hello fellow coffee botherers so in my recent video I shared a concept to make Italian espresso much less frustrating basically widening the shot time window not putting much attention to that four or five second shot window that we normally find ourselves living by and instead really widen in that window to around 20 to 35 seconds when first getting started and then been LED more by taste than by numbers in this video we're going to be breaking down different taste characteristics in espresso And discussing how we react to them as well as choosing the right beans for you and the best way to grind them so when we're doing this thing that we call dialing in all we're doing is trying to enjoy the coffee we're using at its best or at least as best we can experience it with our particular palette because don't forget that someone with a much more developed experienced palette is going to taste something different from someone who's brand new to Espresso anyway if what we're dealing with is great freshly roasted coffee and we're not experiencing it at its best then that's a real shame what's the point in buying decent beans if the coffee we make with them doesn't taste great so with dialing in we're tweaking things to improve the taste the ultimate goal being to taste nothing bad in the shot that shouldn't be there and I'm quoting the word bad and emphasizing shouldn't be there because it depends on your palette and it depends on the coffee for example if you're buying a coffee bean because it has a particular weird funky acidity when brewed via espresso and you pull this shot and it has this funky acidity you wouldn't call that bad as it's the reason you bought the coffee okay most people wouldn't choose beans for flavors like this for espresso but some people do it's all about perspective if the taste isn't supposed to be there then we'd call it bad and it's something to change for example you wouldn't buy a bag of twiglets and then complain about the way they taste you probably bought them because you love that taste and some people hate that taste but those people wouldn't buy twigglers and if you don't know what a twiglet is by the way they're like hard twig-like pretzel sticks with a flavor of yeast extracts and they're amazing comment below if you're for or against these Nation dividing snacks so if you're buying your beans from a roaster or a specialist supplier of high quality Coffee Beans Coffee Works you should get some idea of how it tastes and you'll probably be buying beans that sound like you'll enjoy them when reading The Taste notes maybe even some with a custard cream flavor for example usually anything you're tasting in the shop which doesn't belong there is due to either under extraction or over extraction and you can tweak the shot and fix it I say usually as it could be both at the same time if you're suffering from channeling but that's a discussion for another video so how do I identify the difference between Under and Over extraction we do it by taste with sourness on the under extracted side and bitterness on the over extracted side assuming these flavors aren't meant to be there if what we don't like in this shot is sour like lemons or grapefruits then this would indicate under extraction if it's overly bitter like very dark chocolate or unsweetened cocoa which I suppose is also basically very dark chocolate then this would indicate over extraction one thing to mention here is that you can only really do anything about this if you're using a traditional espresso machine with standard baskets and if you use a freshly roasted high quality coffee beans you can't really dial in with Bean to cup or Super Auto machines they're not really made for that and you can't dial in with pressurized baskets these kind of baskets are for working with non-expresso capable Grinders and pre-ground coffee beans and for use with older coffee beans they don't give you the ability to dial in if you do have a traditional espresso machine and by the way machines like the Barista Express and the Barista Pro are traditional machines some retailers sell them as super Autos or Bean to cup they're not the traditional espresso machines with built-in Grinders then you can do something about it if you're using Supermarket coffee beans with no roasted on day in my humble opinion you just don't have the same level of control over the beans by darling in at least that's my personal experience with these kinds of coffee beans usually these kind of beans taste how they taste and you don't have much control over the taste by dialing in if you like how they taste so then brilliant so if it's on the sour side it's a sign of under extraction and if it's on the bitter side that's a sign of over extraction it's worth mentioning here that flavor notes on bags of coffee are exaggerated to a certain degree in other words the flavor notes that are usually discussed are often quite subtle and we're not talking about artificial flavorings once we've ascertained that this taste shouldn't be there then what do we do about it I'm not going into detail about specifically how to dial in in this video this is more of an overview video into this subject I'll do another deeper dive into that and there are lots of Downing videos here on YouTube such as these from James Hoffman and Lance Hedrick another important point is choosing bands that work with your setup if you're trying to use lighter roasted beans via espresso unless you have a particularly Advanced setup both where the grinder and the espresso machine is concerned it's very common to be plagued by sourness the answer here is to stick closer to Espresso roasts you don't need to go super dark but I'd recommend sticking to medium dark to the dark side of things just remember that the term medium roast can cover a range so it's possible to order a bag of medium roasted beans that are a bit on the light side which might take a bit more from the grinder and the espresso machine than your setup is capable of it's not just a rose profile either some beans are less porous than others and these can be a struggle to work with in particular this can be some higher grown beans so just be aware there are lots of different kinds of coffee beans out there if you're buying from decent suppliers just get in touch with them tell them what your setup is and ask them to suggest beans that you're likely to not struggle with this is the whole point of saucing your beans from a specialist supplier you should be able to get this kind of support if it's really sour you'll need to extract more from the bean the obvious reaction to What appears to be under extraction is to take the grind finer if you're taking the grind finer and you're not fixing the problem the other most obvious thing to look at is Brew temperature so hopefully you should be able to fix sour tasting Shots by making the grind finer if not if your machine does have adjustable Brew temperature then this would be the next thing to tweak as under extraction can be due to using too low at Brew temperature for that being I'm focusing more on under extraction here because it's a lot more common to hear from people who are plagued by under extraction issues and sour tasting shots Than People struggling with over extraction quite often though when I do hear from people who appear to be chased in over extraction it's because they're using beans that generally taste that way if you're buying your beans with your shopping just off the shelf and they come with the best before day and no roasted on day generally speaking beans like this can be on the bitter side which is down to the beans used and generally how dark roasted these beans tend to be I remember having an issue like that with coffee beans from a brand who shall remain nameless as they don't fancy have been sued when it was first getting into home espresso and it took a while to realize that it was just the way these beans taste if you're buying freshly roasted beans and you don't think the bitterness you're tasting in the cup is due to the beans themselves then it'll probably be down to over extraction and the first Port of Call is grinding more coarse again Brew temperature can be a factor here so if your machine has adjustable Brew temperature dropping it is another way to deal with over extraction this is just an overview to this complex subject but hopefully this in combination with the concept of widening the shot window and paying less attention to shock time and focusing more on taste will help you to enjoy better tasting espresso from home thank you very much for watching and please don't forget to click the like button did you know it's biologically impossible to tickle yourself so after you've finished trying to do that and realize that it has nothing to do with clicking the like button click the like button thanks and if you've enjoyed this video why not click here to watch another one and 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