# Uneven extraction + gushing. Is it stale beans or technique?



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

My new setup is a Profitec Pro 700 paired with a Ceado E37S. I am a noob so trying lots of things at the same time for practice but the few shots I've tried come out so quickly that I can't even pay attention to the timer on the machine because I need to turn the lever off to prevent overfilling! But the shot must be coming out in less than 10 seconds and I've struggled to kill extraction before yield reached 50-60g, it's that quick!

Some notes on what I've tried and some photos. I apologise for long post. I suspect it's the beans at fault but I wouldn't have thought they make such a big difference to extraction time and evenness of extraction! I am also new to this so it could very well be gross errors on my part. If there are, I'd like to identify them now before bad habits set in. Any pointers are appreciated

Beans - Using Gaslight from Bella Barista roasted July 16th but unfortunately my cat chewed through the bag and they have been exposed to air for the last 7 days. I am really just using them for practicing my routine and to figure out if I'm making any major mistakes before I get my beloved Red Brick out.

Basket - 18g IMS BaristaPro (dosing 18g in)

Shower screen - IMS nanotech

Grinder - I am using a mod for the Ceado (see photo) that allows me to slow feed beans and use it as single doser. First shots were even gushier (literally 2 seconds to first drip) so I I calibrated it to its zero point and then pulled back a few clicks (see photos). Grind certainly seems finer but this has only marginally improved extraction time. I have noticed time to first drip has improved with finer grind and the puck holds its shape better in the knockbox. There are only a few clicks available to go even finer!

Dosing and distribution - I grind into a cup which I then pour into portafiler via a wide funnel. A couple of taps and then a paper clip for WDT before I use Jack the Leveler on it (set at 5 clicks). Lots of things could go wrong here, I'm aware. I tried setting the leveler to 6 but bottomless portafiler squirted everywhere. I assumed that a setting of 6 is too much and the leveler ends up tamping rather than just leveling. I don't do any tamping as such.

I have noticed the shower screen imprint on the puck so will change basket tomorrow to a larger 20g basket as I understand there needs to be a gap (could it be enough to explain the gushing shot?). I also noticed the puck has what would seem to be defects (or could be just shower screen imprint - I don't know what a good puck should look like?)

So where do I start to fix the shot? How likely is it that it's the beans (too stale/exposed to air) and would that make such a big difference? I can try to go finer on the grind but at this stage is that the right thing to try when I'm already so close to my zero point?

Photos coming in replies due to file size limits.


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)




----------



## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Zero point as in you hear the burrs chirping or zero point as in the adjustment ring says 0?

re: the shower screen imprint on the puck, is that checking the portafilter after locking in or looking at the puck post shot?


----------



## d_lash (Aug 30, 2014)

The only thing that stands out from what you have said is that you don't do any tamping. Your shot is running much too fast and tamping will slow it down. Do some tamping.


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

> Zero point as in you hear the burrs chirping or zero point as in the adjustment ring says 0?


 I heard the burrs chirping, pulled back a few clicks and then aligned the 0 on the dial with the marker (the dial can be rotated, it's just a magnetic ring). I then adjusted the grind slightly towards coarser as you can see in the photo.



> re: the shower screen imprint on the puck, is that checking the portafilter after locking in or looking at the puck post shot?


 This is after the shot. Sorry I seem to have double posted and the photo is in the other thread. Attached here again.



> The only thing that stands out from what you have said is that you don't do any tamping. Your shot is running much too fast and tamping will slow it down. Do some tamping.


 Apologies if I get this wrong but my research suggests that tamping is less important than correct grind and distribution. I could try to tamp (although I bought the Jack Leveller because popular opinion is that additional tamping is not necessary). Would tamping in this case not mask the root cause (whatever that may be?)

I tried a 20g basket this morning. I had to extend the leveller 2 clicks so it makes contact with the coffee in the deeper basket and I no longer saw a shower imprint on the puck but now the top surface of the puck was a teeny bit soupy when I took it out. No major difference in extraction time, still about maybe 8 seconds start to finish (as recorded on PID) to get 40g yield (it's so quick I didn't get a chance to kill it at 36g!

*Silly questions follow:*

1. My research is pointing me to the grind not being fine enough as the likely culprit. Are there any other usual suspects for gushing shots? If no then I will try to tighten the grind more (I have read that slow feeding beans does require a much much finer grind that normal, that's fine, but I am so close to the zero point that I may max out my ability to grind finer, but I have got some wiggle room to try). I would expect to be able to grind very very finely on this Ceado grinder though.

