Make sure to tamp the like and subscribe! Lots of effort go into these and it would be hugely appreciated! Any questions on methodology not covered? Ask below!
Lance, I did not pick up on why you did not test the Happy Tamper. Are you saying that it was unseating your puck when pulling actual shots or just in the clear glass? I have the happy tamper and have never seen it unseat the puck but that would be concerning if you were experiencing this. Thanks!
Question to you, what do you do with the few grounds that get left behind in the tamping process? You know, those pesky ground that are stuck to basket side and basket rim. Do you kick them back into the puck, and tamp one more time, or just brush/blow them out into the sink and or trash, just push them into the puck and set screen on top??? I don’t think there is enough chat about dialing espresso shots byproduct waist coffee. Thoughts? .
"tamp" like and subscribe gave me a good laugh. 😁I tried the "shake and surface-rake" method this morning with great results. I am definitely going to try this as my new workflow and see if it continues to yield good results. I have been using the Normcore tamper you mentioned along with their dosing cup for some time and they are a joy to use. I manually WDT and enjoy that process, but does anyone have experience with how deeply the AutoComb type tools go into the puck? I would guess most are adjustable?
Hey Lance, I know it's not much, but here's a token of appreciation for all the hard work you're putting in. It's really nice to have videos with actual testing to refer to when making decisions like tamping or screen pucks. Keep up the good work!
this is silly but I literally just sent you a DM on instagram about three days ago asking this exact question. I was shocked to see that you took the time to make a whole video explaining it just for me, very kind Lance.
I am a big fan of the Force Tamper. I used them in two world barista championship finals, and we started to use them in our stores as well. The consistency resonates well with me, and as it's still "manual," the user still pays proper attention - when it becomes mechanical, it's easier to overlook when something isn't right. I also don't use any types of distribution tools. Granted, that's very much based on the quality of the grinder being used. Great video, keep it up.
are using the Force Tamper with the factory setting, or do adjust it up/down. Lance seems to imply towards the end of the video that it should be 'relaxed' at bit...thanks
Love these more edited videos, as well as your live "unfiltered" series. Together they provide a wealth of knowledge to the coffee community, and these more "filtered" videos are much more friendly to new coffee nerds.
With tampers being covered im interested in a similar video with WDT tools such as the autocomb, moon raker, or 3D printed ones vs hand WDT. Thanks for the geeat videos! Always a awesome to get some coffee science in the morning!
You've mentioned numerous times the study shows that around the edges of the coffee puck, the coffee is always under-extracted no matter what tamping technique or basket type is used. Well, it must be because, around the edge wall of the basket, there are no holes made. So based on this assumption, I don't understand why the manufacturers do not simply put holes evenly spaced around the edge wall of all baskets so the basket then would no longer be a basket but a STRAINER. And to me, it sounds like the problem of under-extraction could easily be solved that way. Surely that would greatly improve the extraction consistency throughout the puck. Job done.
I started double tamping by accident really just to get some loose grounds around the edges. Shots were always worse when I didn’t do this. I didn’t realise this was a thing until you said! Nice video.
I've done a fair amount of ground work for foundations for buildings. Compacting and testing the compaction of the ground is part of it. Something I was doing naturally when tamping was just holding the tamp pressure for a few seconds. So I'm interested to try double tamping to see if it's similar. Material takes some time to compress. So it make sense to me that double tamping, or "ensured" tamping of the material so it's compressed as homogeneously as possible will help create more even flow/extraction through the puck. I think the ripples are just for show, the top of the puck is super porous as far as I can perceive even when tamped flat. I super have been thinking that a convex tamp would help with even extraction because of basket flex, but clearly that's not the case lol. Side note, that umikot you got printed for you is impeccably nice lmao Too bad your electric tamper isn't wireless charging. You could just keep it on a charge pad and it would be ready to go. Maybe you have a person that could modify it for you to accept wireless charging ?
I did a quick test a while back using a homemade oedometer, and found that with 35 lb tamping force, the puck compressed very quickly (too quickly to measure the settling time), and then over the next 90 seconds there was almost no change (0.046 mm) in puck depth. In contrast, with repeated tamps, there was a significant change in puck depth with each additional tamp. This makes me think that the press-release cycle is important to allow the ground coffee particles to rearrange into a denser configuration--otherwise, they just sort of get locked up in a less dense configuration.
It already has wireless charging, the main issue with the bosetamper is that it is always on and constantly drains battery. Thus you need to have a dedicated wireless charger for it and consistently be using it.
We gotta just compile a playlist of all of these ultimate showdowns to link people considering new purchases or getting into the hobby! Thanks for all the work you do and love all of these videos!
Great little video! Thanks for clearing up some "rumors". Personally I'm using a normcore self levelling spring tamper and I'm super happy with it. It's not fancy but does give me the consistency I want / need.. Cheers
I was just looking at getting this one. What kind of baskets do you use? I got an IMS basket and was wondering if the type of basket you use affects the quality of tamping
@@ebusive I use a small variety of baskets. Mostly the " Standard" IMS Comp (24,5M ending of modelcode). More recently the Pullmann 17-19 g with 17,5g very dark roasted italian coffee (espresso). I have the 58,5 tamper with the black non stick coating... Cheers
...furthermore.. The pullmann basket runs faster than the IMS.. I experience some channeling sometimes..not often.. puckprep is the same.. so no idea if the tamping has something to do with it. In general I experience channeling more often with straight wall baskets such as the pullmann, IMS big bang.. etc.. in comparison to the convex walls..
@nextip did you change the spring from default 25lb or switch it out to the 30lb? I just bought one. I’ve never tamped twice so thinking maybe 25lb of pressure spring would be adequate.
Great data! There's so many gimmicky tools floating around and they cost a premium. I think it makes newcomers feel overwhelmed and stickershocked. We're lucky there's people like you going through all this effort to prove that you don't need to stress about tamper choices to make good coffee!
I'm assuming that a tamper with a click (compared to a clickless one which uses just the stroke length) gives more consistency when you change grind size (while dialing in new beans, or when beans are aging). For example, if you have increased grind size, a clickless tamper will tamp harder until it's stopped by the stopper, so you have changed two variables rather than one.
I have been experimenting with tampers for the past year with a wide variety of tamper designs and coffees. I won't go into all of my findings that are more in depth than this video and its references, but will add a couple of comments relevant to the video. First off, I agree that a flat bottom is better than a domed bottom, and that the main difference with the ridges is extra cleaning of grounds off the tamper. After a year of use my Normcore spring tamper has a lot of play in it and regularly does not produce a level, evenly tamped puck. I can see this by inspecting the tamped puck. I can improve results by removing the guide and the weak spring so you can see what the tamp is doing and press down directly on the tamper. Doing a second tamp with a conventional tamper allows me to find and fix the areas of uneven tamping done by the Normcore. I have not used the similar Decent tamper to see if it has this play eventually. Once a puck has been tamped, any sort of tapping or polishing runs the risk of breaking the puck away from the sides of the basket or cracking the puck, leading to channelling of various types. I have not used the Force tamper but have seen videos of it being used where it is clear in the video that the impulse it produces has this effect.
