Espresso Anatomy | I Tried The "Soup" Shot So You Don't Have To

[@Andrew-wp1bz]

Ultimate guide to real soup profile: These kinds of shots consistently give me great results with very light roast coffees. Overall idea: this profile soaks the puck with very little force, and that seems to unlock really fast flow rates. Results in the cup are similar to what I get out of filter coffee but with much more intense acidity. I found this profile to have very little sensitivity to grind size, so I’m able to get great results from most coffees on the first try. Nearly everything I pull is at the same grind size if rested for the same duration, with Ethiopians and heavily processed coffees requiring some grind adjustments. Speaking of grind size: This profile asks for a COARSE grind size. I ended up at this size iteratively, going by taste. Dialing this in on other grinders and gear, one thing seems to hold true: whatever grind size you use for a standard turbo shot (~20s of flow, 6 bar peak), you want roughly double the burr gap on a flat burr grinder to start with. The profile: Gentle soak with no readable pressure (but you will need to feel some resistance if using a lever), and once the screen fills, ramp up the flow rate. Ignore pressure, you may end up below 1 bar, but can be 2-3 bar depending on equipment and grind size. The flow rate needs to be dialed in based on taste. You want it to peak and then stay steady, perhaps slow down near the end. On a manual machine this requires some practice. IME going too slow tastes kind of sour and grassy in a generic way. Going too fast might taste roasty/astringent. The sweet spot in the middle is huge Ratio, temperature, water comp will depend on your equipment. With MP burrs, I can dial this to roughly any ratio 1:2.5-5. My daily preference is 1:2.5 with 15/70 water. I can lower buffer and extend ratio; at longer ratios you’ll definitely want to slow down flow rate as resistance goes down. Temperature: With the robot specifically I A/B’d quite a few parameters. Preheating the basket or doing “double pour” did not make a notable taste difference, though double pour vs single pour requires an adjustment in grind size. (Finer when doing double pour, guessing something related to the puck soaking during this). I preheat the piston with thundies and this is 100% taste-able. I settled on 96C as my kettle temp, higher temps would often add a generic sharp acidity to coffees, lowering temp slightly got rid of this without any drawbacks for most coffees. Very rarely, I run into coffees that taste more intense at 99/100C, without having that generic sharp acidity I’ve been finding at higher temps. The most important thing in this profile is how you soak the puck. You can have identical looking shots with identical numbers, if you soak a little too aggressively you’ll get astringency in the cup # Machine I’m confident that this can be done on any machine with flow control. On a manual machine like the robot or flair, you get direct feedback in terms of puck resistance, which makes it possible to adjust on the fly. Instructions above should be all you need. ## Robot With the robot, one specific tip is that if you have the mittens attached, just letting the arms drop onto the puck seems to be enough pressure to soak. So you can be just hands off when soaking. When I swapped my robot gasket I noticed this didn’t quite work for a while, I had to use additional force on the lever. ## Flair 58 On the flair, you have quite a bit of leverage in the early part of the lever’s travel/range-of-motion. This might make soaking more tricky; I have not tried this on a flair myself but no reason why it shouldn’t work there either. ## Pump Machines On a pump machine with flow control, several people had good luck doing this via: 1. Fill headspace fast 2. Turn flow all the way down, wait for puck to soak 3. Turn flow rate back up For the first step here you need to know roughly how long it takes to fill headspace with your setup (machine/basket/dose)

[@terebat.]

Thanks for posting the guide! Please check this out for the real definition and way to do a soup shot!! Soup shots are great!!

[@TheFlyAmerica]

This is the way

[@makesy-5327]

I got halfway through your post and put it straight in the too hard basket, but do appreciate your thorough explanation! Just seems unnecessarily complicated when tried and true espresso methods work so well

[@terebat.]

@@makesy-5327 Soup is very easy when you get used it. It's just coarser with a gentler fill. I have a robot and it's very easy to do on that.

[@Sprometheus]

Pinning this comment because it’s the only one providing an informational step-by-step for those interested in trying this for themselves.

[@tommihommi1]

The soup shot is a meme become reality from the EAF discord, of course you're not gonna find loads of KZbin content for it. In general it's something people usually do with manual levers like the robot and flair 58, when they're really craving that sourness. Usually pretty low temperature afaik. Personally I usually pull basically boomer shots, so something in that 15-20 second 1:3 range. And of course, the origin of the term: People (well, one person in particular) using soup as a insult for any espresso pulled at a longer ratio than 1:2, turned into a term of pride for any somewhat longer shot

[@MattM-24]

I feel like I can guess who this person is... Do they make espresso machines? With levers?

