What is your preferred method for dosing into a lever machine's basket?

With the larger pump machine's portafilter, I settled into using the grinder's doser, into basket secured in portafilter. But different sized baskets have different demands.

On my Lusso's 45mm basket, I have been filling a small container from the doser, and then spooning and pouring these grounds into the basket. After distribution and tamping, the basket goes into the portafilter.

The double basket is quite tall at around 27mm, so much compression takes place during tamping. Accordingly, I fill the basket, tamp to lightly pack and settle grounds, and then fill well above the rim to the angle of repose. This all packs down to create adequate head space. Achieving this high pile of coffee with a grinder's doser would leave a hefty mess.

The single basket produces an exquisite shot, I have discovered. However, being much shorter than the double basket, it must only be filled to a rounded heaping above the rim to tamp down adequately.

I would love to hear what works well for you.

Not much time for posting lately....

I use the method in I demoed in the video "A Little Blonde" - a German hand grinder and a piece of cardboard. The video was a a bit tounge-in-cheek, so I did not dose very carefully. Normally I dose about halfway, lightly tap the basket a couple of times to distribute, dose the remainder, and tap again. This gets all 15g into the basket, then I distribute and tamp in a circlular motion (hitherto unknown....rub it!). I like best to tamp on a table or desk about waist level. I never see any evidence of side channeling, and the pucks pop out of the basket completely intact.

At first I was annoyed by the basket without a clip, but now I've found that it very but simplifies dosing, leveling, and tamping to have it out of the PF.

Off for a second 100% crema, 24-hr post-roast Heritage Cafe Espresso. Ummmmmm......


PC

With the small baskets of the Olympia and the Pavonis, I tend to grind into a separate cup and then dose that into the basket. Much less mess on these machines. Fill to slightly full...tap twice and then fill and level with your favorite technique. I usually stack up a couple baskets so that I can do 2-3 shots back to back without overheating the machine. You have to be very careful on Pavonis..they are very sensitive to over packing. The Olympias give you a bit more grace.

I have a doserless grinder. What I do is grind directly into my basket while tapping it against the portafilter holder. This ensures that the grounds settle a bit as they land in the basket. I stop grinding when I get a small avalanche falling off the top of the basket.

Here's the part that I like: to distribute and complete the dosing process, I invert another filter basket over top of my filled basket and shake the assembly for a couple of seconds. This ensures that everything gets distributed very evenly. When I remove the top (empty) filter basket, I slide it (laterally) so that it chops off / levels the grounds. I tamp with a reasonable amount of force and the result is a coffee level about 1/4inch below the lip of the basket.

This works very well for me, plus, it requires no bottomless yogurt cup / dissection needle and it is more consistent for me than hand-distribution.

Shaken, not stirred. Thank you mr. brown.

mr. brown

Your dosing technique works wonderfully, really packs in the grounds!

I'm going to try Mr. Brown's technique.

With the Versalab grounds are distributed evenly and w/o "clumping." The best approach both with the Cremina (previously) and the Termozona/Brugnetti (now) is to grind, leaving a rather large mound of coffee above the top of the portafilter. Then tapping the bottom of the bottomless portafilter lightly on a solid wood surface settles the coffee to just a slight mound above the the top of the portafilter. A Schoemer N,S,E,W finishes the preparation. I then tamp about 20 pounds with a 360 degree polish and 30 pounds with a 720 degree polish. Most of the time this yields very good shots. Don't know how it would work though with a grinder that had a different distribution pattern than the Versalab.

I guess you need to shell out extra to get the non-clumped distribution straight out of the grinder. I should have mentioned that I use a mazzer mini doserless, and it is totally clumpy out of the chute. The "shaken not stirred" technique was born out of my initial surprise at how, let's say, inadequate I found the initial distribution from the grinder.

I am happy to hear that others have found this method useful...

Wow, shaken not stirred! I am now easily fitting 16 grams into my 45mm Ponte Vecchio double basket with this new distribution/dosing technique. The grounds, after shaking, look very distributed, groomed. Yet even with such a large amount of coffee in the basket, the grounds compress when tamped to provide plenty of head space for locking in the portafilter. I have opened up my grind one notch to compensate for the increased resistance. This technique has made my shots the richest, most consistent yet, more robust and chocolaty.