Lelit PL60T V2 + Compak K3 Push: Shot is pulling too fast

[GarthR Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close GarthR]

Hi fellow snobs

Newbie here, the proud owner of a PL60T v2 and Compak K3 push combo as of today.

All evening I have been trying to dial in my grinder, tamp pressure to get a good double shot. Nothing is working. I am getting around 200ml in 20 seconds.

So far I have done the following.
-machine was warm around 30 minutes before any of these were pulled.
-bathroom scales to measure tamp, each one being around 15-18kg.
-tried between 16 grams all the way to 20grams of beans.
-have tried the grinder at both 35 and 0 settings. I have even gone as far to remove the little stop screw that is removed for cleaning to verify that the blurrs are set correctly (referring to a video from Seattle coffee gear on cleaning and reassembly of the K3).
-tried three different beans, with one of those being fresh beans from jet black. All the same shot volume. The grind size coming from the k3 on the 0 setting is similar to the size of the packet of Vitoria espresso pre ground in the fridge.
-I have used my little portalex hand grinder on its finest setting, pretty must dust consistsncy, with the jet black beans. Shot was better around 100ml over 30 seconds.

As for the machine, steams a hub of milk well so no issues there.

Was as primed by jet black before it left there on Friday.

Shot pressure is around 4bar when pulling the shot.

What the hell hell am I doing wrong?!

Thanks heaps guys. Will give jet black a bell tomorrow AM, but I wanted to consult the brains trust beforehand.

Regards
Garth.

[JetBlack_Espresso Jetblack Espresso Find all posts View Profile Close >JetBlack_Espresso]

Hi Garth,

Did you dose up until you got a firm puck?

charlie

[GarthR Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close GarthR]

Hey Charlie

Thank you for the reply.

Spoke to Brad, will try dosing around 20g when I get home tonight.

[artman Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close artman]

Do the 5 cent test to get an idea of the tamped level for your setup, no need to weight the dose. Keep everything consistent and adjust grind to get the required flow.

It does sound weird as even if you are under dosing if the grind is at its finest you would expect the machine to choke.

Cheers

[noidle22 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close noidle22]

The grind size coming from the k3 on the 0 setting is similar to the size of the packet of Vitoria espresso pre ground in the fridge.

I think that's the problem, it should be way finer than that. Pre-ground coffee is never as fine as you need for a proper extraction as it's ground to work in a variety of machines and brewing methods.

My K3 had the same problem when I got it, not grinding fine enough. I removed the stop screw and got rid of it.

With the grinder running and empty, very slowly turn the grind adjustment collar finer and finer until you hear a light grating sound. This is the burrs touching.
Back the collar off 1/4 to 1/2 a full turn and use that as your baseline. You may need to go slightly finer or coarser from this point.

The ground coffee from the K3 should be a fine powder, you may find that it clumps together in small blocks as well. If you take a pinch of it between your fingers and squeeze it together it should retain its shape but collapse when agitated.
Too coarse and it won't stick together, too fine and it won't come apart.