[@baileymanson493]

You just didn’t make soup. See Andrew’s post. It’s a flow profile. It’s also all about the saturation. And I did make a video about it on the F58.

[@rajindergill9480]

Should have used an ultralight roast for this. EAF discord soup channel is where you’ll find out more info. Next time you might want to ask the community to reveal the source, before you shoot the video. That’ll ensure you did due diligence before reaching a conclusion.

[@Sprometheus]

Personally I avoid discords, subreddits, and forums because they tend to be places where few voices steer the conversation, and opinions are seen as right or wrong. And in my mind, if the info is only buried in a discord somewhere and hasn’t made it out onto something as broad as a Google search, I’d argue the community should likely move conversations into more accessible areas.

[@rajindergill9480]

@@Sprometheus it’s just another form of communication like instagram. in this case it was the source, so would have been good to at least study where this came from, the type of roast it suits, and how to get the most from it. The video clearly lacked that info (ironically, it forms an opinion based on limited knowledge of the topic), which is a shame

[@terebat.]

@@Sprometheus Isn’t your youtube channel the same thing? You created a video on Soup using an incorrect recipe misinforming many…. KZbin, and your channel, is few voices changing the taste of many. Sure discord is not accessible, there’s no doubt about that, but it hasn’t made it to the wiki yet since people are still working it out on different machines and experimenting. It’ll end up there at some point once a more cohesive recipe with video/guidance is put together, especially for beginners to follow. Discord is at least more democratic in the sense where people can comment on the recipe, make tweaks, improve it. Compared to this which is trying something not in the best light and then saying it doesn’t it work. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Just my thoughts. Next time you can use community post on KZbin or other things like that to find out the proper recipe and ways to try experimental recipe for better reproduction. You don’t even have to go to the discord or anything, anyone with experience with it can chime in and help direct.

[@erikngomez]

I'm disappointed in your response and agree with the point above. This video was not really informative, gave incorrect info and then you in a weird way go so far as to blame an entire community. One you've apparently never even communicated in but want to judge. I really enjoy your videos but this wasn't your best work.

[@TheDestrikter]

@@Sprometheus The origin of this shot style is actually that Discord server. One look in there and you would have got a full explanation how it works and even a preset for your decent! Instead of that you shot this video. If I would follow you, that would be a reason to unfollow you. I just hope not every video of you is basing on bad research like that and building false opinions at your followers.

[@ShayanGivehchian]

We're slowly evolving back to bad drip coffee

[@steampunk888]

Who woulda thunk it, what people really want is a styrofoam cup o Dunkin with milk and "sweetness." 😂

[@macehead]

Wait till you try the Gazpacho shot….

[@diomedes8791]

Not sure if you can get any pressure, 2 bar or otherwise, out of a cold espresso machine 😂

[@davidjaniszewski6653]

I think a HE basket would be a must for this shot style. Also a unimodal burr design like the SSP MP or EK43

[@skatcat31]

Try a soup shot in a high-flow basket. That's where I get the best results, but it's really just "low pressure" 1-2 bars; who cares about the ratio? Go until it tastes good is the dial space.

[@Sprometheus]

Never really had results I liked on high flow baskets. And ratios are tools just anything else. But I can tell you I can count on both hands how many shots beyond 1:3 I’ve enjoyed, regardless of pressure, basket, coffee or other dial-in variables.

[@Andrew-wp1bz]

@@Sprometheus it’s a completely different profile. As you noted in the video, you were getting very low EY. You can then increase that extraction by pulling longer ratios.

[@ProfaneLepard]

1:3 is a really short ratio for soup. I'm usually around 1:4-5 in about 10-12 seconds. Extraction percentage 19+. Bottom paper filter/high-extraction basket is a must for this, also helps to use something with tons of clarity, though you've probably got that covered with the 102mm burrs!

[@cjlafleur7585]

This is interesting. I've been pulling almost exclusively soup for a long time. I pull at least 1:3, if not 1:4. That said, I'm grinding at 1 on a p100 and using a sworks high flow basket, and it does really well. It's searingly clear and most times I love it. I think you need pretty specific equipment to make this work, like a burr set that grinds fine without really building a ton of pressure such as SSP Brew or LU.

[@Spacekillguy]

I've been pulling soup (also known as yeet) with ultra light roasts for over a year, and find it really shines in the 1:4 to 1:6 ratios, shot time 20-25 seconds. If I go below 1:4, I get the same problems you mentioned.

