Espresso Anatomy | Flat Flow Espresso Profiles Explained

Espresso is an interesting beverage. It's not only very simple when you consider it's purely fine ground coffee and pressurized water, but also it's painfully complex. So today we're embracing the insanity that is espresso and diving into a style of brewing thats new to me, flat flow profiling.

↓CHAPTERS↓
[00:00] Intro
[01:34] Third Wave Water Sponsor
[02:20] Flat Flow In Theory
[03:51] Flat Flow In Practice
[05:37] Final Thoughts

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#sprometheus #flatflow #espresso #decentespresso

[ianaguiarsouza]

The BEST series on espresso on YT, hands down

[darylfortney]

Would love to see you get into roasting and sharing your learning experiences. This is something significant outside of brewing that can really take appreciating espresso to the next level for many people and there are now many reasonable options for getting into it.

[graphdotcoffee]

I found watching that flat profile quite satisfying to watch. 😂 interesting tests, thanks for sharing! ❤

[grahamwhiting]

Enjoyed this, as always with your reflections on coffee. My go to espresso shot is actually very similar to this, but I work off pressure staying flat line, rather than flow. I use my Lelit Bianca paddle to reduce flow as the shot progresses whilst holding a flat or slightly declining 6 to 8 bar. One virtue of this profile is that I can taste and see how a batch of beans are drying over a couple of weeks and adjust grind if I want to, to maintain the shot around 23-28 seconds for an 18g in 40g out espresso.

[kevinalvarado]

Hahahaha, it was my question, thanks for the answer! Right now I have a Lelit Elizabeth (their semi automatic dual boiler), I was thinking of maybe doing the dimmer mod to have some flow control, but since I don't want to get so much data driven (I'm a PhD student in physics, I already do a lot of numbers in my life), I thought that I would maybe get one of the timemore scales that give you the flow rate if I do the mod. That way I wouldn't rely on an app to brew coffee, just try to get the flow steady and shoot for the right weight, all shown in the scale. When I finish my PhD in a few months maybe I'll do it. Again, thanks for the answer!

[JonFairhurst]

Nice video. Yeah, no FOMO here.

Since I bought and learned the Kaffelogic Nano 7 and developed my roasting skills, I’m less and less enamored with these obscure methods. (I have no association with Kaffelogic. I’m a happy, paying customer.) The effect of buying a different green bean, roasting variations, and cupping is so fundamental to optimizing different coffee experiences. My wife and I get to select beans and roast to our preferences. It doesn’t hurt that it costs 1/4 to 1/3 the price of roasted beans.

I’m not saying that different espresso styles wouldn’t change things up, but it’s never going to make my signature Brazilian honey taste like our optimized Ethiopian dry.

That said, I’m looking forward to when the Philos starts shipping in the US. We might just need to recup our beans and tweak the roast profiles to match the new burrs…

[Tominthepinkgarage]

SO happy to see the return to “Espresso Anatomy” series.

[davidfitness]

Hi Prometheus, can I ask which lever machine you love most?

I have a desire to switch from a Gaggia Classic to a lever, but with a PID if possible.

Please keep up making amazing videos, cheers.

[propertwb]

Since you use TWW, are you using it full strength? Great video as always.

[keinenplanhatter]

For me it sounds like the most robot User do this the most time. Starting with 1-2 Bar and than ramp down on 6-7 Bar.
Tank you for your gratis Chanel!

[komiteunofficialaccount]

Question: If you have the CRM3007L/Turin Legato/Miicoffee Apex, is this what you're having?
OPV-less machine with set-and-forget flow control screw. Pressure that can peak at 10+ bars that ramps down to 6-9 bars.

[weaverryanj]

The Rao Allongé often comes out like this for me, though usually with a slight drop in flow as pressure peaks out. I don’t bother taking the time to dial it in perfectly to keep the flow flat, because it’s too easy to slip over the boundary into “too coarse” and miss six bar

[noyb-yb]

I appreciate your videos. IME, the short story is: my Profitec Pro 500 PID machine is set at =9 bar pressure and I do not touch it. The end. TLDR - there are too many other significant variables that make or break espresso/ristretto, just as you said. The grind size and grinder quality, beans, distribution, dose, water quality and temperature. Add, to a lesser extent, the filter basket types and sizes and lately even the puck screen too. The number of permutations of all of these is so great that playing with the pressure profiles seems to me to be counterproductive in practice even if in theory every little bit may help. Peace.

[marcin.sobocinski]

I do it manually 😄 as I do not have a Decent, but I have manual flow control @ the pump. Basically I do high pressure puck saturation, then preinfusion with <1 ml/s flow and then I try to have steady flow in the cup as measured by the Acaia scale. At the end of the shot I do ramp down as well to avoid that harsh flavors. I think it's a lot of merit to compensating of a puck degradation. Of course it's not a 100% flat flow but it's what I do. I doubt having a flat flow for itself is important as you have slow preinfusion (IMO not optimal) and then no ramp down at the end when the puck is washed out. TBH it's that las 1% that often is drawn in puck preparation and other variables.

[NoyPistep]

would love to see more of your "Coffee Time - Morning Workflow" :)

[MaSkr]

In order to have a flat flow the pressure has to change significantly during the espresso shot and not only between 6-9 bars. That's why you had to grind coarse enough and you managed to do it with a flow rate of 3-4g/s which is relatively high. A typical one to two shot with 18gr of ground coffee and 36 gr out would run in around 12 seconds.
I am not sure why you didn't try higher pressure on the decent as it can up to 13 bars. Unless you did and it couldn't actually maintain a true flat flow.
Leva machines are the closest we can get atm for relatively flat flow due to it's decreasing pressure and really high starting starting pressure (regulating the spring can push the starting pressure well above 13 bar)
As for electronically controlled machines available today if the decent can't cut it, only the Strada X might have a chance with pressure profiling and peek pressure of 12 bar.

[gregorio]

I’ve been playing with flow and pressure on my Gaggia Classic modded gaggiuino. Not gonna lie, I seem to pressure pressure profiles over flow. Flow seems to be more for filter coffee tasting shots. Londinium and spring lever profiles make better coffee imo. If anything were to break on my machine I think I’d get a spring lever over a Decent or anything like it

[michaelrossmaessler]

Coffee, espresso especially is a combination of science and art. Science is the starting point but if your instincts take you a bit off the beaten path go there and see what you get, sometimes it's good. 🙂

[alexwilson]

So we’re just all gonna ignore “sproducken?”

[Lectuz]

Been doing my own for a year now. I start at 9 bar with max flow, then when it reaches 9 bar it moves on to the next step which maintains the flow at 1.6 ml with a 9-bar limit.