The new PID allows 1°F adjustments and has changes in response characteristics.

Sweet. I wonder if we have to pay for it

We are working on it...........................

- had forgotten that the original Vibiemme DD steam tip was 2 holes - also measured the small steam boiler recovery time this morning and it was only about 30 seconds - thanks for the responses

stefano65 wrote:We are working on it...........................

Stefan - thank you for all your work on this - I know both you and Jim have been very proactive with Vibiemme and I do appreciate your efforts on behalf of us all - suggest next projects include a detailed manual - I watch people new to high end machines really struggle and for the most part make not very good coffee - for example the DD comes with no discussion on the offset between boiler and group - if a new owner was not on the forums they would be in trouble - I recently watched a new owner of a Vivaldi 11 and Macap M4 pulling aweful 12 second shots without knowing better - I dialed the machine in for him and when finished he said "so this is what it is supposed to taste like!" New users having this kind of struggle hurts "the cause." So once again - thank you, (and Jim and the Home Barista team and forum posters) for your efforts to move things in the direction of goodness.

Yes you are right
the manual is also in the queue
I did personally a little addition here
http://espressocare.com/PDF-Files...20instructions.pdf
but is not a complete one

Heh.

Last call for me if there are any good ideas left for trying to determine if my grinder is really the culprit in my extraction woes..

Summary, after scale, always seem to be 18g doses, and about every 10th pull or so I get a decent shot, but mostly I get thin, and light colored pulls.

Several changes.. temp went higher, I was educated on pre-infusion time for my machine so pull times were adjusted for that, more even 'distribution'/leveling, no screen contact when locking in PF.

But I still get very blah results more often than not.

(It is interesting to note new PID and other changes, but I think they are likely better served in a separate thread, but then I could be very selfish wanting info about *my* problem.. .It's all about me afterall!)

Buzzmc - As a fellow Bay Area coffee lover I can share my experience with the VB DD - I have one of the first units to arrive still with the small steam boiler and a Macap M4 Stepless - I use a La Marzocco ridgeless basket which I fill evenly and level - the tamped (using ESPRO 58mm Flat Tamper with 30 lb calibrated tamping pressure) puck clears the shower screen - about a 16 gram dose (I no longer weigh the the dose) - we grind for a 25 - 35 second shot from the time the pump starts (room temperature influences the grind) - we have been matching the flavor profiles from a meticulously dialed in La Marzocco 2 group machine belonging to a high end roaster that also roasts for the French Laundry - getting very consistent results with the VB DD - so I want you to be encouraged that you can get to where you want from where you are - I don't know where you are struggling exactly - however assuming great beans I can tell you that the grinder really, really matters - the La Marzocco basket made a difference to my taste - but that may be me chasing the profiles from the calibrated La Marzocco that also calibrates my palette - anyhow - all the best - cheers etc.

stefano65 wrote:Yes you are right
the manual is also in the queue
I did personally a little addition here
http://espressocare.com/PDF-Files...20instructions.pdf
but is not a complete one

Thanks - have these - btw - do you have photographs of the inside of the new version of the vibe pump VB DD - would like to see the positioning of the larger steam boiler - I will do the upgrade sooner or later - cheers

buzzmc wrote:Heh.

Last call for me if there are any good ideas left for trying to determine if my grinder is really the culprit in my extraction woes..

Summary, after scale, always seem to be 18g doses, and about every 10th pull or so I get a decent shot, but mostly I get thin, and light colored pulls.

Assuming you are not trying to pull shot after shot after shot in short order. Doing so will cool the bottom of the boiler and you'll end up with cool shots, which could account for the light color.

Stale coffee can deliver weak thin shots. Some coffees are only good for a week after roast.

The ground coffee should feel like fine sugar and stick between your fingers.

IMO, 18g is too much. 16 is about as much as I go on a double with quality fresh coffee. Grind finer, tamp lightly. When you get 60 ml in 30s after the first drop, you're in the ball park.

OK, then two more questions, since I was an adopter of a 30-40 pound / firm tamp... How soft is a soft tamp? Just enough pressure to level out the puck?

And, if you're dispensing into the pf, how on earth do you measure out 16g of coffee and then distribute? I just dispense into the PF now, and distribute/level the coffee.. It just works out to be 18g.

With my MC4, and current batch of Supreme Bean Ring of Fire, 10.5 seconds gives me 10±0.3g for a single. Note : If the grinder has sat for a while, before the next shot I run the grinder 1.5s and clear the detritus from the chute. 16.0s gives 15.7±0.3g for a double. A similar timing precision should be as accurate on the Mini E.

When dialing in a blend, I grind into a small jigger or cocktail shaker and adjust the coffee mass therein. After weighing, dump directly into PF. Note : a new blend takes more than 3 shots as I explore multiple grinds and doses.

