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slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

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  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday,

    a small update and I just wanted to say that everything works well

    whoohoo indeed

    Thanks Lizzi!

    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • Lizzie
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    whoohoo!
    well done, dsc...enjoy your coffee!! youve waited long enough for it... :P

    L

    Leave a comment:


  • lucinda
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Its not - I tried and got a dreadful recording so I will haveto talk OG or the kid into letting me try their cameras as they are a bit newer then mine.

    Will get to it as soon as I can.

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday,

    Thanks Lucinda

    Hows that wee video of your extractions going??

    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • lucinda
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Glad the problem is solved.

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday,

    thanks guys shouldve seen the stupid grin on my face when I choked the machine for the first time with the new burr set installed in the grinder.

    Its been a while since it all went bad, but as Robusto said all is well that ends well. Definitely worth the wait

    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • Dimal
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Originally posted by dsc link=1183479988/15#15 date=1184327797
    Gday again,

    so the new burr set arrived and it works!!!! changing the burrs had quite an impact on the quality of the grind. I choked my Classis on the setting of "1" so hard that nothing appeared for at least 15s now Im working on the setting of 2.5 and it gives nice dripping, slow ristretto-like extractions.

    Everything seems to be working perfect now, the grinder has new burrs, the machine is set to 9.5bars, my scratchbuild steam wand works perfect and I even managed to draw two rosettas on my morning cappa Looks like God has finally forgiven me and decided to give me another chance

    Thanks for all the tips and support,
    Cheers,
    dsc.
    Great news Tom ;D,

    Sure has been a long time in coming, eh? But worth the wait now I reckon ,

    Cheers mate,
    Mal.

    Leave a comment:


  • robusto
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Alls well that ends well.

    I would have said that with a comparitively new grinder, the problem had all the hallmarks of stale beans. And I would have been wrong.

    --Robusto

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday again,

    so the new burr set arrived and it works!!!! changing the burrs had quite an impact on the quality of the grind. I choked my Classis on the setting of "1" so hard that nothing appeared for at least 15s now Im working on the setting of 2.5 and it gives nice dripping, slow ristretto-like extractions.

    Everything seems to be working perfect now, the grinder has new burrs, the machine is set to 9.5bars, my scratchbuild steam wand works perfect and I even managed to draw two rosettas on my morning cappa Looks like God has finally forgiven me and decided to give me another chance

    Thanks for all the tips and support,
    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly losing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday,

    Yeah I hope that the new burr set is going to make things different. Keeping my fingers crossed

    I tried shimming the bottom burr but its harder than I thought. Will see how the new burr set grinds and if it doesnt change much I will try to correct the alignment.

    Because I use the split dose method and tamp twice Im using a lighter tamp not to choke the machine. When I secure the edges with the nutating motion I get pretty nice and consistent results. Besides I think its better to grind finer and tamp lighter, seems to bring more flavours from the coffee.

    As for the freezing Im still not sure. Seems like a good idea, but I feel like doing something very wrong when taking the beans from the freezer. I dont know why, I guess my mind just objects to do it

    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • robusto
    replied
    Re: slowly loosing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    DSC, you say you prefer a light tamp of 5 to 10 kg, but conventional wisdom says you should be looking at 14 to 15 kg.

    Im not a fan of freezing beans. I freeze our freshly baked bread. Even use a vacuum pump to remove air from the plastic bag in which its kept. But as we know, moist air condenses on cold surfaces -- coffee and bread being no exception.

    Too oftnen, frozen moisture makes it impossible to seperate out a slice of two. When you remove the beans from the freezer, moist air will also condense on the bean mass, mixing with the oils and no doubt spoiling them as well.

    Food for thought.

    --Robusto

    Leave a comment:


  • kaanage
    replied
    Re: slowly loosing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    It sounds like the coffee is just taking longer to degass than most if the roaster is getting similar findings.

    It would be difficult to make any proper assessment of what is going wrong with burrs in as poor condition as you have described. Im confident that things will be far better (and you wont need as fine a grind setting) once your burrs are replaced.

    Just as an aside, can the lower burrs in an MDF be shimmed up a tiny bit to close the burr gap?

