Espresso U | Demystifying Dark Roasts

[@spirit__fox]

As a dark roast lover, thank you! I feel like I'm being pushed a bit away from specialty coffee because it is incredibly hard to find anything other than light, to medium light where I live.

[@meatgeorge]

I live in Australia and had the opposite problem. Most coffee here is medium to dark. Managed to find some roasters that do light but usually they swap out monthly single origins, nothing good I can stick to. Eventually I just got into coffee roasting myself.

[@fishrivertruffles6232]

We have a rocket, an ECM and a few others and for years we have just plodded along enjoying our dark roasts every morning. Recently we started to read and watch coffee videos again and wow everything had changed, moved on. We just bought a 58 and have started to experiment with getting our 1:1 and we saw your vid. What timing! Love it. Thank you! When you have time we would love to see a vid on dark roast profiles. So looking forward to getting the best out of our 58. Carmine

[@ikonoklast7]

Thank you for this video! I find that I just really don't care for the acidity of the lighter roasts that are in fashion (at least when it comes to espresso), I really crave that chocolatey bitterness from a good dark roast. Good to know I'm not alone!

[@Kyfow]

I never thought of brewing at a lower ratio! Great idea!

[@robiDur]

Fantastic video. Super helpful as I move into freelance barista training - coming from a med - light specialty coffee world. Eloquent and dropping facts - this video is excellent

[@TheBenb1999]

Great video with a lot of timely info. These roasts really do seem to be ignored but they really work well with Flair’s products.

[@FlairEspresso]

Bringing them back!

[@VasilievFlorin]

hi@@FlairEspresso You used 1:1.5 ratio in video but you also recommended to start with 1:1.75. How many seconds of extraction will be fine for this ratio?

[@julianzamora228]

This is actually extremely helpful, I've very recently gotten my flair and was curious as to if I've been extracting my dark roast correctly, this is so helpful!

[@CrankyxPants]

I could not have found this at a better time. I accidentally overshot a roast yesterday into a rolling 2nd crack. Todays shot wasn’t bad but this video is showing me a lot of new parameters to consider! Thanks!

[@johnrbh]

Nice video. Been using my 58 for about 9 months, and have been using the highest setting. My latest coffee I’m using is on the darker side. Tried the lowest setting this morning with nice results.

[@christopherschaefer8279]

Third crack?!? I almost lost it when I heard that! 🤣 A very well-done video!!

[@AlejandroRasmussen7]

A perfectly paced video which gives the precise info youre looking for!!

[@loriosterweil982]

I love medium dark roasts with chocolate and caramel under notes. So, thanks for this wonderful video.

[@brianharder7714]

I have a 58 and am just getting started. I've pulled some great shots and am enjoying the ritual and work flow. Someone gifted me some fairly dark roasted beans the other day, roast date unknown. I used the same grind setting and puck prep I've been using, fairly fine, and it just gushed through. I'm thinking the beans are simply stale.

[@alaskavaper966]

I have been really enjoying your excellent videos. Thank you.

[@mattc825]

Great video and knowledge. I too have a flare but find myself using a moka pot mainly.

[@mapuche888]

Thank you thank you thank you for this video. I've tried several light to medium roasts and I have to conclude I just don't like them. I love dark roast. I really don't get all the buzz and love for these Nordic roasts. It's the same for Jamaican Blue Montain. I thought I got a cup of stale beans but after trying several officially certified JBM I just have to accept my palate is too immature to appreciate light roasts or JBM. I feel so much better about my love for dark roasts.

[@CH-yp5by]

I have looked at literally hundreds of videos online and this is the only one that point out that a dark roast allows you to reduce the ratio to be close to the official expresso size of about 28 to 30ml of espresso. I have a new Pullman 876 hole basket which is so much better than my IMS competizione precison basket. I used to to do 1:2 15g and 30ml out but now I'm doing 17g and 30ml out and wow what a difference!

[@JumpingWatermelons]

I like this guy. And I like variety. I've really enjoyed coffee that I roasted dark. It's also nice to be able to have some beans ready just a few days after roasting by roasting them faster and darker than I normally would. (While one of my favorite roasters roasts so light that with his beans I need to wait almost a month before using them. There is far much more to roasting than just Light=good/modern, dark=bad.

