Gail shows us the perils of using oily, dark-roasted coffee beans in a superautomatic espresso machine.
Superautomatic Espresso Machines and Oily Coffee Beans
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I have a Jura ENA-4. I used some oily beans and now the coffee comes out
slowly, how can I clean it? Use the tablets?
“If you like dark and nasty, its gonna go dark and nasty”
so what type of beans do you recommend that i can get from a local grocery
store….or do you suggest buying online?
I like oily beans sometimes so I grind them in a cheap grinder I have and
use the by-pass so the’re not ground in machine.
@rsilves Usually grinding and discarding the puck means you are grinding
too fine for the coffee you’re using and the machine can’t actually force
water through the puck. Try going coarser — with all dark roasts, you
should be in the medium or higher level of coarseness to ensure the grinder
and brew group do not clog. Hope that helps! – Kat
@SeattleCoffeeGear And thanks again. – Rodrigo. (p.s. read the three
messages from bottom to top).
@SeattleCoffeeGear I wanted to add another thing: Sometimes when cleaning
the machine I noticed that some amount of ground coffee stayed stuck in the
exit tube of the grinder, so I thought that might be the problem (a sensor
detecting stuck coffee in there). But then, once, I put some Tribute Blend
beans (the one that works better than the Kenya) and after brewing some
coffees I noticed that the hole on the upper part of the machine (outside)
was full of ground coffee (…)
@rsilves yes, the machine will build up coffee in the chute, so if you
change your grind, you will need to run a few shots through before you see
the results. I think that the issue you’re seeing is the fineness of the
grind, which does need to be changed depending on the coffee that your
using. Even beans that are a medium or light roast can have more natural
fat/oil, be moister and, therefore, require a coarser grind. Play around
with coarser with your beans that are being ejected – Kat
I just got a bag of oily beans . I read somewhere that they can be dried
for 3-4 weeks and then use them in my Saeco automatic coffee machine ?
Hi, Is there a superautomatic machine that can tolerate oily beans? Thanks
@klarinetta I actually once got like a tea spoon of French roasted coffee
sort of almost powder like into my lighter roasted one. It’s also gets
worse the finer you grind those oily dark roasted beans.
@SeattleCoffeeGear I feel I didn’t explain one thing correctly: When it
goes wrong, the error (red light) turns on immediately after the grinder
stops. I’d say, in the less-than-half-a-second it takes to stop spinning.
Way before the brew group moves the ground coffee to the metal “brew head”.
Grinder stops, red light on, brew group moves only to discard the puck
(totally dry ground coffee). Brew group does not stop at “brew position”,
water pump never starts, it never tries to brew.
@SeattleCoffeeGear Thank you Kat. I’ve been trying to figure what is
causing the problem and I can tell one thing: The error light turns on as
soon as the grinder stops, it doesn’t even try to brew it, and the grind
seems to be fine (visually compared to other lighter coffees that work OK).
So the problem starts in the grinder. Do you know what is this related to?
I mean, what is happening inside? Which “sensor” can cause this? I’m just
curious lol.
@SeattleCoffeeGear wow, such a speedy reply! thanks Kat, that answers my
question perfectly
@rsilves Yes, this is exactly the symptom of the grind being too fine. – Kat
@klarinetta Totally – this is an issue with all grinders, the big issue
with these, of course, is that you cannot easily clean these internal
grinders (like you can take yours apart). I am doing a month long
comparison test to show people the difference in residue between dark &
medium roasts, so will have a video in September showing that. – Kat
@rsilves What the sensor is sensing is that it can’t force water through
the grounds and it sees it as empty or not able to be activated, so just
kicks the puck out. I’m sorry I can’t be more precise than this, but if
you’re seeing it with some coffees and not others, it would lead me to
believe that messing with the grind on the coffees that are erroring could
be the answer. Let me know how it goes 🙂 – Kat
@ytwthcr Wow!! Thank you 🙂 I think you are our first commenter from
Africa. Glad we can help you out! – Kat
Any medium roast coffee will work well …most Italian roasters and the
majority of small local roasters will have medium roasts. – Kat
I got a bag of beans at a local retailer, and when I opened it I realized
the beans are EXTREMELY oily. I imagine that the issues described in the
video here happen after prolonged use. Do you think its a problem if I just
run through this bag and then switch back to dry roasts?