Lance this is a great step up for you. It’s more concise, more salient points, and a consistent energy from the music and beautiful cuts. Keep this up!!
My first thought was that the convex tampers were back-asswards. Since the outside of the puck seems underextracted, the center should have a slight mound (to increase overall resistance), ie, the tamper face should be concave.
I definitely enjoy the tighter format (or at least some variety to the longer rambly ones), but I wondered about some editing choices. The segment on the ripple bottom felt like it was missing a conclusion, and the naked portafilter segment really didn't belong in this video. Still, love the shorter format and looking forward to the forthcoming one on WDT tools! Thanks for the work!
Great work ! one tip for those with ridged calibrated tampers, use a flat bottom one ( everyone has at least one right ?) to finish, lightly tamp and bingo ridges are gone.
I use the BOSE Tamper every day, I just keep it charged with a wireless charger. I was hoping you’d cover it since I’d like to hear your thoughts. Other than that, I have several tamps I use, the original Perg Tamp is my favourite out of those.
That's really interesting... I've been wanting to do some testing with The Force tamper, as I thought it might "jiggle" coffee particles into a more dense/stable configuration compared with conventional tampers and give a higher/more consistent EY. I'm surprised to see that it actually gives a lower EY, and now I'm curious why that might be.
@@LanceHedrick based on video you don’t hold the base of force tamper with other hand. In other words when you tamp the base can lift and it is visible on the video. I would bet it increase variation as this more random effect, especially as you tamp twice. Not sure if tamping twice is optimal for force tamper, given impact design, but I will do some tests.
impeccable timing, i literally have a normcore flat base and ripple base in my Amazon cart right now and was wondering how the ripple could affect extraction. thank you Lance!!
When you get the Normcore, my advice is to swap out for the lightest (15 lb) spring. I don't think Lance touched on it in this video, but he's mentioned it in other videos, that fully compressed is fully compressed. Once you're fully compressed, it doesn't matter if you're applying 30 lbs or 300 lbs, you're still just pushing harder against an immovable surface. The 15 lb spring is heavy enough, and the heavier springs just makes using it more uncomfortable.
I came to the conclusion that my Normcore is consistent and isn't impacting my shots in a meaningful way just from using it... glad there's some data to make me feel even better about it. It's the only tamper I've ever used, and that won't be changing now.
Soooo interesting ! Every kind of recent "this is the ultimate way of tamping" just got debunked in a 10 minutes video. Turns out you just need a flat self levelling tamper and that your own force is better than a piston. Buying every other gadget is paying more for worse results. I clearly didn't expect that, and was really confused about all the choices on the market right now. I'm glad you made the video before I bought any upgrade to my current classic tamper.
Love my new Force Tamper! I don't love the way it looks but I love how it just punches things and I have no need to use limited brain power in the am (did an entire full review on my channel). May get a bravo tamper in the future just for the fun of it to go manual if I want to. Interesting results though to see there is some fluctuation, I did wonder if the punch would affect the puck but counteract the variances of pressure which is their whole selling point of removing a variable
Lance, I've been binge watching your videos all week and I've got to say, this is not just the best video I've seen on your channel but possibly the best, most information packed video I've seen on RUclips this year. 10 minutes packed with data, everything came with a hypothesis, explanation of the method, result and conclusion. I've seen 2 hour videos that don't cover as much information as this does. Absolutely to tier stuff.
Lance, a curved tamper is sometimes required, that's why I'm including the option on our JL tamper. It's required for larger doses with the more traditional thinner metal baskets that are a bit aged and curved on the base. The curve on the base means that the only way you'll get a constant radially averaged thickness function on the puck is with a curved tamper... But yeap for all other times a flat tamper, I was also tempted to do an adjustable curvature tamper, but decided against it.
@@LanceHedrick hmmmm no only observations... Sometime shots will ring channel so hard they develop a central dead spot that doesn't go away, this does depend on the pressure profile, the only way to stop it is with a curve tamper, the curve is quite slight though. It should match the curvature of an old basket (ours will be hight diff 2mm max). The puck that comes out has a concave curve on the bottom and convex curve on the top with a radially averaged constant thickness.
@@gourmetcoffee3922 yeap at some point, but it was so easy to add a curve on our tamper (on the other side) why not do it and give people the option, and save them from throwing out a perfectly good basket just because it has a slight curve which can be easily compensated for with a very slight curve in the tamper.
Why is there such a high variation in shot time? 5:36 EDIT: There is a mistake in in the graph! The actual units of the y-axis are [%] and not [s] then it makes sense. So it's relative variation not absolute.
A big thing is to move the portafilter carefully after tamping. Any sudden movement or bump can cause the puck to dislodge, Seen so many people carefully tamp a puck and then slam it into the group head
@@stevegee218I had this in the beginning when filling my 18g basket with 18g coffee, the shower screen pattern was visible. Changed to 17.5g and now it isn't anymore :)
this kinda helps backup my findings of daily driver tamper.. I was switching between the Normcore spring tamper (flat) and the MHW-3Bomber click tamper. I was not getting nearly the same consistency with the 3bomber compared to the normcore. It basically sits behind the coffee cans now and I don't use it. Now the normcore is the go-to.. Also finding the double tamp really helps in some cases too.
@@pauloaneiros9632 The normcore is great. The double tamp, is simply pressing the tamper down twice. I tamp, then rotate the tamper and push it down again. Saw Lance Hedrick do it in one of his videos so I tried it. Seemed to help with consistency.
@@trev_mcnaughton thanks a lot for your propmt response. The normcore is coming tomorrow, I also made an upgrade, from a Breville Barista touch to a Lelit Bianca V3/Eureka Libra, I look like a 5 years old waiting for christmas :)
One important thing I've noticed after buying an expensive tamper (The Force): My shots did not taste better than when i was using my Normcore V4. However, I adjusted the pressure *higher* than its original setting. Good to know that I should have gone lower instead
Great video on a topic that doesn’t have a lot of data! I’ve found that the ripple tamper on my Normcore is a pain in the ass because when it’s a bit humid it can sometimes catch some coffee in some of the ripples and pull out a chunk out of the puck. It’s also messier to clean and dry. Other than looking cool when you get a perfect tamp I really think there is ZERO benefit of using this vs a flat base, and it’s really a redundant product. Luckily for me Normcore now sell their bases separately so I’ve switched to a flat base
Awesome video! My coffee nerd friend and I were discussing tampers last week and couldn't find any conclusive evidence to which tampers were the most consistent.
