Lets take my own personal coffee amount preference for granted which is approx. 7 to 14 grams of coffee in the basket (approx. 7 for straight single espresso's and approx. 14 in a larger size basket making 2 espresso's) then my question is the following:

How can you combine an aim of using only about 7 grams of coffee for a single or 14 grams for a double with grooming methods suggested by many like Scott Rao such as the NSEW, Stockfleth's Move or WDT methods? These grooming methods can in my eyes hardly ever deliver you the coffee amount I would like in my drinks. I have tried many baskets and do not see why these methods are in use or promoted (even now in Barista training programs here in Europe).

Is my guess that these grooming methods were introduced to bring in consistency in making consistently dosed drinks correct? That it was probably the best method found to get a consistent amount of fresh grounded coffee in a basket/PF? After all, you cannot dispatch the lever anymore on the doser of the grinder if you grind on-demand for each cup.

Could it be that using a grinder like my Macap M4D doserless grinder could help me get approx. 7 or 14 grams of coffee in my PF which after simply distributing/straightening by hand or with a straightened paperclip and lightly tamped will produce consistent shots without any problems with tunneling and without having to use any of the grooming methods?

Another question: why do I get naked portafilters delivered with a deep basket meant for double espresso's? Can't I just make only one espresso with a naked portafilter?

Greetings,

Sjoerd Jan

sjjan wrote:Can't I just make only one espresso with a naked portafilter?

Sure. Why not? I use both single baskets and double baskets in a naked (bottomless) portafilter.

While I do not weigh the coffee in each and every basket I fill, I do pull out my scale every 3-4 weeks or so just to "double check" that I'm not developing any bad habits. The scale measures to one-tenth of a gram, and as long as I'm between 14.0-14.5 grams for a double, and 7.0-7.5 grams per single, I'm a happy camper. With that much in the baskets, there is plenty of room in either the single or double basket to use the various methods (NSEW, Stockfleth, WDT) you mention.

Cheers,
Jason

sjjan wrote:How can you combine an aim of using only about 7 grams of coffee for a single or 14 grams for a double with grooming methods suggested by many like Scott Rao such as the NSEW, Stockfleth's Move or WDT methods? These grooming methods can in my eyes hardly ever deliver you the coffee amount I would like in my drinks. I have tried many baskets and do not see why these methods are in use or promoted (even now in Barista training programs here in Europe).

I'm confused.
Are you saying that, when you try using the methods listed, you end up with too much coffee in the basket? Too little?
Are you saying that you end up with an inconsistent amount (a different amount shot to shot)?

Here's a way to be consistent:

When you tamp, you should have your fingers on the tamper's edge. So use your fingers how to feel how deep you are in the basket. This will get you within about 1/3 gram, same as using a filled doser. When changing grinders or roast levels you need to recheck and recalibrate

It is completely impossible to become consistent at dosing any weight whatsoever without occasionally weighing, so you will need a 0.1 gram scale.

Personally, I use the pocket scale sold on Ebay. I leave it on the grinder forks, and have the basket on that. This lets me weigh doses without adding any time to making the shot (I've always used the basket, rather than the PF, for dosing)

sjjan wrote:Lets take my own personal coffee amount preference for granted which is approx. 7 to 14 grams of coffee in the basket (approx. 7 for straight single espresso's and approx. 14 in a larger size basket making 2 espresso's) then my question is the following:

How can you combine an aim of using only about 7 grams of coffee for a single or 14 grams for a double with grooming methods suggested by many like Scott Rao such as the NSEW, Stockfleth's Move or WDT methods?

If you dose as you describe you will not need any fancy methods or any books to produce consistently good and classical espressos (assuming for the moment you are using good and fresh coffee that agrees with your taste). These techniques were developed to try to prevent channeling which naturally occurs when you try to cram 18 or 20 (or more) grams of coffee into a double basket. It is your espresso machine's way of trying to tell you that you have done something wrong, like the last time you ate a pepperoni pizza and went to bed immediately afterwards

All you need to do is to have your grinder properly adjusted and the espresso will more or less make itself. When was the last time you saw a good Italian barista in a good bar do anything more than a perfunctory tamp? Have you ever seen any of these fancy "barista skills/behaviors" practiced by a self-respecting Italian barman? Yet Italy is the only country on this planet where you can choose a bar more or less at random and be (almost) assured of being served a drinkable espresso.

