Roasting espresso for a super automatic.

[Joey]

I normally use my Huky for light roast Ethiopians. I am getting very comfortable with it and am happy with the results.

I was gifted my Dad's old jura superautomatic espresso machine. I don't plan to use it often but I picked up an espresso blend from Sweet Marias to try out.

I do not like overly-roasty tasting coffee or bitter espresso, so I was thinking I'd start with my standard roast (for coffee) but really drag on the development phase to increase sweetness and drop at a higher BT than usual (more body + moderate roast flavor). I usually drop my Ethiopian around 410, I was thinking I'd take the espresso up to around 425? Does that sound right?

Also, I do not have much control when brewing the espresso, it doses around 8-9g per shot if I recall and I can control the water amount 30,35,40,45,50 oz (or maybe more). The shots 45-50 oz seem to pull in about 10-12 seconds not including the pre-infusion, the 30 oz a little faster. I know this is not ideal, but since it was a free machine I'm not complaining. Based on those specifications is there anything else I should adjust in my roast to compensate for the machine's lack of control? Any other general advice I should consider before diving into espresso?

Thanks in advance.

[LTB]

put the jura in a garbage and look for real expresso machine ? 

[Joey]

There's a lot of things I'd rather spend $2000 on than a nice espresso machine and grinder. It was a gift and while it doesn't make amazing espresso, it is good enough for a quick shot when I don't have 10 minutes to heat my kettle and manually brew a batch in my chemex.

[kctremel]

Hell, if I get that free id use the crap out of it!!  I believe your thinking is right with longer development.  Have you seen the Artisan Coffee Alliance website of people sharing their roasts?? If you have I suggest checking out Gregr's roasts as they are all for espresso and would be a good starting point.

[LTB]

better a 18$ V60 than any automatic machine, even free, that's only my vision !

Can't you really get nothing decent beside 2000 $ in the USA ? Waw, that's... uge ! We must be lucky here, for 500 bucks you got a goddam good combo, for 300 $ you find decent things.

[kctremel]

I won't say no because you can.  But if you're looking for brand new i think good starting combo would be 6-800, of course you can buy used for cheaper and have seen good deals on ebay....but to be honest ive tried a few jura superautomatic machines here and there, and they honestly have better shots than the local big chain coffee shops near me.

[Gregr]

If you don't mind the 30 seconds or so it takes to hand grind the beans a Lido would be a great investment. The grind quality is right there with the $2000 grinders- yep, not even an espresso machine for that price   

I do not like overly-roasty tasting coffee or bitter espresso, so I was thinking I'd start with my standard roast (for coffee) but really drag on the development phase to increase sweetness and drop at a higher BT than usual (more body + moderate roast flavor). I usually drop my Ethiopian around 410, I was thinking I'd take the espresso up to around 425? Does that sound right?

At 425F you'll be very close to getting roast notes if you don't finish very slow and easy- dragging the bean temp delta down low and watching Artisan to make sure it doesn't stall. That's tricky. Good news is the espressos can taste magnificent even at 416F ish- with 2:30 development time.
When you drag out the development a long time you can increase the sweetness but you're increasing chocolate/caramel type sweetness at the expense of fruity sweetness that a good Ethiopia will probably have in spades. So it's a choice. There are some Ethiopias that have both though- fruit and chocolate and those will be great without the long stretch. Be great with a long stretch too though hah.
Another thought- when you decide to stretch your roast out longer be wary of the flick- the beans have lost so much moisture at that point the bean temp can easily jump too fast if you aren't careful with the flame.
Example of a good stretched roast from yesterday. It's a 454g roast and probably the adjustments early on aren't going to match how you roast but it will give you an idea of what I mean by nice and gentle at the end. I dropped that at about 4.5F/min.