by another_jim on Wed Dec 28, 2005 10:51 pm
I meant distributing - the pull will always start with separate drops appearing, ideally completely uniform across the whole basket surface. Spritzies show pinhole faults in the puck. They are far less serious than visibly uneven flow from the basket (i.e. flowing from 1 half but not the other) since they repair themselves. Nevertheless, they show the levelling was not perfect. The major change most people who were relatively painstaking make is not to tap, beat or knock the basket, especially after levelling and before tamping. The other major change is that tamping becomes far less important than levelling. You can get a perfect naked shot without tamping, providing the levelling was perfect; but no tamp on earth will save a poorly levelled basket.
There's two, maybe three, levelling styles:
1. with the tamper. Either ENWS tamps (also known as the Staub tamp for its inventor, although Schomer seems to be claiming credit all of a sudden). Or a nutating motion, like a coin settling after its been flipped; this is my favorite, since it's very fast.
2. with the hand, "Stockfleths move." Hold the PF and your other hand at your chest. Turn out your elbows. Put the fat part of the palm (at the end of the thumb) of your empty hand on top of the grounds, gently. Turn your elbows in. The 180 degree rotation levels the grounds. This move is also very fast, since it can be performed as you remove the PF from the grinder.
3. I saw the Italian barista at the SCAA, I keep forgetting his name, get perfect shots by simply doing a swirling motion on the pf without any tamp. I assume this takes a lot of practice and muscle memory, so I haven't experimented.
