for several months now, my rule of thumb has been that if my pour starts 10-13 seconds after turning on the pump (pressure ramps to 10lbs in 8secs), i would have a solid pour lasting about 30seconds in total (shooting for double ristrettos). recently, with sweet maria's moka kadir, i found that my pours wanted to start very late - as in 16-18 seconds after turning on the pump (and many times nothing within 20secs, when i would give up). if i adjusted the grind/tamp such that i got the pour to start at 11secs, it would speed up mid-way through, such that i had way too much coffee by 25secs. anybody have any idea what's going on?

the coffee was about 10-14days old as this happened to me. my grinder settings ended up much more coarse than what i'm used to. could my PF be so hot that the grinds melt/clog the pinholes before i even start? i'm stumped.

greg

How do the shots taste? Sometimes a 45 second pour is what you want.

taste was mixed... sometimes better than expected given how long the extraction took... sometimes it tasted overly cooked. sometimes i got nothing. however, i wasn't aware that a 45sec pour was at times ideal.

are you suggesting that sometimes the coffee will simply take longer to extract... and first drops at 16secs, and blonding at 45secs is sometimes appropriate? i know it depends on taste, but i'm trying to get the coffee to where it's supposed to be. if that's the case, great... i can work with that.

45 seconds can be ideal for a ristretto, but usually it's not. The point is that a given coffee, basket, and grinder gives you a fixed range of possibilities -- you can vary the dose, and you can vary the grind. Higher doses with coarser grinds tend to emphasize the aromas, acids, and sharp/bright bitter flavors (like wood or lemon peel); lower doses with finer grind emphasize the middle caramel flavors or deeper sulfurous roast flavors. Going more ristretto tends to do the same thing as dosing lower, but with added body, and a loss of clarity due to added overall bitterness.

If none of the dose and grind possibilities please you, change baskets. If you are using the stock E61 style, a good switch is to the La Marzocco style baskets, since these tend to flow more evenly, faster at the start and slower at the end.

so i finished the moka kadir, and have started on a new coffee, which is now back to a normal pour and finer grind setting (the moka kadir needed a very course setting and still took forever to start the pour). so, i am convinced that the coffee was simply unique vs. others i'm used to. maybe a different roast (seemed darker).


greg