Back to the grind!

Beginner and pro baristas share tips and tricks for making espresso.
Nonineto
Posts: 125
Joined: 9 years ago

#1: Post by Nonineto »

Hello fellow home baristas, I used to tinker around with my older espresso machine- it was an older vibiemme. I could never figure out why one in every 4 espresso shots would come out incredibly creamy and tasty.
So, upon reading thru this forum I discovered the pharos and the importance of the grind. So I'll cut to the chase- last night and this morning I was trying different grind settings going thru my La Pavoni,
My first 10 tries, either it was a major gusher- so I fined the grind- to my dismay the lever went up and did not come down.. too fine of course.
So this morning after multiple attempts I have a bit of progress, the lever was coming down with a little too much force- so I will coarse up the grind a bit on my next attempt tonight. I was reading thru Doug and Barb profiles and he mentions to turn the adjuster half way from zero, but I found its way too much force and i see grinds coming thru with the stream! ! To fine I assume and the lever doesn't even Come down anymore at that setting.
Patience is a virtue..
I'll check back later on, thanks for reading.

emradguy
Supporter ♡
Posts: 914
Joined: 10 years ago

#2: Post by emradguy »

Glad to see you're now a believer! I think once you get your Pharos broken in and you get used to it, you're going to love it...at least for the coffee it produces.

Definitely can be hard to dial in a new grinder though, so you may want to do a burr "break-in" with either minute rice or cheap beans.

Aside from that, sometimes, if your distribution technique is off, you end up chasing the grind setting in circles (like a dog chasing his tail). To help prevent this, make sure your distribution is good and that your extraction is even (at least when you're close to being at the right setting) before changing the setting. In other words, make sure the error in extraction is coming from an incorrect grind setting and NOT suboptimal distribution, before you make an adjustment to your grinder.

(assumption is you're using freshly roasted beans)
LMWDP #748