Extraction question ...

[thejavaman]

MP, some good advice in the thread, so re-read it a couple of times, however there is some advice I don't full agree with.

Myself, I constantly play grind against dose weight (nearly every single shot). That means I adjust my grind and I adjust the amount of beans going in to the PF. Why? One thing you can be sure of with coffee, it gets a day older every day and that is enough for you to have to adjust something if you want to 'control' the coffee.

Specific to espresso, humidity changes by the hour (or minute) depending on what's going on in your kitchen/house will impact your shot. If you want to 'control' the coffee you have to adjust for humidity.

Now on to the key point of my post, rather than control the coffee, try to learn the coffee. To learn it you have to play the variables against each other, one at a time initially until you get a feel for what a specific adjustment does to that specific batch. Then, as you become more comfortable (and this might take months or years) you can adjust two or more variables at a time in order to move the coffee in a direction you want to, or see where IT takes YOU.

Personally, I'm more than comfortable simultaneously adjusting grind, dose weight, temp, shot time and resulting volume on a shot to shot basis. More commonly, I will just modify dose weight and the resulting volume (killing the shot when it lets me know it should be stopped). Because that last sentence was super important, I'll say it again, in a different way - my typical default one variable move will be to only modify the amount of grind ending up in the PF. The best advice I can give you today is... break out a gram scale and start weighing your beans on a one shot basis, do it for the next month, you will learn a lot. For this exercise you will want to follow this example... put a little cup on your gram scale, tare it out to zero, put in 18gms of beans, pour those beans into an empty grinder, complete the grind, dose into PF, pull the shot. Leave the grind alone and for the next shot put 17gms into the PF. Etc. Etc. Etc. Each shot gets an individually weighed bean amount for the next month.

During the next month you will learn that eyeballing an amount of ground coffee in a PF isn't the best approach, different beans weigh and distribute differently. Throw the different grind settings into the fray and you will quickly realize that eyeballing isn't a best practice and that's all I will say on that.

Within a month you will be able to connect a few dots and develop some trends.

FWIW.

While you are reading this, you might as well enjoy the shot I pulled an hour ago, from a 10 day old blend(and yes it required dose adjustment).  ;-)

I think we need to start a "staylor gives lessons" thread like the BW one we already have in place!   

[Tex]

How are your burrs?

Good point. Dull burrs will produce more fines, and to counter this you'll try to grind coarser. Remove the top burr carrier and drag your thumbnail across the edges. If the burr digs into the nail they're still sharp. Also look for nicks & grooves in the burr edges - these will also contribute to an excess of fines.

[John F]

My friend JohnF (who has drank hundreds of my shots, both good and bad) would probably have an opinion on all of this and might have a different angle on my approach to things.

plus it hopefully drives John to the brink of madness knowing I'm not going to relent until he gets his butt up here to Canada for a visit, hahaha!

1) I do have an opinion and (as you might guess it's super long and a lot more than the OP is actually asking for)  

I see what has been written so far and it's some good info but if you follow me I'd prefer to answer a post like this one with the two concepts of a) people reaching independent equilibriums with coffee and b) in this extremely important quote:

..try to learn the coffee.

My reason is that we are actually talking about the validity of adjusting grind....

Think about that for a second.......

So I can't think of much to add here that would help any more.


2) Your pics from Banff hurt me in the gut. 

It's going to take me a little time to get organized here but when I get my act together you can bet I'll be up there to stay in my guest suite and drink 40-50 4 ozer's with ya. 

[staylor]

How are your burrs?

Good point. Dull burrs will produce more fines, and to counter this you'll try to grind coarser. Remove the top burr carrier and drag your thumbnail across the edges. If the burr digs into the nail they're still sharp. Also look for nicks & grooves in the burr edges - these will also contribute to an excess of fines.

Peter and Tex, dull burrs are always a good consideration except in this case I think. MP went off to another province (to eat Alberta beef), and when he got back he was talking about a radical difference. Now unless someone snuck into his house and ran a couple of hundred pounds of beans through his grinder, I don't think it is burr related as burrs dull gradually. One day it was working, the next day it wasn't = not burr related.

[staylor]

2) Your pics from Banff hurt me in the gut. 

It's going to take me a little time to get organized here but when I get my act together you can bet I'll be up there to stay in my guest suite and drink 40-50 4 ozer's with ya. 

Perfect... mission successful. ;-)

[John F]

One day it was working, the next day it wasn't = not burr related.

I am so tempted to tell this joke...  

To the burrs I say:

Dave Matthews Band The Space Between HD HQ

[staylor]

Dave, rocking it!

[John F]

Dave, rocking it!

The space between....   

[mp]

How are your burrs?

Honestly ... I know they are in there.

 

[mp]

Coarser grind as in visually coarser, or coarser as in the grinder setting - it's an important distinction.

If it's just grinder setting you are talking about, perhaps something shifted mechanically and you are now gradually adjusting your grind back to what it was previously. In other words, something shifted mechanically and is providing too tight of a grind and you are taking your time inching your way back to a correct grind setting.

If the coffee is visibly coarser than you normally would be grinding for espresso (let's say it's grinding huge boulder sized grounds), you could set that coffee aside, throw a blind PF into your grouphead and activate your pump to see how high the pressure gets (does it reach your normal pressure).

