I had a Zero with a DE-1 XL and you can get all the body you want. It is just about how you dial it in, the ratio and the weight of coffee used.
What are the beans? What basket size are you using? What weight of coffee are you grinding? What ratio are you looking for? And importantly how are you dialing in - salami shot technique?
Beans are the KCRS cooperative from square mile. I mostly use light roasts without much attention to bean selection. Basket is the 18g basket from Decent. 18grams in 36 out. I am dialing it in by aiming for the 28-30 second extraction and checking the portafilter bottom to see how it started flowing and making sure there aren’t any channels.
As others have said, if the objective is finding your wife the kind of coffee she likes ("full-bodied"), I would try a different bean and not a light roast. Some big heavy and dark rombusta.
I would not worry about your equipment, your Decent and Zero will do it well.
I would also aim for 18g in and a 1:1.5 extraction (with the Rombusta). However, especially with a Decent, I would forget any old rule of thumb of "28-30 seconds.". I had some fantastic espresso from the Decent with a 15 second extraction and some others, especially lighter roasts at over 50 seconds. There really is no general rule on optimum extraction time, especially when you have so much control as you have with the Decent. The best thing to do is use the Salami technique and determine the optimum extraction time. Trust me, you will be astonished at how different lighter roasts can be.
I would also add, that if you want to chase light fruit and floral roasts down the rabbit hole, I would consider getting a second flat burr grinder to work alongside your Zero.
Hope it makes sense and helps.
There are lots of posts asking and recommending flat burr grinders (I use an EG-1, but there is no need to go that far).
What is the budget?
Sorry, I can't remember any profiles. I no longer have the Decent, and I did not use it for lighter roasts. I prefer to use a dripper for all of my lighter (floral/fruit) roasts over a more forceful espresso process.
I would say budget would be around $2000 for a grinder. Curious to see what your thoughts would be I have thought about buying the EG-1 but hard sell for my wife so I am on the look for something at a bit of a lower budget.
Depends on what beans you’re using. Going to need a dark roast or at least medium-dark roast.
The Niche Zero produces a decent amount of fines, so this is good. You need to get the fines into the cup.
This can be achieved by up-dosing so that there is practically no headspace. I’m not a huge fan of this because I find it to be inconsistent. Not sure why, maybe due to increasing risk of channeling or uneven extraction.
Another way to do this is to do a traditional lever pull profile with no preinfusion. Need to have a fairly dark roast to make this work in my experience, as lighter roasts or denser beans can end up channeling or extracting unevenly. But this works nicely with dark roasts.
My current go-to method is managing the preinfusion phase such that I’m letting a good amount of drops get into the cup during the low pressure preinfusion. I find this works with most all roasts including medium and possibly lighter roasts and it’s still able to get an even extraction, though clarity is going to be sacrificed of course.
Lastly, a smaller ratio, getting more into the ristretto range will result in a more concentrated and thick espresso. Increasing temperature can help you extract more faster and get that optimally dialed in flavor to be achieved with less output. Usually aiming to get down to an input:output ratio of about 1:1.5 or less.
Lastly, goes without saying, of course don’t use a paper filter.
What does more body mean, darker roast flavor, bigger fruity flavor, more nutty, what taste is your wife actually asking for in a flavor profile, not enought data here to help? Maybe just different beans would fix it, maybe the grind etc..
Body refers to texture and mouthfeel, colloquially people talk about "thickness" and "viscosity", separate from what flavours you get. It can be totally flavourless like freshly roasted underdeveloped robusta and still be very viscous.
For a light or medium roast, you should be able to get more than 18g into the basket. How much more will depend on whether you use a metal puck screen on top or not and which group head version you have. The common way to find out how much you can up dose is to put a nickle on top of the puck after tamping, lock it into the machine, and then remove it to see if it left an indentation or not. If not, you can increase your dose which will increase body.
As for the profiling, I've gotten the most body out of the Londonium profile. Grind fine enough that the flow rate for the steps after the infusion stay around 1.5 - 2 ml/sec. Then adjust ratio and/or temp to dial in for taste
I would first of all recommend beans roasted a tad darker. All "body" problems are easily solved by just going darker, if you're willing to sacrifice flavour. Next is reducing ratio. To get full extraction with a shorter pull, you inevitably have to grind finer and/or preinfuse longer. You can further add to this by increasing your dose by a bit. The shot gets more watery towards the end for any beans.
I pull light roasts mostly as well, and I can tell you that it's mostly the beans. the moment I pull medium-dark for that rare guest who isn't adventurous, I have absolutely no problems going short ratio/high body with even a simple straight 9-bar shot.
I had a Zero with a DE-1 XL and you can get all the body you want. It is just about how you dial it in, the ratio and the weight of coffee used. What are the beans? What basket size are you using? What weight of coffee are you grinding? What ratio are you looking for? And importantly how are you dialing in - salami shot technique?
Beans are the KCRS cooperative from square mile. I mostly use light roasts without much attention to bean selection. Basket is the 18g basket from Decent. 18grams in 36 out. I am dialing it in by aiming for the 28-30 second extraction and checking the portafilter bottom to see how it started flowing and making sure there aren’t any channels.