Thank you for the great video Lance ❤ WDT and manual tamping here. Flat tamper that gets as close to the edge of basket as possible without causing problems 😂 I’ve often wondered if the force tamper potentially fractures the puck or the ripple base variation was unnecessary
Same here: I ordered the Normcore V4. But Anyway: Thank you so much Lance for my steep learning curve in coffee, for your hard work. I cannot even imagine how much energy and time the testing and the production of the videos take. And recently you even introduced one more channel: I admire your work! Incredible!! Thank you so much!
@@jank927 the normcore is fantastic - it certainly shouldn't be holding you back. IMO it's just a better version of the decent tamper anyways since it prevents you tamping harder than the set pressure.
@@justicefreed Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate that you Share your experience. I look forward to the new tamper and I hope I will have the same experience that you described. All the best from Germany Jan
Another great video Lance, keep on keeping on! I, as a home barista, realised level tamping was both not in my wheelhouse, and actually bad for wrists, shoulders, and lower backs. So I've been using the Normcore spring self leveling tamper since it was released, and that, along with RDT and WDT have been saviours to my espresso prep - I do occasionally get those messy high pressure spurts out of the naked portafilter, but the shots I'm getting are consistently better than the local cafes (I would hope so given how much time/money I've invested into my coffee hobby 😂).
Thanks for the video. Recently fell down the Espresso rabbit hole and was wondering about force tampers, and how well the different bottoms would work.
I had been curious if I should get a force tamper since I saw so many people using them but now I no longer need to think that. I will keep using my Decent Tamper V2. Thanks for the hard work.
I also think that spurs are coffee grounds stuck in a hole reducing its size and increasing the pressure. One day I purposely made a 4-5mm hole in the coffee puck after tamping. The coffee started to come out from that hole with the naked pf. It did not spur. Once coffee was coming from the whole bottom of the basket, the stream of coffee was shifted towards the hole and not centered.
Great comparison. Love your short concise videos. Ive been using the standard wooden handle/stainless base for couple of years on gaggia pro and was advised to use my fingers around the basket to stay level. I think this has worked pretty well so far but maybe now its time for an upgrade.
I've found that a leveling tamper (e.g. Normcore) absolutely improved my puck prep game. Slightly off kilter tamping was my biggest mistake, also not easy to fix for me without tool support.
Hey Lance, great video as always. That being said, was really hoping you'd address the two different types of force tamper mechanism: the one that rests against the puck before hammering and the one that actually "punches" the puck from a distance away. Always wondered whether they would present differently in the cup.
I use a palm tamper/leveler combo tool simply because it came with my bottomless portafilter. Both the tool and the portafilter are better than the one that came with my bambino plus, but I have no third option to compare to. I will say that the palm tamper seems to give me more consistent shots but only with the same coffee or I need to readjust it. It isn't comfortable to use, however. I've been thinking of getting something like the normcore etc. As always, thanks for the video!
Super interesting as always, just subscribed and showed the video to my GF :) Good to know that after all the ripple base is absolute gimmick, and that I should never attempt or touch the convex one! Stay with the flat one and as they say, don't fix what's not broken.
Timely video for me. I am trying to decide between the force tamper and decent tamper. I have a Decent DE1 Pro and I like the new 3rd party wooden handles.
Well seems like I'll switch out the curved ripple base of my force tamper. As a protest, I'll go with the flat waffle just because it looks cool. Love the visual style of this video!
I guess KISS applies when it comes to tamping. I never understood how ripples supposedly help water penetration… it just felt weird and counter-intuitive to me. I’m glad to see that there is now data to support my hunch.
Great video. Great comparison. Great explanation. You can read minds because I was just figuring out which new tamper to buy. You made it a lot easier 👍🏽
The number/kinds of tampers overwhelmed me too. I ended up getting the Morils 58mm rippled tamper for my new Gaggia Evo. It self levels with 30lbs of pressure, but only cost $30 on Amazon. So far so good 🤌🏼☕️
I usually "roll" my tamp (I tilt the edge of it towards the edge of the basket to push the sides in a little more to squish the puck inwards then level out with a regular press, the feel is what it's about for me for whatever reason) to make it be consistent. Combined with 2 wet bottom paper espresso filters, a wet paper espresso filter at the top then a puck screen. It's consistent just about every time and it removes a lot of the astringency in the final result. But, then again, I have a delonghi ecp3420 and the water doesn't come out evenly and the flow rate isn't super high 😛
Love this video! Thank you for clarifying this. I've got the Normcore V4 tamper w/ ripple base and was considering swapping out the base to their flat bottom. So, this was very helpful. Thanks again/ what do you think about the Normcore tamper??
My Favs are The Decent V3 (if you don't want weight calibration which isn't necessary anyway). I like that you can feel the compression of the coffee, so you know your tamper reached deep enough to work, if you're underdosing on a larger / deeper basket with many of these self leveling tampers you might not be sufficiently compressing the coffee and you may not feel / notice it with the spring ones with 'weight calibration'! Shouldn't be a problem if your using the right dose range for your basket. Happy Tamper is also nice to use too if you prefer to have some kind of weight calibration and the palm style push button one which is nice. I have one because I can pretty easily swap between the Europiccola's 51mm base and a 58mm base for my other machine, it has a weight calibrated spring you can adjust, not sure how accurate it is since with any spring one your spring force really depends on the amount of compression, which will change depending on the level of coffee in your basket really, Ideally it should be fairly consistent and you should change baskets to different size ones for changing the amount of coffee you use. But I don't always do that :) But weight isn't that important, as long as the coffee is sufficiently being compressed. Ikape palm tamper (not seen here) which is similar to the Happy Tamper but it has a large solid piston which is the thing I both like and didn't like about it. I think because I'm used to the super light weight Force Tamper it felt too heavy for me, I probably should have given it more of a chance because I would have gotten used to it though. The large piston is beneficial because in all of these other ones coffee usually gets up above the piston, but it cannot with this design! ALSO if you're under dosing in your basket the piston can extend much deeper! I have a Weber 28g basket which is kinda ridiculous and deep so if I didn't fill that one up high I'd be worried the Decent Tamper wouldn't reach down deep enough (although you can feel and tell on that one since there's no spring you get full feed back). The Force tamper is fun to use with the concussive force, I find you gotta stabilize the base for best results hold it down flat or you can potentially have it on an SLIGHT angle still. Supposed to be consistent and it is adjustable too but there's no real way of knowing how much weight it really applies since it's a momentary impact only. I have tested to make sure it was compressing coffee sufficiently by double checking if coffee is further compressed using a normal tamper after using it and it was all good!
