Hi guys, I purchased a Lido E last month and am struggling to dial it in for my Flair classic.

I previously used a Breville Dose Control and was able to get consistently nice shots paired with the Flair. My usual recipe is 16g in with ~30g yield, the Breville grinder delivered full bodied shots with a lot of crema each time. Since switching to the Lido E I have been getting mostly sour shots despite my efforts to change one variable at a time. My work flow is the same (preheat parts, weigh, WDT distribution, and tamping). I played within the range of 14g and 18.5g in, and different grind settings on the Lido itself. Shots come out with lots of crema each time but tastes sour every single time. I have tried grinding finer and coarser, increasing and reducing coffee grinds going in, tamping lighter and normally, but am unable to pull a shot that I used to with the Breville.

BTW, I clean the grinder thoroughly each time, tried using different water (filtered and bottled), different beans.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated! Thanks~

Anyone? I'm still trying and cannot make sense of it. I looked up some discussions online regarding the range of grinds on this particular grinder but still cannot get the desired result.

Help! :X

Certainly stop grinding coarser.

Grind finer. Much finer. Keep the dose lower.

Agreed. I grind finer than what's recommended for the Lido E. Also, the mark may not indicate true zero. My true zero is about 8 marks finer than where the line was when I got it. From there I go up 3-5 marks (never 8 like the manual suggests) and that makes great espresso. Dialing it in can be a bit tough, because even with the finer threading the adjustment from a 20 second sink shot to a 30 second god shot can seem minimal.

On my Lido-E, I'm also in the finer range than the manual suggests... I'm about 4 marks up from the zero point.

Thanks for chiming in guys. I will go finer although at 3 marks from zero I am already choking while pulling the lever. Went down to 2.5ish today with 16g and it tasted better but I had to use excessive amount of force to pull the lever on the Flair. Going to play with the weight a bit more to find a good balance.

My black mark is about 3 marks coarser than when you can't twist it any finer...

With that in mind I'm usually between 2-3 marks from the factory black zero mark...this is on a Decent DE1+

As has been mentioned there can be a lot of difference between two marks...as evidenced by me having only one mark "play" for espresso with most beans (on the very light roast end of the spectrum)

Have you checked the burr alignment? If you adjust it close to the zero point and you turn the handle, do you only get a 1x per revolution rub?

When I ordered my Lido 2, it was well aligned right out of the box. My Lido E on the other hand was shipped with the screws on the bottom of the hopper loose (???) so I followed this video to make sure it was aligned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGO_Onbx0NI Not sure how it got out the door that way, but once I corrected it per the video the alignment seems to be very good.

jrham12 wrote:Have you checked the burr alignment? If you adjust it close to the zero point and you turn the handle, do you only get a 1x per revolution rub?

When I ordered my Lido 2, it was well aligned right out of the box. My Lido E on the other hand was shipped with the screws on the bottom of the hopper loose (???) so I followed this video to make sure it was aligned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGO_Onbx0NI Not sure how it got out the door that way, but once I corrected it per the video the alignment seems to be very good.

Very good advice

+1

My Lido E is with a family who knew nothing about espresso six months ago and had no issues with tweaking the Lido to their taste. Cleaning it is nice, but something is fundamentally amiss. My Lido E was tasty pretty darn close to the recommended start spot.

Its current host family has a science orientation, and for fun took it from way too coarse to choke shot, then to their preferred taste with zero background or orientation. I had no idea they were going to do this, and I thought it was a cool exercise. They did adopt my two pieces of masking tape way to know exactly how far one changes the grind. When you're close, the final tweaks are maybe 1/8th of the distance between ridges, the tape on either side takes the eyeballing out of the process.

The Lido E continues to impress me, and I completely agree with the excellent suggestion to check alignment.