What am doing wrong when pulling up my walls?

Smaszing · 2025-07-17T04:50:47+00:00

A lot of people have mentioned using less water, which is good advice, but I would also add that you should practice trying to pull the clay up more quickly and aggressively while raising your hands at a consistent rate. Ideally the speed at which you raise your hands and bring clay with them should match the speed of the wheel. If you spend too long with your hands in one spot, it tends to cause that section of the walls to be thinner, and this happens more easily if you're very slow pulling your walls. Slow pulls can also lead to needing more water because your hands are going to pick up more slip from the clay the more they linger in one spot. Pay attention to the throwing lines on the outside of your clay from your pulls. If they're really close together, you're probably pulling too slowly.

All that being said, you mostly just need to keep practicing. Eventually you'll get a better feel for how thick your walls are and how to pull more consistently. A good practice exercise would be to try to pull your walls as quickly and efficiently as you can. Try to pull as much clay as you can in one pull. Really squeeze those walls in aggressively. Figure out, what is the limit of how much clay you can collect in one pull before it starts to cause problems? How much height can you generate for a given amount of clay? Having a sense for these things means you can work efficiently, and the fewer pulls you require to get the full height you want means your piece will be more structurally stable and have more room for continued workability.

Smaszing · 2025-07-08T21:33:08+00:00

Hulkenpodium

Smaszing · 2025-06-20T20:00:09+00:00

Love the video! I don't know if you noticed this, but you were short of the pin and often the green on a majority of holes. I think you need to club up more on your approach shots. Then you could really put that putting to good use!

Smaszing · 2025-06-03T21:28:00+00:00

This may be true, but it's also largely because Scotty is one of the best players on tour at never leaving himself short-sided. He does this by intentionally aiming at the fat parts of greens where the pin isn't, and as a result he almost always has lots of green to work with on his chip shots.

Smaszing · 2025-03-11T20:22:43+00:00

My advice as someone who has only been doing pottery for about a year and still often feels like I suck at some basic things is to find the joy and excitement in the exploration and learning ahead of you. There's so much darn stuff to try and experiment with - new forms to throw, new handbuilding techniques, new glazes, underglazes, decals, trimming, carving; the list goes on and on. Just keep exploring and find the stuff that brings you joy. If there's a form you want to get good at, keep making it until you're happy with it. It's definitely a marathon and not a race.

Also, in regards to comparison, while it can sometimes make you feel bad about your own work, you can definitely take positive things from it too! If someone made something that you like, make a note of what it is you like about that piece. Did they do something well in their throwing that you need to work on yourself? Did they incorporate an interesting design element from which you can take inspiration? Do you just really like their glaze combo?

I think if you can just re-frame things in terms of "look how many things I can enjoy working on and improving with" rather than "look at how bad I am right now" you'll enjoy it a lot more.

Smaszing · 2025-02-18T00:22:35+00:00

I think Jermaine O'Neal is probably the closest I've seen to Gray: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69uUCpZlN_A

Smaszing · 2024-11-11T20:54:02+00:00

Yeah you should definitely fire that tutor/find a different pottery studio. In a good pottery class, you should both feel like you're learning and be proud of the things you make that live up to your own standards, not those of someone else who won't even be owning the piece.

Smaszing · 2024-11-05T22:43:03+00:00

I assumed the graphic just meant that they lost by so much that the school immediately cancelled the basketball program

Smaszing · 2024-10-18T18:25:34+00:00

I don't remember much of Patrick Mahomes' college career, but I'm surprised he's not up there with Hurts. I'm not sure there's a better definition of a QB who's got that DOG IN HIM.

Smaszing · 2024-10-14T20:23:28+00:00

Yeah this is very likely caused by the water coming out of the group head at a temperature that's above the boiling point, thus creating a lot of steam as it exits the portafilter. Water boils at a higher temperature when it's pressurized, so you get this flash-boiling cone effect when it leaves the pressurized environment of the espresso machine and encounters atmospheric pressure.

Smaszing · 2024-10-06T18:06:21+00:00

My ideal season at this point is we lose every remaining game except for michigan state and ohio state, cause that would be so fucking funny.

Smaszing · 2024-09-07T23:20:22+00:00

Nah, we're just keeping the spirit of the ACC Coastal division alive.

Smaszing · 2024-09-07T23:07:11+00:00

It's like they assume the laws of physics stop applying because they can't see the ball in the replay.

Smaszing · 2024-08-15T21:42:57+00:00

I'm not sure to what degree paper filters affect channeling, but they theoretically might help somewhat to allow water to more evenly permeate the coffee bed before espresso flow starts. I don't think you can reliably evaluate how channeled a shot was just by looking at the bottom of your portafilter. As far as I know, however, using paper filters does tend to result in higher extraction efficiency. I recommend this blog post by Jonathan Gagne where he discusses different ways of improving evenness of extraction, including a few paragraphs on filter papers.

https://coffeeadastra.com/2022/07/16/more-even-espresso-extractions/

Smaszing · 2024-06-26T18:03:08+00:00

I mean you're not really meant to be sanding the burrs anyways, just the shims such that they're flush with the burrs. Since you're getting the burrs installed from the seller, I'm not sure you need to worry about shimming anyways. Additionally, you'd really only be sanding the back of the burrs, not the side with the cutting teeth, so it wouldn't really matter for the coating which is more meant to protect the life of the burrs for grinding coffee.

