I have a new Mazzer Mini grinder and a Starbuck's Barista machine. I've used Vivace Vita as my primary bean, and found it really easy to dial in (about 4 clicks finer than the center point). This gives me good crema although I think my pours are still pretty fast (2oz in about 15 seconds). However, the result tastes great and does not seem watery to me, so I'm pretty satisfied.

I recently couldn't make it over to Vivace's and had to buy some emergency beans: Peet's Garuda Blend. I am not getting hardly any crema and my pours are very watery, even though I've increased the fineness of the grind at least 10 ticks on my Mazzer. I don't detect any sourness or bitterness, but it just tastes flat.

Another interesting difference is that the Vivace pucks were very dense and the Peet pucks seem pretty crumbly even with the finer grind.

I suppose it could be the beans, but I just want to make sure I'm understand how to dial in a new bean.

Thanks,
Anthony

That is a very tell-tell sign of some old coffee. If you use a blend that is high in monsooned beans, it will also take a finer grind than normal, but still produce huge amounts of crema.



Fresh Coffee



Fresh Coffee




Freshly opened old coffee from a mega chain coffee shop.

Thanks for the help.

Unfortunately, my main problem was that I misunderstood which way to move the grinder setting on my new Mini. I was actually grinding coarser when I thought I was grinding finer. I began to realize when I moved 30(!) ticks from the initial setting and (a) I wasn't getting the burrs to touch and (b) the resulting ground beans were feeling like sand and not like velvet.

After reviewing the "how to dial in a new machine thread" I learned I should find a grind fine enough to choke the espresso machine, and then work back from there, testing each grind for bitterness or sourness. Now I am very close to "golden rule" parameters. The final setting was, oh, about 1 tick to LEFT of the initial setting.

I picked up some other beans yesterday to perform these tests. I'll try the Peets and see if it is indeed stale tomorrow.

What a great learning experience.

Thanks again.