# Stuggling to Dial In



## Flyingdoc93 (May 5, 2020)

Hi guys,

new to the rabbit hole of espresso. As per previous newbie post - I'm coming over from a Delonghi bean to cup.

My new setup arrived this week: New Eureka Specialita grinder, used pre 2015 Gaggia classic, Mota tamper and some decent scales.

I started by trying to pull doubles with some cheap beans from waitrose and didn't have much luck but my skills were awful and the results very inconsistent. I wasted loads of beans and got frustrated so decided the logical thing to do was to switch to pulling singles as less waste per unsuccessful shot.

Anyway after major major mess in the kitchen and 3 days of trying with better beans (200 degrees local ones), my results are better but still quite inconsistent. Are singles harder to pull than doubles? Have I made life even harder for myself starting out?!

I have now purchased a levelling/distro tool to help as well.


----------



## BlackCatCoffee (Apr 11, 2017)

Hi there,

Some people will say that it makes no odds pulling single or doubles. This is not my experience personally. I find double are quite a bit easier to get right.

I am going to assume when you say you are struggling to dial in you mean the coffee is coming to quickly or slowly rather than all seems to be where it should be but the taste is off. If the later is the case please provide us with more details.

There are a number of different techniques to dial in. Some will just get the grinder to the point the burrs touch, back of a little then grind super fine and choke the machine and then work back, others do it the other way.

The one thing I will say is that you need to take a methodical approach and change one variable at a time in order to get things correct. If you change multiple you do not know what is making the difference.

Given that grind is likely to be one of the biggest factors in your extraction I would approach it by having a set weight in and out, try and do the same tamp pressure each time and keep all other bits of your routine the same. Don't forget that to get an accurate reflection of grind changes you will only see this if you purge a little coffee after adjustment or run two shots through.

To summarise I would do the following -



Go back to doubles


Weigh in a set amount - lets say 18g


Extract set amount - 36g


Assess and adjust grind finer or coarser depending on the extraction time.


Taste, taste, taste


Repeat until correct.


----------



## Flyingdoc93 (May 5, 2020)

Thanks!

Yes its the timing that is the issue - either too slow or too fast and sometimes out of one spout of portafilter despite best tamping efforts!

I haven't been purging the grinder through at all! That may be an issue. Could anyone here confirm whether the adjustment to grind needs to be done whilst the grinder is grinding or can it be done at any point? Don't want to break anything!

Cheers


----------



## BlackCatCoffee (Apr 11, 2017)

Best practice would be whilst the grinder is running.


----------



## Flyingdoc93 (May 5, 2020)

Cheers!


----------

