Mastering the Grind: Why Constant Adjustment is Key to Great Coffee

The best baristas in the world share one common habit: they constantly adjust their grinders.

Many home enthusiasts make the mistake of finding a setting that works once and never touching it again. However, coffee is an organic product that changes constantly. If you never touch your grinder adjustment collar, you are likely missing out on the full potential of your beans.

Here is why "dialing in" is a never-ending process and how to adjust for temperature, age, and bean origin.

Why Grinders Need Adjustment Throughout the Day

The grind setting you used at 7:00 AM might not work by 1:00 PM.

First thing in the morning, both your coffee beans and your equipment are cool. The barista must adjust the grinder to ensure the dose and tamp result in a correct espresso extraction.

As the day heats up—and as the grinder burrs generate friction heat from use—the beans behave differently. Heat expands metal and changes the way oils are released from the bean, requiring minor compensations to the grind setting to keep the shot flow consistent.

The Impact of Freshness: Opening a New Bag

Even if you are buying the exact same blend, from the same roast batch, opening a new bag often requires a tweak to your settings.

Beans inside a sealed bag are suspended in a different environment of pressure and oxygen levels compared to beans that have been sitting in your hopper exposed to air.

Furthermore, as coffee ages, it generally requires a finer grind adjustment. As the beans degas and lose moisture over time, the water flows through them faster. To compensate for this lack of resistance, you must tighten the grind to maintain the perfect extraction time.

Adjusting for Bean Origin and Density

For our customers who enjoy exploring different single origins or blends, adjusting your grinder is mandatory. Different coffee origins have different densities, which dramatically affects how they shatter during grinding.

• Soft Beans (Finer Grind): Indonesian coffees (Sumatra, Java) and lower-altitude South American beans (Brazil, Peru) are generally softer. They often respond better to slightly finer grind settings.

• Hard Beans (Coarser Grind): High-grown beans from Central America and African coffees (Ethiopia, Kenya) are much denser. You may need to open the grind up a little coarser to achieve the perfect flow rate and avoid choking the machine.

Conclusion: Don't Set It and Forget It

While other brew methods like Plunger (French Press), Filter Drip, and Stovetop are more forgiving, espresso is unforgivingly sensitive to grind size.

To enjoy coffee at its best, we strongly recommend you continuously monitor the performance of your extraction. If your shot runs too fast, go finer. If it drips slowly, go coarser.

Embracing the adjustment process is the single best step you can take toward better tasting coffee.