Dialing-in your espresso shot can be one of the trickiest parts of machine set up. When we say dial-in, we mean the process of finding the right dose and grind size for the coffee beans you're using. This has to be done anytime you change beans, as each roast is unique, and has slightly different characteristics when ground.
Luckily for Breville Barista Touch Impress owners, dialing-in on this machine is a little easier than on other grinder/machine combos.
Dose and Tamp
The biggest benefit of the Breville Barista Touch Impress is its tamping system, which also helps you find the right dose. Dose here refers to the amount of coffee ground into the portafilter. Typically You need to weigh your portafilter after grinding in order to ensure that you hit the right volume of espresso. With the Impress, however, you can use its tamping lever to both ensure a perfect tamp, and check your dose. Indicator lights on the machine will tell you if you need to grind a bit more into the portafilter or use the included blade tool to remove some grounds and level the puck.
You can do all of this with a pull of that lever. Even better, this machine will learn from past shots and adjust grind amount to ensure a perfect dose. This is a huge boon and allows you to focus on the trickiest part of the dialing-in process, the grind size.
Grind Size and Shot Time
The most challenging part of dialing-in is hitting the right shot time. Tamp and dose do contribute to this - the tightness of your tamp influences the flow rate of the water through the puck of grounds, and the dose obviously impacts this as well. Ideally, you eliminate these variables with consistent measurement and tamping, which the Barista Touch Impress does as outlined above. Grind size is a little less automatic, but also easier to manage here than on separate machine and grinder combos.
Thanks to the simple, limited range of the grinder in the Touch Impress, you can really just take your grind a bit coarser or finer depending on your flavor profile and time. In general, 25-30 seconds is the time you should be aiming for. A faster shot will likely taste sour, a sign of under-extraction, and a longer shot will taste bitter, a sign of over-extraction. If your shot takes too long then you can go coarser on your grind size, with the opposite being the case if it's extracting too fast. If you think about it this makes sense - water flows slower through finer, more compacted grounds, and faster through larger grounds.
All of this can be easily adjusted using the Barista Touch Impress' touch screen, which will really help you simplify the process.
Additional Tips
Other important things to consider are the machine's cleanliness and the beans themselves. It's important to keep your machine in good condition by following Breville's guidelines for maintenance and servicing. Failure to do this can result in a burnt or stale taste in your brews, so be sure to clean as needed!
Finally, much of a coffee's flavor comes, as you'd expect, from the beans themselves. A common misconception is that "quality" beans always result in coffee you'll love. The reality though is that some beans can taste a bit sour or bitter just by their nature, and there's no shame in making a note not to get a specific roast again if it doesn't appeal to you.
For more tips and to see this process for yourself you can check out the video below. Let us know in the comments what your favorite drink you've made on your Breville Barista Touch Impress is!