Fordo journal
4 min read · July 17, 2026
A few grams of yield is often the difference between a syrupy shot and a sour one. Everything else about espresso — the machine, the tamp, the basket brand — matters far less than three numbers: how much dry coffee goes in, how much liquid comes out, and how long it takes. Get those under control and dialing in stops being a ritual and becomes a checklist.
This is how we dial in at the roastery bar, and it works the same on a home machine as on a two-group at a busy cafe.
Dose is the weight of dry grounds in the basket. Yield is the weight of espresso in the cup — weigh it, don't eyeball volume, because crema lies. Time is how long the shot runs from the moment you hit the button.
Our house starting point: 18g in, 36g out, in 25–30 seconds. That's a 1:2 ratio, the mainstream specialty default, and it lands most coffees in a drinkable place within the first couple of shots.
The discipline that makes the triangle work: change one thing at a time. Fix your dose at whatever your basket is built for — usually 18g or 20g — and fix your target yield. Now time is your only output, and grind is your only input.
If the shot runs too fast — 36g pouring out in 18 seconds — grind finer. Water is finding easy paths through coarse grounds and leaving flavour behind. If it chokes and drips past 35 seconds, grind coarser.
Move in small steps and purge a few grams after each adjustment, because most grinders hold old grounds in the chute. Then pull again and taste. Two or three shots usually gets you there; if you've pulled five and you're still lost, go back to the fixed points and re-weigh everything.
The numbers get you close. Your tongue makes the call. Sour, thin, salty, finishes short: under-extracted, so grind finer or stretch the yield a little. Bitter, dry, hollow, ashy: over-extracted, so grind coarser or cut the yield.
Time is a diagnostic, not a goal. A shot that tastes sweet at 24 seconds is a better shot than one that tastes harsh at exactly 28.
A shot that tastes balanced straight can vanish under 150ml of steamed milk. Milk adds sweetness and fat, mutes acidity, and buries delicate florals. If your menu — or your morning — is mostly flat whites and lattes, you want a coffee with more body and lower acidity than you'd choose for straight espresso, and it rarely hurts to pull it slightly shorter, closer to 1:1.8, to concentrate it.
That's the brief behind Autumn Thunder, our daily-driver espresso blend: bold body, mid sweetness, low acidity, built to stay consistent through milk. It's the blend we hand to cafes whose ticket rail is mostly milk drinks.
If most of your cups leave the machine black, look at our Premium Espresso range. Midnight Cookies leans dark chocolate and biscuit — espresso as dessert. Summer Berry goes the other way: a bright, fruit-leaning blend that rewards a slightly longer yield, around 1:2.2, to open the acidity up rather than fight it.
Either way, the method doesn't change. Fix the dose, fix the yield, taste, and move the grinder. The triangle is the same on every machine; only the target moves.