@@LanceHedrick Nice, I wasn't judging your or Hugo's tamping I actually commented before seeing that part in the video! But I did notice that too there after! Just sharing for people interested in the Tamper, it's a quirk to watch out for, but I like it still. I left another comment curious if you tried double tamping vs single tamping with the Force as well since it works differently with the concussive force maybe it doesn't work as well with a double-tamp?
Great video thank you. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on channeling, spurs, and how or what can we draw from by looking at a shot from a naked portafilter as we try to improve shots and puck prep.
That is interesting that you feel double tamping makes for more consistency. I often double tamp instinctively and have always wondered if that is the right move or not. Sounds like I should keep on doing what feels right!
The raw puck is fragile and held together by weak cohesion. The whack from the spring most likely causes cracks that promote channeling. Similar issue with tapping a tamped puck - that’s likely to induce cracks and break the seal around the edges. As a related matter, force travels as a wave moving at the speed of sound in a material. Powders would tend to quickly absorb and damp out an impact wave. So I suspect that a smoothly tamped puck would have more uniform density compared to an impact formed puck that would be dense near the top and progressively less dense as you move downwards. Your videos are so well done and informative
@@Shreybz From an engineering pov I believe a self leveling tamper is the best. In particular the kind that has a distributor on one side and an adjustable depth tamper on the other side. The distributor set to a shallow depth to create a flat surface and the self leveling constant depth tamper enables constant pressure. Humans have a hard time exerting constant pressure. The constant depth tamper ensures a fixed puck volume which would ensure constant pressure for the same dose and grind settings. WDT first of course. Finally I found a smooth bottom puck screen makes an immediate difference to quality and consistency. I got the Ikape screen based on a RUclips review. IMHO the mesh style screens create surface grooves that likely affect consistency. Just a feeling with no evidence to back it. What convinced me to get the screen was an accident. I prepped my machine by running a hot water shot before mounting the prepped portafilter. For some reason I took down the portafilter a few seconds later and was shocked to see how badly disturbed the puck surface was. All that careful raking and tamping was compromised. The puck screen definitely helps with puck integrity by isolating the puck from the shower head.
Another tamper type that was not evaluated here is a self-leveling AND calibrated tamper (like the EazyTamp from Australia or the Normcore). One spring allows the leveler to retract (like the Decent Tampter) but another spring (calibrated for a specific weight, like 15 pounds) compresses when you tamp to make the weight of the tamp consistent. There is no "piston force" in these tampers, but weight of compression is consistent.
I don't see how the second spring is calibrated to a certain weight. If there is always the same amount of coffee (compressed in volume) it might results alsways in the same force. But as soon as the coffee fill level is different, the weight will be different.
@@kaptn_kapton it’s calibrated to collapse after a certain amount of weight is applied to the puck. While this may differ from fill to fill (which is in and of itself a non-constant), it’s constant for the same fill.
@@docforven I just looked on the normcore design and I don't see how something can collapse, but as long as you always push the handle to the hard stop, the amount of coffee will determine how much the spring is compressed and therefore the coffee level will linearly increase the force (it might be already out of the linear range, but the force will always increase the higher the coffee level). I see disadvantages and advantages with this: Changing the amount of coffee in a recipe will have additional impact on the tamper force. -> If you play around with different fill levels all the time this tamper might not be so good. Especially for underfilling. If you stay with a recipe or have different baskets to also change the headroom after tampering, the results should be quite reproducible.
@@kaptn_kapton the spring to allow the central column to collapse inside the channel is hidden. I own this tamper and have changed the springs myself. It’s there. And it makes a difference in the extraction.
@@docforvenYes, the inner spring is what I mean, this will linearly increase the force with coffee level. The point is that there is no 15lb spring, Force always depends on spring compression. Therefore the force/weight dependence on the coffee level. Best
with the convex base, I would think water always finds the path of least resistance, so thats the middle of the puck where the puck is thinner. It may be more packed but probably that would not negate the thickness difference.
Still using the stock tamper for my Breville Bambino plus. I've been shopping since I got it because it always leaves that ring of untamped coffee and I just need to commit to something better 😆
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Make sure to tamp the like and subscribe! Lots of effort go into these and it would be hugely appreciated! Any questions on methodology not covered? Ask below!
Did you use WDT/RDT in this experiment?
Lance, I did not pick up on why you did not test the Happy Tamper. Are you saying that it was unseating your puck when pulling actual shots or just in the clear glass?
I have the happy tamper and have never seen it unseat the puck but that would be concerning if you were experiencing this.
Thanks!
Question to you, what do you do with the few grounds that get left behind in the tamping process? You know, those pesky ground that are stuck to basket side and basket rim. Do you kick them back into the puck, and tamp one more time, or just brush/blow them out into the sink and or trash, just push them into the puck and set screen on top??? I don’t think there is enough chat about dialing espresso shots byproduct waist coffee. Thoughts?
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"tamp" like and subscribe gave me a good laugh. 😁I tried the "shake and surface-rake" method this morning with great results. I am definitely going to try this as my new workflow and see if it continues to yield good results. I have been using the Normcore tamper you mentioned along with their dosing cup for some time and they are a joy to use. I manually WDT and enjoy that process, but does anyone have experience with how deeply the AutoComb type tools go into the puck? I would guess most are adjustable?
Hey Lance, I know it's not much, but here's a token of appreciation for all the hard work you're putting in. It's really nice to have videos with actual testing to refer to when making decisions like tamping or screen pucks. Keep up the good work!
this is silly but I literally just sent you a DM on instagram about three days ago asking this exact question. I was shocked to see that you took the time to make a whole video explaining it just for me, very kind Lance.
I am a big fan of the Force Tamper. I used them in two world barista championship finals, and we started to use them in our stores as well. The consistency resonates well with me, and as it's still "manual," the user still pays proper attention - when it becomes mechanical, it's easier to overlook when something isn't right. I also don't use any types of distribution tools. Granted, that's very much based on the quality of the grinder being used. Great video, keep it up.
So which quality grinder(s) are you are using? It would be nice to skip the distribution tool step.
@@Tired6878 a range of grinders. In the world championship it's currently Mythos 3 and that performance well with out it.
@@coffeewithapril Thank you April! Unfortunately those Mythos grinders are a bit pricey, so looks like it is WDTs for the foreseeable future, lol! ;)
are using the Force Tamper with the factory setting, or do adjust it up/down. Lance seems to imply towards the end of the video that it should be 'relaxed' at bit...thanks
Love these more edited videos, as well as your live "unfiltered" series. Together they provide a wealth of knowledge to the coffee community, and these more "filtered" videos are much more friendly to new coffee nerds.
With tampers being covered im interested in a similar video with WDT tools such as the autocomb, moon raker, or 3D printed ones vs hand WDT. Thanks for the geeat videos! Always a awesome to get some coffee science in the morning!
