I'm about halfway through a bag of Kuma's excellent Kenya Kagumoini peaberry. The shots taste great and the coffee is really hitting its stride the past couple of days. But, man is this coffee hard to pull! I had to stop using my bottomless because every basket yields multiple spritzers in every direction. It's a mess. I've tried both IMS and VST 18g baskets. I've tinkered slightly with dose and grind and just can't dial this thing in. It's a good reminder that extractions can look horrible and still taste great.

It's been a very humbling coffee. Just when you think you have your basket prep game rounding into solid form...anyone else had similar experiences, where you just couldn't get a coffee to behave?

Kenya is perhaps the single hardest origin to pull as espresso, with only rare exceptions. If yours works at all, it will do so at an unusually low dose and fine grind, just like an ultra-light roasted regular coffee. Take out your stock Cimbali basket and go Italian, doing it at 14 grams. That might do it.

Interesting. Do you know why?

grog wrote:I'm about halfway through a bag of Kuma's excellent Kenya Kagumoini peaberry. The shots taste great and the coffee is really hitting its stride the past couple of days. But, man is this coffee hard to pull! I had to stop using my bottomless because every basket yields multiple spritzers in every direction. It's a mess. I've tried both IMS and VST 18g baskets. I've tinkered slightly with dose and grind and just can't dial this thing in. It's a good reminder that extractions can look horrible and still taste great.

It's been a very humbling coffee. Just when you think you have your basket prep game rounding into solid form...anyone else had similar experiences, where you just couldn't get a coffee to behave?

It tastes great but it's not dialed in? So with the pretty naked portafilter extraction it will taste even better, is that the implication? Are you using the Cremina or M20? I like pretty extractions, but if the taste is great, isn't that dialed in?

I mean, I'm not overly fixated on beautiful pours. It's just that these are amazingly sloppy, imagine 2-3 simultaneous spritzers shooting everywhere. It's kind of comically bad. Same on the M20 and Cremina (and VAM for that matter).

I'll take Jim's advice, down dose and use the stock double.

grog wrote:... imagine 2-3 simultaneous spritzers shooting everywhere. It's kind of comically bad...

I often get this on lighter roasts that I am too impatient to let rest enough. Same dose, yield, basket prep, etc. days later and everything calms down and a few days more i get beautiful pulls.

Oddly this has moved in the opposite direction.

A few months ago I bought 5# of Paradise's Windrose Blend based upon their description of "A sweet and fruit forward blend of natural and washed coffees. Mixed berries, sweet rose and caramel that finishes with notes of citrus. When you want pour-over for dessert". For the love of God I couldn't get anything more than boring one-profile and anything but "sweet & fruit forward..." as they describe. I've tried just about every perimeter, dose, rest, etc., even different espresso machines/devices to no progress.

I burned through 3-lbs trying to hit pay-dirt then finally gave up and let the remaining 2lbs sit in vac'd 1/2 pint jars in the deep freeze. I'm finally working down my freezer stash of beans and decided to get brave and try Windrose yet again. I just can't throw beans out .

I decided, since learning about this recipe from Nate at Slayer after I did my original experimentation with Windrose, to do a pre-brew until 5-grams of espresso in the cup then switched to full brew until I had 20grams in the cup then back to pre-brew until I had a total of 32 grams in the cup. Although I wouldn't call it "...pour-over for dessert" I was able to cull nice floral quality from the natural, nutty/ginger/nutmeg sort of thing & some background milk chocolate to the cup.

I'm feeling pretty darn proud today .