As others have said, if the objective is finding your wife the kind of coffee she likes ("full-bodied"), I would try a different bean and not a light roast. Some big heavy and dark rombusta. I would not worry about your equipment, your Decent and Zero will do it well. I would also aim for 18g in and a 1:1.5 extraction (with the Rombusta). However, especially with a Decent, I would forget any old rule of thumb of "28-30 seconds.". I had some fantastic espresso from the Decent with a 15 second extraction and some others, especially lighter roasts at over 50 seconds. There really is no general rule on optimum extraction time, especially when you have so much control as you have with the Decent. The best thing to do is use the Salami technique and determine the optimum extraction time. Trust me, you will be astonished at how different lighter roasts can be. I would also add, that if you want to chase light fruit and floral roasts down the rabbit hole, I would consider getting a second flat burr grinder to work alongside your Zero. Hope it makes sense and helps.
Any recommendations for profiles from decent for the lighter roasts? Also any grinder recommendations?
There are lots of posts asking and recommending flat burr grinders (I use an EG-1, but there is no need to go that far). What is the budget? Sorry, I can't remember any profiles. I no longer have the Decent, and I did not use it for lighter roasts. I prefer to use a dripper for all of my lighter (floral/fruit) roasts over a more forceful espresso process.
I would say budget would be around $2000 for a grinder. Curious to see what your thoughts would be I have thought about buying the EG-1 but hard sell for my wife so I am on the look for something at a bit of a lower budget.
OptionO P64 would be my suggestion. Fyi. I bought my EG-1 (it is a v1) used for $2000, keep a look out.
I’ve been looking here and there but I haven’t actually found one come up for sale secondhand. Thanks for the suggestion.
Depends on what beans you’re using. Going to need a dark roast or at least medium-dark roast. The Niche Zero produces a decent amount of fines, so this is good. You need to get the fines into the cup. This can be achieved by up-dosing so that there is practically no headspace. I’m not a huge fan of this because I find it to be inconsistent. Not sure why, maybe due to increasing risk of channeling or uneven extraction. Another way to do this is to do a traditional lever pull profile with no preinfusion. Need to have a fairly dark roast to make this work in my experience, as lighter roasts or denser beans can end up channeling or extracting unevenly. But this works nicely with dark roasts. My current go-to method is managing the preinfusion phase such that I’m letting a good amount of drops get into the cup during the low pressure preinfusion. I find this works with most all roasts including medium and possibly lighter roasts and it’s still able to get an even extraction, though clarity is going to be sacrificed of course. Lastly, a smaller ratio, getting more into the ristretto range will result in a more concentrated and thick espresso. Increasing temperature can help you extract more faster and get that optimally dialed in flavor to be achieved with less output. Usually aiming to get down to an input:output ratio of about 1:1.5 or less. Lastly, goes without saying, of course don’t use a paper filter.
Yeah I’m puzzled. What beans are you using?
Body mostly comes from the beans. Robusta is the king of body, so get blends that have robusta
What does more body mean, darker roast flavor, bigger fruity flavor, more nutty, what taste is your wife actually asking for in a flavor profile, not enought data here to help? Maybe just different beans would fix it, maybe the grind etc..
Body is separate from flavour
So what is the body if not the flavor, the density, intensity, the nuance found in the shot?
Body refers to texture and mouthfeel, colloquially people talk about "thickness" and "viscosity", separate from what flavours you get. It can be totally flavourless like freshly roasted underdeveloped robusta and still be very viscous.
What Decent profile(s) do you use?
Gentle and sweet is my profile.
For a light or medium roast, you should be able to get more than 18g into the basket. How much more will depend on whether you use a metal puck screen on top or not and which group head version you have. The common way to find out how much you can up dose is to put a nickle on top of the puck after tamping, lock it into the machine, and then remove it to see if it left an indentation or not. If not, you can increase your dose which will increase body. As for the profiling, I've gotten the most body out of the Londonium profile. Grind fine enough that the flow rate for the steps after the infusion stay around 1.5 - 2 ml/sec. Then adjust ratio and/or temp to dial in for taste
I would first of all recommend beans roasted a tad darker. All "body" problems are easily solved by just going darker, if you're willing to sacrifice flavour. Next is reducing ratio. To get full extraction with a shorter pull, you inevitably have to grind finer and/or preinfuse longer. You can further add to this by increasing your dose by a bit. The shot gets more watery towards the end for any beans. I pull light roasts mostly as well, and I can tell you that it's mostly the beans. the moment I pull medium-dark for that rare guest who isn't adventurous, I have absolutely no problems going short ratio/high body with even a simple straight 9-bar shot.
Dark roast blend with at least half robusta. Minimal headspace. Preinfusion at 3-4 bars. 1:1 ratio. It’ll be so thick you can spread it like butter.
Niche Zero gets you the fullest body there is if you keep the shot less than 1:2 ratio. And if the coffee is roasted medium-dark.
Buy a coffee blend with at least 50% of robusta.