Just filmed that exact video today. Next week...
@@LanceHedrick we won't say no to two videos in a week! ;)
@@2s_company_ I think Lances editor will haha
Damn, I just ordered a flour sieve type. That usually don't get reviews
@@LanceHedrick nicee
You've mentioned numerous times the study shows that around the edges of the coffee puck, the coffee is always under-extracted no matter what tamping technique or basket type is used. Well, it must be because, around the edge wall of the basket, there are no holes made. So based on this assumption, I don't understand why the manufacturers do not simply put holes evenly spaced around the edge wall of all baskets so the basket then would no longer be a basket but a STRAINER. And to me, it sounds like the problem of under-extraction could easily be solved that way. Surely that would greatly improve the extraction consistency throughout the puck. Job done.
Maybe bcuz it`s not so simple to `just put holes`
I started double tamping by accident really just to get some loose grounds around the edges. Shots were always worse when I didn’t do this. I didn’t realise this was a thing until you said! Nice video.
I've done a fair amount of ground work for foundations for buildings. Compacting and testing the compaction of the ground is part of it. Something I was doing naturally when tamping was just holding the tamp pressure for a few seconds. So I'm interested to try double tamping to see if it's similar. Material takes some time to compress. So it make sense to me that double tamping, or "ensured" tamping of the material so it's compressed as homogeneously as possible will help create more even flow/extraction through the puck. I think the ripples are just for show, the top of the puck is super porous as far as I can perceive even when tamped flat. I super have been thinking that a convex tamp would help with even extraction because of basket flex, but clearly that's not the case lol. Side note, that umikot you got printed for you is impeccably nice lmao
Too bad your electric tamper isn't wireless charging. You could just keep it on a charge pad and it would be ready to go. Maybe you have a person that could modify it for you to accept wireless charging ?
I did a quick test a while back using a homemade oedometer, and found that with 35 lb tamping force, the puck compressed very quickly (too quickly to measure the settling time), and then over the next 90 seconds there was almost no change (0.046 mm) in puck depth. In contrast, with repeated tamps, there was a significant change in puck depth with each additional tamp. This makes me think that the press-release cycle is important to allow the ground coffee particles to rearrange into a denser configuration--otherwise, they just sort of get locked up in a less dense configuration.
that makes perfect sense! @@quantitativecafe
It already has wireless charging, the main issue with the bosetamper is that it is always on and constantly drains battery. Thus you need to have a dedicated wireless charger for it and consistently be using it.
oh, so it just needs an off switch lmao @@adi2082
This channel is criminally underrated. Subbed for the silky smooth milk foam, the silky smooth espresso and the silky smooth singing
And don't forget the BeatBoxing!
Silky milky brought me here but i stayed for content like this
We gotta just compile a playlist of all of these ultimate showdowns to link people considering new purchases or getting into the hobby! Thanks for all the work you do and love all of these videos!
Great little video! Thanks for clearing up some "rumors".
Personally I'm using a normcore self levelling spring tamper and I'm super happy with it. It's not fancy but does give me the consistency I want / need..
Cheers
I was just looking at getting this one. What kind of baskets do you use? I got an IMS basket and was wondering if the type of basket you use affects the quality of tamping
@@ebusive I use a small variety of baskets. Mostly the " Standard" IMS Comp (24,5M ending of modelcode). More recently the Pullmann 17-19 g with 17,5g very dark roasted italian coffee (espresso).
I have the 58,5 tamper with the black non stick coating...
Cheers
...furthermore..
The pullmann basket runs faster than the IMS.. I experience some channeling sometimes..not often.. puckprep is the same.. so no idea if the tamping has something to do with it.
In general I experience channeling more often with straight wall baskets such as the pullmann, IMS big bang.. etc.. in comparison to the convex walls..
@nextip did you change the spring from default 25lb or switch it out to the 30lb? I just bought one. I’ve never tamped twice so thinking maybe 25lb of pressure spring would be adequate.
@@holly4221default spring. I haven't tried tamping twice either.
Great data! There's so many gimmicky tools floating around and they cost a premium. I think it makes newcomers feel overwhelmed and stickershocked. We're lucky there's people like you going through all this effort to prove that you don't need to stress about tamper choices to make good coffee!
I'm assuming that a tamper with a click (compared to a clickless one which uses just the stroke length) gives more consistency when you change grind size (while dialing in new beans, or when beans are aging). For example, if you have increased grind size, a clickless tamper will tamp harder until it's stopped by the stopper, so you have changed two variables rather than one.
I have been experimenting with tampers for the past year with a wide variety of tamper designs and coffees.
I won't go into all of my findings that are more in depth than this video and its references, but will add a couple of comments relevant to the video.
First off, I agree that a flat bottom is better than a domed bottom, and that the main difference with the ridges is extra cleaning of grounds off the tamper.
After a year of use my Normcore spring tamper has a lot of play in it and regularly does not produce a level, evenly tamped puck. I can see this by inspecting the tamped puck. I can improve results by removing the guide and the weak spring so you can see what the tamp is doing and press down directly on the tamper. Doing a second tamp with a conventional tamper allows me to find and fix the areas of uneven tamping done by the Normcore. I have not used the similar Decent tamper to see if it has this play eventually.
Once a puck has been tamped, any sort of tapping or polishing runs the risk of breaking the puck away from the sides of the basket or cracking the puck, leading to channelling of various types. I have not used the Force tamper but have seen videos of it being used where it is clear in the video that the impulse it produces has this effect.
Lance this is a great step up for you. It’s more concise, more salient points, and a consistent energy from the music and beautiful cuts. Keep this up!!
I have Force Tamper, usually using Flat Rippled. The Results is consistent. Great Results !
It would be cool to include Gilberto (Bravo)'s tamper on this list! Nice video, Lance!
Love my bravo, feels so great to use and I imagine it performs equally to the Decent.
Bravo FTW! Looks like the Bravo is built a lot better than the Decent too.
Love my Bravo as well!@@brookmartinez7723
My first thought was that the convex tampers were back-asswards. Since the outside of the puck seems underextracted, the center should have a slight mound (to increase overall resistance), ie, the tamper face should be concave.
The music choice for this video is better than previous attempts. Great work on the video.
So, in conclusion, my $10 Amazon steel tamper is just as good as anything else out there. Thanks!
Thanks for a fantastic video and excellent work on this. More digression please! :D
Thank you for nerding out for/with us!
I definitely enjoy the tighter format (or at least some variety to the longer rambly ones), but I wondered about some editing choices. The segment on the ripple bottom felt like it was missing a conclusion, and the naked portafilter segment really didn't belong in this video. Still, love the shorter format and looking forward to the forthcoming one on WDT tools! Thanks for the work!
