What grinder setting is best? Breville The Smart Grinder Pro with DeLonghi Dedica coffee machine

Rookie issue here folks
I'm glad to say I have the ozbargain-power-combo for home coffee. Problem is now i cant quite find the right settings on the grinder for the Dedica to perform….
I've definately gone through many many beans with trial and error - to failed results. Now i'm wasting beans and getting frustrated.

Coffee machine = https://www.amazon.com.au/DeLonghi-Dedica-Pump-Espresso-Meta…

Ideally I'm looking for people with the same setup to tell me what they use - e.g
Time = 9 seconds, Shot = 1, Grind size = 10

P.s - is the grind time the amount of coffee made?

Cheers :)

Comments

  • Hey, what coffee machine yu have?
    You should be aiming at around 16 grams of coffee for your shot.
    Age of the beans make a difference. Newer beans may need a different setting than older beans.
    I have a Breville EM0480 that I use somewhere between fine and 5, with a Breville dual boiler.
    I hope this helps

    • Coffee machine = DeLonghi Dedica (link now in description)

      • +2

        Sorry I though your grinder was the Dedica…
        I have never used a Dedica, but have you tried the double shot and see if that improves your pour?
        With the scale, weight the empty portafilter and then put the coffee and weight it again.
        It should be around the 16 grams of coffee.
        In the amazon picture it is showing a deeper basket, that is your double shot one.
        When tampering put the portafilter over a towel and put some presure on the coffee, but not too much pressure.
        Try again..

        • Better check the box - you're right the pic shows a deep + shallow basket
          Thanks MechEng!

  • +23

    What grinder setting is best?

    Closest and available

    • +1

      Only clicked on this topic to find these replies.

      Not as many as I would like, but this one pays off.

  • +3

    Breville here. Double Shot 17-18 grind.

    • +2

      Exact same. Don't waste time with single shots, the extraction process is completely different (even with the single shot portafilter).

      Also note that Grind Size should often vary depending on the beans and their freshness. But generally speaking I find it best somewhere between half way and the Espresso setting on fresher beans.

      • Thanks Bobsma + Canberran!
        What about the grind time?

  • +5

    Hey Tux, when I got my dream team (with Breville dual boiler) I took a coffee making class to understand some of the basics. While it was a waste of time and I'm certainly no Barista, I'll save you the money to let you know:
    1. Best to be consistent. Always use the same settings when you have found them. They even recommended weighing out the grind at first but I never bothered as you get used to it.
    2. Just go for a double shot to ensure that consistency as it usually provides the best results.
    3. Ensure you adjust the grind size at first to get the right courseness. Too fine and the water won't penetrate. Too coarse and the water flows around it.
    4. Most importantly, expect to waste coffee beans dialing in the settings, especially the first few times.

    More on point 4: I started off with a locally roasted bean and didn't want to waste them as you did. I switched to get Aldi beans to learn the method better, but honestly haven't gone back.

    • This guy barists

    • Nice one, good tips - think i'll get some cheapo beans soon!

      • +1

        Different beans = different grind settings
        This extends to the same beans after they have aged.
        Personally I don't bother adjusting as the beans age cause it's too much hassle, but the difference between freshly roasted beans and month old beans (we run through roughly 1Kg/month) is noticeable in both the type of extraction and flavour you get.
        Always look forward to popping a fresh batch!

  • +2

    Some pointers:

    • Don't use single shot baskets. They are much harder to get right as the margin for error is lot smaller compared to pulling double shots.
    • Get a scale. No, not the normal kitchen scales that only measure whole grams. You want scales that go down to 1 decimal point which will allow you to keep the dose consistent. 0.5g can make a difference and will confuse you when you are trying to dial in the grind and you get different results despite seemingly keeping the dose consistent.
    • Although some people rave on about Aldi beans and advise people to use them to learn to dial in, my advice is don't bother. If you can't be sure about the freshness of the coffee you are using, it's yet another variable that will only confuse you when you are trying to dial in. As coffee gets stale, you will have to dial in finer and finer to get the extraction time you are after. With these appliance coffee machines, you will quickly start to choke the machine as you go finer on the grind setting.
    • Since I started using beans with roasting dates, I hardly ever have to touch the grind setting. Even if I do, it's only a minuscule adjustment I need to make.
    • Don't fiddle around with the grind setting too much. Once you are in the ball park range, try adjusting the dose to get the pull you are after. Remember, if you adjust the grind setting, you have grind beans on the new setting and throw out some coffee as it will be mixed with coffee that was ground at the previous setting and at the new setting.
    • Cheers keejoonc
      I have a scale in my car - will that do? :P

