Man I feel that pain deep down. Nothing worse than thinking you've got your numbering straight only to find out later something threw it all off and you gotta go back and redo half your index.

That old guy Walt sounds like he saved you a ton of headaches.

Hard disagree. @caseythompson probably got lucky with a grinder that can actually do medium coarse right. Most cheap grinders produce uneven crap at coarser settings and you get more fines than anything. I been running espresso fine for years with a dusty grind and my shots taste fine if you dial in the dose and pressure. You were likely just overpacking or using stale beans. Grind size isnt the only variable.

Your buddy's gonna hate me for this, but that soak-and-press method sounds like way more work than just letting the paste sit out for an hour. I've messed around with homemade wheat paste on a few bookbinding projects and honestly, I always mix it thick as hell and apply it wet. Never had a wave problem because I close the hinge while it's still tacky and let the whole thing dry together. That moisture helps the fibers settle into place. Letting it sit out for an hour just makes it grabby and uneven in my experience. Plus, twice I've had paste dry out on the brush before I even got the hinge closed, and that's a nightmare to scrape off.

Started with a Discover secured card put down $500 and set up autopay for a small streaming subscription. My score jumped about 35 points in the first 4 months just from having that positive payment history show up. The key was keeping my balance under 10% of the limit even though it was tiny lol.