As a bare newbie I'm trying to get myself enough in the ballpark that I can do "decent", consistently. Unfortunately, coming from a coffee-less background, there's a lot of obvious stuff that just isn't, to me, so any help is appreciated.
I'm using a Gaggia Classic (9.4bar static with brew temp of 95.5°C falling to 93.5°C by the end of a 60ml pull) and a Baratza Preciso so that should take equipment issues out of the equation.
Beans are Bali "God Mountain" from CoffeeCompany or Decaf WOW!, both popper-roasted to the verge of second crack (takes 6-7 minutes). If anyone can suggest a bean/blend on BeanBay that is forgiving of quick roasts, I'd appreciate it.
I think my next big hurdle is figuring out dosage and distribution. I'm using an Xavier Heavy-Duty 58mm tamper with a bathroom scale (15kgs) to remove that variable until I get everything else in order.
My Gaggia basket is rated at 14g, ~16g fills the basket without tapping the PF to settle it and ~18g fills it with tapping but seems to result in the PF leaking while the coffee puck saturates over 7 to 9 seconds, then a 10 to 15-second gusher.
The issue is that when I grind fine enough to use 15-16g doses, it comes out of the grinder in clumps/blocks rather than fluffy powder. I've taken to either bashing the PF on the bench with my hand over the top to break up/settle the chunks or using the grinds bin, shaking, then dosing from the bin and tapping a couple of times on the bench to settle. Any advice on that?
Once I've sorted that, I smooth the grinds with my finger (usually sitting 0-5mm below the basket rim) then tap the PF with the tamper to level the gradient of the coffee surface before tamping.
The whole exercise is pretty time-consuming, so I'm wondering how anal I actually need to be when dosing/distributing. Do I need to smooth out the surface before tamping or is it sufficient to just get the gradient level? Do I need to break up the chunks to get rid of voids or do they disappear when tamping?
Feeling pretty lost here o_o
I'm using a Gaggia Classic (9.4bar static with brew temp of 95.5°C falling to 93.5°C by the end of a 60ml pull) and a Baratza Preciso so that should take equipment issues out of the equation.
Beans are Bali "God Mountain" from CoffeeCompany or Decaf WOW!, both popper-roasted to the verge of second crack (takes 6-7 minutes). If anyone can suggest a bean/blend on BeanBay that is forgiving of quick roasts, I'd appreciate it.
I think my next big hurdle is figuring out dosage and distribution. I'm using an Xavier Heavy-Duty 58mm tamper with a bathroom scale (15kgs) to remove that variable until I get everything else in order.
My Gaggia basket is rated at 14g, ~16g fills the basket without tapping the PF to settle it and ~18g fills it with tapping but seems to result in the PF leaking while the coffee puck saturates over 7 to 9 seconds, then a 10 to 15-second gusher.
The issue is that when I grind fine enough to use 15-16g doses, it comes out of the grinder in clumps/blocks rather than fluffy powder. I've taken to either bashing the PF on the bench with my hand over the top to break up/settle the chunks or using the grinds bin, shaking, then dosing from the bin and tapping a couple of times on the bench to settle. Any advice on that?
Once I've sorted that, I smooth the grinds with my finger (usually sitting 0-5mm below the basket rim) then tap the PF with the tamper to level the gradient of the coffee surface before tamping.
The whole exercise is pretty time-consuming, so I'm wondering how anal I actually need to be when dosing/distributing. Do I need to smooth out the surface before tamping or is it sufficient to just get the gradient level? Do I need to break up the chunks to get rid of voids or do they disappear when tamping?
Feeling pretty lost here o_o


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