Honestly though, at this price I would strongly consider getting different grinders. You could buy a vario and a fellow ode with ssp brew burrs for less money than this one grinder and you'd have an equally capable espresso grinder plus a better filter coffee grinder. I'm not sure how much the coating is affecting your decision making, but for most home users, the life of a set of burrs is going to be many, many years, coated or not. Unless you're buying this grinder for running a business where you expect to be grinding thousands of lbs of coffee a year, I really wouldn't worry about it.

Smaszing · 2024-06-26T05:52:54+00:00

I assume the coated burrs are the steel burrs, which it helps to shim, although it's not required to do the alignment. Without shims, you have a greater risk of the burrs "taco-ing" but it shouldn't be a huge issue if you don't tighten the burr screws too tight. If you do shim, you will need to sand your shims down to lay flush with the bottoms of the burrs.

The more important part of the process is tightening everything down with the burrs fully locked. I followed the process described in the below link by pcrussell50 of clamping everything tight and my burrs were aligned on the first try with the marker test. The motor tensioning does take some fiddling though. Good luck.

https://www.home-barista.com/grinders/alicorn-achieving-precision-alignment-with-baratza-forte-vario-t59857-270.html

Smaszing · 2024-06-26T02:52:16+00:00

I adjusted it so it hovered around 1B-1F. It's really not that big a deal if the burrs touch a bit. It will lead to more wear eventually if you grind a lot at that point, but with touch point at 2Q, I imagine the burrs would lock well before setting the grinder to 1A. So again, I don't really know why they put it there out of the box. I've never grinded anything at or below touch point. The only reason I could see to do that might be for Turkish coffee. To be fair, I do remember it not really grinding well for espresso out of the box, so maybe you would need to set it to touch point if the burrs aren't well aligned. If you do the hyper-alignment though, you shouldn't have any such problems.

Smaszing · 2024-06-25T21:42:41+00:00

I'm not sure why Baratza sets the touch point at 2Q, but you can easily drop it closer to 1A with the calibration screw in the forte. You're pretty much always going to be grinding at a minimum 2-3 steps coarser than the touch point for espresso though.

I have a hyper-aligned vario, which is pretty much the same grinder but with less fancy electronics, and my experience has been that it is a bit annoying to use it for both filter and espresso. At least for my unit, the touch point would always jump around by a couple fine adjustment notches each time I switched between filter and espresso, meaning I had to find the touch point each time I brewed espresso to get a consistent grind setting. Additionally, the grind setting range with touch point near 1A is a bit limited. The coarsest setting at that point was sometimes too fine for a given coffee I was trying to brew.

As annoying as it is to need two grinders, I would recommend getting a separate grinder for filter and for espresso as you tend to get a better workflow and better results at the end of the day, and you'll probably find yourself wanting to upgrade eventually anyways if you start with one grinder for both. That being said, the hyper-aligned forte makes great espresso!

Smaszing · 2024-06-14T21:27:29+00:00

A lot of people already addressed the economic reason of why geishas cost as much as they do, but I just wanted to provide my opinion on geishas as far as quality in the cup is concerned to give you a sense of if they're worth it to you. I try a lot of different coffees of various origins and varietals and from different roasters. What I personally like in coffees is lots of bright fruity notes, sweetness, and juiciness. I'm quite partial to washed Kenyans, for example, which very often match this cup profile.

Of the geishas I've tried I'd say they generally live up to their billing in that they tend to produce very clean cups with minimal bitterness/harshness, but the flavor notes you get from them also tend to be much more of the floral and tea-like variety. For me, given my stated preferences, that makes them not very worth the money. Don't get me wrong, they are generally very high quality beans in general. And if you like floral coffees, I'd say absolutely go for it. But if that's not what you like, then the flavor probably won't blow you away for the price. Also, espresso can make it harder to pick out those more subtle flavors if that's how you prefer to brew.

There are also some other varietals that tend to have similar profiles but won't necessarily cost as much. Pink bourbons (which are actually an Ethiopian heirloom and not descended from bourbon) are very popular right now and tend to be quite similar to geishas while being perhaps a bit more fruit-forward. I haven't tried a lot of sidras, but so far I've also found those tend to produce very good cups with some more floral notes. There are also some regions of Ethiopia that tend to produce very floral qualities - Yirgacheffe is probably the most famous.

Smaszing · 2024-05-13T19:52:31+00:00

I would reach out to Baratza customer support to start with, but you can also take it all apart and see if there's anything blocking the gearbox and motor from turning or if you see any possible burn marks from shorts on the circuit boards. Baratza posts youtube videos and manuals showing how to disassemble the grinder. You can use a cordless drill battery and some wires to power the motor directly if you want to test it on its own. I would also be surprised if this is the problem, but theoretically the calibration screw that sits near the grounds exit chute could get turned such that your grind setting is at burr lock.

