I am trying to understand dosing and in all the good coffee bars, they just overfill the basket (sometimes tapping the portafilter on the counter to get even more in, but still overfilling ultimately) and then they smooth it out NSEW style. This seems like an easier dosing method than weighing beans so it appeals to me. Is it considered acceptable? Does it really produce consistency?

Also, if I were to weigh out a dose each time, and my dose ended up with grounds lower than the top of the basket, how would I properly smooth the surface of the grinds since they would be too low for the finger sweep?

Thanks all.

They (and many of the posters here) have enough experience to dose by eyesight. But, it is helpful to start out by weighing so that you get a sense of what dosage (in addition to what grind) produces what result. After that it's really a matter of how obsessive your personality is.

The technique you use depends on how much you dose.

If the amount of coffee you like fills the basket to the top before packing; it is easy to dose in the "finger swipe" fashion you describe.

If your dose does not fill the basket to the top, then finger swiping obviously will not work, and eyeballing will be very inconsistent. Most home baristas using such lower doses weigh, pro baristas and home ones who value speed swipe with a curved piece of plastic instead of their finger, so they can scoop out coffee below the rim of the basket. They cut the curve into something like a plastic frosting knife to get the dose they want.

In either case, you will know you have a consistent dose as you tamp, where you can feel with your fingertips how deep into the basket the tamper went. Starting over at this point, because the dose is wrong, is a PITA; so it's best to have a consistent method from the get go.

If I just overfilled the basket each time as I have seen these baristas do--won't that be a consistent dose, since I will always be levelling off the overfill to be flat with the rim of the basket (I also tap on counter to level it before the swipe and final levelling). Since I would never get less than the full basket (before tamping and after swiping), won't that always be a pretty consistent amount of coffee grinds?

I hope it is possible to understand what i am trying to ask...

Edit: Check out this awesome thread on dosing -- http://www.home-barista.com/tips/...-dosing-t9402.html

I don't have any business posting behind Jim with an answer to this, but I can comment on your 'fill to the brim' method VS weighing VS variances in grind and beans.

If you change your beans or grind at all, you can easily get a different weight per volume of coffee. I've just been going through this. I started a few months ago with a cheap Maestro grinder as fine as it would go. I was only able to get around 15-second shots out of it (2oz cup filled up fast) with the basket packed to the max and tamped hard. I realized that I needed two things - a different grind for comparison, and a scale so I knew how much coffee I was actually using.

So I got both. I picked up a used commercial grinder on the cheap, and set that one fine. I also weighed both before and after grinding. Immediately I saw a difference between the two. The same weight of beans (around 15g) no longer fills the basket on the finer grind! Now I can compress it much farther into the basket and pull closer to 25 seconds with it. If I filled the basket with this finer grind, it would probably take 18g+ to get up to the level I was packing before.

Anyway - filling the basket doesn't really mean by itself enough or too much coffee. Lots of variables to consider. Also, not every machine is pleased with grinds packed up at the top of the rim. My little Solis SL70 likes a little room, otherwise the coffee crams against the shower screen and the shot's a disaster.

</noob out>

Dosing consistently is the goal.
How you go about doing it is up to you.
For most people who don't have a lot of experience, the odds of being consistent without weighing are very low. Most people consider the maximum acceptable variance in dose to be 0.3g (with some pushing for tolerance closer to 0.1g). Doing this by eye is challenging and takes a lot of practice.

If, on the other hand, you can dose by eye with that degree of consistency it is obviously much (much) more convenient than dosing by weight. In addition, dosing by eye has additional advantages (including not worrying about 'the popcorn effect' and reduced time to build shots).

I'd suggest evaluating your current dosing consistency by grinding and dosing 10 shots (remove the clip from the portafilter) and then weighing all 10. If you are consistent to the above described tolerances, cool. If not, I'd start working on being consistent.

another_jim wrote:Most home baristas using such lower doses weigh, pro baristas and home ones who value speed swipe with a curved piece of plastic instead of their finger, so they can scoop out coffee below the rim of the basket. They cut the curve into something like a plastic frosting knife to get the dose they want.

While it sounds like a lot of home baristas do what you describe, I've actually never seen a professional barista doing this in a production environment. Instead, most dose by eye even at low or down doses and distribute by hand. Honestly, it's not as hard as some people make it sound.

Marshall wrote:They (and many of the posters here) have enough experience to dose by eyesight. But, it is helpful to start out by weighing so that you get a sense of what dosage (in addition to what grind) produces what result. After that it's really a matter of how obsessive your personality is.

Also depends on how cheap one is. And I happen to be very cheap. I dislike grinding/dosing any more than what I need for a given pull. So, whether by weighing or by eyeballing, I tend to make sure that no more goes into my basket than will stay there through the tamp & pull... The thought of an overfill, followed by a NSEW leveling off w/the excess lying on the counter to be discarded, makes me shudder... Though, I suppose my cheapness could easily be diagnosed as a particular sub-category of obsessive, in which case, Marshall's post already has it covered...

malachi wrote:Dosing consistently is the goal.
How you go about doing it is up to you.
For most people who don't have a lot of experience, the odds of being consistent without weighing are very low. Most people consider the maximum acceptable variance in dose to be 0.3g (with some pushing for tolerance closer to 0.1g). <snip>

I've heard this before here, and this has piqued my curiosity. Where did these numbers come from if I may ask? Did someone do a study and figure out that variances of more than 0.3g could be tasted consistently?

