Hello, I've been trying to dial in my mazzer mini for about a week now, and I keep coming up against the same problem... I know the perfect ristretto double shot is 1.5 oz in 25 seconds. I'm getting 1.5 oz of coffee in 25 seconds- BUT- My problem is, it is blonding way too fast. I get blonding after about 15 seconds. So 10 seconds of that is watery spew that makes my espressos taste nasty.

If I adjust to coarser, the coffee just spews out. If I adjust to finer, it takes me like 30 seconds just to get an oz of coffee.

I need to get it so it blonds at 25 seconds and also comes to 1.5 oz in 25 seconds. What do I do?

Thanks a ton,

Matthew

ps. I am using a Strega which has a pre-infusion pump on it that fills the group head. I start counting as soon as the first drip of coffee from the pre-pump comes out. Then I release the lever and start counting.

Sounds like you have some old coffee beans. When was it roasted and have you tried other roasters?

I had a similar problem recently and for me it ended up being the amount of coffee I was using. I was putting in too much and the screw on the shower screen was fracturing the puck. If the grind seemed like where it should be I got early blonding. So I kept tightening the grind but ended up with a similar result as you described. So I went with about a gram less than I was using and my problems went away. I was also able to verify that there was no longer an indentation from the shower screen screw on the puck after extraction.

badmajon wrote:If I adjust to coarser, the coffee just spews out. If I adjust to finer, it takes me like 30 seconds just to get an oz of coffee.

If those adjustments you made to the grinder are minimal (like one-half of an "increment mark" on the adjustment indicator) then I agree it sounds like a problem with the coffee itself.

More troubleshooting tips here on my website:www.EspressoMyEspresso.com Check out this article: 12 - EASY GUIDE TO BETTER ESPRESSO AT HOME.

But when all else fails, suspect the coffee.

Stop the frikkin' shot when it starts blonding. What are trying to prove by pulling it well past the point where it starts to taste bad?

There's nothing magic about a particular time. Time is just a diagnostic. And stop with the ounces. Volume is pretty much meaningless because it doesn't account for crema and other vagaries of density.

It's a little difficult to tell which way to jump first, since you didn't describe what you're tasting beyond "nasty." But given what you did say, you're pulling way past blonding and your shots are likely very attenuated.

You're probably going to have to either tighten your grind, or dose more; or some combination like tightening the grind and slightly lowering the dose, or increasing dose and slightly loosening grind.

Depending on how you prep your basket you may also want to adjust tamp pressure to get an appropriate rate of flow or use tamp pressure as another tool for adjusting flow. For instance: tighter grind, same dose, less tamp. However, most of using "straight pump" machine find that working around a given tamp pressure is the easiest way to develop consistent "dialing in" values -- on the basis that it's one less thing to screw with.

For the time being, adjust grind and dose while shooting for approximately 23 to 30 seconds to the appropriate blonding appearance. However, if you're getting good tasting shots, don't worry about time. Just keep it up. FWIW, ristretto pulls are usually terminated as tiger striping ends, at a brew ratio of around 2/3 - 3/4.

BDL