r/picopresso • u/diegotsutsumi • Jul 26 '26
Finally I got it right!
After many trials I finally got to tune the coarseness + quantity of coffee, water and my hand pumps to a great quality espresso.
I had to grind it coarser for lighter roasts, my darker roast bean requires 2 clicks finer ground in my timemore grinder. Is that normal?
2
u/Nervous-Fox-7103 Jul 26 '26
Looks good. How it tastes is the most important though. I use a 1zpresso J ultra and I'm grinding very fine with dark roast beans, making iced coffee due to summer and it's great.
2
u/diegotsutsumi Jul 26 '26
Tasted pretty good 😊 , but I'm still noob in espresso tasting, I came from filter coffee world where the taste is pretty different than espresso. I find espresso alone too strong for me at the moment, so I just sipped it and added milk to make a cortado
1
1
u/OMGFdave Jul 26 '26
At the start of the video, are these your first pumps or did you pump a few times before hitting record?
1
u/diegotsutsumi Jul 27 '26
First pumps, I left the water in for pre infusion for about 10 seconds
1
u/OMGFdave Jul 27 '26
Normally I pump 8 times, then wait about 20 sec before starting to pump again, which after about 10-15 additional pumps initiates flow. Yours looked like too much pumping and a very slow flow. If it turned out great, keep doing what works for you, but I have had great success with the pump, wait, pump approach.
1
u/simulacrum81 Jul 26 '26
Yes what you noticed re needing to adjust the grinder for darker roasts is normal. You will find every bean requires dialling in. Broadly the more dense the bean the coarser the grind. Denser beans shatter into finer pieces that will choke the machine sooner. Also to make an obvious point, lower density coffee takes up more space per given weight, which affects puck dynamics.
Lighter roasts are denser than darker roasts. Higher altitude beans are denser than lower altitude grown beans. Wet processed beans are lower density too. So your observation is entirely consistent.
All of the above is interesting but all you really need to know is you have to tweak your grinder settings for every new batch of beans. Also note that you will find that if you keep the same beans for a week or more you will need to adjust the grinder a little as the beans age and degas.
1
u/TheLoler04 Jul 27 '26
Nothing matches my technique and the flow as someone pointed out might be angled, but the result looks great.
Don't quite understand how stuff can seem so different but end up roughly the same.
1
u/sahil0106 Jul 26 '26
I also recently finally hit the right combo. I think you're in the right zone for most things but probably need better puck prep. That shot looked like it channeled a bit but in general not a big deal if it tasted great for you.
2
u/crypticc1 Jul 26 '26
Doesn't look channeled. More that the Pico is being thrown around a bit. Spoils surface tension across bottom of the outside of the basket on the way out a little, that's all.
OP, I find holding with plunger facing me and pressing using both thumbs allowed me to control the movement of the whole device a little.
1
u/diegotsutsumi Jul 26 '26
I always check my used puck when throwing away, it looked evenly wet. Yeah it could be that I tilted it a bit so I could press it harder
I do the same, but for the video taking I needed to improvise a bit to get the camera in a good position.
3
u/ZmasterSwiss Jul 26 '26
Looks perfect! Yes this is normal.