    Leave a comment:


  • dsc
    replied
    Re: slowly loosing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Gday,

    I talked to my beans distributor and it turns out this coffee likes to bubble, he says he tried it him self a few times and got the same results as I did. Just to check it I used some other coffee that came in the pack and there were no bubbles. Mixed them together in a 50-50 ratio and also got less bubbles. So problem solved its a bit weird because when you look at the pour and how the volume rises in the cup its smooth at the beginning and the bubbles appear around the 17-19s of the extraction. Must be some strange chemical reaction going on inside the coffee in the cup.

    As for the MDF problems, yup its true something is not right. And yes its also true that sending it back would be a good idea, although Im not sure if they would see anything wrong. Ive taken the grinder to pieces several times and found nothing wrong inside. It might be the burrs, because I had two accidents with them. Once a hard piece of plastic went into the burr chamber and blocked the grinder completely. The other time a metal staple that was in the coffee pack went in and seriously butchered the burrs. Cant wait for the new burrs set to check out if it changes anything.

    I cant be grinding too fine, because if I dont do the split dose method I get a blond gusher, which means the coffee is really not grind fine enough. I also tamp lightly, usually 5kg max, sometimes 10kg, but thats really rare. Now I do a split dose tamp and mostly nutate the tamper to seal the edges. It works really good and I get a steady small stream of coffee, around 60ml in 25s, although I dont really time my shots, but turn the machine off when I see any signs of blonding. The crema I get from this coffee is huge, but it disappears quite quickly, not sure why, but maybe this is something natural with this kind of coffee?

    Beans: I get them from a friend of mine who has a professional industrial roaster and the coffee is really good. Its always fresh roasted before shipping and a date is put on the pack to show when it was done. He also has green beans in his offer, so if I start roasting I can order some from him

    Freezing: Ive been doing this for some time and never noticed any negative effects. My last 4kg batch of coffee was all frozen for a month and it behaved almost the same after 3 weeks as it did at the beginning before freezing. The amount of crema didnt change and there was no noticeable taste change. I also read a lot of articles on freezing coffee and they all stated that it is a safe way of storing coffee and it keeps it fresh for a longer time.

    It maybe true that Im picking holes in the whole process, maybe its better than I think, but who knows? Its always better to seek for improvement than to be satisfied with mediocre results.

    Lucinda: it would be great if you could record a short video of your extraction. Maybe I will record mine and we will be able to compare

    Thanks for everyones input
    Cheers,
    dsc.

    Leave a comment:


  • reubster
    replied
    Re: slowly loosing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    Good advice all round,
    I definately agree with Lucinda.
    Do not ever freeze your beans, it does all kinds of strange things to the pour and the taste.

    Leave a comment:


  • lucinda
    replied
    Re: slowly loosing hope - diffcult Gaggia Classic

    DSC - I think some of your problem is the way your burrs are set on your grinder. There is no way that you should have the grinder set on 0, that seems way too fine to me. When you get the new burrs make sure they are calibrated properly. It is a pity that you did all the mods you did as you could have sent it back to Gaggia under warraty to be fixed, by pulling it apart etc you have probably voided the warranty.

    My other guess is that you are grinding too fine and maybe tamping too hard. What you are describing is what happens to me when I do this. I wont mention the dosing issue as we have previously discussed this ad infinitum.

    My other thought is also your beans.

    First - do not freeze or refrigerate them. This may be part of your crema issues. Freezing does something to upset the oils in the beans and this does something wierd to the crema.

    My other thought is the freshness of the beans. Freezing the beans will not keep them fresh - they will still be stale a few weeks after roasting. I notice - even with home roasted beans that after two weeks they start to deteriorate and by three weeks there is basically no crema at all.

    I do not know how you are accessing your beans in Poland (is that where you are?), but maybe they just are not that great quality wise and you are not going to get a quality crema.

    The only other suggestion I can offer to solve that issue is for you to order green beans online and start roasting. From memory, I think Sweetmarias sends green beans to Europe. Get yourself a cheap popper and you will definitely get great results.

    From what I have seen in your little videos etc you seemed to me to be getting pretty good results. Maybe what you think is not good really is better than you realise?

    If I can find the time (and someone to man the camera) over the next few days I will try to remember to take a wee vid of my Classic and MDF in action and post them.

    Leave a comment:

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