The naked portafilter one only made me more curious and confused, now I want a video on how to spot channeling properly haha
Super succinct and immensely informative. Just outstanding. And your humour is always a wonderful addition. Thanks so much for your work, Lance!
Nice, i ordered a Decent-like tamper some days ago and your video justified my choice!
Great work ! one tip for those with ridged calibrated tampers, use a flat bottom one ( everyone has at least one right ?) to finish, lightly tamp and bingo ridges are gone.
I use the BOSE Tamper every day, I just keep it charged with a wireless charger. I was hoping you’d cover it since I’d like to hear your thoughts. Other than that, I have several tamps I use, the original Perg Tamp is my favourite out of those.
Thanks! I just bought the Normcore tamper after getting frustrated with my wonky tamps. It has made a big difference!
Wonky Tamps isnt that the name of Lance's plus sized grindcore band?
That's really interesting... I've been wanting to do some testing with The Force tamper, as I thought it might "jiggle" coffee particles into a more dense/stable configuration compared with conventional tampers and give a higher/more consistent EY. I'm surprised to see that it actually gives a lower EY, and now I'm curious why that might be.
Figure it out, science man!
@@LanceHedrick based on video you don’t hold the base of force tamper with other hand. In other words when you tamp the base can lift and it is visible on the video. I would bet it increase variation as this more random effect, especially as you tamp twice. Not sure if tamping twice is optimal for force tamper, given impact design, but I will do some tests.
impeccable timing, i literally have a normcore flat base and ripple base in my Amazon cart right now and was wondering how the ripple could affect extraction. thank you Lance!!
Heck yeah! Good timing is always fun
When you get the Normcore, my advice is to swap out for the lightest (15 lb) spring. I don't think Lance touched on it in this video, but he's mentioned it in other videos, that fully compressed is fully compressed. Once you're fully compressed, it doesn't matter if you're applying 30 lbs or 300 lbs, you're still just pushing harder against an immovable surface. The 15 lb spring is heavy enough, and the heavier springs just makes using it more uncomfortable.
@@en0n126 good info thank you!!
Great video Lance! Been curious about the convex and ripple bases myself, so this was super informative for me!
I came to the conclusion that my Normcore is consistent and isn't impacting my shots in a meaningful way just from using it... glad there's some data to make me feel even better about it. It's the only tamper I've ever used, and that won't be changing now.
Soooo interesting ! Every kind of recent "this is the ultimate way of tamping" just got debunked in a 10 minutes video. Turns out you just need a flat self levelling tamper and that your own force is better than a piston. Buying every other gadget is paying more for worse results. I clearly didn't expect that, and was really confused about all the choices on the market right now. I'm glad you made the video before I bought any upgrade to my current classic tamper.
Love my new Force Tamper! I don't love the way it looks but I love how it just punches things and I have no need to use limited brain power in the am (did an entire full review on my channel). May get a bravo tamper in the future just for the fun of it to go manual if I want to. Interesting results though to see there is some fluctuation, I did wonder if the punch would affect the puck but counteract the variances of pressure which is their whole selling point of removing a variable
Lance, I've been binge watching your videos all week and I've got to say, this is not just the best video I've seen on your channel but possibly the best, most information packed video I've seen on RUclips this year.
10 minutes packed with data, everything came with a hypothesis, explanation of the method, result and conclusion. I've seen 2 hour videos that don't cover as much information as this does.
Absolutely to tier stuff.
Lance, a curved tamper is sometimes required, that's why I'm including the option on our JL tamper. It's required for larger doses with the more traditional thinner metal baskets that are a bit aged and curved on the base. The curve on the base means that the only way you'll get a constant radially averaged thickness function on the puck is with a curved tamper... But yeap for all other times a flat tamper, I was also tempted to do an adjustable curvature tamper, but decided against it.
I have tested some with curves on the bottom and it is still not ideal. I'm curious if you have data you can share?
@@LanceHedrick hmmmm no only observations... Sometime shots will ring channel so hard they develop a central dead spot that doesn't go away, this does depend on the pressure profile, the only way to stop it is with a curve tamper, the curve is quite slight though. It should match the curvature of an old basket (ours will be hight diff 2mm max). The puck that comes out has a concave curve on the bottom and convex curve on the top with a radially averaged constant thickness.
Wouldn’t it be better to get a new better basket (root problem) than getting a band-aid tamper?
@@gourmetcoffee3922 yeap at some point, but it was so easy to add a curve on our tamper (on the other side) why not do it and give people the option, and save them from throwing out a perfectly good basket just because it has a slight curve which can be easily compensated for with a very slight curve in the tamper.
I really like the concise and direct video style. Very interesting with lots of data, but not so much i forget why some is relevant. Awesome Video!
Mega vid this one. Love the data. Great production. Tamped the like.
Thank you! Just wait til the next video...
Don't know what I would do without your channel!
Why is there such a high variation in shot time? 5:36
EDIT: There is a mistake in in the graph! The actual units of the y-axis are [%] and not [s] then it makes sense. So it's relative variation not absolute.
A big thing is to move the portafilter carefully after tamping. Any sudden movement or bump can cause the puck to dislodge, Seen so many people carefully tamp a puck and then slam it into the group head
Or have it overfilled and twist the puck on the shower screen.
@@stevegee218I had this in the beginning when filling my 18g basket with 18g coffee, the shower screen pattern was visible. Changed to 17.5g and now it isn't anymore :)
this kinda helps backup my findings of daily driver tamper.. I was switching between the Normcore spring tamper (flat) and the MHW-3Bomber click tamper. I was not getting nearly the same consistency with the 3bomber compared to the normcore. It basically sits behind the coffee cans now and I don't use it. Now the normcore is the go-to.. Also finding the double tamp really helps in some cases too.
hi thanks for your feedback, just purchased the normcore. Could you please say what's double tamp? Thanks!
@@pauloaneiros9632 The normcore is great. The double tamp, is simply pressing the tamper down twice. I tamp, then rotate the tamper and push it down again. Saw Lance Hedrick do it in one of his videos so I tried it. Seemed to help with consistency.
@@trev_mcnaughton thanks a lot for your propmt response. The normcore is coming tomorrow, I also made an upgrade, from a Breville Barista touch to a Lelit Bianca V3/Eureka Libra, I look like a 5 years old waiting for christmas :)
Great video. Appreciate the data and your prof conclusions.
One important thing I've noticed after buying an expensive tamper (The Force): My shots did not taste better than when i was using my Normcore V4.
However, I adjusted the pressure *higher* than its original setting. Good to know that I should have gone lower instead
Great video on a topic that doesn’t have a lot of data! I’ve found that the ripple tamper on my Normcore is a pain in the ass because when it’s a bit humid it can sometimes catch some coffee in some of the ripples and pull out a chunk out of the puck. It’s also messier to clean and dry. Other than looking cool when you get a perfect tamp I really think there is ZERO benefit of using this vs a flat base, and it’s really a redundant product. Luckily for me Normcore now sell their bases separately so I’ve switched to a flat base
Awesome video! My coffee nerd friend and I were discussing tampers last week and couldn't find any conclusive evidence to which tampers were the most consistent.
