Tamping Technique - whether to tap? and where? - Page 2

[mrgnomer]

I lightly tap for a double but not for a single. I don't know but I find with the dose for a single tapping breaks the side seal in a way that I can't tamp seal back in. Tapping a single ends in side channeling almost all the time.

For the double a light tap collapses the grinds off the edges and the finishing tamp and polish seal everything in nice.

[snoboy]

I tap very lightly down on the counter before I tamp. No tap after tamp.

To clean the stray grounds, I use my fingers to remove them from the rim (sometimes I leave the tamper in after the tamp and use a brush to clear away any strays - the tamper protects the puck surface) and then I just turn the PF upside quickly before locking in.

[gscace]

I don't tap the pf. I tamp once to compact the grinds. I compact until I feel the resistance building quickly. I dunno how many lbs of force this requires, but to me the tamp is sposed to compact the grinds, so I pay careful attention to doing just that and doing it the same way every time. Then I brush off excess coffee from the rim of the basket and the ears of the pf. I lightly polish and then lock the pf into the group. tapping seems to me to be a good way to dislodge grinds from the edge of the basket, which I would think promotes channeling.

Works for me everytime.

-Greg

[Gav800]

Hey guys,

Just wondering what peoples opinions are regarding tapping the side of the portafliter with the tamp. I find most people do it and it is taught as a method of knocking loose grounds into the basket and also for levelling the puck. I was taught by a professional (Australian WBC Judge, Justin Metcalf) that tapping was bad as it can put cracks or inconsistencies through the puck... therefore I never tap, though many of my friends do and they don't seem to have any problems.

What do you think?

Gav800

[HB]

Gav800, I merged your question with a poll on the same question.


My short answer: I don't get it. Tapping has very little benefit and potentially significant negative consequences.

And yet the tappers and non-tappers appear to be evenly divided. I've never understood the obsession over a 0.1 grams of coffee stuck to the side of the baskets and the "harm" it might cause. Staub (four corner) tamping solves the problem and assures a good edge seal to boot. It doesn't have the same ritualistic flare of tapping, but who cares?

[Martin]

My short answer: I don't get it. Tapping has very little benefit and potentially significant negative consequences.

I agree. Working from an evenly distributed mound, I do this:

Level
Tamp
Clean grounds off the side with thumbnail.
Blow out loose grounds.
Do not tap or polish.

IMO, the less done after the initial tamp, the better. Staub is OK, but gives 4 more chances to do damage.

Of course, thumbnail and barista-breath might not go over well in a commercial setting, or even with any number of good friends and family. ymmv
Martin

[King Seven]

I used to tap, mostly because of what I saw amongst the peer group but lately I have had tried not to (its sometimes hard to overcome muscle memory when you are churning out the shots).

I don't like the idea of the tap. A good fitting tamper and a little staub does a much, much better job and I am more likely to be on the money with the shot than with tapping. I guess it does look quite nice in competition and the like.

[edited to correct my idiotic mispelling!]

[Gav800]

King Seven had a good point... having a tamper that fits well is probably far more important... mine personally is a fraction too small and its abit of a pain.

[RegulatorJohnson]

i do NOT tap.

i have not been able to allow my self to "tap" my tamper against the PF hard enough to actually make any thing in the PF move. hell, i have a fargin cork pad to let the tamper rest on when not in use. I cant even put it on a wood surface, much less bash it into something metal.

i think a well fitting tamper helps keep the extra coffee off the sides.

my poll result was "other: explain" i blow in there to remove the extra IF ANY. i know its probably not good form in a professional setting.

jon

[DC]

When I first started I did a post-tamp tap because everyone else seemed to, but in my hands it just caused a break in the seal betwixt puck and basket.

If there are a lot of grounds stuck to the sides I just use the needle I use for WDT to scrape off the excess, and ditch the loose grounds.

Dave

[olypdd]

This discussion, and other comments about this got me to thinking. Over the past several months, I decided "to heck with the tap, bump, shake, rattle, and roll". I tamp, spin the basket about 180 degrees in the portafilter (is this spin technique new? Can I claim it ), tamp again, polish, and wipe the thing off. Thanks to my using a naked portafilter, I have been able to see beautiful even extractions nearly every time. (Yes I could leave the portafilter in the machine during tamp, but I don't, and I cannot imagine it making a difference in the end product since I am dosing and tamping within a few seconds.) Occasionally, when still half asleep, I falter in my technique.