Do as the Italians do. Dose within the limits your espresso machine was designed for. Do a very perfunctory tamp (no more than 3 seconds allowed!) which will do everything you will need to do in the way of distribution and tamping. Voila! You will have a nice shot!

ken

Chris,

What I mean is that with the described methods and having tried a dozen different baskets I get most often way too much coffee in a double basket and with one single basket I could twice not even get the basket/PF again attached to the espresso machine as there was not enough headspace above the coffee. Also, the amount of coffee in the double basket is more than twice the amount of coffee in a single basket. I think these grooming methods are only suitable for those that want more coffee in their basket like some do in North America but now also in Europe. And it is suitable for situations like in a cafe where there is no timer attached to a grinder and a barista wants to grind to order and otherwise has no way to know how to dose consistent amounts of coffee in his basket.

What I see happening here in Europe is that barista's that join World or international barista championships see how North American barista's groom their coffee and most likely imitate it. Or they might work during the day in a cafe where there is no other way to get a consistent shot of coffee from the grinder other than using the grooming methods such as NSEW method when the doser on the grinder cannot be filled anymore with coffee to give approx. 7 grams of coffe per one click or move of the handle. Now you grind to order for each drink you make and you have no clue when you have approx. 7 or 14 grams of coffee in your basket and using a scale in a busy cafe is not practical.

So, I think the NSEW and other grooming methods being promoted should not be promoted for situations like in the home where you have time and can use a grinder with a timer to get a proper dose every time or when someone has a doserless grinder setup with a timer like the M4D (which is propably too slow for use in busy cafe's).

Ken,

I agree with your observations.

Sjoerd Jan

sjjan wrote:Lets take my own personal coffee amount preference for granted which is approx. 7 to 14 grams of coffee in the basket...

Hi Sjoerd Jan, and welcome to H-B. Your introductory statement on this thread says it all: your dosing preference is 7g for singles and 14g for doubles. And that's fine. Enjoy!

sjjan wrote:So, I think the NSEW and other grooming methods being promoted should not be promoted for situations like in the home where you have time and can use a grinder with a timer to get a proper dose every time or when someone has a doserless grinder setup with a timer like the M4D (which is propably too slow for use in busy cafe's).

Ah, but this is another beast entirely. Now you are setting yourself up as an authority, telling the rest of the world what techniques to use and what the "proper" dose must be. IMHO this restrictive and proscriptive attitude has little to justify it. Even if busy Italian espresso bars have standardized on this methodology, that does not automatically mean it is the best for every coffee and every machine. Many practices that work well in a commercial environment do not necessarily translate well to home use.

Dose and grind are variables that can be used to manipulate the flavor profile in a shot. Ken has done us all a service by focusing attention on dosing practices. But insisting that every coffee, every grind, every basket, and every machine must use exactly X grams is a dogma that I, for one, do not subscribe to.

I have found that a scale is the only way to at least initially train yourself to find and consistently use the dose that fits your own tastes. I learned that 14- 14.5 gm. is what gives me the best flavor profiles in the cup for every blend I've tried. That does barely gets to the top or above the rim of my double baskets yet it is simple to distribute (after wdt) with my finger and get good pulls without evident channeling time after time. Get a scale!

Good luck -

Just one more observation:
It should be obvious that espresso machines are not designed for one and only one dose, since they come with both single and double baskets. If the "proper" dose for singles is 7g, and 14g for doubles, then dramatic changes in dose are not only possible, but to be recommended. The "proper" dose depends, at least in part, on the size and shape of the filter baskets. I believe it also depends on the coffee, the grind, and the grouphead geometry.

RapidCoffee wrote:Just one more observation:
It should be obvious that espresso machines are not designed for one and only one dose, since they come with both single and double baskets. If the "proper" dose for singles is 7g, and 14g for doubles, then dramatic changes in dose are not only possible, but to be recommended. The "proper" dose depends, at least in part, on the size and shape of the filter baskets. I believe it also depends on the coffee, the grind, and the grouphead geometry.

This is undeniably true.

I would not apply words like "proper" (I realize it was in quotes above) to this discussion.

There are two major issues; those related to equipment and those related to taste.

As regards equipment, this is hugely variable and some equipment used in certain ways will be able to produce an acceptable looking shot over a very wide range of doses. We already know from an evaluation that Jim Schulman and I did (http://www.home-barista.com/espre...e-redux-t1302.html) that even simple modifications changing the pump pressure profile can markedly reduce channeling. If one were to use a larger PF basket and a more sophisticated pressure ramp up, the sky could be the limit on how much coffee you can appear to extract for a given shot size.

