MediumRoastSteam

More questions in the interests of diagnosis:

  1. Are you using a Niche Zero of Niche Duo? From memory you have a Zero? Just wondering if for some strange reason the grinder is suddenly developed alignment issues.

  2. The beans are several months past roast date. I’ve had beans disintegrate very quickly, like falling off a ledge. That can be even more pronounced with high pressure vacuum packing. Surprisingly, the beans can actually deteriorate faster than beans in a normal bag or canister. @DavecUK alerted me to this so I tested it with the same bactch of beans, half a batch of freshly roasted beans in a bag with a traditional one way valve and the other half vacuum packed after (from memory) around ten days degassing. The latter deteriorated almost twice as fast than the former, as measured by pour times at the same grind size.

Add an increase in humidy?

Following with interest.

      tompoland - hey Tom!

      1. Niche Zero. But also happened a while back when using a Kinu M68 (also a conical grinder).
      2. The strange thing is that it has gone significantly coarser rather than finer.
      3. I can only think it’s atmospheric change. In the grand scheme of things… first world problems, but very strange it happen all of a sudden.

      The interesting thing however, is that a month or so ago the opposite happened: I had to, all of a sudden, grind finer. And it happened across all the coffee beans I had on the go. Initially I thought, ok, the beans are ageing, but for all of them to suffer from the same symptom was odd.I even checked my grinder “zero” point, clean it all, and the zero point was perfect where it always been. I had this grinder for almost 5 years now, and as can tell you categorically I did NOT accidentally turned the calibration ring by mistake.

      Just very odd, but it happened before, so just curious too if there’s a rational explanation behind the phenomenon.

          MediumRoastSteam sick puppy that I am, I’m always fascinated by this sort of thing.

          And were there any wild swings in humidity that might have come into play?

          Just when you think it’s safe to (go back into the water) grind again….

              I have opened Crankhouse Kenyan roasted on 25 April from VacPac this morning. Ground at #5 on the Duo. The shot time was 38s. Let me see how it fares the next couple of days and come back. I would finish the coffee in 2-3 days though. 😊

              MediumRoastSteam spoke with a local barista last summer who works in a cafe that has a massive open front wall, so no air conditioning, just ceiling fans. She said that on some days in summer she has to change the grind setting up to 8 times to compensate for changing humidity. So that may be the answer. (Where I am in Australia we have long dry warm and sunny winters but hot wet and humid summers. Cos we’re upside down n all 😉)

                I’ve had this for the first time recently. Have had to radically alter grind on the Zero in the last week or so.

                Today, the same coffee from Crankhouse, same dose and grind reference ran a little faster and finished at 31s.

                @MediumRoastSteam what beans are you using? Is it a blend? This happened to me a couple of times in the past, but it’s probably been about a year ago, and was in the summer when the weather was sticky and humid. I’m pretty sure it was a blend, and would not have been any more than 2-4 weeks post roast. I put it down to the relative humidity and the beans at the time. 🤔

                  JahLaza what beans are you using? Is it a blend?

                  It affected all the coffees I had on the go: all single origins, Kenyan, Brazilian, Colombian.

                      Generally, I don’t adjust the grind reference for the same coffee unless I see a big swing in pour times or taste. Ex: 40s shot becomes a turbo shot. Today, there was a swing of 7s, the coffee was still perfect. 😊

                      tompoland - The more I think about it, the more I think it’s related to the weather Tom. It was rather warm here in the UK a few weeks ago, and, in the last week or so, it’s been more humid and rainy. When it was sunny we had the french doors all wide open - But not now.

                      And yes, it’s in a sunny spot towards the end of the day, but it’s not direct sunlight.

                          MediumRoastSteam when oh when is someone going to design a grinder that automatically adjusts to the weather conditions resulting in consistent grinds no matter the weather?? Big hole in the market here folks!!

                            MediumRoastSteam The more I think about it, the more I think it’s related to the weather Tom. It was rather warm here in the UK a few weeks ago, and, in the last week or so, it’s been more humid and rainy. When it was sunny we had the french doors all wide open - But not now.

                            Funny enough, I’m going to agree. My house is pretty dry and I haven’t needed to open the windows much. A friend of mine has had his windows open a lot and mentioned how humid it was. My grind doesn’t vary much day to day, so I suspect humidity could be the culprit.

                            Contact me

                              2 months later

                              MediumRoastSteam Yesterday something very strange happened (again). I’ve been grinding this particular coffee - Kenyan - at setting 10 on the Niche. Yesterday the shot took 70 seconds for the usual 18g in, 36g out. I thought nothing of it, maybe some freak event, and just drank the coffee. This morning, guess what? Same thing again, but took it even longer, like 85 seconds.

                              Something similar and very strange happened to me: suddenly the grind setting that was perfect before completely choked the machine. I think I needed to go 2-3 steps coarser (on Niche Zero) to get the same flow. This happened on both coffees I have on the go (there is a 4-step difference between them: one on 11, the other on 14, and both needed much coarser settings at the same time).

                               At this stage I thought maybe the calibration ring moved. So I went all the way to the calibration point, and indeed the dot didn’t align with the arrow by about the right distance, so I thought I found the problem. I aligned the point to the arrow and thought all is good.

                              However – the calibration difference was in the wrong direction (meaning that now the grind was even finer, not coarser. In other words: a coffee that I was on 11 suddenly needed 14. After fixing the calibration, instead of going back to 11, it now needed 17).

                               Can the weather change explain such a dramatic shift? Did anyone else in the UK have this in the last few days (assuming I’m not the only one who experienced a change in the weather)?