Hi everyone,

I'm at the point where I genuinely don't know what else to try.

I've been trying to learn espresso for quite a while now, but I've **never managed to make an espresso that I actually enjoyed**. Flat whites taste good because the milk hides a lot of the acidity, but straight espresso is always disappointingly sour.

My setup:

* Sage/Breville Bambino Plus
* Sage Dose Control Pro grinder
* Bottomless portafilter
* Non-pressurized double basket
* Freshly filtered water with appropriate hardness

I've tried few different beans:

* Chicco d'Oro Tradition
* Caruso Espresso Aromatico (55% Arabica / 45% Robusta, intensity 9/10, low acidity according to the bag)
* and more, but these two the most

Both end up tasting sour.



# What I've already tried

I've spent months trying to eliminate variables.

# Different grinders

* Sage Dose Control Pro
* Kingrinder K6 (borrowed from a friend)

# Puck prep

* Slow feeding
* WDT
* Careful tamping
* Leveling tool
* Bottomless portafilter to watch extraction

# Recipes

I've tried all kinds of combinations:

* 16.5 g
* 17 g
* 18 g

Ratios from roughly

* 1:1.7
* 1:2
* 1:2.5
* 1:3
* and way beyond that

Extraction times anywhere between

* \~22 seconds
* \~30 seconds
* over 50 seconds

I've also experimented with preinfusion and without preinfusion.



# The weird part

No matter what I do, I end up with the same unpleasant acidity.

It's not the pleasant fruity acidity you sometimes get from lighter roasts.

It's more like a **lemon-like acidity that lingers on the sides of my tongue and even reminds me of stomach acid in the back of my throat.**

If I grind finer, the shot often becomes **both sour and astringent**.

If I grind coarser, it's just sour.

Even a **53-second shot** still tasted sour.

A



# Things that confuse me

A friend and I also tested on his setup:

* Kingrinder K6
* Delonghi Dedica
* WDT

Using similar recipes, we still couldn't get a balanced espresso.

However, my friend recently had an espresso at a café that he described as balanced, slightly acidic, with a chocolate finish, so I don't think it's just that we don't know what espresso should taste like.



# What I'm wondering

At this point I'm questioning everything.

* Is the Bambino running too cold?
* Could the Dose Control Pro really be this inconsistent?
* Could I still be getting severe channeling despite WDT?
* Am I completely misunderstanding espresso extraction?
* Or am I simply chasing numbers (30 s, 1:2) instead of taste?

I'm honestly open to any suggestions because I feel like I've reached a dead end.

Has anyone experienced something similar and eventually found the real cause?

Thanks!

I'm completely lost. Every espresso I make is sour no matter what I change. What am I missing? [Breville/Sage Bambino Plus / Sage the Dose Control Pro]