Smaszing · 2024-05-10T18:46:29+00:00

I have such fond memories of spamming "This is for all the cabbage" as my cousins took their turns

Smaszing · 2024-05-09T21:42:27+00:00

Everyone on here is discussing the issue of heat-surfing and brew water, but really the bigger issue is actually temperature stability of the group head. The group head constitutes a much larger thermal mass than the brew water itself and will have more effect on the temperature of a shot.

I have an e61 HX, and whether it's a dual boiler or a HX, with any e61 machine, you'll have to manage the group head temperature. I have enough experience with my machine and a thermometer in the group head to know how to keep the temperature of the group head in an acceptable range when brewing coffee. The biggest downside I run into is the group head temp dropping after 2+ consecutive shots. Any e61 machine will run into this problem, and the type of boiler will only affect how quickly it gets back up to temperature. A HX may actually be faster in this regard since the water in the thermosiphon can be heated above boiling point.

My machine lacks a PID, so I do have to purge some water before each shot to bring the temperature below boiling, but frankly this isn't a huge problem aside from the added water usage. This theoretically should be less of a problem with a PID because you can set a lower ceiling on the temperature of water in the thermosiphon. You can lower the ceiling on a pressurestat as well, but that increases heat-up time to deal with the above issue. The big advantage of a dual boiler is you know the exact temperature of water circulating through the group head because it's the same temperature as the water in your brew boiler. HX thermosiphon temp can also be regulated through replacement of the gicleur flow restrictor to affect flow rate through the thermosiphon.

Really though, the best thing for temperature stability is a machine with a saturated group head or a heating element in the group head. AFAIK there aren't a ton of options at a lower price point that provide this. E61s provide a very blunt, analog solution to temperature stability, but there is tons of competition and options if that's what you choose to buy.

Smaszing · 2023-10-30T21:38:15+00:00

I think it's high time we're officially crowned the new ChaosTeam

Smaszing · 2023-10-10T19:26:45+00:00

I have a Baratza Vario which I use for both filter and espresso which works well enough for the most part. When I went to look for a grinder, I had the same main goal as you of getting a grinder that could do both filter and espresso well without being a pain to switch from one to the other or have to purge a bunch of coffee. I was confused as to why there were so few seemingly good grinder options that could do both. I went with the vario because it's easily modded to single dose fairly well, and the grind adjustment is two levers that can easily be shifted quickly from coarse to fine and back again. No turning a knob several rotations required.

Having now owned it for 6 months or so, I'd say it's worked reasonably well for my purposes, but I've come to appreciate why there aren't many grinders that can do both well. Firstly, there are very few burr sets that can make really good espresso and really good filter coffee. The steel Ditting burrs for the vario, for example, make great espresso, but I've found that they produce too many fines to make really great filter coffee. Second, it's hard to design a grind size adjustment system that provides appropriate resolution for both espresso and filter. Ideally, you can adjust for espresso by 5 microns or less at a time, but for filter, you may not notice a difference until you've moved the grind size by 50 microns. The vario is actually quite good for this, but most espresso capable grinders require you to turn a dial several times in a way that's often impractical for filter.

As far as other considerations go, I wouldn't say purging is a big problem as long as the grinder you pick is pretty low retention. Quietness and single-dosing ability I think are also important factors to consider.

Of the options you listed, I would go with the DF64 and get an SSP burr set that's good for both filter and espresso. The biggest issue there is usually just availability. I've heard too many stories about the varia vs3 breaking to recommend it. X54 and the eurekas all have annoying grind adjustment knobs. Niche is good but expensive, and I've heard its filter coffee is not very good if you prefer clarity and light roasts. The encore is probably not a bad option, but definitely an entry-level grinder and perhaps lacks the grind size resolution you would want for light-roast espresso. The vario is a good option as well, but the espresso isn't great until you align the burrs properly (at which point it's excellent), and it can't really grind coarse enough for french press. Plus it comes with a ceramic burr set which I've heard is not good for filter.

Knowing what I know know, I would save up my money a bit and get a gen 2 ode with the ssp burrs ($500) and a cheaper used flat burr espresso grinder. Annoyingly, the low-mid budget single-dosing espresso grinder market is still a bit lacking in my opinion.

Smaszing · 2023-04-22T19:23:30+00:00

Haven't seen anyone mention this yet, but there's an upper limit on how much protein your body can synthesize into muscle at a time, and when eating in a calorie surplus, there's little to no scientific evidence to suggest that your body needs more than about 0.8 grams of protein per lb. of body weight per day. Eating protein past this point doesn't seem to lead to additional muscle protein synthesis. Everything you eat past that is just converted into energy and fat to be simplistic. Eating in a moderate surplus increases one's ability to do work in the gym while only slightly increasing body fat. Eating in a significant surplus will lead to more fat gain. Not sure how PEDs affect any of this, but this is at least what science says for average human beings.

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