  • +2

    Unless they're using the same beans, and you use the same tamping pressure, nobody can tell you this with any accuracy.
    Also, your definition (preference) of a good cup of coffee will differ to mine.
    For the record, my settings, for my beans, below.

    I don't have or know the machine you're talking about, but your example sounds way too fine. I'm running:

    Grind size 23
    15.2 seconds

    into a double shot basket
    on my Smart Grinder Pro for my (Rancilio Sylvia Clone) Magister 30 series.

    That ends up with 14-15g grinds in my portafilter (my scales indicate 14g, no decimal place shown)
    Make sure the ground coffee is fairly evenly dispersed across the portafilter before tamping (super important)
    Keep your tamping pressure light. I pretty much use no pressure, really just smoothing off the surface and making sure there's no grounds up the sides. (if you push hard, you will have far more variation in compression between each shot, cause you aren't a robot who can apply the same pressure every time.)

    After you have the right grammage of beans in the portafilter, adjust the grind size to get a roughly 30 second extraction. For my settings and preferences, I'm yielding around 50g liquid coffee in the cup (so probably pushing 60-70g water with 10-20g remaining in the puck, I've never thought to weight the puck itself) from a ~26 second extraction.
    According to all the "rules" this is a Lungo. Taste's pretty damn fine to me, comparable to all but the best "espresso" cups I've had at various cafe's across the nation.

    • I have always just stuck to standard recipe of 1:2 ratio, give or take a little.
      How do you find the such a long extraction? Always thought it would just end up being bitter and unpleasant so never tried it.

      • I've just found that quantity to be a good flavour to me through much experimentation backing off the grind more and more.
        I should probably be Tamping harder, but I found it very difficult to get consistent shots with a harder tamp and my (short) wife even more so. Effectively I've given up on mastering the tamp.

        I was actually surprised to see the yield myself (only weighed it this morning), cause the shot does everything you'd expect it to do according to the textbooks.
        Starts slow and creamy, we do get a bit of streaking through the crema through the middle of the shot (probably an indication of channelling due to the light tamp) and stops just as it blonde's out.
        If you get an inconsistent tamp, it can blonde out very quickly and you can taste the difference.

        Grinding finer we see a rapid decline in yield and I've noticed the backflush outlet vents crema.

        It's a hassle to adjust the extraction time and I'm very happy with the output we're getting.

        Looks like ShortyX below is pulling similar shots to me.

        • Not sure if you already have one, but I found distributor to be extremely useful to get consistent results. I lightly tap the side of portafilter with my hand to evenly distribute the coffee first. Then I use the distributor followed by tamper. Always gives me very consistent result. I use bottomless portafilter so it's easy to see when something's not quite right.
          Even so, I never had any coffee spraying in random directions like you see on youtube LOL

          • @keejoonc: Cheers, we don't have such a tool.
            I'll look into it.

  • Some awesome tips there - thanks guys!

    • I'm a former barista and have the same grinder. There's some good advice in here but also some misinformation. Try a forum like CoffeeSnobs for more detailed information, but in short:

      • It's not about the number on the grinder, it's about the "recipe" you're going for. Your rule of thumb is that you want to use the double shot basket, a 20gm dose (of ground coffee), a 30gm yield (the extracted coffee) in about 30 seconds. You choose whichever grind setting makes this happen.
      1. Set the grinder, it's probably going to be quite fine, about 3/4 of the way to the right to get in the ballpark. Use a scale to measure your shot and go for a bit under 20gm, say 19.5.

