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14-15. It's not a calibrated scale so my 14-15 could easily be the same as your 12. It feels a bit like the burrs are touching if you go to 4 on the scale. I grind the cheap coffee club beans on 6, for comparison. But interesting to know that you have to grind within that range with different beans too.
I'm struggling with my first foray into grinding my own. Posting this for help.
I was using the darker roasted beans from work to get used to the process with a cheaper bean and found a sweet spot for the grind setting. Have switched to a kilo of YB espresso beans but now I'm struggling.
It seems to want a very coarse grind, which I was not expecting. Too fine chokes the flow at the beginning and needs a small dose to compensate. This resulted in too fast flow later in the shot, which I am fairly confident was channelling as the puck was sodden and left with pock marks. Going coarser has fixed the initial flow and channelling, but I have to use a big dose and it's doing that thing that somebody on here described where the grounds are really swelling up, pressing really hard onto the shower screen and climbing up the sides of the basket. It also means the shot is very big (therefore a bit watery).
-Grinder is Sage Smart Grinder Pro. Grind is currently at the coarser end of what I'd call espresso.
-Machine is Gaggia Classic set to 10 Bar and standard double basket and shower screen.
-Water doesn't seem to make any difference between filtered or hard straight from the tap.
Any tips or ideas?