2. Do stale beans grind differently to fresher beans (i.e. coarser)? Were I to grind the same beans roasted within 7 days (and not exposed to air) at the same grind settings, would I get a different consistency?

3. I am using a bottomless portafilter and water is just gushing out from 4-5 different streams (rather than pooling into one slow stream). Is it fair to say that if distribution were the problem here (uneven coffee bed in the basket when I transfer grinds from dosing cup to portafilter, bad tapping etc) then that would explain the channeling but not the gushing water? Or is distribution a big contributing factor? What about grind consistency? Slow feeding beans isn't very precise, I get between 1-3 falling into the burr chamber at a time.

4. If puck surface is soupy after shot, does that mean the basket size is too big? Maybe I should go back to the 18g one but then how do I deal with the shower imprint on the puck?

5. The photos I shared of my puck (surface and bottom), does that show defects to you? I don't know what a good puck should look like. Can you tell from the puck if the grind is fine enough? Does the fact that it came out cleanly in my hand and didn't fall apart suggest the grind is fine enough and is tamped down enough? Or is that an incorrect conclusion?

Ultimately, I don't mind these undrinkable shots as these beans are for practice only. But I want to make the most of the learning opportunity, practice and learn to read the signs so that I can make adjustments.

Thanks for all your help


----------



## Blue_Cafe (Jun 22, 2020)

This reads like you are trying too hard.

Leave the hobbyist tweaks until you are settles and go back to basics.

Set the grinder up as per the instructions. Fill the hopper if need be.

Leave the leveller, and the bottomless portafilter out as well.

Std basket, std grind, std portafilter.

Tamp.

Once you have a std shot working ok, then you should move onto the other stuff. Get the basics right.

On 1st impressions, your puck looks dry and dare i say the grind looks coarse? You also seem to have channeling holes.

Best of luck.


----------



## Northern_Monkey (Sep 11, 2018)

@tripleshot - I actually agree with @Blue_Cafe on something for once! 😉

Go back to basics, in my opinion the only people who say tamping is not required are those selling you an expensive device that supposedly removes the need for it. Spend £10 on a cheapo tamper and you might be pleasantly surprised.


----------



## Jason11 (Oct 25, 2019)

I would say the puck isn't compressed enough in your prep plus the grind does look a little coarse to me. As said above there looks to be a lot of dry areas that the water hasn't been through on your puck.

Definitely work on your preparation. Even if you discard the tamper eventually having a good consistent tamp is an essential skill to learn and I wouldn't be not tamping a puck until you're happy with tamped results first.


----------



## Blue_Cafe (Jun 22, 2020)

You may not be at zero with the grinder....

https://www.wholelattelove.com/products/ceado-e37s-electronic-coffee-grinder

also, going all in @$4k from the starting gun !!!! 🙃

Have you read all of the instructions with the machines?


----------



## lake_m (Feb 4, 2017)

As Blue_Cafe already pointed out, your grind looks way too coarse. Find the 'chirp' point on the burr adjustment and go from there.


----------



## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Grind looks coarse, unsure of the dose tolerance on the IMS baskets also they are certainly wider than the VST baskets of plus or minus 1g

1. Check the video and re zero the grinder

Re tamping etc, IMHO you should not have to use tamping to drive shot time . Here is a Simple rule if you can turn the pf over with coffee in it and it doesn't fall out then its more than likely enough to give you a decent shot. Tamping "HARDER" achieves very little in my excperience ( I Ve had 30 second shots at 9 bar with no tamping or distrubution at all ) .

If you are worried about the coffee get some more, remove the doubt.

You will get lots of opinions on what you should do or not, using a leveller on can work , but it depends on the depth you have it with , plenty of people use one and don't tamp with no issues , I have done this previously.

Apart from that single dosing and stirring are all good techniques if you want to single dose.

I


----------



## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

tripleshot said:


> *Silly questions follow:*
> 
> 1. My research is pointing me to the grind not being fine enough as the likely culprit. Are there any other usual suspects for gushing shots? If no then I will try to tighten the grind more (I have read that slow feeding beans does require a much much finer grind that normal, that's fine, but I am so close to the zero point that I may max out my ability to grind finer, but I have got some wiggle room to try). I would expect to be able to grind very very finely on this Ceado grinder though.
> 
> ...


 1. It does look coarse, double check.

2. Not as far as I'm aware. Maybe if oil i on the surface it might make the grinds clump up as they're being ground down...

3. I can't figure out what you're asking here, so: if you're talking about an empty basket and water is coming through in a few streams that's normal. Distribution could be an issue.