      2. Tamp (try to use the same pressure every time) and extract. Time this, the shot should come out after about 4 seconds and you want to cut it at about 30 seconds. When the shot "blonds" or runs watery and yellow, cut it.

      3. Measure the yield, you want about 30g.

      If the coffee comes out too fast, try using a finer grind, and if it comes out too slow, try a courser grind. Make small changes and be patient, it can take two or three shots for the change to come through.

      Fast, course shots are more sour, and if you drink your coffee with milk you need a bit of this. Slow, fine shots are more bitter, which you want for drinking straight espresso. Never tighten your grinder unless it's running. Adjusting the grind is a large change, for small changes just adjust the dose slightly. Have fun!

  • -1

    I have the same grinder at home.

    Time = 14 seconds, Shot = 2, Grind size = 25

    • Wow massive difference to the 17-18 size above. But cheers - good to know :)

      • I'm no barista, but it gives the best shot on my coffee machine (Delonghi - don't recall the model).

      • +1

        Just be mindful settings that other people are using, even if they use the same grinder, won't translate to the same grind even if you use the same beans.
        I have the Breville SGP, which I now only use for grinding beans for cold brew and the settings on it didn't correlate at all to my brother's SGP.

  • +1

    All depends on the beans. I don't know about the home machines, but on the commercial machines I used a double shot head, using 21g of grinded coffee. I was aiming to get 50-60ml of espresso (+head) in 25-30second extraction time. You can start there and adjust to suit your taste, it shouldn't be too sour or too bitter, just the sweet spot. As someone said above, you will waste a fair amount of coffee doing this, I recommend you start with not too expensive beans.

  • I watched instructional YouTube videos and bought a scale and a timer, no one on here will be able to tell you settings as, all beans, machines are different. Best to figure it out for yourself.

    • Hence why i asked 'Ideally I'm looking for people with the same setup to tell me what they use'
      Granted though the beans will differ

      • As will the skill set of the people with your machine.
        Hence my previous comment. If you learn some of the theory behind it, it shall put you in good stead for using any machine.

        • I agree some self-learning is important, especially to tailor tastes and skills. But I still believe getting tips/advice and also what settings several other people use via forum post is also very helpful. Either way it cant hurt.

  • +1

    What grinder setting is best?

    • accept all private messages
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    ohhh your talking about a coffee grinder sorry man nothing to add here.

  • +1

    I use a double basket with a Rancilio Silvia and Aldi beans.

    Time - 18 seconds
    Shots - 2
    Grind - 7

    That gives 14g of coffee and I use a light tamp pressure.

    I pull a double espresso (~60mL) in ~25 seconds.

    • Beautiful - cheers Shorty

  • +1

    I'd want to bet that this machine has a 'double walled basket' or 'pressurised basket' - that is, actually on the underside of your basket there's not many holes, but just one pinhole, and it's not the grind of the coffee that creates back-pressure, but the lack of holes that creates backpressure. This kind of basket is designed to brew coffee from stale preground lavazza from the supermarket. If you try to grind fresh coffee and brew that straight away, it's going to be ridiculously hard to dial in.

    Freshly ground coffee freshly roasted from a local supplier needs a non-pressurised basket.

    • THIS ^^^
      Yes! One pinhole. Yes Lavazza (or whatever i have) works fine. My poor beans dont work for the life of me!
      So back to amazon for a 'double shot non-pressurised basket'?

      • If you can get one for your portafilter size…
        It looks like a non-standard size from the Amazon picture.

      • Yeah, can't guide you on finding a suitably sized one, but yeah. But also note - under the basket in the portafilter is some plastic channelling to guide the coffee from that one pinhole out of the two spouts. If you have a non-pressurissed basket, then you might find that plastic insert may not channel all the coffee out for you. Often an extraction from a non-pressurised basket will converge in the middle, but sometimes it doesn't quite so you'll either need to remove the plastic from inside the portafilter, or maybe even find an alternative portafilter designed to work with a non-pressurised basket.

      • +2

        You can use the ones from Amazon, but you have to remove the black plastic insert to be able to fit the basket in.
        This leaves the screw hole empty so I just taped the hole off so you can still have coffee flowing from the spouts only.

