Don’t be afraid of the grind! This takes practice and patience and you should expect to waste a lot of coffee doing this. Some grinders are very sensitive so if you know that your beans are good and that you tamp consistently you can easily see the effects the grinder has on the pour.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Use old beans when first dialling in your grinder. Sometimes you can waste a lot of coffee refining the grind and you don’t want to use your high-quality beans.
Step 1. Start at any point on the grinder and see how the first shot comes out. If it gushes out like dirty water then you are far
too coarse and you’ll need to move the dial in the direction of a finer grind. You can make large adjustments at this level as you
want to find the point where it drips, and then adjust the grind back so it pours slowly without dripping.
Step 2. Run another shot again and, if this time the coffee just drips out, it means you have dialled the grinder too far towards
fine. So go back the other way (but not as far as the first one) and try again.
Step 3. Clean out all the old grind after each shot and only adjust the grinder with micro-adjustments as you get closer to
the right spot.
Step 4. Keep repeating this method until you hone in the perfect pour which should look like melted honey.
Step 5. Once your shots are coming through nice and slowly, without waving about like water or dripping, you can leave your
grinder dialled in here and then just tweak it finer or coarser when you notice that the coffee isn’t pouring perfectly. A god
shot is like the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel and you’ll know it when you see it.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure that you backflush the machine after each use. This is often overlooked but is an important
process as this gets rid of any leftover grinds in and around the screen. Coffee will go rancid very quickly and affect the taste of
your future coffees if you don’t get rid of them. Another important step is to remove the basket from the portafilter and
clean both the basket and inside the portafilter from any coffee grinds and stains. If you let this build-up you will start to taste a
murky, dirty flavour in your coffees.
