Hi,

Im new to this forum and just wanted to ask you guys if anybody has the same experience that I have after changing baskets. I have a Andreja Premium and I ordered a new tamper from Greg Pullman and with that also a La Marzocco basket. The tamper is great and fits like a glove to the basket. By the way its a flat tamper. I also have a Torr convex tamper that I had used with the original basket with no problems. I use the stockfleth method and fill the basket a little over the top and use the end of a lattespoon to get rid of eventual clumps.

Tamp just like I did with the original around 15 kg (30 lbs?) and polish the surface. Same grind and same beans. I weigh the basket after I had tamped and polished it and the weight was 20g and the original 19 g. And now the problem, every shot I have done with the LM has had a small hole at the side of the puck (channeling ?) big as a pencil tip. And the puck has been much harder to remove from the basket than the original one, with that you just whacked lightly against the knockbox and it let go, but with the LM I need around 2-3 hard ones the get it out.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Regards

/Siglo

Have you tried using your old tamper with the new basket?
Regards
Timo

No not yet, the Torr tamper doesnt fit the LM basket so good, theres a big gap. But I will try and see if the convex tamper does a better job. But I actually managed to get a better result by grinding a little finer. Maybe thats the solution. But it sounds a little strange that a different basket requires finer grinding.

Siglo wrote:But I actually managed to get a better result by grinding a little finer. Maybe thats the solution. But it sounds a little strange that a different basket requires finer grinding.

Doesn't sound too strange to me. AKAIK, different baskets are made with different manufacturing tolerances, leading to different size holes, and even different hole patterns. Some like a finer grind, some coarser. Experimentation is the key.

Good luck.

jrtatl wrote:Some like a finer grind, some coarser. Experimentation is the key.

Siglo:

I agree. When I jump back and forth between baskets (ridged, ridgeless) particularly when I move from double baskets to triple baskets, I need to modify my "routine" a little to produce the best result in the cup. A couple of things that might help you: try 17, 18 or 19 grams in the basket instead of your stated 20 grams. My Andreja starts to "complain" if I overdose the basket significantly (FWIW, so does my A3). Another thing that helped me was to utilize the "grind finer, tamp lighter" approach.

Play with it- experimentation in order to figure out what works the best for you personally is half the fun!

You might consider the "nutating motion".

I've found that helps quite a bit in most cases. Just be careful with it. You don't want to make the puck density uneven. Gentle nutating pressure is all that's needed to help prevent side-channeling.