Color me the unreasoning skeptic, but I somehow have a hard time imagining how a 1% (in a triple basket) or 2% (double basket) variance in weight/mass could account for consistent, measurable differences in output given simultaneous variance in individual bean flavors, distribution and packing, plus temperature if not using a very temp stable machine.

Of course, I imagine it came from somewhere, and would be happy to have my intuition refuted - how were these numbers derived?

malachi wrote:While it sounds like a lot of home baristas do what you describe, I've actually never seen a professional barista doing this in a production environment. Instead, most dose by eye even at low or down doses and distribute by hand. Honestly, it's not as hard as some people make it sound.

I don't have as much commercial experience as Chris, but I don't know of any 3rd wave place in North America that doses their production blends at 14 to 16 grams, i.e. a level below the basket. Without the practice of doing dosing like this all day, I have a hard time seeing how it can be done consistently. According to Luca, the curved dosing tools are apparently more standard in Australia, where lower doses are used in some places. I don't know if anyone in Scandinavia or GB can consistently eyeball dose at 14 to 6 grams.

In Italy, they actually use fill the doser to do this (which is where the 1/3 gram standard Chris mentions comes from)

Now that all the heavyweights have chimed in, I will add my two cents as well.

Weighing is a good practice to get into, as a way of refining your technique. If you are extremely systematic about how you dose and distribute your coffee, the amount will be virtually the same from basket to basket. I like to dump the ground coffee out after dosing and distributing just to check the weight and I am nearly almost always within a few tenths of a gram. If this is not the case, you have to look at your technique and see what can be improved. With espresso, it's all about a consistent system.

Once you have got the weight right, I think it helps you to examine other variables, like the roast, the humidity, etc. and how they impact the extraction.

I personally hate the finger method. To get straight across the top, I use a toothpick or a Popsicle stick.

And instead of those fancy curved plastic tools, I just use the lid from a jar like I talked about here. This gives you a very accurate way of adjusting your dose, and it works especially well for "below the rim" dosing.

I'm hoping that reliable (and high quality) timers on grinders (like the Vario) will make a lot of the issues discussed here moot.

Will a precise timer help?

TimEggers wrote:I'm hoping that reliable (and high quality) timers on grinders (like the Vario) will make a lot of the issues discussed here moot.

Will a precise timer help?

But, Tim, there is aaaaaaaaaalways SOME coffee grounds left in the doser and in the grinder, unless you use the VersaLab. I still have not figured out a way around this issue. Maybe the Vario addresses this is some way in which I am not familiar. I always end up overfilling the baskets and sweeping off the extra.

Why yes Ken, but how do you feel about updosing Oolong?

TimEggers wrote:I'm hoping that reliable (and high quality) timers on grinders (like the Vario) will make a lot of the issues discussed here moot.

Will a precise timer help?

Yes.*✝

* Not all grinders work well with timers.
✝ Even with a grinder with a timer that operates consistently within a session, there can be significant drift session to session and day to day.

The Vario is probably a list-topper for me in terms of being a grinder that's consistent on dose using the timer. I surmise that this has more to do with the grinder's low speed and short grind path than anything else that is special in its design; with that said, most if not all precise timer-grinders also suffer from being quite sensitive to grind adjustments. I suppose that's neither surprising nor interesting, though--adjusting the grind will also confound visually judging dose. I think it will be a long time before grind-on-demand with precision timers is completely up to par (independent of adjustment, 'drift,' and variations in bean density), and it will be something more advanced than a simple timer.

On another note, this discussion of "overfilling the basket" highlights an advantage of some of the Titan grinders that produce a fluffy grind--the Robur, for example, will generally let you dose a noticeably lower amount with the leveling-off method, when compared to a smaller flat-burr grinder that compacts the grinds coming out a lot more.

Just a quick info

I have now tried to do a 7 g espresso in a Rancilio single basket. No go. Bad idea.
As for the 14 g in a double basket by Rancilio—I am doing it all the time—no problem.
Also I have a La Marzocco double basket, ridgeless—way worse for 14 g. Should be packed with more coffee, to avoid chanelling.

shadowfax wrote:On another note, this discussion of "overfilling the basket" highlights an advantage of some of the Titan grinders that produce a fluffy grind--the Robur, for example, will generally let you dose a noticeably lower amount with the leveling-off method, when compared to a smaller flat-burr grinder that compacts the grinds coming out a lot more.

I found the same thing moving from the Mazzer Super Jolly to the Elektra Nino.

In my case, I've found that filling a double basket all the way up, and using it as a single shot, produces an unpleasant thick flavor. Same goes if it is too thin and watery (blonds early). The best flavor for me is in the middle of the two extremes. I usually get to that point either by using a double basket and underdosing (below the line mark) or by using a single basket. Weight 'underdosing' have given me better results than playing with temperature but it may be related to the grinder. When I upgraded from ascaso mini to the K10, my shots didn't blond as easy, which I think allows my to use less coffee.

TimEggers wrote:I'm hoping that reliable (and high quality) timers on grinders (like the Vario) will make a lot of the issues discussed here moot.

Will a precise timer help?

Ah, but which Vario?