Shaun ... that is a might good question and point you are making.  Truthfully I never inspect the size of the granules with my hands.  I just assume that a courser setting would make the grinds come out courser and a finer setting would make them come out finer.  

Although I have a pressure gauge it does not work right ... I can have no faith in the numbers displayed coming out of it.

I did one time change the size of the grind so that I could grind some coffee for Mrs. mp as coarsely as possible for drip coffee to take to work with her and then dialed it back.  On a step less dial it takes forever to do that and I do not think I will do that again.  I am, at one point, going to get that Baratza grinder for drip.  That change in burr positioning might be coming home to roost now I am thinking.

 

[mp]

How are your burrs?

Good point. Dull burrs will produce more fines, and to counter this you'll try to grind coarser. Remove the top burr carrier and drag your thumbnail across the edges. If the burr digs into the nail they're still sharp. Also look for nicks & grooves in the burr edges - these will also contribute to an excess of fines.

Hmm ... that is a scary thought ... I never checked the burrs in Junior.

 

[mp]

How are your burrs?

Good point. Dull burrs will produce more fines, and to counter this you'll try to grind coarser. Remove the top burr carrier and drag your thumbnail across the edges. If the burr digs into the nail they're still sharp. Also look for nicks & grooves in the burr edges - these will also contribute to an excess of fines.

Peter and Tex, dull burrs are always a good consideration except in this case I think. MP went off to another province (to eat Alberta beef), and when he got back he was talking about a radical difference. Now unless someone snuck into his house and ran a couple of hundred pounds of beans through his grinder, I don't think it is burr related as burrs dull gradually. One day it was working, the next day it wasn't = not burr related.

Yeah ... I did leave the house at 17 degrees Celsius when I left the house to conserve gas (hopefully high enough to keep the plants alive) whereas I normally keep it not lower than 19.  Would that have made a huge difference to the burrs ... or would it be that change I made a few months back setting the grinder to the most course setting and then back again to pull shots of espresso.

I did not get to sample some AAA Alberta beef.   

I was looking forward to sampling some of my step son's natural deer meat ... but he told me that he did not make it in time to the butcher and had to dispose of it. 

I am thinking it may have been the massive shift of the burrs to course and then back over to espresso size.  Just funny how it took many months to show up this way.

 

[staylor]

I am thinking it may have been the massive shift of the burrs to course and then back over to espresso size.  Just funny how it took many months to show up this way.

 

Unlikely.

In this order:

- Get a whiteout pen and dab a little dot on your grinder ring.

- Now take a piece of tape and mark where your grinder setting is at right now.

- Rotate your ring a LARGE amount towards a coarse setting. Grab another piece of tape and mark that point.

- Measure out 17gms, grind, pull a shot using 17gms in a double basket.

- Time it.

- If it pulls under 20secs, that's good, if it's over 20secs readjust it towards coarser.

- Repeat the above step, marking each adjustment with the second piece of tape, until the shot is pulling at 20secs, using ONLY 17gms.

- Eventually you will know your low point on your grinder ring and high point on your grinder ring - for espresso.

- Leave the tape in place.

- Now start adjusting your grind towards a finer grind, USING ONLY 17gms, until you get approx a 28sec shot.

As soon as you finish this last step you are GENERALLY in the right area to start finessing your shots. You can adjust the dose weight, 19gms, 16gms, whatever. You can adjust the grind. You can adjust the resulting shot volume, etc, etc.

[mp]

I am thinking it may have been the massive shift of the burrs to course and then back over to espresso size.  Just funny how it took many months to show up this way.

 

Unlikely.

In this order:

- Get a whiteout pen and dab a little dot on your grinder ring.

- Now take a piece of tape and mark where your grinder setting is at right now.

- Rotate your ring a LARGE amount towards a coarse setting. Grab another piece of tape and mark that point.

- Measure out 17gms, grind, pull a shot using 17gms in a double basket.

- Time it.

- If it pulls under 20secs, that's good, if it's over 20secs readjust it towards coarser.

- Repeat the above step, marking each adjustment with the second piece of tape, until the shot is pulling at 20secs, using ONLY 17gms.

- Eventually you will know your low point on your grinder ring and high point on your grinder ring - for espresso.

- Leave the tape in place.

- Now start adjusting your grind towards a finer grind, USING ONLY 17gms, until you get approx a 28sec shot.

As soon as you finish this last step you are GENERALLY in the right area to start finessing your shots. You can adjust the dose weight, 19gms, 16gms, whatever. You can adjust the grind. You can adjust the resulting shot volume, etc, etc.

Ok ... thanks ... I'll try that tomorrow.

 

[mp]

Ok ... update.  Today I pulled another shot ... I tamped very lightly ... it poured well.  The next shot I pulled I tamped a bit firmer than normal and it was a little slow.  I made one more revolution to the coarser side for the next day's extraction.  When looking at the dial on my La Cimbali Junior it was at 3.5 and pulled good shots just over 2 weeks ago.  This morning it was reading 4.25.  Now this may not seem much of an increase but those of you with a stepless grinder will know that is a lot of revolutions later.  I am very surprised at the difference of the setting needed.  The other thing that came through louder and clearer than ever before is that the pressure you use for the tamp ultimately reflects the flow rate of the coffee.  Never before was the relationship of the fineness of the grind and the pressure of the tamp so clearly revealed to me as this exercise demonstrated.

Espresso pulling ... who said that this was not a fine art?