Hi there, this is my first time posting on this forum but I've enjoyed perusing its wealth as I've gotten into roasting and espresso over the last year or so. I've recently acquired an Astoria CKX and have been pleased with the results I've been getting with the coffee from our local roasters in Sacramento. I've been roasting for about 9 months now for drip coffee, but whenever I try my beans in my espresso machine, it gushes through in about 13 seconds. I would get 20-30 second shots with the good coffee, but with mine the shots just gush. I've tried resting the beans different amount of times, from a day to a week. I've tried to change the grind, and I've changed the dose between 18g-21g and no difference. Does anyone know why such a big discrepancy would happen between home-roast and professional?

I'm roasting with a Behmor 160 (not a plus), with 1/2# charges. With any coffee I've roasted I've gotten the same results espresso-wise. I generally roast with P2 B on the 1/2# setting. Something that might or might not be related: I try to roast C+/FC, but in order to get the color I want, I have to stop the roast pretty quickly into 1C, rarely going past 45 seconds. But I've heard of people roasting 2 minutes in and still getting light roasts.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Lucas

I would hesitate to blame a roaster for your espresso gushers other than the fact that lighter roasts require a finer grind; maybe you could try grind even finer than you've yet tried.

Also, I don't want to point the blame at your grinder, but if you are grinding as fine as you can and you are still getting gushers on that Astoria then the grinder isn't up to the task, it could simply be out of alignment or the stepped adjustment isn't precise enough.

Thanks for the input. I'll try the finest grind at a high dose and see what happens in the morning. I have an Rr45 that I got off craigslist and put a new set of burrs in. I took off the hopper and feed the exact amount of beans I want directly into the grinder. But I've heard that the pressure of the beans in a full hopper affects grind as well, but to this extent?

Agreed with Dominick, definitely a grinder issue. Can you go to the finest (zero) with burrs rubbing? If you back off slightly from that zero and the grind doesn't choke your Astoria, your burrs may have not been installed properly. There may be some bean fragments or gunk when you installed the burrs, thus making then out of alignment.

There is no mention of the type of greens used and the source of it as well. Very old greens will gush through I think regardless of roaster used.

Pulled a shot this morning at the finest setting on my RR45 with 21g coffee and it took 18 seconds. Definitely better than before but not in the 25 sec range I'm hoping for. I also notice that it took about 9 sec to start dripping, but then it gushes for 10 seconds.

The beans I'm using right now are Kenyan from sweet Maria's that I got at the beginning of summer.

The weirdest thing to me is that pro-roasted beans give me good results.

ckx_dude wrote: I'm roasting with a Behmor 160 (not a plus), with 1/2# charges. With any coffee I've roasted I've gotten the same results espresso-wise. I generally roast with P2 B on the 1/2# setting. Something that might or might not be related: I try to roast C+/FC, but in order to get the color I want, I have to stop the roast pretty quickly into 1C, rarely going past 45 seconds. But I've heard of people roasting 2 minutes in and still getting light roasts.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Lucas

This is way too light. You're roasting in the Cinnamon territory. City roasts start right when first crack ends and on my behmor that takes about 1:30 minutes and you're at half that. I would go much longer and see if it improves to what you're seeing from your local roaster.

You might have not stored the green beans well or your grinder cant handle the super light roasts. Color by itself is not a good metric to measure a roast, especially a very dense and high grown Kenyan.

Lucas,

So what type of coffee do you get from your neighborhood roaster and what type of coffee are you roasting at home? This is almost certainly a grinder issue. I usually keep at least two types of beans at home for my enjoyment. I currently have a Kona and a Sumatran Mandheling. I have an Ascaso I -2 mini grinder (infinite burr adjustment) and usually make four full turns on the adjustment wheel when I change from one bean to another. Four turns on my grinder is the difference between a 28 second shot and a 14 second shot. The two coffees I mentioned are from different regions and have different hardness, as well as the Sumatran has higher H2O content.

Good Luck

brianl wrote:This is way too light. You're roasting in the Cinnamon territory. City roasts start right when first crack ends and on my behmor that takes about 1:30 minutes and you're at half that. I would go much longer and see if it improves to what you're seeing from your local roaster.

You might have not stored the green beans well or your grinder cant handle the super light roasts. Color by itself is not a good metric to measure a roast, especially a very dense and high grown Kenyan.

Agreed, screams completely underdeveloped / not soluble enough for espresso. Kenyans can be notoriously hard to develop properly.

Sounds like you can buy quality fresh beans roasted and designed for espresso and pull nice shots, so there is definitely no need to go into the worry rabbit hole about your grinder.

JojoS wrote:There is no mention of the type of greens used and the source of it as well. Very old greens will gush through I think regardless of roaster used.

If that were the case OBJ and MM would be a real problem, but they're not?