Disclaimer: This guide is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It represents one approach to espresso dial-in and is not a substitute for the manufacturer's instructions, safety guidelines, or professional advice. Always read and follow your machine's manual before attempting any adjustments. Use of this guide is entirely at your own risk. The authors accept no responsibility or liability for any damage to equipment, injury, or loss arising from the use of this information. When in doubt, consult a qualified technician or your machine's manufacturer.

⚠ Warning: **Safety Notice:**

Espresso machines operate at high temperatures and pressures. Steam, hot water, and machine surfaces can cause serious burns. Never force the portafilter — overdosing and forcing the lock can damage the group head gasket. Always allow the machine to fully heat up before use and follow all manufacturer safety guidelines.

Phase 1: Rough-In Grind and Dose

Step 1 — Establish Dose

[!note:] Use a scale with at least 0.1g resolution — cheap or imprecise scales can make dose and yield measurements unreliable and difficult to repeat.

[!Note:] Beans should be rested at least 5-7 days off roast before dialing in. Fresh roasted beans contain excess CO2 which causes unpredictable extraction and inconsistent results. Check your bag's roast date.

Weigh the empty basket first and record it
Grind at a mid-fine starting point (powdered sugar consistency)
Fill basket and use Razor tool, Screen Imprint Backoff, or Coin Trick as your fullness target — see Appendix B below
Tamp evenly and firmly
Weigh the filled, tamped basket — subtract empty basket weight to get your coffee dose in grams
Record that dose for repeatability on future shots

Step 2 — Pull & Time

⚠ Warning: **Safety:**

Steam, hot water, and machine surfaces can cause burns — handle the portafilter and cup carefully during and after the shot.

ℹ Note: Note:

Use your machine's default water temperature until your recipe is fully locked in. Temperature is a real extraction variable — changing it mid dial-in adds complexity and makes it harder to isolate grind and yield as the cause of taste changes.

ℹ Note: Note:

Flush/purge the group head by running a small amount of water through before locking in the portafilter. This clears old grounds and stabilizes group head temperature for a more consistent shot.

Place cup on scale and tare to zero
Start timer at button press
Target 25-32s total
Stop shot when output reaches 2x your dose weight (e.g. 18g in → stop at 36g out)
Stop timer and record time
As a secondary warning: watch the stream from the spouts — if it visibly shifts to pale tan/blonde and becomes thin and watery well before hitting your yield target, stop early regardless of weight and note it as a problem to diagnose in Step 3

Step 3 — Rough Grind Adjustment

Goal: get shot time into the 25-32s window. This is a coarse adjustment — don't chase taste yet.

ℹ Note: Note:

After any grind size change, purge a small amount of coffee through the grinder and discard before dosing. Grinder retention means the first grounds out will be from the previous setting, not the new one.

ℹ Note: Note:

Increment grind changes one step/click at a time. Espresso is sensitive — large jumps make it hard to find the right setting and easy to overshoot.

Too fast (under 25s) → grind finer
Too slow (over 32s) → grind coarser
After any grind change, re-dose back to same basket fullness (finer/coarser changes density/mass)
Re-weigh to confirm dose in grams is consistent
Repeat Steps 2-3 until time is in range

Step 3b (optional) — Scorpion Shot → train your palate

(See Appendix A for full details)

Phase 2: Dial-In the Taste

Step 4 — Fine-Tune Grind for Taste

Grind was set roughly in Step 3 to hit the time window. Now fine-tune for taste — but note that even small grind changes can shift your time, so re-verify time after each adjustment.

Two independent axes — fix them one at a time:

Sour → Bitter = extraction level → fix with grind (this step)
Watery → Muddy = concentration/body → fix with yield (Step 5)

Using your recorded settings from Step 3, pull a fresh shot and time it. Once complete, taste it and ignore body for now. Only ask: does it taste sour, balanced, or bitter?

Sour → grind finer
Bitter → grind coarser
Balanced → move to Step 5

Re-pull after every grind change, re-check time is still in range, and re-evaluate taste. Remember to purge the grinder after each grind change before re-dosing. Repeat until extraction tastes balanced.

→ See Appendix C — Extraction & Concentration Matrix for a full breakdown of grind and yield adjustments by taste profile.

Step 5 — Fix Concentration (Yield)

Extraction taste is now balanced. Pull a fresh shot using your current grind setting and dose. Once complete, only ask: does it feel watery, good, or muddy?

Watery → reduce yield (stop the shot earlier, e.g. 36g → 33g out)
Muddy → increase yield (run a little more water through, e.g. 36g → 39g out)
Good → move to Step 6

Dose was fixed in Step 1 — yield is your only lever here. Yield adjustments don't affect shot time, so no need to re-chase Step 2 after changes. Make small adjustments — ±2-3g at a time. If watery/muddy issues persist despite yield changes, revisit dose in Step 1 on the next session.

→ See Appendix C — Extraction & Concentration Matrix for a full breakdown of concentration adjustments and channeling diagnosis.

Step 6 — Record Your Recipe

Once dialed in, note: grind setting, dose in grams, yield in grams (ratio), shot time, and water temperature. This is your repeatable baseline.

📋 Appendix

A. Scorpion Shot — Palate Training

This diagnostic breaks the extraction into thirds so you can taste each phase in isolation, helping you identify what sour vs bitter actually taste like in your specific beans and setup. Do this once or twice early in dial-in — it makes Step 4 much easier and more confident.

