Morning Gentlepeople.
As a coffee newbie I am having some small issues while trying to improve my game. I have a Oracle Touch and subscrube to a local monthly coffee delivery, so my beans change weekly.
My issue is that the grind setting is incredibly different from bean to bean. With my last bag, grind 14 gave a perfect 1:2,5 ratio. With a different bean today, I had to discard two cups before learning that grind size 3 gave me the same ratio. 14 gave me 1:3,5 which tasted rubbish.
The problem is that I got channeling and very little crema.
I guess the questions are: do different beans require completely different ratios or am I doing something very wrong?
Should I accept a very high ratio to avoid channeling on certain beans?
Or should my timer be lower on certain beans?
Thanks in advance for any help and have a great cup this morning!
Just reading through the comments I can’t tell if you’re buying from a local roaster or not but you should do that if not. You can also chat with them about recipes for the beans to know extraction ratios, dosage amounts, etc. I used to have the Oracle touch and ended up buying some simple 3d printed items that turned it into a single dose grinder and allowed me to tamp manually. Might be something you wanna look at. Ironically I found the Oracle although more expensive and makes very good coffee doesn’t make great coffee because of all the automation. Even compared to less expensive Brevilles. I can try to find links to what I purchased or to the actual plans on case you print yourself if you’d like.
Yes the are local. I like supporting locally and ethically sourced as much as possible.
I’ve been reading about people modifying them on forums and briefly considered adjusting, but decided against it. I was only «allowed» this machine because of the nice and easy to use UI. The missus doesn’t share my enthusiasm for playing with minutiae details, so I have to stick with pre weighing beans before grinding and fiddling with my own settings. She wants a full hopper and a button called Americano.
Thanks for the advice and you taking the time though mate!
Out of curiosity; what machine did you end up with?