        • Nice tip, cheers - are there other choices then when you say 'you can use the ones from Amazon?'

          • @6000SUX: Not sure if there are other options sorry. When I had the Dedica, I bought it from a seller called "Magideal"or something.

  • +1

    I have Breville SGP and Bambino plus. I ditched the double walled basket that came with the machine, and ordered single walled ones.

    Normally I used 17.5 to 18g of coffee on double basket. For dialing in, I started on the finer side, until the machine choke, then move the grind size towards courser. I determined that my machine will mostly choke around grind size 10. So for new beans, I usually start at about 12, and go from there.

    Don't bother with stale bean, it's almost impossible to dial in correctly. I would just go to double wall basket for stale beans.

    • I start off with grind 23/22 on 2 week old beans. I'll try your setting of 12 and see what happens. I have the same equipment as you :-)

  • +2

    it all depends on your beans. never buy beans without a roast date, never buy beans with an expiry date.

    beans are good about 1-2 weeks after they have been roasted then they last about a couple weeks.

    then you need to dial in your grind.
    pick a setting around the middle on your grinder and pour a shot.
    if its coming too slow then make the grind coarser.
    if its coming too fast then make the grind finer.

    when it pours right, it feels like magic

    all beans are different so dont expect other peoples setting to work for you.
    also, as your beans age, you might need to make a finer grind as old beans not as good as fresh beans.

    • so much science for a newbie!
      maybe this needs an airtasker? :P

      • go online and buy 23degrees coffee.
        or if you are in victoria, i think leo’s supermarket stocks them
        top notch beans

        then start with a coarse grind setting and see how it pours

  • +1

    One thing I do to ensure freshness is that I only throw a handful of beans in the grinder at one time for a double shot as I only have one or two cups per day and some days none at all. I keep all the beans in a separate vacuum pack container and extract all the air out of it so that I don't have any beans sitting in the grinder hopper, losing their essential oils after a matter of hours.

  • The grind will vary with age and type of beans, roast, ambient humidity, all sorts of factors. Everything I've read and heard is aim for 2oz through a double basket in 25-30 seconds. We grind with this target on our Rancilio Silvia but it needs to be tweaked every time we get new beans. Tamping pressure also has a huge influence on the rate of extraction. Some like fine with a light tamp, some prefer a bit courser grind with a heavy tamp.

    TL;DR - There is no one setting, too many variables.

  • I have a Breville Smart Grinder Pro and a Breville Bambino espresso machine.

    I use double shot on the grinder and use the double shot basket.For beans around 2 weeks old I try grind 22 or 23 for 13 seconds. See if it tastes good starting off with those settings.

    I make a double ristretto latte so I put in the double shot basket and then press the single espresso button on my Bambino machine. I get all the sweet syrupy taste of the beans without bitterness - or that's what's supposed to happen! If I make a double espresso shot instead by pressing the double shot button, I can definitely taste the difference - it's stronger and usually not as nice.

    Hope this helps.

  • What sort of beans are you using? I practised with a bag of Woolies Espresso beans for $12 with a refund guarantee last year and I couldn't extract anything! So I got a refund. Then I bought better beans and was able to get espresso.

    I liked the $20kg Gloria Jeans beans from Woolies last year - the only reason I didn't buy them again was they had a slight chemical smell when I poured them into the hopper, but I'm thinking of buying them again after being disappointed lately with "freshly roasted" exxy beans bought online from different roasters.

    I couldn't taste the chemical smell with the Gloria Jeans. They were 7 weeks old - they have a roasting date on them - and they still tasted better than some of those exxy "freshly roasted" beans I bought online last year from different places.

    The Woolies Organic beans, $6 for 200g I thought were good as well but no roasting date.

    My favourite beans:

    Zimmah - The Devil and the Deep
    Pablo and Rusty - Pioneer, and Porter Street
    Five Senses - Dark Horse BUT it tasted mediocre until I got the grind right then it was really good. I bought Crompton Rd last month and it was disappointing, not nearly as good as I remembered it from last year.

