# Bad results with gaggia classic



## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

hello,

I cannot get a good cup of coffee from my gaggia classic. i have a mazzer mini type A with brand new burrs and ive cleaned and serviced the whole thing. the gaggia coffee machine has been fitted with a pressure gauge, PID and a auto timer.

I have the temperature at 95 degrees C and the pressure at 9 bars and i was trying to adjust the grinder so i could get 16g of coffee with a yield of 32g into the cup, this either happens at like 19 seconds or it seems like the coffee is too fine and would take all day to get the 32grams into the cup.

what am i doing wrong, as my results are consistently bad!

i have seen a guy with a similar set up but with the machine set at 6 bars?

Please please help me as im loosing the will to live with his little project!


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

Are you saying that the 19s shots are at the same grind setting as the "all day" shots? If so, your distribution in the basket & tamp could be inconsistent (assuming that you are weighing each dose in the PF to 15.8-16.2g).


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

What's the coffee....

95 is pretty high also.


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## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

MWJB said:


> Are you saying that the 19s shots are at the same grind setting as the "all day" shots? If so, your distribution in the basket & tamp could be inconsistent (assuming that you are weighing each dose in the PF to 15.8-16.2g).


No, if i adjust the grinder setting to be slightly finer i seem to not manage to get it to a nice grind. it seems to be either too fine or too course?


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## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

its steampunk coffee, but i am also getting the same bad results with other types of coffee. what should the PID be set to? 90?


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## Junglebert (Jan 7, 2019)

If the burrs are brand new, do they need seasoning?


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## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

Junglebert said:


> If the burrs are brand new, do they need seasoning?


 possibly, what is seasoning?


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## Junglebert (Jan 7, 2019)

Running in basically, grind a lot of coffee.....


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## Agentb (Feb 11, 2017)

When you say bad, what is wrong ?

Also what size and type of basket are you using?


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## Jollybean (May 19, 2013)

I used to run my Gaggia PID set at 95 too to allow for water cooling between the thermocouple on the boiler and the group head and had good results. Suspect poor distribution as has been suggested or some fault in the grinder.


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## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

Agentb said:


> When you say bad, what is wrong ?
> 
> Also what size and type of basket are you using?


well the crema looks very pale in colour in my opinion but it just tastes very bitter and not very nice, this is after adding a little milk and hot water.

how much bedding in do you think the grinder burrs will need?

do you think 95degrees sounds about right? what do all you guys have your machines set at?

i think its an 18g basket so i have also tried using 18g of coffee but the results are no better.


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## Junglebert (Jan 7, 2019)

fin199 said:


> No, if i adjust the grinder setting to be slightly finer i seem to not manage to get it to a nice grind. it seems to be either too fine or too course?


I'm slightly confused by this post, what do you mean by 'nice grind'?


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## jimbojohn55 (Jan 15, 2016)

Agree with Bert above - adjusting the grind on the mazzer is often down to the tinyest of adjustments, also essential is weighing the grinds every time to keep it consistent - its a question of changing one paramiter at a time

grind

Weight

Temp

Tamp

It took me about a month to get the hang of my classic


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## fin199 (May 3, 2019)

Jollybean said:


> I used to run my Gaggia PID set at 95 too to allow for water cooling between the thermocouple on the boiler and the group head and had good results. Suspect poor distribution as has been suggested or some fault in the grinder.


i think its a 18g basket that came with the machine. ive tried 18 g aswell as 16 g but im still not getting any results

what faults could it be with the grinder?

what temperature does everyone else have there machines set to?

what are your tamping methods?


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## Junglebert (Jan 7, 2019)

fin199 said:


> i think its a 18g basket that came with the machine. ive tried 18 g aswell as 16 g but im still not getting any results


Try 17 and 19 too....


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## CoffeeNooge (May 18, 2019)

I've since moved on from my gaggia but it took about a year of tweaking before I got tiger striped, tasty shots out of it. The real game changer for me was getting a bottomless portafilter so I could see the extraction. Got mine for about £25 or you could angle grind your existing one if you have the tools. The stock basket was adequate for me so would suggest you don't go the way of replacing it straight away.

The pid will help massively as I really struggled with temperature surfing but distribution and channelling was a big issue too. I kept the default pressure.

Key points are seeing the coffee appear evenly, dripping fro the centre of the basket and hitting the cup between 5-8 seconds and generally started at 1:2 ratio over 20-25 seconds depending on the coffee. You'll see loads of bottomless pf shots on YouTube although some people use coffees that seem to be all crema and very voluminous.

As others have asked above, what's your workflow with getting coffee from the grinder and tamping?


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