The Espresso Tamping Experiment: Debunking Coffee Expert Myths!

for some this is an enjoyable part of the meal or the best part of the meal is there after dinner espresso or rather having a cappuccino and creating great quality espresso doesn't happen by accident a lot of factors go into it but let's talk about the basic of how to Tamper how to once the coffee grinds get in there how much are we pushing down um

Distributing evenly let's talk about that and do a little side-by-side comparison of the different size pounds of pressure and we're going to let the experts do it over at Clive coffee so let's jump into their video right now tamping is one of the core skills involved in pulling espresso but there's a lot of myth and conflicting opinions about the proper way to do it in reality

it's really simple so I'm going to break the information down into two categories what matters and what doesn't if there's one thing that matters most when tamping it's that you keep things level this is because we want the water coming from the group head to flow through all the grounds at the same rate if I Tamp at an angle like this the side that got pressed

down further will allow water to flow through much faster because there's much less coffee on that side this means that by the end of our shot that side will be over extracted while the other side is under extracted this example is exaggerated but even a Tamp that's slightly off will have this same effect if to a lesser degree by tamping nice and flat we can make

faster the back slower and we get a muddy uneven extraction to avoid this we recommend moving your portafilter in concentric circles while you grind or at least ensuring that your grinder is set up so that the grounds fall right in the middle this will help ensure that coffee is evenly spread throughout the basket even better use a distribution tool like the wedge from Saint Anthony Industries

by giving this a couple spins I can make sure that the grounds are spread super evenly before I Tamp ing Force however doesn't matter in some circles that could be considered controversial but in practice it's really easy to prove here we pulled five shots tamping with different amounts of force ranging from 40 pounds down to 5 pounds as you can see the shots all pull about

the same and our yield and shot time are all very close together you'll often hear that 30 pounds of force is correct but in reality the strength of your Tamp will have very little effect on your shot so don't dwell on it this isn't to say tamping is pointless if you don't Tamp at all you might hit your target but you're going to notice much more

channeling you'd also get your group head and shower screen much dirtier thanks to the swirling mess of coffee inside your portafilter basket thank you Charles Charles from Clive coffee he made that look so easy didn't he so some great pointers there and hopefully that helps you or that will help you make a great shot of espresso thanks for tuning in