Dialling in

adrian522

OK, quick one for you espresso nerds.

Youve got a new bag of espresso from your favourite roaster, you grind up say 18g and pull a shot but it almost chokes the machine, taking maybe 45 seconds to produce any decent amount of coffee so you need to make an adjustment.

Do you

a. Grind a little bit coarser
b. Reduce the amount of coffee in the grinder
c. a combination of the 2

I would usually have gone with the idea of adjusting the grind but today I'm thinking of messing with the dose size rather than the grinder settings.

Thoughts?

Gran Hermano

I prefer to keep as many variables as possible constant (water/coffee) and tweak the grind.

llatsni

Sometimes I find it necessary to adjust the dose (made a big difference with Hasbeans Cinnamon house blend)... but usually the grind is enough.

As Gran Hermano said the more variables you keep static the better... and there are a huge amount of them:
Water quality, water temp, group temp, portafilter temp, bean freshness, grind, dose, tamp, brew pressure, time.

donnacha

I tend to adjust both the grind time (I use a vario and always dump the whole bag straight into the hopper) and secondly grind size.

Normally takes me three shots to get the dose weight and extraction time right.

If your weighing prior to grinding then the only thing I'd change is the grind size.

aristotle25

I always just reduce the grind coarseness.

I try to keep the volume of ground beans, water temp (done via surfing), and tamping techniques consistent.

Mr Magnolia

There's certainly a sound logic to keeping as many variables as fixed as possible. Saying that, if I find it very choked, I'll tend to dial coarser and drop down to roughly 17g to steady the ship with minimal wastage.