Can't pull proper 32g double - help w/ diagnosis? - Page 2
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- Posts: 7
- Joined: 9 years ago
Progress - found some recent beans at Central Market (Java Pura Espresso Blend, roasted 2/23 - I think that's a Houston roaster so it must come on trucks from the HEB system fairly often). I didn't think bean freshness would matter that much on shot volume (before the Internet and explosion in roasters, I would think most home espresso makers were using much older beans than that?), but I'm glad to find some fresh beans just in case.
2E - 16g on .01g scale - twice in a row, no liquid at all. Wasn't sure if the screen was clogged, may have over-tightened the adjustment screw? Flushed for a bit, wiped like a bandit, etc.. Ran once for 15S with blind basket just in case.
2V - 15.32g@26S - 26g in the cup. Not great but drinkable, on par with the last double I got at Whole Foods from their coffee bar. Might have been ill-advised to drink an almost-double at 10PM, but I was excited to get closer to 'right.'
Looks like I'll need to move to the 3A range, but I'm going to make a few more shots at this setting in the morning to see if it's consistent.
2E - 16g on .01g scale - twice in a row, no liquid at all. Wasn't sure if the screen was clogged, may have over-tightened the adjustment screw? Flushed for a bit, wiped like a bandit, etc.. Ran once for 15S with blind basket just in case.
2V - 15.32g@26S - 26g in the cup. Not great but drinkable, on par with the last double I got at Whole Foods from their coffee bar. Might have been ill-advised to drink an almost-double at 10PM, but I was excited to get closer to 'right.'
Looks like I'll need to move to the 3A range, but I'm going to make a few more shots at this setting in the morning to see if it's consistent.
- csepulv
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Is it possible to post a video? Also, do you have a bottomless portafilter? I am speculating, but I am guessing you might be getting significant channeling, in which case you will get an uneven extraction.
Chris
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Yes, it does.milosz wrote: I didn't think bean freshness would matter that much on shot volume (before the Internet and explosion in roasters, I would think most home espresso makers were using much older beans than that?),
And yes, most were, and getting subpar espresso as a result.
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- Posts: 426
- Joined: 10 years ago
I recently acquired a Vario too and a few things to note:
- There seems to be an overlap between the coarse ranges, so that the end of the coarse-2 range can be coarser than the beginning of coarse-3 for example.
- Always go finer with the grinder on; but even then, I got strange results (choked my machine around 2A, and wanted to go coarser, but apparently grind didn't really change until I was in the middle of range 3, and then all of a sudden I got a gusher. So I got finer, and progressively got shorter shots until I was back at the beginning of coarse-2). So there seems to be a bit of lag in the settings; when in doubt, pull a second shot instead of wildly varying grind.
- On some Varios (mine included), levers are a bit slack and grind settings can change when grinding. If this happens Baratza will send you silicon shims for free if asked for. I've asked but it looks like the shims just got lost in transit In the mean time just to be sure I actively hold the levers while grinding. I'll try asking for the shims again.
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- Posts: 29
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I went through this when I first got my espresso gear. Wasted many lbs of coffee. This is what I learned:milosz wrote:Beans were the freshest at Whole Foods - 2 weeks post-roast from a local roaster. . .
Always measured 16.5g in portafilter (as the first was 16.5g and I just stuck with it). Got wildly crazy results at #2-3 on the Vario - full coffee cups, almost. . .
My first worry is about the grind - if I'm only in the ballpark at 1C, that doesn't leave much room for change with other beans
I assume my tamping was an issue, but I tamped several times on a scale just to get a feel for what ~30 pounds of pressure felt like - with my natural push I was ~34#. . .
Another flaw in methodology was that my scale only runs to .5g - it's my larger baking scale, but my current .1g scale can't hold a portafilter.
- Use fresh beans ~ 1 week from roast. As the beans oxidize they become more "porous" to the water. But the relationship is not linear. I've found day 1-2 there is a lot of resistance to flow but it eases up gradually each day until about 2 weeks post roast. Sometime after that the resistance to flow decreases more and more each day. So by using older beans, you are in effect chasing a rapidly moving target. You may have to tighten up the grind daily. Using commercial beans e.g. Illy, Lavaza etc. is the most difficult to dial in because they change so rapidly after opening the bag/can. It's not that 2 week old beans are not drinkable, it's just more difficult to dial in.
- Use the 0.1 g scale. Put a small tray/tupperware on the scale and balance the PF on that. Or measure out the ground coffee in a container and pour it into the PF. The key to consistency is eliminating as many variables as you can. 16.5 g reading on the baking scale means in reality the differences from dose to dose might be as much as +/- 0.5 g.
- It can take me 2-3 shots for my Vario to settle into consistent shots (20 g dose) if I'm continuously feeding beans through a full hopper. If you change your grind after just weighing 1 shot you will be wasting a lot of coffee overshooting the target high, then low, then high, then low. If you're dialing in a brand new coffee, I like to weigh and single dose beans into the grinder until I am in the ballpark. I can then make big adjustments to the grind running the Vario empty. It minimizes waste and sink shots.
- Tamp firmly, but don't worry too much about it. Once I went beyond around 20 lbs, it made very little difference. 30 lbs, 40 lbs, 50 lbs all came out pretty much the same.
- Use WDT with a toothpick or paperclip. Channeling caused by bad distribution makes a huge difference.
- Freeze your unused fresh beans. I don't use a ton of coffee so to preserve it longer I only fill the hopper with what I need for 1-3 days and freeze the rest. I've found that freezing preserves the flavor and also the porosity. I can take a month or more going through a bag of beans without having to change the grinder setting much. Let frozen beans thaw overnight before grinding. Frozen beans may grind differently than thawed.