[@khalednwilati]

thank you so much for the helpful video coarser? I found myself grinding finer to get the most flavor out of the beans. on medium roast i grind at 10. But with dark roast im grinding at 8.5 and for ratio only 1 to 2 worked. 1 to 1 was extremely sour

[@EdGodoyPlana]

Great video!

[@johantornberg185]

Great video! And interesting subject now when everybody is running towards light roasts when it comes to espresso.

[@FlairEspresso]

Not everybody

[@johantornberg185]

@@FlairEspresso I think you understand what I meant, don’t you?!

[@alansaxon]

Thank you!!

[@Cenot4ph]

I prefer medium to dark roast beans. The thick body is unmatched for me

[@sO_RoNerY]

i prefer medium and dark but mostly dark roast.

[@eusevis]

From my personal experience i find that smaller beans like eugenioides i can fit more grams of coffee to the same basket compared to other beans, where with larger beans like some robusta, i will need to lower the dose in grams in order to fit my beans in my basket. Also in that matter, my MP burrs already makes me to need to lower the grams to fit compared to the regular burrs. (Creating more fluffy ground coffee that takes more space. Lastly, maybe i'm not sure, that the hotter the water i use is, the faster the extraction is. I'm not really sure about this but this is what i believe from the results i have.

[@wiktorinviktoria]

Hello, I have a question as a beginner home barista. I have the Sage barista express and I bought a really dark roast bean (of course fresh and high quality). I weigh my beans, 15-16 g (I started with 18 g but found it to be too much amount to fit in the basket, I read somewhere it's because of the dark roast) and I pull a 1:2 ratio shot ending up with ish 36 g of espresso. I have tried both finer and coarser grind but can't find a good setting that fines my problem. SO HERE IS MY PROBLEM: 1) The time to pull my shot is super super fast... I end up getting 36 g of espresso in like 7 sec... And I understad that I should grind my coffee finer but this doesn't seem to help. The dark roast been becomes extremely fine, like more fine than powder. 2) When I grind the beans at a finer setting I end up with a wet puck. I understand this is a symptom of too fine grind which I guess is the case because grinding my dark roast that fine as I said makes it almost vanish haha... But setting a coarser grind just pulls the shot so fast (like 5 sec??) and I end up with no crema at all. 3) The taste is really strong and has a lot of bitter tones and almost a little sour sometimes. Please help me succeed with my dark roast espresso! Any tips?? What grind setting should I try?

[@optimisticpessimist.]

Did you figure it out?

[@Relax-il7zn]

I really can't comprehend that people prefer light and medium roast. Maybe I've just had bad versions, but it just tastes so weak and not how I imagine coffee. Dark roast actually has body and true flavor. If you mix anything with medium and light roasts the coffee flavor becomes such a background that it's not even worth it. Thanks for the video though. Kinda confirms all my issues I had with brewing my espresso lately when comparing to all the espresso videos I see.

[@adcampo7601]

very cool. You didn't mention water temperature. I've been brewing my dark roast at 195-198 degreed F. Do you have a recommendation?

[@FlairEspresso]

Try 190

[@GeeWit]

Sat down to watch expecting a nugget or two of good stuff and you buried me! Next time through I'll be pausing the video to take some notes. I've been using a Pro2 and a Comandante for a little over a year and that switchover from an AeroPress initially kicked my butt. I've just finished figuring out the Bellman steamer and milk workflow, so it's time to reexamine how I pull the shot. On vacuum packaging and waste :: vac pack into a jar...

[@FlairEspresso]

We've chaptered the video to make your work easier ;)

[@marcusl.3304]

No pre-infusion on dark roasts? 20-25s but Flair says 30-45s for an espresso. Why the difference?

[@Richard.Mayston]

I do increase the dose up to 25g in a 25g vst precision basket if the Roast is super dark and I'm down at 1:1 ratio. Varying dose with ratio really helps. Measuring the density helps you determine where the Roast level is, and predict all the extraction parameters required. Have a look at density.coffee.

[@socomon69]

Friends don't let friends TWOJ. 🤣🤟

[@Armondahad]

Great video!