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Espresso Diagnosis - I need help!

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  • #31
    Originally posted by MrJack View Post
    I'm going to go out on a limb and say your beans are underroasted.

    The grinder is struggling because the beans are so tough. The pour is (way too) fast despite significant overdosing because:
    a) you can't grind fine enough
    b) there isn't enough soluble material / CO2 in the beans (both of which are produced during roasting) to slow the flowrate down.
    Originally posted by Barry O'Speedwagon View Post
    It would certainly be worth eliminating the beans as the source of the problem (particularly given info provided in post #14 re the grinder working with Di Bella beans). Having said that, it would take a pretty severe under-roast to stop my old K3 from grinding.
    Beans are roasted to the verge of second crack, City+ to Full City. It has been a while since I roasted into second crack, but I believe this gave me problems as well. I will source some local beans and try again to eliminate this.

    Originally posted by simonsk8r View Post
    Have been following this thread, and definitely what the guys said about the beans needs to be taken into account, but another thing occurred to me that I mentioned in another thread, have you unscrewed the grind adjustment 'stopper'?

    That little silver cap if you pop that open/off, there's a screw in there which leads down and blocks up against something, this actually prevents you from going finer (it's a safety mechanism really so people didn't go too fine and destroyed the burrs), but it's necessary to actually unscrew that in order to go finer, has this been done?

    I had to do this for my K3 Touch in order to adjust finer. Your grind does just seem a bit coarse, and if you're unable to go finer this may be it... otherwise it's another issue

    Edit: but yeah, I'm not sure about different machines and pressure buildup, but that also does seem a little slow to get up to 8 bar.. it may be a combination of issues, but the guys here are awesome so hopefully we can nut this out!
    I haven't removed the screw. It's not a physical stopper that's preventing me going finer, just the the grinder doesn't want to grind when I do get that fine...

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    • #32
      Others have mentioned that it might be the capacitor; electrical side of things I don't understand that much, so I won't go there. I thought it was like a light bulb, where it's either working or not working. My own studying on the topic is much needed.
      You mentioned earlier that it's not the pin stopping you from dialing in finer. So I would like to double check, because although I mentioned it in earlier post, it is yet to be eliminated as a cause.
      It is grinding fine up to a certain grind setting point, and anything finer beyond that point would stop the grinder. Anything that stops coffee grinds flowing out of the grinder add intended can be described as 'not working'.
      Are you able to distinguish the difference between burrs jamming and grinder choking?
      Choking is when there is too much fine powder inside, and for whatever reason (usually clumping) blockage stops the grind exiting. Grinder inside fills up, nothing coming out. If constipation continues, eventually grinder stops.
      Jamming is when burrs are locked in place because there is a hard bean(s) wedged in between the burrs, and the motor cannot produce enough torque to break it and continue to rotate. This stops the whole machine. Some grinders, you can hear faint humming, others dead silent. Obviously, no sound because no movement, and no movement means no grinds coming out.
      This jamming sometimes happens when you rotate the dial towards finer too quickly, and not incrementally enough. It also easily happens with the slightest of grinding adjustments (movement towards finer) made while the grinder is stationary.
      You'll need at least 100g of beans for this.
      So let the machine continually grind beans when you move the adjusting ring to finer (gradually). Before reaching your desired fineness, if it stops, check the following. A) do you hear the motor running? When it stopped, did it make any other sound? If you hear any sound, please describe. B) did the flow of the grind exiting stop at the same time or before the grinder came to a halt? C) from the moment it stopped working, and here please define 'stopped' as in grind not exiting or motor stopped. Here, mark the dial where it was, then move the dial back to coarser by quite a bit. Does that resume, or is it still stopped? D) if step C was a yes, movement resumed, do grinds flow out immediately from that point?
      You see, that your grinder was working fine, dialed in at the shop; coupled with the fact that your beans are no where near under roasted, I cannot exclude operator error quite yet.
      Depending on the detailed feedback of when and how it fails, we can guesstimate which components maybe at fault.

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