Thanks a lot for this. I had been seriously considering a superautomatic
machine (after 20 years of semiautos) but half of my household is an
unrepentant dark roast drinker. The last thing I want to do is to send a
machine in for service all the time.
First of all thanks for all the information you are publishing to everyone!
Last week I got a Saeco Xsmall machine and I’m having a hard time choosing
the right beans and grind setting. The machine grinds the coffee but then
throws it without brewing it. I tried with different beans, now it’s going
OK with the Starbucks Tribute blend. The one I want and doesn’t work well
is “Kenya”, also from Sbux. Any recommendation with it? Thanks! Rodrigo.
@rsilves This is why I feel there is another sensor in there doing
something I don’t understand. I’ll try the Kenya beans again next week and
see if with the coarsest setting I get it to work. Anyway I’m sure that
it’ll affect the flavor a lot. Sorry for making so many questions, but
Saeco would tell me just to try another coffee. And thanks again 😉 –
Rodrigo.
@llemay Yeah; it’s not too frequent — you’d need to get it cleaned
professionally every year or so, probably — but still can be a nuisance
for dark roasted bean lovers 🙂 – Kat
Ahh I would never have known about this unless I had seen this! We just got
a new superautomatic (Saeco Syntia) and my husband loves dark beans. Are
oily beans ever a problem in bypass dosers? We really love your videos btw
🙂 Thanks for posting!
@drstoeb Some that you might be able to source locally would be illy or
Lavazza; I’m not sure if they have an espresso blend, but Dunkin Donuts’
roast is nice and medium-hued. If you check out our blog, we have a post
called Roast Shades, Names and Flavors and that will give you a good idea,
also, of what a name means, color-wise, before you pop the bag open and
find out. Hope this helps! – Kat
Great tip! – Kat
@SeattleCoffeeGear Thanks a lot 😀
@elcamarodude The new Odea series (Go II and Giro II) have been upgraded to
allow a little bit easier processing of oily beans, but you will still have
the increased maintenance requirement inherent to oily beans than you do
with a drier bean. – Kat
@SeattleCoffeeGear (…), this means that only a tiny amount of coffee was
going to the brew group. And it was not showing the error (red light,
discard), so I’m sure the “too oily coffee” is not technically the issue.
This (grinder clogged with ground coffee) never happened with the Kenya
beans, and they do activate this error. I’ve been using Moka beans bought
in another store, I don’t enjoy them so much but with them the machine
never failed.
A few months ago we purchased a Saeco Royal Coffee Bar for our office at
work. We have been trying various beans to find one that is not oily. Man
has that been tough. I’m wondering if you could recommend a few brands that
offer a dryer bean. We would prefer to find one in the local grocery store,
because we have a business charge account there, but will buy online if
that is the only option. Thank you in advance for your time and thank you
for these videos. They’re great!
It’s both, actually; the chute is a short term issue and the grinder is a
long term issue. – Kat
You want to make sure that it indicates a medium roast; anything that is an
espresso blend that is a lighter roast will work well. You can check out
our blog for a table on common roast names and what shade they correlate to
– Kat
@pureEVA You’re welcome! Let me know if you need anything else. – Kat
Oh this I experience in my Solis Scala conical burr grinder. It takes up to
twice as long to grind French roast beans in it than it takes to grinder
Vienna and lighter roasted beans. And I have to clean it like no less than
once a week to get ti to function right and don’t blend into my other
coffee brands I might be using.
Probably not, but I might take the grind up a bit coarser than usual so you
don’t have any grinder back up, etc. – Kat
Nope; as they age, more oil comes to the surface so they will just be more
oily (and more stale) in a month. – Kat
@pureEVA You can use them there a bit easier as you’re not going to have
the same issues like you do with the grinder — build up of oily residue.
You don’t want to grind it for that at a traditional espresso grind — it
needs to be a bit more coarse than what you might expect so that it works
well with the brew group. If you want to stick with using oily/dark roast
beans in the grinder, you can do so but just be prepared for a little more
tech-assisted maintenance on the machines. – Kat