After returning a few for various reasons before settling on this one, I've been using my Forte for a couple of months now and am noticing some issues.

Background: I'm using an ECM Giotto, 17g doses, 34g extractions with a goal of 28 seconds. VST baskets do not work for me, I own several. The stock basket that come with the machine produces the best espresso for me.

1) the grind on the Forte seems to be very sensitive to the coffee roast level and age. I can fill the hopper and dial in the setting one day and get 28 seconds extractions, the next day 15...or 36. Different roast levels require a completely new calibration session, which I wouldn't mind if the next day I got the same result. But it seems I need to dial in this grinder every time I pull a shot, wasting a lot of time and coffee.

2) I can set the grind level where it almost chokes the machine at first and then ejects the second half of the shot in 5 seconds. I thought I might be grinding to fine, forcing a channeling affect, but making the grind coarser does not help. It almost seems like I just have to get lucky in order to pull a good shot.

FWIW, I never have this issue with my Pharos. I set it once about 6 months ago and different roast levels and age affects the extraction time by 2-3 seconds at most, and I can usually live with every shot I've ever pulled with it. I never reset it. Shots extract smoothly and evenly with wonderful crema.

In contrast, with the Forte I get "slow to start", crema-less black extractions early on in the pull and then watery finishes. If I coarsen the grind to avoid the black coffee slick I get very fast extractions.

Like I said, I've been playing with the Forte for a while now and can't seem to get any constancy out of it. What might I be doing wrong?

Are you purging it before you grind your first pull of the day?

try grinding out a shot to purge, then grinding one to use. You should only need to do this first thing aft it sits for several hours.

I've always had to purge before starting, regardless of what electric grinder I was using.

I do. I squeeze out about a gram and dump before I grind my dose. Never do that with the Pharos.

Pharos does not have a chute to clear and I am sure you don't leave beans in it either.

Any electric will have a horizontal chute that stays filled with grounds.

You should be dumping 8-10 grams. You need to clear the chute and the "chunked" beans in the burrs unless you want funky tasting pulls.

Everything I've read, am from my experience as well, on fine espresso settings the Forte might retain 2g. It's a very short and narrow shoot and there is not much room for more.

But let's say I flush 8-10g before I grind, are you claiming that my inconsistent extractions would go away, or is it just a taste issue from stale grinds?

It's a BG, but I have both burr sets. I have not been able to get either to work consistently.

The Ditting burrs are not going to grind espresso. What you are reporting is typical for steel burrs in Vario or Forte grinders.

You might want to relegate your BG to pour over and get yourself a dedicated espresso grinder.

Almico wrote: Everything I've read, am from my experience as well, on fine espresso settings the Forte might retain 2g. It's a very short and narrow shoot and there is not much room for more.

this would hold true if you emptied the bean hopper (single dose/shot grind the entire bean mass in the hopper every time). Then you would only have the grounds in the chute to purge. If you have beans in the hopper you will have partially ground beans in the burrs that you will need to purge also. Sitting for a few hours should not be a big deal but over night the ground coffee and chunked beans will take in moisture in summer and expel it in winter (low/high humidity in your house) and you will notice both a taste and performance difference between your first shot and subsequent ones if you do not start with fresh ground coffee, at least I notice but as with anything YMMV