How Long Will A Tamped Puck Hold Its Shape?

by **LaCrema** on Tue Jun 07, 2011 2:50 pm

I just had an interesting thought...

If you dose your grounds into the portafilter, then tamp, will it stay that way? My guess is if the beans are oily, they'll hold together longer than drier or older beans. I don't think anyone really leaves a tamped puck sitting around for 10 minutes before brewing the shot, it's just a random question.

by **miKe mcKoffee** on Wed Jun 08, 2011 11:47 am

LaCrema wrote:I just had an interesting thought...

If you dose your grounds into the portafilter, then tamp, will it stay that way? My guess is if the beans are oily, they'll hold together longer than drier or older beans. I don't think anyone really leaves a tamped puck sitting around for 10 minutes before brewing the shot, it's just a random question.

Random answer, until it doesn't. :lol:

Since shot should be pulled immediately after grinding question has little to no meaning to me...

by **jedovaty** on Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:54 pm

I think the puck stays intact until disturbed, at least for me, it's been the case when it sat around in the basket for ~10 min (accident, I was distracted, and then decided to experiment).

by **Everman** on Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:51 am

If it's left undisturbed, then probably until the oils dry out. My guess is that the oils help it stick together like water does with wet sand. However, I think I've seen puckology posts where used pucks were dried in the oven and they stayed pretty well together. So I really don't know, but I am not a puckologist.

by **Clint Orchuk** on Fri Jun 10, 2011 1:20 am

Today at the market I ground some coffee, tamped the filter, and left it in the group for 15 minutes. Checked it and it was dry so pulled the shot. Way too fast and blond, so it didn't work for me.

by **aecletec** on Fri Jun 10, 2011 2:39 am

Despite some of the tests reported here (30 min wait, IIRC), I find that degassing goes happen within a few minutes. I did a 45min test and the result was undrinkable when compared to the freshly ground. Maybe it's the degassing rather than puck integrity?

by **allon** on Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:45 am

The other day I overdosed a double basket too much, so I knocked the tamped puck into a triple basket. It still held it's shape very well. I then broke it up with a wdt tamped again and the shot pulled just fine.
I was pretty amazed, though, at how cohesive a dry, tamped puck is.

(I never use the double basket, just wanted too experiment and see how my usual dose of coffee fit)

by **yakster** on Fri Jun 10, 2011 12:55 pm

Clint Orchuk wrote:Today at the market I ground some coffee, tamped the filter, and left it in the group for 15 minutes. Checked it and it was dry so pulled the shot. Way too fast and blond, so it didn't work for me.

In the group is adding another variable, the heat, to the story. It probably help dry out the puck and also may have "cooked" the coffee, if you believe in that.

The espresso revolver probably relies on the pucks keeping their shape, of course the whole idea of an espresso revolver is why that ended up in the The craziest %#*$ing thing I've seen all day... thread.


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