[@Sprometheus]

Interesting. I wonder why the person who originally brought it to my attention kept the it at or around 1:3.

[@helmsdeep126]

Great timing for me with this video. I have a Lelit Bianca V3 that I’ve been using for about 1 year now. I brew lots of different styles of coffee. My wife loves vanilla lattes with darker roast but I tend towards americanos made with lighter roast single origin coffees. Through experimenting I’ve settled on setting the pump pressure to 6 bars. It works fantastic for everything I’m making. However, I do believe that setting the pump to 6 bars has limited the flow rate also. For months and months reaching 6 bars at the puck was the goal and it requires quite a fine grind when using my high efficiency Weber basket, so fine in fact that I believe it’s making the shots run very uneven. I’ve slowly moved away from worrying about hitting a pressure and just going by taste and I find that some of the best tasting shots don’t even reach 4 or 5 bars. And, I’m finding ratios more akin to a ristretto sometimes work really well. I

[@danielzenner]

I could be mistaken, but if your soup shot was a higher ratio (like 1:6-1:8), wouldn't that essentially just be a spro-over?

[@samaquadrat]

What about trying slow feeding the grinder in order to improve the result?

[@veganpotterthevegan]

Never called it soup but I misdialed my grind for a turboshot with my Robot and I often do 2-3bar shots on purpose now

[@jggimi]

When faced with an acidic-forward light roast, I have been able to make the balance more to my liking with a long bloom pre-infusion: start at 2-3 bar, halt all flow and let the back-pressure in the group head decline to 0 on its own, then at 40 seconds, ramp up to complete my shot as normal. With my direct lever manual (a Flair), I hold the lever still and steady during the bloom to avoid disturbing the puck.

[@tommihommi1]

the point of buying light roasts is the acidity, not to muddle it into something brown

[@jggimi]

@@tommihommi1 sometimes ... not often ... it's more sour than pleasant, and if I extend the ratio much beyond 1:2.5 I lose desired body. This works for me.

[@tommihommi1]

@@jggimi the mistake is desiring body

[@ende421]

Pulling similar with the Robot now: 17g in, push gently, stop when first drops appear, wait 50s, yeet 50ml in 6 - 12s. Found out that HUs with the Z1 work really well for this. Not sour, still clear flavour separation. K-max produces astringent shots.

[@richardshaw7449]

I thought “making soup” was just a joke made by coffee nerds on the EAF forums…

[@Sprometheus]

It sure feels like a joke, but if you look at some of the comments you’d think it was written in stone slabs that fell from the heavens and I’m out here blaspheming

[@whosgonnadotcom]

About 30 seconds in all i could think was, "youre a little late for April Fool's, but...."

[@LadyTigerLily]

This feels like a strange theoretical "missing link shot" between a sprover and a turbo shot.

[@Sprometheus]

It definitely does. The turbo is great, when theoretically it shouldn’t be. The spro-over was never really on my radar since it just seems to produce a Americano-ish result at best, and I don’t love those. So I guess I should’ve chalked Soup up as a no go. Instead, I tried it based on the available information, and inadvertently created rage bait. Gotta love the internet and the pearl clutching of Discord lurkers.

[@davidjaniszewski6653]

I often use my pump kill switch and let the water line pressure do the work for a "soup" shot. It may take more like 19seconds with a Pesado HE basket and 93° water but my experience does not mirror spros

[@Stewmsabourin]

I heard smoothie shot is actually the 2025 trend

[@jeffjones6667]

I have found that for some reason a more turbo like shot makes decaf taste less like decaf. I would love a video on mastering a single shot ( if its possible), if there is a basket etc to make it consistant and good maybe lower pressures with less coffee work well ?

[@toddpower4674]

Again, I will push the ecm synkronika. Plumbed in with 3 or 4 bar water pressure and flow control, you don't have to kick in the pump. Also, perfect water with bwt bestmax pro.

[@ondrejmitas3325]

I would love if you would imitate a picopresso shot on the decent, and thus figure out why that little pico is so good.

[@pdxrunner]

I would think the type of basket would be important. Standard VST, Weber Unibasket, MHW-3BOMBER DEX etc.

[@Sprometheus]

Ya know, sure, maybe. But every time I break one out I don’t find them really doing much more than making my shots less appealing. So I more or less have retired them. Not for me.

[@pdxrunner]

Just my experience, when I matched with a slow grinder feed,no paper filter and a thin puck screen, Light Roast shots were amazing! A washed Set Columbian Gesha and for the first time the flavor notes rang loud and clear. My grind on my DF64E went from a 19 to a 9(Chirp at 4).

