Espresso spraying with bottomless portafilter?

#1: Post by **robbbby** » May 9th, 2011, 10:34 pm

I have a single boiler lelit and have been using the oem portafilter without any trouble. i just purchased a lelit naked portafilter and noticed when I first start pulling a shot with the new portafilter coffee kind of sprays everywhere from the bottom of the portafilter for a few seconds before starting to nicely pour from the middle. Is this normal? Anything I can do so that it doesn't splatter when I initially turn the water on?

Thanks

#2: Post by **Randy G.** » May 9th, 2011, 10:48 pm

The spray has always been happening (at least at time). You are just finally seeing it. These are sprites; possible causes include:
- uneven distribution
- uneven tamping
- too high a dose (hits screen, get damaged)
- improper size tamper (too small)
- tapping the side of portafilter with the tamper to knock off grounds
- too fine of a grind and too low a dose
- damaged screen or missing distribution disc cause excessively violent early water flow

#3: Post by **cafeIKE** » May 9th, 2011, 11:38 pm

also stale coffee

tamper size is irrelevant
See Tamping Twaddle

#4: Post by **F.M.** » May 10th, 2011, 12:31 am

Another cause to add to the list:
Uneven grind

I've found that when I make even slight grinder adjustments, even after cleaning doser & chute out, the next shot often spritzs a bit... but the following shots are fine. My theory is that the first dose following the adjustment ends up having a mix of slightly coarser and finer grinds from grinder retention, resulting in channeling and spraying.

#5: Post by **cannonfodder** » May 10th, 2011, 9:06 am

What kind of grinder do you have, when was your coffee roasted?

May 10th, 2011, 10:19 pm

thanks for the advice guys, guess i'll have to play with a few things like trying to perfect my tamp and make sure everything else is good. i'm using a baratza vario grinder and have not adjusted the grind since about 30-40 espressos ago.
As for the roast i'll have to check and see if there is a roast date on the bag. I just opened the bag like 2 days ago, it's probably not the best beans in the world but it has always treated me good taste wise once I got everything dialed in.

#7: Post by **cannonfodder** » May 11th, 2011, 8:46 am

If there is no roast date, you need new beans. If the roasted on date is after 5-1-11, you need new beans. Grinder adjustments are normal on almost a daily basis with fresh coffee due to changes in the beans as they age. Coffee that does not require a change in the grind setting for weeks does so because the coffee has long since gone stale. While that may not be the end cause of your channeling, it is certainly not helping.

#8: Post by **allon** » May 11th, 2011, 9:48 am

cannonfodder wrote: If the roasted on date is after 5-1-11, you need new beans.

You mean "before"?

Another thing; I've noticed some blends are more forgiving than other blends when it comes to spritzing/channeling regardless of freshness.

#9: Post by **Randy G.** » May 11th, 2011, 10:16 am

re: "Roasted on date"

allon wrote:You mean "before"?

No. You need to know when the coffee was roasted, not when it will go bad.
The basic rule is that if the coffee doesn't say when it was roasted, don't buy it.

#10: Post by **allon** » May 11th, 2011, 10:32 am

The comment was if it said roasted after 5-1-11, to get new beans. I'd think that after 5-1-11 would be fine.
It's BEFORE that it may be too stale.

The fact of a roasted date means it is known when items roasted. I have no idea what you are thinking.