Posted Thu Dec 8, 2005, 12:43pm Subject: Rocky doserless clumps
Any ideas on how to declumpify the output of a Rocky. I have been ignoring it, but thought I'd ask. I saw one idea of grinding into a metal container and shaking it up and then taping it into the filter basket. I tried that with a glass but it didn't seem to help much. My coffee grounds see very much attracted to each other.....
One possibility is to grind into a small (8 ounce?) Mason jar. That's what I grind into with my Cunill Tranquilo which, luckily, doesn't leave me with clumps. After grinding, you could screw the lid on and gently shake. The nice thing about this size Mason jar is the circumference is about 58mm, meaning you can place your PF basket on the rim of the jar and invert. Coffee dumps into the basket (albeit with not the most even distribution), and once you do this a few times, the mess is pretty minimal.
One possibility is to grind into a small (8 ounce?) Mason jar. That's what I grind into with my Cunill Tranquilo which, luckily, doesn't leave me with clumps. After grinding, you could screw the lid on and gently shake. The nice thing about this size Mason jar is the circumference is about 58mm, meaning you can place your PF basket on the rim of the jar and invert. Coffee dumps into the basket (albeit with not the most even distribution), and once you do this a few times, the mess is pretty minimal.
Good to hear Kristi! I can't take complete credit for that idea; I read some where here of someone else who grinds and dispenses using a Mason jar. Glad to pass it along!
Yep. I'm starting to learn Stockfleth's move and the pile of grounds I'm starting with are already in much better shape coming out of the glass which helps the learning process (using a glass I got at goodwill - I think I know a hardware store that sells the small bell jars and will try to pick one up today).
How do you dose? I have been doing by volume straight into the pf. I could put a specific volume of beans into the grinder and puff it out at the end, or I could just put a line on the glass jar... The first sounds easier.
I grind per shot, and I do that by weight. For a double, I measure 16.5 grams using a MyWeigh MX-200 scale (works fantastic). From this amount, I'll get darn close to 16 gm ground every time. Using my Cunill Tranquilo grinder, I grind directly into the Mason jar. Lucky for me, the ground coffee is quite fluffy, and void of clumps. I place the PF (upside-down) over the opening of the jar, and carefully invert in a quick smooth motion. That last part is what's taken me some time to learn! With a successful inversion, the ground coffee ends up in a mound which I can level with my finger (two motions from the center out to each outside edge).
Getting the leveling right for even distribution has taken some practice, and I now have it so that a North/South/East/West light tamping, followed by a gentle tap on the side of the PF using my tamper, then a (approx.) 30 lbs tamp in the middle seems to do the trick.
Dosing and distribution are critical and oft-neglected parts of the process. The Mason jar inversion sounds like an excellent way to distribute grounds evenly, but I don't know how effective it will be in reducing clumpiness.
I had a similar problem with clumping when I went "doserless" on my Mazzer SJ. Here's my solution: stir the grounds with a needle to break up clumps. To reduce mess, I cut out the bottom of a yogurt container to make a funnel that just fits into the filter basket. After grinding directly into the basket, I stir the grounds with a dissecting needle until they look uniform. Remove the funnel, and tap gently on the countertop to settle the grounds. Sweep back and forth a couple times with a straight edge (I use the needle handle) to remove excess grounds and level the surface. Then tamp using your favorite method. If you get the grind, dosing and distribution right, any tamp that produces a nice level surface should work fine.
Here's a pic showing various stages in the process (grind, declump, level, tamp).
I found a measure that equalled 2 Rocky coffee measures (flat, using water). I used this measure to put one heaping measure into Rocky and ground it into a jar (oddly, it DOES seem to help declump it a LOT!). When I inverted that into the basket, it did not give me quite enough to do a good Stockfleth on it - I wished for about 3 more beans! The resultant shot was tasty. The beans were week-opened Trader joes 5 country.(I raqn out of Caffe Fresco a day or 2 ago. Running boiler PID at 212F did a 4 sec cooling shot and pulled with very close to 88-89C for the whole shot.
Stockfleth's is definitely helping me (thanks malachi!!!) and the glass helps tons!!!!!!!!!(thanks Bob!!!)
I just ordered a flat tamper(1st Line rosewood) as I have been using a curved Lava since I got Silvia and want to see the difference in pulling the shot. I can see that my poor to nonexistant distribution techniques were overcome a bit by the curved bottom tamper which tends to push a lot to the outside. Now that I am learning to distribute more evenly, I want to try a flat one.
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