Pull the extraction into 3 separate small cups in roughly 10s intervals:
- Cup 1 (0-10s) — early extraction, most acidic/sour, represents underextracted flavors. Expect a sharp, mouth-puckering sourness — like unripe fruit, lemon juice, or vinegar. Thin and bright with little sweetness and a harsh edge.
- Cup 2 (10-20s) — mid extraction, sweetness and balance
- Cup 3 (20-30s) — late extraction, bitter/harsh, represents overextracted flavors. Expect a dry, lingering bitterness — like dark unsweetened cocoa, ash, or over-steeped black tea. Flat or hollow with little aroma.
Taste Cup 1 and Cup 3 specifically
If your full shot tastes off, this tells you which direction you're pulling toward — sour (too much Cup 1 character) or bitter (too much Cup 3 character)
Note: if your full shot tastes both sour and bitter simultaneously, this is likely a channeling issue — not a grind issue — and no amount of grind adjustment will fix it. Focus on tamp evenness and puck distribution instead

B. Basket Fullness Methods

The goal of all methods is the same: find where the shower screen sits and ensure the tamped puck sits 1.5-2mm below it without touching. With all these methods, if you weight the basket before and after you get the weight of the coffee in grams to use for future extractions.

⚠ Warning

Use small incremental changes and never force the portafilter — forcing an overdosed basket can damage the group head gasket. Whenever the coffee touches the parts of the espresso machine you are at risk of damaging things. Proceed gently and with caution.

Use small incremental changes and never force the portafilter — forcing an overdosed basket can damage the group head gasket.

1. Estimating height using the Tamper

Most tampers have a little metal area at the bottom (where it touches the coffee) that is maybe 4-6mm deep. When you tamp if you set the top of this metal to the top of the basket, you are probably in the right ballpark.
Self-leveling tamps give you a bit more consistency for height but manual tamps allow you more flexibility (and likely inconsistency) for depth.
- Some self-leveling tamps may let you adjust the height by screwing/unscrewing.
- This may risk stability. YMMV.
A self-leveling tamper with spring tension and click feedback gives you a very consistent reference and makes dialing in easy.
This is a good quick easy method and has low risk.
The question is if the preset factory height is actually optimizes in the amount of coffee in the cup.
If adding screens or paper filters the gap under the filter will be reduced.

2. Razor Tool (Breville Razor)

Breville-specific tool that sits across the portafilter basket rim with a fixed blade set at the ideal headspace depth
After dosing and tamping, press the Razor down and turn to scrape off any excess coffee above the ideal level.
If it scrapes, you were overdosed; if it doesn't touch, underdosed (add more coffee)
Most foolproof method — the tool does the measuring for you
(Alternate check: the metal Breville tamper base is often the same height as the Razor gap — tamping flush to the rim achieves the same result)
Best for: Breville machine owners
If adding screens or paper filters the gap under the filter will be reduced.
On many Breville machines, the original tampers metal height matches the Razor tool height. (see 1.)

3. Screen Imprint Backoff Method ⚠️ WARNING (see section warnings)

Intentionally under-dose to start. Using the baskets recommended range, fill basket with the lower grams and tamp.
Carefully insert the portafilter and remove it to check for any impressions on the puck
If no impression, add a small amount of grounds (~0.2-0.4g) and repeat
If impression, carefully remove enough grounds to reduce the height of the puck by around 1.5-2mm from where it is currently

4. Coin Trick ⚠️ WARNING (see section warnings)

💡 Tip: a 3D printed coin with some raised features is safer than a metal coin

Same principle as Method 3 but uses a coin (~1.75mm US quarter) to pre-set the gap, so you can avoid removing coffee
Intentionally under-dose to start. Using the baskets recommended range, fill basket with the lower grams and tamp.
Place a coin roughly 1.5-2mm thick on top of the grounds.
Place a small paper filter on top of grounds for cushion, then place coin flat on top. Optional but preferred.
Carefully insert portafilter into the machine water head (never forcing).
Remove portafilter, remove coin and paper filter
Check for a faint imprint in the grounds.
if none, add ~0.2-0.4g of coffee and repeat.
Once you see a faint even imprint, you are at the correct depth

C. Extraction & Concentration Matrix

Two independent axes determine your shot quality:

Sour → Bitter = extraction level → adjusted via grind
Watery → Muddy = concentration/body → adjusted via yield

Shot	Grind	Yield	Puck Prep
Sour + Watery	Finer	Reduce yield	—
Sour + Good body	Finer	Hold	—
Sour + Muddy	Finer	Increase yield	Check distribution
Balanced + Watery	Hold	Reduce yield	—
Balanced + Good	✅ Done	✅ Done	—
Balanced + Muddy	Hold	Increase yield	Check tamp/distribution
Bitter + Watery	Coarser	Reduce yield	—
Bitter + Good body	Coarser	Hold	—
Bitter + Muddy	Coarser	Increase yield	—

Dose is set in Step 1 — yield is your lever here. Revisit dose only if yield adjustments can't resolve concentration issues.

If your shot is simultaneously sour and bitter, or body never improves regardless of yield changes — suspect channeling. No recipe adjustment fixes uneven flow. Focus on tamp evenness and puck distribution before continuing.