How pressure profiling changes espresso flavor

In this video, we discuss how pressure profiling can change various aspects of an espresso shot, including the body, acidity and more. We'll taste three shots: one with a flat nine bar pressure profile, one with a lever shot, and one with a pressure profile that starts at nine bar and decreases to six bar.

We also discuss what kind of espresso shots are more suitable with and without milk.

[djcuvcuv]

great tour of profiling. i wish i could join y'all haha all those shots sounded tasty.

[chatreez]

Nice and educational. Thank you. How much of the pressure being a key factor for tasting notes? Wonder if you keep pressure the same but tinker with grind size, temp, dose, etc to vary shot time and can still create the same range of shots as presented here. As a novice I feel like the time that the puck spent with hot water has the biggest consequence so I wonder if pressure has direct effect on the taste or is it because varying pressure changes the shot duration..?

[drmscaper]

Would love to experimenting this on my Flair58

[philgoogle]

I find that dropping the pressure helps with older beans.
How old was the coffee used in the video?

[wakeawaken]

I don't know who the white shirt guy is, but I like how he describes

[TomJones-txpb]

Pulling a shot with a machine like this that traps the CO2 (a light colored crema is one of the tells that this is happening) and then tasting it immediately when the shot is still full of acidity enhancing CO2 and judging the acidity is really bizarre. Let the shot sit for at least a minute for the CO2 to off-gas before judging it. The way I make espresso, I can let the CO2 dissipate in the early wetting stage, so I get a darker crema and not so much CO2 fizz in the shot. Tastes way smoother. You see this issue more visibly happening in pour over.

[StephenProsserHCC]

Can you make a post on Diaspora and share each finished shot profile, the grind setting on the Niche and what bean you are using?

[willem]

Don’t see this recipe in the appendix of Scott Rao’s The Professional Barista’s Handbook Fourth printing (2011), unfortunately. Bought from Rao’s own website this year.

[jmsaffroy]

I often hope that people working for cheaper brands of espresso machines buy your machines to learn, or at least take copious notes from your own findings. :)

Do you know (or suspect) if that has actually happened?

[williambaker]

Not sure you can say this is a profile test if you're changing the grind. Controlling your variables is essential if you're offering a scientific comparison.