Hello, I'm new to this whole forum business so I hope I'm doing this right. I'd like to ask a question about dose vs grind size when extracting a perfect shot of espresso. What I aim for is a nice firm dry biscuit that has an imprint of the shower screen in it, I look for the time to be within 25-30 seconds, pour to be steady and consistent, with a persistent crema and a tiger's tail pattern on the surface. The problem I am having is that recently I have started working at a new cafe and while most customers are happy with my coffee's and have often stated I make the best coffees in town, there are other customers that have reported a funny taste in the coffee's recently. We have in the last month started using a digital grinder, and myself and the other barista are now able to make adjustments a lot easier but it has lead to some confusion about what to actually change in terms of grind size or dose amount to achieve a good tasting coffee. As I mentioned above, I look for the typical signs of espresso and would rather have more dose in the basket and a finer grind which achieves the signs I am looking for, however, the other barista is now wanting to go back to using the manual grinder as she believes it is the grinder that has been making the funny taste. I would like to investigate whether perhaps the funny taste has more to do with the settings I have been working with rather than the grinder itself. And by funny taste I am unsure exactly what they meant as I haven't been part of the conversations when they are talking about it. I also wonder if perhaps it is because when I pour the beverages I am careful to ensure I maintain the crema on top of the beverages so perhaps because they are not used to tasting the actual coffee prior to it mixing with the milk, they aren't aware that it is in fact the normal bitter taste that they are talking about. Thank you in advance for your feedback and just to clarify what my actual question is: when using the digital grinder, should we be setting the dose amount to be higher to achieve a good espresso or have less dose and focus more on the grind size to achieve the time, pour and crema we are looking for? Thanks.
