Hi,
I've been using a Delonghi Dedica for years with the pressurised basket and found that it makes pretty good coffee (to my untrained taste buds).
Recently bought an unpressurised basket and handle for it, but having trouble getting good coffee out of it.
I'm grinding much, much finer that before (still using a cheap electric bur grinder). I've found this is the only way to get crema. If i go one step finer on the grinder, the coffee machine cant even pump water through the grounds.
Using about 10g of coffee and tamping hard to create pressure, but even with that little coffee I'm just getting very strong and very bitter coffee. Extraction time is about 30 secs.
If I grind coarser, there's not enough pressure and you get an acidic coffee with no crema. Adding more coffee doesn't appear to create more pressure. Tamping harder doesn't seem to make much difference.
I wonder if anyone here has mastered good coffee with this machine.
May try my hand grinder next time. Could be the grinder is too cheap.
Cheers
I used that dedica for a while until I killed it. Bottomless portafilter and all. I dont remember the dose but it was double digits, maybe 12-15grams? Id keep dosage and tamp always constant (not too hard and not too soft) and instead vary grind size and shot pull length. I eyeball shot pull lenght and cut it when it starts to look too pale, sometimes I use scales to get ratio roughly right and then ignore scales for the rest of the bean, adjusting grind alone based on flavor as coffee ages.
For getting it right, Go off taste alone. If its acidic and salty, its underextracted and you need to go finer. If its bitter it is over extracted and you need to go coarser. Adjusting pull lenght also plays with under and overextraction and it should be used when grind size is not enough, same for tamping.
There are actually no rules only guidelines. For example I pulled a delicious, sweet shot by accidentally running v60 grind for 16 seconds instead of espresso grind for 32 seconds. I reccomend getting a whiteboard or a notebook and every time you pull a shot you write down what you did. That way you can more easily figure out what the machine likes and how to get back to a working recepie.
That being said, what I remember from my delonghi and sage grinder(breville for you baka gaijin) days was that it was able to produce delicious coffee inconsistently. A WDT and a little funnel that fits your portafilter so you can wdt better can help with having a more consistent shot as it can result in more evenly distributed grounds. But at the end of the day you are tamping it all down anyway so idk.
I broke my delonghi and I am now on timless 64s and lelit victoria and I have less surprises. But I do miss delonghis fast heat up, not gonna lie. I just tell myself that it was stupid expensive for basically same result as delonghi but its going to last me hopefully decades, making it cheaper than going to a cafeteria. If you want to upgrade I reccomend plastic v60 and a gooseneck kettle. That shit is endgame and slam dunks on endgame espresso gear as long as you are not drinking only pure espresso.
Thanks for the detailed response.
I actually have a aeropress which is much less fussy than the dedica. I could just use that, but the machine was a gift from my partner.
Dedicas fine, it may just be more unforgiving. It also steams! I reccomend the gaggia steam wand mod but install it properly as on mine the hose came loose after like 2 years.