# Barista Express pressure



## tonezone6 (Jan 19, 2020)

After some long time of experimenting with my BE and different beans, I came to the conclusion that the brewing pressure might be too high.

I'm ignoring BE's pressure gauge but my problem is channeling and I think this is due to the high pressure. So, there is an easy way to try lowering down? Internal valves etc?


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

Most people have problems with channelling when they start. I did when I bought a BE. It went eventually 2 reasons  I think. Prep with a decent pressure with the tamper and keeping it level. Grinds need to be level before tamping but a central even heap also works out. If the grinds aren't like that tamping creates more highly compress grinds at the high parts. The central even heap probably works as grinds must be pressed out to the edges of the basket when it's compressed.

Then dose of grinds. That can make matters worse. The grinds expand when the get wet. That will search out weak spots and make them worse and if insufficient space above the whole puck similar can happen. The razor tool sets a decent grinds puck level and in terms of actual grinds weight there can be surprisingly high variations according to the bean that is being used.

Doing things to the grinds before tamping can also upset things. It might introduce more compression in some parts of the puck than others.


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