[@Natalia-f6j]

What did you think of the coffee from Spring Valley, which was in the Standart ad?

[@kevintanaka4351]

I appreciate would willingness to subject yourself (and your machine, scale and anything within spraying distance) to new ideas!

[@PeterHolt]

Any comment on the channeling and spurting soaking the Decent during the shots?

[@leoleimgruber8148]

This Espresso Game is getting out of Hand

[@free8288]

Ai thumbnail 🤨?

[@CoffeeContractor]

What is your Daily espresso grinder?

[@jamieprov97]

I feel like at that pressure you could get a better equivalent out of an aeropress

[@joshk528]

Pulls two shots.... Nah this sucks.

[@Sprometheus]

Sees video sharing personal opinion. Nah they’re wrong.

[@joshk528]

@@Sprometheus well when you misrepresent a type of drink, then declare to the world that the drink isn't good, you become definitionally wrong.

[@TheDestrikter]

@@Sprometheusyou have 170 k followers. There is no such thing as a personal opinion. When you share false information based on a lack of research you have to take the criticism like an adult.

[@CJski]

this video is worse than useless. it's actively spreading misunderstanding and misinformation.

[@Sprometheus]

Bruh, you follow Jordan Peterson. Maybe reassess your views on “misinformation” and try again.

[@CJski]

@@Sprometheus 😂 did you just stalk me on youtube and then make a character jusdgement based on a video I watched? Everyone here is telling you that you made a mistake. Take the L dude.

[@joshk528]

@@Sprometheus This is some real bullshit. Everybody knows you picked up an L on this one and spread falsities about a profile that you knew nothing about. Why tf are you acting like a child stocking randos yt profile??

[@joshk528]

@@Sprometheus you're a child

[@joshk528]

@@CJski you should check out Dave Smith he's one of the goat political commentators.

[@vizzo7]

is the soup shot like a nomacano ?

[@ahpadt]

No

[@luiscortes77luis]

I wonder how this soup shot would taste as affogato.

[@tummy_fritters]

If this is soup, I like stew: thick and hearty.

[@Ikrist0]

You could just use a moka pot and it would work better lol

[@sweaner]

Well, looking at those shots, it seems that I have made many just like them. Mine tasted just as bad!

[@andyman820]

Have you ever tried drip style before 😊

[@jessechuff]

even if it would taste good i dont think it's worth the mess that shot seems to make. lord.

[@wg0pipi]

He pulled it completely wrong This is like going to a video of somebody having intense channeling and spraying and going "I don't think its worth the mess to make a traditional espresso shot" that was pulled incorrectly

[@velocitasfortis]

You got One Guyed.

[@MereCashmere]

Omfg glad someone said it. Imagine this was you, how embarrassing

[@bjfeerus]

☕❤️☕ Love Is Important ...

[@SuperCrimsonlake]

Irregardless

[@s96822]

despite all the third wave espresso stuff give credit where credit is due, the Italians developed modern espresso machines and no doubt researched pressure, temp, time.

[@Hm-mn3ip]

this is just a moka at this point

[@cheekster777]

Thank you my friend.

[@allen.t]

Never tried soup myself and really don’t have much interest to. I feel like it’s for those who just crave battery acid. Turbos are just the perfect representation of modern espresso and cannot be replaced.

[@chiga3388]

This is a terribly researched video

[@Sprometheus]

@@chiga3388 you liked your own comment

[@kcStranger]

I haven't tried this, but it kinda sounds like a worse version of what you're going for with a moka pot.

[@coreycannon4511]

The Moka at least has a much higher ratio and an ascending temperature profile. With the Moka, you’re typically fighting overextraction, rather than under.

[@Horologiist]

Oh, your computer can brew coffee at different times, different pressures and different flows? Yippieyaye ...a Bezzera Strega owner while tasting a cup of medium roasted espresso perfectly balanced between strenght, flavor and mouthfeel.❤

[@alanroderick7153]

Thank you for subjecting yourself to this "brew" so we don't have to. I cannot try this with my machine (too high pressure). I would not consider 2 bar as an espresso shot but if it had worked then fine. I think you have created another of your "Sink Shots". Take care, All.

[@joshk528]

It's supposed to be an "espresso drink" you can really get amazing results if you do a little experimenting. Also I think you could probably do it with your machine if you grind coarse enough. Your shot would probably just barely hit 1-2 bar at peak and quickly decline. I would also try doing 1:3-5 depend on bean.