What did postman bring today ?

Cuprajake

for a week! 🤣

Niche arrived yesterday (much earlier than the estimated July date), so the home set up is slowly moving to the right direction.

ChristosC Let us know how you find it.

DavecUK Yep, will do!

My first ever electric grinder (Niche) turned up today, never used one before and I had fun trying to get the grind right for my Synchronika. My plan was to use 17g in a 15g VST basket to get 34g liquid out in 23 seconds. First time ever trying to make an espresso so had about half a dozen goes at it. Nearest I got was 32g and most was 41g in 23 seconds; I think that my inconsistent tamping will be a factor more than the grinder. My very first shot failed, I set the grinder to 15 and basically nothing came out for about 40 seconds. Grinder is now sitting at 22 so I will have another go tomorrow and focus on miniscule adjustments. I still think all the coffee that I made in the 32 to 41g range tasted fine to my uncouth palate🙂

NHK295M My very first shot failed, I set the grinder to 15 and basically nothing came out for about 40 seconds. Grinder is now sitting at 22 so I will have another go tomorrow and focus on miniscule adjustments. I still think all the coffee that I made in the 32 to 41g range tasted fine to my uncouth palate🙂

My little rule of thumb helper, 1 mark coarser takes 4s off the pour, 1 mark finer adds 4 sec on the pour. If it chokes of course, you can tell., so 41g in 23 sec means you might tighten the grind up by 2 marks to get 38g in 29s.

As the burrs break in it will also get a tad more consistent.

DavecUK

Thanks - I really need to keep a log over the next few days to see if I can get consistency i.e. follow your rule of thumb then focus on tamping correctly. I also need to get cheap beans as I am throwing a lot of good coffee away😃

NHK295M

DavecUK

Brilliant - I will practise tomorrow and drink at least 1 of the coffees🙏

ChristosC nice! Can the Sage accept the “slayer mod” where you route the brew tube through the hot water dial, thereby getting needle flow control for super cheap? I believe or can. Have you thought of doing it? Now that you have the Niche, might be a cool next step.

Thanks!

(Not sure I want to spend the BH weekend tinkering with my humble BE though…🙂)

Well, the postman brought the blank piece of olive-wood… but I think it came out pretty well, considering I don’t have a lathe.

CoyoteOldMan How did you do it?

PortafilterProcrastinator

A thermocouple thermometer 😀 just to play with in a non scientific way

PortafilterProcrastinator Much of it with a rasp, a coarse file and a drill press. A bull-nose plane to shave off the two ‘corners’ (I could not get a good enough grip on the round finished wood!)

DavecUK No beavers, hamsters or other rodents were harmed in the making of this knob.

CoyoteOldMan Did you put it in the drill press and use the rasp/ file while it was spinning?

I’ve wanted to try this on mine, but chickened out for dear of damaging something (including myself).

PortafilterProcrastinator Yep. I got about 90% of the way there on the drill press. Main thing is to make sure that the ‘centre’ is really in the middle of the piece. I drilled it through, and put a large screw in that I put in the chuck. It’s not super-nice on the mandrel’s bearings (specced for axial, not radial loads, but better than the other way around), but as long as the diameter is not large (I’d stop at 75 mm), it works OK. Choose the highest possible speed, and cut off the corners of square blanks into octagons.