Tamping is usually just a flattening of the coffee, < 5#.

Tamp <5 lbs.



Ok.

For purposes of furthering my 'grinder' testing I'll does into something else and weigh.

I'll go a click finer, rest the tamper on the top of the already leveled grinds, and blow hard on the top o fthe tamper

We'll see what happens over the next few days.

Thanks!

(oh, and now I know why 'timed' grinders are useful)

buzzmc wrote:(oh, and now I know why 'timed' grinders are useful)

Just this morning I changed blends in MaxH from Delta Caffe Espresso to Supreme Bean Caffe del Norte. At the same grind setting, 10g is now delivered in 5.2s instead of 6.7s

cafeIKE wrote:Just this morning I changed blends in MaxH from Delta Caffe Espresso to Supreme Bean Caffe del Norte. At the same grind setting, 10g is now delivered in 5.2s instead of 6.7s

That's an impressive difference.

Tonight will be the first 1 tick finer, very light tamp experiment. I might try to dose into something and measure weight as well, but I'm so opposed to that for some reason (convenience I'm sure), that its likely to be on the weekend list of things to try.... We'll see tho.

Certainly plenty of barista still to go, but providing it is the grinder then even the best skilled barista's going to be limited in their results.

In a ton of reading it appears that Conical burr grinders top the charts in taste and repeatability/consistency... A 'generalization', but one that's well over 50% true, even if the Rocky beat the Robur in the titan tests... I'll take consistency over a poor shot one pull and an unbelievable god shot the next, providing the consistency is good or better.

All that least me to wonder what I should look at for a new grinder.

What I want to love: The Versalab M3. What I'm worried about: Finickyness and customer service. So I think this is likely not the grinder for me, even if I love the doserless nature of the beast, and its "form and function" appeal.

What I think to be a clear winner: The Max Hybrid. It seems to have it all except looks... and in the looks category isn't far from ugly, so it's not a big concern. And saves a ton of money.

The only question left (unless I've missed something dramatic here or mis-stated something) would be what y'all think about the grinding speed issue. It would appear that even better tastes are realized from slower speed grinders. Can anyone quantify that? I was surprised to see the 1400rpm speed of the MaxH however, and it's provided enough pause for me to write this.

Fiorenzato Conico.

And it's arrived. yay. Went thru 2 bags of coffee in like 45 minutes. Had to go buy 5 more bags.

Grinder build/etc is all good. it's loud startup due to utilizing a capacitor, but it runs pretty quiet. At much finer than I'm used to grind settings it seems this grinder grinds clumpy... Not sure if that's normal, but the grind was almost a powder. At a setting closer to my old grinder there's not much in the way of clumpiness, so that's good.

The bad.... Nothing much has changed. I pulled one good shot, at least to the eye.. But it was for my sisters latte, so I didn't even get to taste it. She remarked that the latte was superior/best ever.. So I think it was likely a good shot..

I need to go back and read some stuff on grind quality in terms of fine-ness and try to analyze if I'm way off... But when I've ground finer I've always choked my machine....

for now... But a couple hours in the unskilled hands of me likely doesn't mean much yet... I'm just worried that I'm either an idiot (doh!), or that something else is wrong and i'll need more tools to diagnose things, like maybe the pressure being off on my machine or the temp, or something like that.

cafeIKE wrote:Just this morning I changed blends in MaxH from Delta Caffe Espresso to Supreme Bean Caffe del Norte. At the same grind setting, 10g is now delivered in 5.2s instead of 6.7s

Is that with only 10 g in the hopper (popcorn-mare), or with a fully loaded bean column?

I'm not suggesting that a grinder won't show significant variations in time vs. weight when the bean is changed (ground weight is clearly a function of time, bean size, and bean density, at a very minimum), but I am surprised by such a large variation... I would expect that popcorning would amplify the effect of bean size on tamping.

On the other hand, I am going to guess that you are using one of those enlargement timers to get these times, so I am probably wrong?

I abandoned grinding by dose a long while back. The MaxH finger-guard 'regulates' the bean column above the burrs. When I add coffee, I add it outside the finger-guard for consistency. I suppose one could block the bean entry gates and use the finder guard as a 'mini hopper'

As far as tamping, slightly more than the tamper weight is used. I'm just-a makin' da space.

We recently had a weather change here in SoCal. Grind time dropped to 5.0s from 5.3s for the duration of the Santa Ana's with the same batch of Supreme Bean Caffe di Norte. In the office, the MC4 time dropped from 10.5 to 10.0 for the duration using Supreme Bean Ring of Fire. Of course, it could have been the extra particulates from the fires

I use Saunders/LPL ET-500 timers. They'll go to 99.9s in 0.1s increments.