    Coffee Snobs - Fiefy's Barista Blend BUT it tasted very similar to Leftarm/field Roasters blend I bought just before Fiefy's. Both were very good.

    I buy 2 x 250g bags at a time because I get bored easily drinking the same coffee every day so I've tried a lot in the last 16 months and at least half of them have been duds or nice but nothing special. I have an unsweetened latte.

    I bought beans from eBay last year - AIRJO - and they cost $19? for 1kg including delivery. They took 9 days to get to Tassie from Qld but they were better than a lot of the more expensive roasters I'd tried.

    Hope this helps.

    I guess you can tell I'm fussy about my coffee! If the beans are good I make a much better latte than the local cafes, including the foamed milk.

  • Breville Smart Grinder Pro with a BES920 here.

    I use Aldi Beans. I know that may offend some people but they're reasonably consistent and great value.

    I grind for 18 seconds on setting 9 into the double shot basket.

  • BES900 and Smart Grinder Pro.
    My recipie is
    - 20g coffee
    - Run until 40g of liquid
    - Adjust the grind so you get a 25-28 second pull

    The grind settings to get this for me are 15.6 seconds at grind 11

    I use Campos Superior coffee which I vacuum pack into 250g lots and store in the freezer. I thaw it out a few hours before refilling the beans. The vacuum packaging means when thawing the beans out they don't get frost on them. Before COVID-19 I just bought 250g bags every 10 days or so. Being at home now all the time, I'm going through three times as much coffee.

    I bought the scales that Campos sells. They're is just skinny enough to fit two small coffee cups under the spouts so I can weigh the liquid delivery.

  • weigh and single-dose your beans (time based has enough variation). have a scale under your cup so that you are hitting the same output weight.

    Then adjust grind till you find the sweet spot. You only want to play with one variation

    All beans are different so you will need to play with it till you get it right.

  • +1

    Hi - I know some of this ground has been covered already but I'm wasting a lot of beans and time, so I'm desperate for help here.

    I'm using Campos Superior blend beans, roasted June 7, so reasonably fresh. Machine is, like others on this forum, Breville SGP and Bambino Plus with a single wall double shot basket (separately purchased from Breville).

    The issue is as much dialing in I'm doing, I either get too bitter espresso or too sour, sometimes both!. I can't find that sweet spot.

    I've tried a range of settings ranging generally getting 18 or 19g of coffee and having grind settings between 8 and 16. The really fine grind settings clearly get over-extraction, with bitter coffee and not much of it.

    The latest setting I've tried is 14.8 sec, 2 shots & 16 grind size - giving 18g. Running on the default Bambino Plus double-shot setting, gives 36g in the glass in 30 seconds. So hitting the recommended dosage (18g) and the 2:1 ratio but clearly something isn't right as I have an initial bitterness and then sourness.

    I've tried a finer grind setting (14) but it only 31g s in the glass with a more sour taste. A grind size of 12 is definitely bitter.

    I'm lost to what else to try as I can't getting something that is neither bitter nor sour. I seem to go from over-extracted, straight to under-extracted. Do I need to adjust the time of the extraction, longer or shorter?

    Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks

    • Let me know if you figured this out

      • Also how do you time your shot ? From infusion to last drop or from first drop to last drop ?

  • Try a grind setting of 23.

    Are you using a pressurized basket? I've had my Breville Smart Pro for over 2 years and my Bambino and I still use the pressurized basket as the espresso didn't taste good in the non pressurized.

    I make a double ristretto latte - I fill the double shot basket until full but enough space at the top for it to fit into the machine, then I press the single espresso button. A double ristretto is supposed to bring all the sweetness out of the beans compared to a double espresso which could be more bitter/sour.

    My setting on the Breville Pro to do this is 13.8 seconds, grind 23, with Gloria Jean beans (the 1kg pack from Woolies). But I find I use this setting or close to it for any beans I buy, including 2 week old beans.

    I don't weigh anything - I was going to buy the special scales but decided I liked the coffee I was making without it, and didn't need to spend more money.

    Hope this helps!

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