Boom! There we go!
Thank you for the great video Lance ❤
WDT and manual tamping here. Flat tamper that gets as close to the edge of basket as possible without causing problems 😂
I’ve often wondered if the force tamper potentially fractures the puck or the ripple base variation was unnecessary
sigh, less than a weak after i ordered a new tamper
All good! Focus on that puck prep
Same here
Same here: I ordered the Normcore V4. But Anyway: Thank you so much Lance for my steep learning curve in coffee, for your hard work. I cannot even imagine how much energy and time the testing and the production of the videos take. And recently you even introduced one more channel: I admire your work! Incredible!! Thank you so much!
@@jank927 the normcore is fantastic - it certainly shouldn't be holding you back. IMO it's just a better version of the decent tamper anyways since it prevents you tamping harder than the set pressure.
@@justicefreed Thank you so much for your comment. I really appreciate that you Share your experience. I look forward to the new tamper and I hope I will have the same experience that you described. All the best from Germany
Jan
Another great video Lance, keep on keeping on!
I, as a home barista, realised level tamping was both not in my wheelhouse, and actually bad for wrists, shoulders, and lower backs.
So I've been using the Normcore spring self leveling tamper since it was released, and that, along with RDT and WDT have been saviours to my espresso prep - I do occasionally get those messy high pressure spurts out of the naked portafilter, but the shots I'm getting are consistently better than the local cafes (I would hope so given how much time/money I've invested into my coffee hobby 😂).
Thanks for the video. Recently fell down the Espresso rabbit hole and was wondering about force tampers, and how well the different bottoms would work.
I had been curious if I should get a force tamper since I saw so many people using them but now I no longer need to think that. I will keep using my Decent Tamper V2. Thanks for the hard work.
I also think that spurs are coffee grounds stuck in a hole reducing its size and increasing the pressure.
One day I purposely made a 4-5mm hole in the coffee puck after tamping. The coffee started to come out from that hole with the naked pf. It did not spur. Once coffee was coming from the whole bottom of the basket, the stream of coffee was shifted towards the hole and not centered.
I really enjoyed the editing in this video! Nice job Hugo
Very well done and very useful study. Data carefully obtained always helps. Thanks for your efforts!
Great video, I used to double tamp due to most probably OCD issues but seems the right way.
Merci pour le conseil et la qualité de la vidéo 😊
Great comparison. Love your short concise videos. Ive been using the standard wooden handle/stainless base for couple of years on gaggia pro and was advised to use my fingers around the basket to stay level. I think this has worked pretty well so far but maybe now its time for an upgrade.
I've found that a leveling tamper (e.g. Normcore) absolutely improved my puck prep game. Slightly off kilter tamping was my biggest mistake, also not easy to fix for me without tool support.
self levelling for the win!
Hey Lance, great video as always. That being said, was really hoping you'd address the two different types of force tamper mechanism: the one that rests against the puck before hammering and the one that actually "punches" the puck from a distance away. Always wondered whether they would present differently in the cup.
Excellent nerdiness 😂. love it. thanks!
I use a palm tamper/leveler combo tool simply because it came with my bottomless portafilter. Both the tool and the portafilter are better than the one that came with my bambino plus, but I have no third option to compare to. I will say that the palm tamper seems to give me more consistent shots but only with the same coffee or I need to readjust it. It isn't comfortable to use, however. I've been thinking of getting something like the normcore etc.
As always, thanks for the video!
Super interesting as always, just subscribed and showed the video to my GF :)
Good to know that after all the ripple base is absolute gimmick, and that I should never attempt or touch the convex one! Stay with the flat one and as they say, don't fix what's not broken.
Timely video for me. I am trying to decide between the force tamper and decent tamper. I have a Decent DE1 Pro and I like the new 3rd party wooden handles.
I just ordered this three Spring Loaded Calibrated and self leveler tamper, it seems like it was a good decision hahaha, thanks!
I've been wanting a force tamper with that spring impact action.
I'm glad i watched this video.
Thanks again.
🙃Thanks!
Well seems like I'll switch out the curved ripple base of my force tamper. As a protest, I'll go with the flat waffle just because it looks cool.
Love the visual style of this video!
Love the protest
Didn’t think you could make a video on tampers so informative. Great work as always 👌🏻
as always, solid info! Thank you. AFYI my morning shot was spectacular today :-)
This is what I want to read! Heck yeah
I guess KISS applies when it comes to tamping.
I never understood how ripples supposedly help water penetration… it just felt weird and counter-intuitive to me. I’m glad to see that there is now data to support my hunch.
Following the new shaker "distribution" you mentioned in another video what we need is a tamper with a concave base!
Was surprised the Pullman Big Step was not touched on, any thoughts and opinions on them?
Great video. Great comparison. Great explanation. You can read minds because I was just figuring out which new tamper to buy. You made it a lot easier 👍🏽
Thanks Lance, am in the market for a new tamp this set me in the right direction.
The number/kinds of tampers overwhelmed me too. I ended up getting the Morils 58mm rippled tamper for my new Gaggia Evo. It self levels with 30lbs of pressure, but only cost $30 on Amazon. So far so good 🤌🏼☕️
Better get gaggiuino than a ripple tamper :)
Hey, I bought the flat bottomed normcore about a month ago and feel lucky now! Thanks for the research!
I usually "roll" my tamp (I tilt the edge of it towards the edge of the basket to push the sides in a little more to squish the puck inwards then level out with a regular press, the feel is what it's about for me for whatever reason) to make it be consistent. Combined with 2 wet bottom paper espresso filters, a wet paper espresso filter at the top then a puck screen. It's consistent just about every time and it removes a lot of the astringency in the final result. But, then again, I have a delonghi ecp3420 and the water doesn't come out evenly and the flow rate isn't super high 😛
Thanks Lance for the useful and timely coverage. I like these shorter vids, btw. Cheers!
Love this video! Thank you for clarifying this. I've got the Normcore V4 tamper w/ ripple base and was considering swapping out the base to their flat bottom. So, this was very helpful. Thanks again/ what do you think about the Normcore tamper??
yes
My Favs are The Decent V3 (if you don't want weight calibration which isn't necessary anyway). I like that you can feel the compression of the coffee, so you know your tamper reached deep enough to work, if you're underdosing on a larger / deeper basket with many of these self leveling tampers you might not be sufficiently compressing the coffee and you may not feel / notice it with the spring ones with 'weight calibration'! Shouldn't be a problem if your using the right dose range for your basket.
