Tea-3973 → u/milked_silver]

They are fresh and no humidity really