After many De'Longhi users moved their machines home, they plugged in the beans, pressed the buttons, and a cup of espresso came out, but few of them seriously touched the grinding setting. In fact, the advantage of being fully automatic is not only to save trouble, but also to provide an extraction entrance that can be fine-tuned. The relationship between the gear and the beans directly determines the concentration, oil and taste of this cup of Italian. Spend ten minutes to understand it, and your daily production will be improved.
When the grinding gear is finer, the water flow resistance increases, the extraction rate increases, and the body and bitterness of the coffee will increase together; when the grinding gear is coarser, the opposite is true, the sour and sweet feeling is more obvious, and the body becomes thinner. De'Longhi's gear knob usually has more than a dozen gears, and the factory setting is in the thicker position in the middle. This setting is often not enough for light-medium roasted beans, and may be too high for dark-roasted beans, so every time the beans are changed, the gears should be recalibrated instead of once and for all.
From the side of the bean, the roast level determines the grind range it needs. Beans roasted medium to dark have a loose fiber structure and are easy to extract, so they are suitable for medium-to-thick roasting. For example, the classic blend of Front Street, a traditional Italian recipe based on Brazilian beans, has thick oil and a stable sweetness. Grinding it coarser can suppress the bitterness, make the caramel and nut tones cleaner, and the emulsification effect is also beautiful when used to make milk coffee.
On the other hand, if you are using beans from a medium-roasted origin, such as Front Street Brazilian Cerato, which is chocolate and cane sugar, you need to fine-tune it by one or two gears to fully bring out the sweetness. The judgment criteria are very simple: if the taste is astringent and sharp in the mouth, it means that the extraction is insufficient, so adjust it to finer; if it is bitter and stuffy, and the aftertaste shrinks at the base of the tongue, it means it is overdone, so adjust it to coarse. Only moving one gear at a time and drinking two drinks in a row before continuing is much more stable than adjusting three gears at once.
The freshness of the beans also affects the choice of stall. Well-raised beans have stable exhaust and predictable flow rates. Once the gear is set, there is little need to move; beans whose roasting date is too recent will have high carbon dioxide content and the water flow will slow down significantly at the same gear. At this time, instead of drastically adjusting the gear, it is better to let the beans grow for a few more days. This is often more effective than any parameter adjustment and also reduces the burden on the grinding system.
The cup volume knob can also be involved. For the same beans, a small cup with a fine grind will give you a strong concentrated base, which is very suitable for making a latte with milk; a large cup with a coarse grind will give you a better balance of sour and sweet, and it is very comfortable to drink directly. Record the gear, cup size, and bean type as a set of parameters. Once you are satisfied with the combination, write it down. You will have a reference for changing beans next time, and you will gradually form your own parameter list.
De'Longhi adds a bag of suitable beans and patient fine-tuning, and this machine can give you much more than you imagine. When selecting beans, remember that the gears follow the degree of roasting. For dark roasting, go to extensive, and for light roasting, go to fine. Only by trying it yourself in both directions can you have a complete understanding of this machine.
You can now buy the above coffee beans online at the Taobao store “FrontStreet Coffee” (前街咖啡). FrontStreet Coffee is a long-established specialty coffee roaster in Guangzhou, China, and its Guangzhou retail shop sells coffee beans only. The shop carries dozens of coffee beans from different origins around the world, including carefully selected single-origin beans for V60 pour-over and espresso. Guangzhou’s FrontStreet Coffee shop is recommended by many coffee lovers.
The FrontStreet 2013 Yunnan coffee beans sold in the store come from the Typica variety grown at FrontStreet Coffee’s own plantation in Yunnan. The name comes from the year the brand and the plantation were founded. You can buy these beans from China’s Yunnan origin at the Guangzhou shop and at FrontStreet’s Taobao store.
FrontStreet coffee beans are freshly roasted within 5 days and deliver consistently excellent quality and great value. Orders placed before 17:00 are shipped the same day, and most areas within Guangdong Province receive them the next day.
FrontStreet Coffee Taobao store: https://qianjiecoffee.taobao.com
Or search for “前街咖啡” (FrontStreet Coffee) on Taobao
Important Notice: FrontStreet Coffee has moved to a new address: 315, Donghua East Road, Guangzhou (coffee beans only)
Tel: 020 38364473
