Falling apart and starting to flow fast is something that was odd in 2000 in making espresso, when the majority of the beans were roasted dark, or much darker.
There are grinders that produce more or less fines, more or less even grind. My theory was that in some grinders, there are small particles (sub 100 microns) that get pushed a bit and part of them washed away into the liquid/cup. The basket holes are over 300 microns in diameter, so a 1-50 microns particles could be washed. by the water under pressure into the cup (if not then why we get lower refractions if we filter our espresso before taking a tds measurement). So after a majority of those finer particles are washed or pushed away at the bottom, there is more space created into the puck, so t he water has space to accelerate and push more.
I can give you some examples of really light roasted beans, that flow extremelly fast in espresso and making them go slower ruins the taste by a lot (brings a lot of bad aftertaste into the cup after it cools down under 35C):
Here is Tim Wendelboe Kenya brewed on ssp 98mm hu red speed:
Here is SSP 98mm ULF burrs:
In my opinion ssp hu produce a lot of fines (98mm ones) and the grind size is much more uniform and also much finer, and a much finer grind size contains by default a higher degree of finer particles (fines).
This type of shots are of course for people who search and drink those type of brews. Someone who enjoys only espresso and doesnt enjoy brews from light roasted florals beans wont enjoy this type of espresso, they will find it pocking, tart, floral, herbal, not enough body, no thick mouthfeel, watery and pungent. But hey, you like what you like.
So trying to “fix” that thing, is bad, as that is not a problem, but it’s a normal feature of ssp burrs. If you do not want to have that behavior then you must go to some more traditional burrs.
There is also a different general rule for roast level, in espresso or brew. The darker the roast the slower the shot. If you have a south italian roast style, you will really want to slow down the brew shot time (40-60 sec total) and get out just a tiny bit of liquid, like 18g in -25 g out, around that.
If you try to do that with a light roasted filter bean you will get an acidic bomb that will make you jump and your eyes will go out of your cavities, because of how acidic and unpleasent it will be. Light roast need more flow, less time (turbo) and a bit longer ratio. 18g -40 g out is a good start.
So if someone tries a 40-60sec shot with 98mm ssp hu on a dark roast, I bet he wont enjoy the chimney aftertaste that remains, and it’s a burr feature, the roast taste nice with a conical pulled how I said it, short ratio long time.
