I'm getting slightly frustrated, not at the testing and tuning i'm going through but at the fact i'm wasting so much coffee doing so!
Anyways i've been using the same coffee for quite some time, forget the name, just some prepackaged brand that came in a foil bag with a vent. At the recommendation at a few of the users here i decided to find a local roaster and buy some fresh beans to possibly help me with a few small issues I was having.
I am using a Lelit single boiler machine and baratza vario grinder. After some inital troubles I adjusted the grinder to grind finer using the allen key adjustment method. It worked out that I was grinding my original beans perfectly at the finest macro setting and mid point micro.

Today I came home filled with joy that I was going to get to try some fresh coffee. Emptied grinder, ran it to clean out the reminader of the beans and filled the hopper. I tried it at the very same setting I was previously using. First thing I noticed was that it wasn't filling the portafilter up nearly as much, probably because the grind was so much finer then before? Anyways i've adjusted and adjusted over and over playing with grind size and times and i've got to the point where I have adjusted the grind and entire macro setting and still cannot pull shots. The machine just runs and runs and very slowly drips out coffee.

Is it normal to have to make so much of an adjustment between beans? I've already tossed out 4 portafilters worth of good coffee and haven't even pulled anything that would resemble a decent shot.

Edit - Finally pulled a drinkable shot, 2 full macro adjustments down from my previous beans.

robbbby wrote:Is it normal to have to make so much of an adjustment between beans?

Yes. With experience you won't require as many "sink shot" adjustments for each new bag.

Stale coffee takes a tighter grind then fresh. As coffee ages you will have to tighten the grind setting. When going from a coffee of suspect freshness to a freshly roasted coffee, you may have to make a very large grind adjustment. Over time you learn where the generic starting point is on your grinder for a new batch of coffee and it only takes a couple shots to dial it in. You will probably have to make a drastic change in grind going from what you were using to what you have now.

i was recently surprised when i switched from a direct trade Honduras to a COE Rwanda Lot 17 (2010) in my hopper .. the rwanda needed a much much finer grind, I felt like i wasted half my bag.

I am new to this also and have been where you are. All I can say is what works for me. Do you have scale and timer and a 2oz shot glass? I start at a specific dose for a given brand of coffee. My grinder seems to be about 2 seconds between marks. I dose 17g, tamp, and pull and adjust the grind using seconds to get me in the ball park. Once there it is easier for me to fine tune by adjusting one variable at a time. My biggest mistake was trying to change too many things at the same time and not consistent enough to ensure repeated outcomes. There is a post by erics that helped me a-lot. (digital espresso)

well i've played around with the grind and grind duration setting on my vario and I think I got it much better but I am getting very bad spraying with my naked portafilter, just gets worse and worse throughout the duration of making the shot. With my old beans it would just spray very lightly for like 1/2 a second when I first started to make the coffee, wasn't even a issue and hardly noticeable. I haven't changed my tamp style/pressure so i'm guessing the extreme spraying is due to the grind and bean amount?