4. It means you could have dosed more probably, or it means the grind was far too fine. For the second part of the question, you decrease the dose to whatever you have to to not get an imprint in the puck when you lock the portafilter in. There's a coin trick some people use: put a 5p on the puck, lock the portafilter in, remove, tip 5p out. If there's an imprint you've dosed too much. The puck will expand a little at the start of the shot as the grounds get wet and then they'll expand a lot at the end when the pressure is vented, it's not uncommon for the puck to be sucked up against the shower screen. In short, don't worry about how your puck looks after the shot.

5. a) No, aside from maybe being too coarse there's nothing you can tell. b) nor d I. c) It's very difficult. There are more reliable things that would determine if grind is fine enough, like shot time. d) not sure. e) I'd say don't bother thinking about how the puck looks after a shot. There are more reliable and meaningful things to use.

I'd get some different beans that haven't been sitting exposed to air for a week (or more?).


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

Apologies for the late reply on this, not had a chance to experiment further until today. Thank you all for your thoughts. I had narrowed it down to grind being too coarse and that made the prep harder too (but I do need to develop better prep techniques).

Re coarse grind, I am putting this down as it may help others - apologies if this is a "duh we could have told you that" common knowledge, there's a lot to digest for beginners like me.

I have twice recalibrated to zero point as per the whole latte love video and can confirm that my original zero point was correct. Have also tried fresh beans, same thing - 38g out in 8 seconds so ruled out the beans as the issue . With grind set just off zero point I couldn't understand why the grind was still too coarse. Did more digging and it looks like this particular grinder (or type of grinder) requires a weight on top of the beans to grind finely enough and consistently enough. My setup to slow feed the grinder was never going to produce a fine enough grind even with the grind set at pretty much zero point because the beans spin around too much in the burr chamber.

So I have abandoned that method in its current form but I am still determined to single dose on this grinder despite it not being designed for this - I don't want coffee left In a hopper to go stale and I don't like the idea of wasting coffee by purging (before anyone says it, yes I considered the Niche but wait list is too long, couldn't find any other single dose grinders at this price point that are actually available to buy now).

So I have dosed 19.5g beans in (allowing for 0.5g retention to get me to the 19g recipe dose in) and put the tamper in the neck of the grinder as per the video below but the tamper doesn't come down low enough to add weight on top of a single dose of 19g so it didn't really make a difference - grind still too coarse, gushing shot!

The breakthrough came when I took the perforated cap you can see in my earlier photos in this thread that I used to slow feed beans and put that on top of the beans with extra pressure from my hand. Because of the hole, the surface of the cap is able to get 5mm closer to the surface of the beans and add the required pressure. The grind was noticeably finer, I was able to transfer it from the dosing cup to the portafilter with greater ease, no mounds to smooth out and less static in the cup. Final stats are 19.24g in, 42g out in 23 seconds with only 1 channnel that I could see. There is still a lot of work I need to do (like figure out at what point I need to put down the lever to stop the shot in order to get 38g) but this is a vast improvement that I can build on.

I also have an idea for a better system to simulate the weight of a full hopper of beans which will hopefully allow me to single dose on this grinder with minimum waste and no coffee beans going stale in the open air. I will post again when I've had a chance to do this.

My key takeaway here is that grind settings on the grinder are not the only factor that determine how fine or consistent the coffee actually ends up being. How the grinder is designed to work plays a huge role and I wish there was a dummies guide that explains this as I had to piece this understanding from various forum threads.

Hopefully this will help others who stumble across this thread.

Thanks again to everyone to took time to post


----------



## Blue_Cafe (Jun 22, 2020)

I love the fact you have found out the issue and given feedback! This should save some tears for others.

There was an argument not long back that involved this very issue on a different grinder, One was adamant that filling hoppers etc was a load of horse, the other said it was gospel.


----------



## lake_m (Feb 4, 2017)

I wonder how different the E37SD is in terms of burr setup then - given it's supposed to be a single dose grinder. I though it was basically the same grinder as the 's' with Titanium burrs, a water spray bottle and a puffer!


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

lake_m said:


> I wonder how different the E37SD is in terms of burr setup then - given it's supposed to be a single dose grinder. I though it was basically the same grinder as the 's' with Titanium burrs, a water spray bottle and a puffer!


 I couldn't find any information to suggest the burr chamber setup is any different. Like you I came to the same conclusion that it's basically the same grinder. I think it's commonly accepted that the last coffee beans will have a coarser consistency. But isn't this the same with the Niche if it didn't have the disc that regulates the flow? My understanding is however that the Niche can deal with a slower flow of beans whereas the Ceado E37S doesn't seem to be able to do that (not in the current setup I tried anyway, I may revisit this in future though!)


