Hey everyone, this is my first post in the forums. I've been at the espresso thing for about 1.5 years now. Started out with a Gaggia Classic w/ PID, and now I've worked my way up to a Rocket Cellini Premium Plus V3 (had for about 5 months now) and a Baratza Vario (had for almost a year). Within the last week, I finally got around to getting a bottomless portafilter. I had one on my Gaggia, but obviously it did not fit the Rocket.

Over the course of the year that I had my Gaggia, I was plagued with shots that were all over the place in regards to temperature, and really bad channeling. And it seems I'm having the same issues (1.5 years later!!!) with my Rocket. My shots taste incredible (having added Eric's thermometer a couple days ago) so taste isn't an issue. Which, if my shots taste fine, who cares, I guess, but its not exactly fun watching espresso spray and gush everywhere (it puts a bad taste in my mouth from the start --pun intended).

I'll give an overview of my process for shot preparation: machine fully warmed up, weigh out 18.0g of beans on scale, throw into grinder, and grind directly into portafilter. Then use a toothpick to break up any clumps and get everything fluffed up. Then I knock the sides of my portafilter and knock it on the table to get everything settled in. Then, tamp (using my Reg Barber C-Ripple tamper) the grounds with around 30+ lbs of pressure, and a quick polish. Then do my quick flush and pull the shot. I've experimented with pre-infusion with my shots, tamping more, tamping less, tightening the grind, loosening grind. They only thing I haven't really done as of late is changed the dose.

I've attached some videos below. It's just extremely frustrating, because my shots aren't just spewing out and filling up a 3oz cup in 12 seconds, they are flowing at a good rate, and actually struggling to hit 2oz in even 30 seconds. They look good from the start, but then just degrade exponentially. Beans aren't the issue I don't think. I get my beans from a local shop that roasts, and these beans were roasted 5 days ago. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Shot 1 Shot 2 Shot 3 Shot 4

I'm thinking you need new burrs or something, because all of those shots look too fast. Also, I hear the Vario isn't great for single dosing, I put a day's dose of beans in my Major, then weigh the grinds after they are in the PF.. a tad bit more margin for waste, but it's quicker and efficient.

I agree that the shots are running too fast and seem to blond early, not sure on the burrs but poor basket prep especially when single dosing can also cause the issues you are experiencing.

Well are they really running that fast? That little glass is 2 ounces, and its barely hitting 1.5oz in ~25 seconds on most those shots. It seems like they are running fine for like 10 seconds, then they just go crazy. I hadn't thought about new burrs yet, since its only a year old and on average maybe 3-5 shots a day.

By running fast what I meant was that in conjunction with the blonding and spritzers is that there is bad channeling. How much are you dosing in the basket and instead of going by volume in the glass try weighing the output instead, 18gr in / 36gr out. Have you also tried filling the hopper some and dosing that way? I still think the biggest problem is the basket prep.

I haven't tried filling the hopper yet. I just find it easier to weigh out a single dose instead of doing it by time. But I can try it. And I have no clue about my basket prep. I thought I was fairly decent with my distribution and tamping. It can't be that hard can it!?!

Generally speaking it isn't that hard, consistency is the key. Are you using VST baskets by any chance? Have you tried WDT, NSEW or nutation? The only thing that causes what I saw is channeling and channeling is a basket prep problem.

I'd also like to see you give it a go with a hopper half full. I have been switching between single dosing and hopper feeding lately and My results have been better with beans in the hopper. Give it a shot. Make sure you double check that you're actually getting your dose right though.

NightFlight wrote:Generally speaking it isn't that hard, consistency is the key. Are you using VST baskets by any chance? Have you tried WDT, NSEW or nutation? The only thing that causes what I saw is channeling and channeling is a basket prep problem.

+1 to NightFlight's comments. Take a look at this:

/weiss-dist ... nique.html

You are right - basket prep is not hard, but from the videos, it looks like there are a couple of things you might try. One is WDT. The other is to look at the pattern of beads that appear just as the coffee appears on the bottom of the portafilter. In every video the beads first appear on the left side of the portafilter first, and in none of them do the beads appear at the same time all across the portafilter. I can think of two reasons for this. First, you might think if you put extra pressure on the left side of the basket when you tamp? Also, for some reason are you ending up with a pile of ground coffee in the basket on the right side that makes the coffee more dense there? On a great day, all the little beads appear at exactly the same time all across the portafilter bottom. My experience has been that WDT really can help with this. Yes, it takes a little more time to twizzle the needle around in the basket, and you might have to go buy a yogurt at the grocery store (I actually do fine without the trip to the grocery), but after all, we are not in a high volume situation, and in most cases, we only have one shot (hahaha) to get it right, so a few more seconds spent on prep can be worth the effort.

The other thing I see that makes me think it is a basket prep issue is that, looking at the pattern of beads that appear, you can see there are places where beads never seem to appear (until the separate streams combine, and even in some cases, there still is never liquid appearing in those places. Those also appear to be the places where channels and the spurting is coming from. If the coffee is uniformly distributed across the basket, that tends to get rid of the issue.

Go dig around and find a sewing needle or unbend a paper clip and after you put the dose in your portafilter try swizzling the needle around until you have a wonderful basket full of fluffy, evenly distributed grounds. Tamp it down with about 30 lbs of pressure evenly, let off all of the pressure and give the tamper a polishing spin, chuck it up, flip the lever and see what you see at the bottom of the pf just as the beads begin to appear. I bet you a Starbucks it will be better

Brad

NightFlight wrote:Generally speaking it isn't that hard, consistency is the key. Are you using VST baskets by any chance? Have you tried WDT, NSEW or nutation? The only thing that causes what I saw is channeling and channeling is a basket prep problem.

Okay I threw the rest of my beans in the hopper and pulled a couple shots. Definitely better, but still some blonding and thinning towards the end. But I don't know if this is me just paying more attention to the basket, or if the hopper half full actually helped haha.