Where did we get the tap? I guess I got it from watching baristas in coffee shops, and even in some espresso guides I have read. Dan makes a good point about this. Tapping, bumping, or whatever does nothing to improve your extraction. It risks upsetting the good work you did up to that point. In my experience, I saw the consistency of even extractions increase dramatically when I stopped tapping. Another thing that led to this was my changing to a convex tamper.


Rich

[cannonfodder]

I have reduced my tapping to one, light tap after the initial leveling tamp. My tamper and basket are a tight fit. If I don't tap, the tamper likes to lightly stick in the basket if there are any grinds riding along the side of the basket. The light tap jostles them loose giving me a clean inner edge on the basket. I must stress the 'light' phrase. I am just dislodging some errant particles, not driving nails.

[olypdd]

I like that "driving nails" analogy. Good one.

Rich

[Kaffee Bitte]

I work in a coffee shop. I was taught to tap, but shortly after starting there my geekiness got the better of me and I started altering my tamp for my personal shots. After a short time I realized the shots that I hadn't tapped were consistently better in both time, crema and flavor. I Never tap anymore. The best thing you can do to avoid tapping is getting a tamper that fits your pf perfectly. (something I had to do for work was buy my own tamper) Though since I started using my personal 58.5mm the owner has bought one of the same size to fit for everyone else to use. Most of my fellow workers still tap. Some of them just don't care about their coffee making enough to worry about changing styles. But several have started tamping similarly to my style. The owners have also started to see that one coffee geek on the staff can shake things up.
Here's what I do. Dose, level using modified stockflecks (never got the hang of the version from the vid), light tamp (maybe 5 lbs pressure, this helps me to keep a nice level puck all the way through, may not help everyone though) , then tamp hard (this tamp I will vary some depending on the grind and what I am pulling), remove tamper, quick look at the resulting puck. depending on the look i may do a light polishing tamp. place pf in group, pull shot.
Doesn't take long to get this process down to a manageable time to produce fairly rapid shots.

Lynn

[Mambeu]

I work in a coffee shop. I was taught to tap, but shortly after starting there my geekiness got the better of me and I started altering my tamp for my personal shots. After a short time I realized the shots that I hadn't tapped were consistently better in both time, crema and flavor. I Never tap anymore. The best thing you can do to avoid tapping is getting a tamper that fits your pf perfectly. (something I had to do for work was buy my own tamper)

Exactly the same for me. I tap the portafilter lightly on the grinder fork before distributing, because it lets me updose just a little and gives me a much more consistent extraction, but no tapping with the tamper. Besides all the obvious taste differences, I just don't want to mess up my pricey CoffeeLab tamper.

[DaveC]

I never tap or do anything to disturb the puck after tamping:

I keep tamping pretty simple too, main success criteria:
Properly fitting tamper
Tamper nicely polished on tamping surface (for that glide). I hate grubby scratched tampers
Tamp slowly (too fast and the coffee doesn't have a chance to settle properly) and not too hard
Just tamp and slight polish...dont ^&* about too much (no staub, no nutate, no WDT, no split dose, no nothing)
Brush stray grounds from rim of portafilter basket with hand

I used to muck about a lot a long time ago....don't bother now....a sort of less is more philosophy....works for me.

Whole tamp process takes a few seconds

[VS_DoubleShot]

I voted 'other'.

I've stopped updosing, so I do not overfill the basket anymore. Since the grounds aren't coming over the top of the basket I can't really use my fingers or anyting else to level the dose.

I tap the PF against my palm a couple times on each side to get everything to settle in the basket and then I tamp lightly. This method has been working extremely well for me.

[Phaelon56]

I've heard of a few folks using a technique whereby they do a really light downward thump of the entire bottomless PF assembly on the tamping mat before they tamp. I haven't had much luck with it but I've only read of it and not seen it - probably some issue with my technique.

A method that looks more interesting to me and one that I use in the shop with PF's that have been auto-tamped by the Swift is a simple inversion. I flip the entire PF assembly upside down momentarily before locking it into the machine. The little bits of loose stuff that the Swift leaves around the edge of the basket fall off. Same thing should happen with a manually tamped PF and if it was a crappy distribution and tamp the puck will fall out before you brew - which is an indicator that a change in technique is needed (or if you have a Swift it means you should be grind/dose/tamping into a wet basket).

[cannonfodder]

Once tamped, I turn my portafilter upside down, place it on a tea towel (basket top to towel) and give it a little left/right twist. That cleans off any sticking granules from the gasket seating surface and makes sure the locking lugs are free from grit as well. If the puck falls out when you turn the portafilter upside down, then you did not have sufficient seal between the puck and basket walls.