----------



## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

tripleshot said:


> I also have an idea for a better system to simulate the weight of a full hopper of beans which will hopefully allow me to single dose on this grinder with minimum waste and no coffee beans going stale in the open air. I will post again when I've had a chance to do this.


 I'm looking forward to this.

My solution was to use a perspex tube as a hopper and always keep about 19g in the throat of the grinder (so the beans come above the spindle) and then single dose whatever I want on top of that, then add a small calibration weight on top. That way the beans I'm grinding have only been left in there for a day. You wouldn't expect to see a problem with that unless maybe the beans are very old to begin with.

I'm surprised to hear the grinder couldn't grind fine enough while slowly feeding the beans in. I'm fully aware of the need to grind finer when doing this but thought you'd easily have the room for adjustment. My E8 didn't struggle in terms of 'fine enough to slow a shot' when just single dosing and grinding through.

To avoid having that 19g always in the grinder I thought of drilling a hole in some wood, shaping it into a cone, and making sure it snugly fit into the grinder so there was no danger of it getting caught on burrs or the spindle.


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

Rob1 said:


> I'm surprised to hear the grinder couldn't grind fine enough while slowly feeding the beans in. I'm fully aware of the need to grind finer when doing this but thought you'd easily have the room for adjustment. My E8 didn't struggle in terms of 'fine enough to slow a shot' when just single dosing and grinding through.


 I think it couldn't cope with bean by bean. I still think several beans at a time may work but when I tried it the grinder got clogged. So needs some experimentation to find the right flow and grind combination.



> To avoid having that 19g always in the grinder I thought of drilling a hole in some wood, shaping it into a cone, and making sure it snugly fit into the grinder so there was no danger of it getting caught on burrs or the spindle.


 Like this you mean? £2.99 wooden rolling pin from the corner shop and a day's work as I don't have the right tools. Excited to try this tomorrow. Will post additional photos of this in new replies as I'm limited to 8MB upload at a time.


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

Bought some calibration weights. This one is the 200g one which upside down fits neatly into the top hole of the rolling pin


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

I need to test this properly tomorrow to make sure it doesn't touch any of the moving parts. I think it will work and the edge means that it applies even pressure to the beans (aided by calibration weights on top)


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

It sits neatly inside a stainless steel tube (an exhaust pipe!) and the rubber ring is mean to ensure it never touches the bottom grinder. As set in this photo, the wooden glove+calibration weight should push beans down with constant pressure but stop just 3mm from the bottom burr. The rubber ring is adjustable so I can bring it back if needed.


----------



## dutchy101 (Jun 12, 2020)

Cap doffed - that's a great effort! Haha


----------



## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Yes like that, only I would file it down to a slight cone shape so it traps fewer beans against the burr carrier. So the outside edge ends above the burr opening and it tapers down to the central point.


----------



## tripleshot (Jun 3, 2020)

Rob1 said:


> Yes like that, only I would file it down to a slight cone shape so it traps fewer beans against the burr carrier. So the outside edge ends above the burr opening and it tapers down to the central point.


 I'm not sure I fully follow. Do you mean just file down the last 5-10mm to smoothen the edges? The reason I left the bottom flat is because I thought I would want as much surface contact with the beans (to simulate bean weight from above), I hadn't considered that beans might get trapped underneath! Wonder if grooves in cross pattern into the wood (kept flat) would help the beans to keep moving as I see now that it's not just about pressure but also pushing those last beans into the burrs.


----------



## Rob1 (Apr 9, 2015)

Like that.

The grooves might well be a better idea. A convex shape + grooves might help prevent any getting trapped while also pushing even the last bits into the burrs.


----------



## iLbsLi (Aug 30, 2020)

I recently got the Ceado E37SD, I got it used and apparently the guy who had it have had problems with it that he didn't tell me about, my problems are almost the same here, it grinds course, and whenever I try to lower the grind settings beans get clogged, The only way I could get fine grind is by feeding the machine a coursely ground beans, I think this machine has a major design flaw. and I wonder if that goes for all of Ceado products!


----------



## lake_m (Feb 4, 2017)

iLbsLi said:


> I recently got the Ceado E37SD, I got it used and apparently the guy who had it have had problems with it that he didn't tell me about, my problems are almost the same here, it grinds course, and whenever I try to lower the grind settings beans get clogged, The only way I could get fine grind is by feeding the machine a coursely ground beans, I think this machine has a major design flaw. and I wonder if that goes for all of Ceado products!


 Nope.


----------