Happy Tamper is also nice to use too if you prefer to have some kind of weight calibration and the palm style push button one which is nice. I have one because I can pretty easily swap between the Europiccola's 51mm base and a 58mm base for my other machine, it has a weight calibrated spring you can adjust, not sure how accurate it is since with any spring one your spring force really depends on the amount of compression, which will change depending on the level of coffee in your basket really, Ideally it should be fairly consistent and you should change baskets to different size ones for changing the amount of coffee you use. But I don't always do that :) But weight isn't that important, as long as the coffee is sufficiently being compressed.
Ikape palm tamper (not seen here) which is similar to the Happy Tamper but it has a large solid piston which is the thing I both like and didn't like about it. I think because I'm used to the super light weight Force Tamper it felt too heavy for me, I probably should have given it more of a chance because I would have gotten used to it though. The large piston is beneficial because in all of these other ones coffee usually gets up above the piston, but it cannot with this design! ALSO if you're under dosing in your basket the piston can extend much deeper! I have a Weber 28g basket which is kinda ridiculous and deep so if I didn't fill that one up high I'd be worried the Decent Tamper wouldn't reach down deep enough (although you can feel and tell on that one since there's no spring you get full feed back).
The Force tamper is fun to use with the concussive force, I find you gotta stabilize the base for best results hold it down flat or you can potentially have it on an SLIGHT angle still.
Supposed to be consistent and it is adjustable too but there's no real way of knowing how much weight it really applies since it's a momentary impact only. I have tested to make sure it was compressing coffee sufficiently by double checking if coffee is further compressed using a normal tamper after using it and it was all good!
Yes. I held down the force tamper. People are seeing Hugo doing b roll with his own hands and thinking that's my testing lololol
@@LanceHedrick Nice, I wasn't judging your or Hugo's tamping I actually commented before seeing that part in the video! But I did notice that too there after! Just sharing for people interested in the Tamper, it's a quirk to watch out for, but I like it still. I left another comment curious if you tried double tamping vs single tamping with the Force as well since it works differently with the concussive force maybe it doesn't work as well with a double-tamp?
Gret video! Both content and editing. Really really good!
Great video thank you. Would love to hear more of your thoughts on channeling, spurs, and how or what can we draw from by looking at a shot from a naked portafilter as we try to improve shots and puck prep.
great & solid data as always
Great video. Especially with so many tamper options out there to pick from.
Really informative video Lance!
That is interesting that you feel double tamping makes for more consistency. I often double tamp instinctively and have always wondered if that is the right move or not. Sounds like I should keep on doing what feels right!
The raw puck is fragile and held together by weak cohesion. The whack from the spring most likely causes cracks that promote channeling. Similar issue with tapping a tamped puck - that’s likely to induce cracks and break the seal around the edges. As a related matter, force travels as a wave moving at the speed of sound in a material. Powders would tend to quickly absorb and damp out an impact wave. So I suspect that a smoothly tamped puck would have more uniform density compared to an impact formed puck that would be dense near the top and progressively less dense as you move downwards.
Your videos are so well done and informative
So what are you suggesting is the best choice?
@@Shreybz From an engineering pov I believe a self leveling tamper is the best. In particular the kind that has a distributor on one side and an adjustable depth tamper on the other side. The distributor set to a shallow depth to create a flat surface and the self leveling constant depth tamper enables constant pressure. Humans have a hard time exerting constant pressure. The constant depth tamper ensures a fixed puck volume which would ensure constant pressure for the same dose and grind settings. WDT first of course. Finally I found a smooth bottom puck screen makes an immediate difference to quality and consistency. I got the Ikape screen based on a RUclips review. IMHO the mesh style screens create surface grooves that likely affect consistency. Just a feeling with no evidence to back it.
What convinced me to get the screen was an accident. I prepped my machine by running a hot water shot before mounting the prepped portafilter. For some reason I took down the portafilter a few seconds later and was shocked to see how badly disturbed the puck surface was. All that careful raking and tamping was compromised. The puck screen definitely helps with puck integrity by isolating the puck from the shower head.
Ty for a 10 min video 😊
Happy to learn my leveling aliexpress tamper is probably good enough.
I was waiting for this videoooo. The only RUclipsr who i can trust.
italian food > greek foodekis
Very good high quality video with data. Just subscribed.
I had no idea world went so Coffee crazy!
This is insanity!
A COFFEE...
What the heck is this machine worth 10 grand all about!
Thank you Lance. Another informative and enjoyable video
Would it be possible to explain the double tamp briefly Lance? Is it as simple as tamp once, tamp twice? Great video as always, thanks!
Yep! Tamp once tamp twice
Another tamper type that was not evaluated here is a self-leveling AND calibrated tamper (like the EazyTamp from Australia or the Normcore). One spring allows the leveler to retract (like the Decent Tampter) but another spring (calibrated for a specific weight, like 15 pounds) compresses when you tamp to make the weight of the tamp consistent. There is no "piston force" in these tampers, but weight of compression is consistent.
I don't see how the second spring is calibrated to a certain weight. If there is always the same amount of coffee (compressed in volume) it might results alsways in the same force. But as soon as the coffee fill level is different, the weight will be different.
@@kaptn_kapton it’s calibrated to collapse after a certain amount of weight is applied to the puck. While this may differ from fill to fill (which is in and of itself a non-constant), it’s constant for the same fill.
@@docforven I just looked on the normcore design and I don't see how something can collapse, but as long as you always push the handle to the hard stop, the amount of coffee will determine how much the spring is compressed and therefore the coffee level will linearly increase the force (it might be already out of the linear range, but the force will always increase the higher the coffee level). I see disadvantages and advantages with this:
Changing the amount of coffee in a recipe will have additional impact on the tamper force. -> If you play around with different fill levels all the time this tamper might not be so good. Especially for underfilling.
If you stay with a recipe or have different baskets to also change the headroom after tampering, the results should be quite reproducible.
@@kaptn_kapton the spring to allow the central column to collapse inside the channel is hidden. I own this tamper and have changed the springs myself. It’s there. And it makes a difference in the extraction.
@@docforvenYes, the inner spring is what I mean, this will linearly increase the force with coffee level. The point is that there is no 15lb spring, Force always depends on spring compression. Therefore the force/weight dependence on the coffee level. Best
with the convex base, I would think water always finds the path of least resistance, so thats the middle of the puck where the puck is thinner. It may be more packed but probably that would not negate the thickness difference.
Still using the stock tamper for my Breville Bambino plus. I've been shopping since I got it because it always leaves that ring of untamped coffee and I just need to commit to something better 😆
Amazing video. All aspects of it. Love it!
sick work as usual! thanks for the info
Happy user of happy tamper! :) abit costy with import taxes, but well worth it! customer service perfect, ordering foot with custom size, no problem