You are going to extract different things from a given amount of coffee with different grind sizes and doses, through which a certain amount of water is run through at a certain pressure over a defined period of time. (how's that sentence for a mouthful? )

The result is that the taste and the flavors and what I might call the "balance" of the beverage will be effected. To give a non-espresso example, I've had the opportunity to drink a couple of different interesting Chateauneuf-du-Pape (southern Rhone red wines) recently. One was a 1989 from a highly regarded and famous producer (Chateau Beaucastel) and it came out of a magnum sized bottle. The other was a 2003 from another good producer which came out of a regular sized bottle. 1989 was a classic and excellent vintage and 2003 was a bit bizarre as it was a produced during a summer noted for its abnormally high temperatures which resulted in an earlier harvest than usual.

The 1989 was among the finest red wines I have ever drunk, perfectly aged and with a very fine balance between the "fruit," the acidity, and the complexity. The 2003 in comparison, although also very good, was very ebullient, in your face, full of fruit, but without the complexity of the 1989. I'll hazard a guess that most experienced wine drinkers (maybe all) would vastly prefer the 1989 however among new wine drinkers the 2003 would probably have been the favorite. To me, although I enjoyed the 2003 (and have more bottles of it so I'll be drinking it in the future, like it or not), it lacked what I will call "balance," or "equilibrium." I'd probably rather drink the 2003 by itself or with some very strongly flavored food, whereas the 1989 needed to be consumed with a more sophisticated and subtly flavored dish to appreciate its charms. Far be it from me to try to tell anyone that they should love the 1989 and dislike the 2003; they are both good for certain people at certain times and circumstances which are not the same.

Getting back to espresso, in addition to the questions about whether or not (and how) a given setup of equipment will extract varying doses of coffee, there are the questions of taste and "balance" (here comes that word again!) Far be it from me to try to tell someone else what is necessary to get a "balanced" taste out of an espresso. This is all going to depend on a person's taste and how they consume the espresso. If you drink primarily milk drinks, the intensity (of say) a 20g double shot may be very much softened by the milk, and for a given person (and depending on how much cow juice they drink with the espresso) a 14g shot might taste "diluted" to them. So be it. Drink what you like.

For me, 14g of espresso in a double basket in my equipment produces a "balanced" beverage for me, whether as a straight shot or in the sort of cappas that I make which are probably on the low end of the volume scale. One thing is for sure; if you use a blend that is designed for use in larger than "standard" doses, it will effect the taste if you use it in smaller doses. My own experience is that "headliner" blends that are typically used in large doses taste rather bland in 14g doses, so I'd avoid them if your intention is to use "Italianish" type dosing.

Finally, getting back to something that I suggested a long time ago in another thread, when we approach newbie home barista types (who typically have simpler and unmodified equipment) we should probably suggest to them that they start out with a "foolproof" approach that will bring them success rapidly in their own espresso adventures. To me, that means suggesting the use of ~14 doses with minimal basket preparation. There will be ample time in the future for them to experiment with other approaches, but it would probably be best for them to get a handle on the process and experience some early success with it. Only if they do so will most continue and modify their approaches as their tastes dictate later.

ken

First of all, I had trouble using the NSEW grooming technique in a single basket as the basket was not so deep and after grooming and tamping there was not enough headspace to fit underneath the brewhead. I have read about using a lid orso, but this is all not easy to reproduce consistently.

I am the last to tell or even worse to dictate to all of you what you should do, so don't get me wrong here.

What I am confused about is that as a fresh and newly trained barista I was told to fill the basket and groom using the already mentioned methods as a standard or 'best' way to do the job. Also Scott Rao promotes these methods in his book, but in the same book tells the reader to aim for approx. 7 grams for a single and 14 grams for a double espresso. OK, he writes about the different practices in the US as compared to other places like Europe in general, but the 2 suggested practices do not combine consistently and should in my belief not be promoted as the primary way to dose and tamp.

I can think of lots of situations where the dosing techniques like the NSEW methods are the best way to get consistency, but in the case someone has a grinder with a timer, has a sub-gram scale (which of course I use as well) to regularly check the amount of coffee going into the baskets, then I think this is a better way to promote promote dosing/grooming/tamping to newcomers than confusing them with this NSEW, WDT or Stockfleth's Move methods in combination with not knowing with how much coffee they end up in the basket (taking the sheer amount of different size baskets on the market). That would just not produce good and consistent results not newbies (like me?).

As compared to the wine, I am a wine lover as well and have this 400 years old wine cellar underneath my house with good wines from mostly the Bourgogne region (not too far a drive from our home). I agree that top Bourgogne grand-cru wines from good years and growers can have this superb but also subtle balance which makes such a wine outstanding. My personal opinion is that espresso's made with too much coffee in the basket are not balanced and overly flavored. But again that is my personal opinion. I can also see that if you make a lot of milk drinks, the espresso-making technique could be different.

Greetings,

Sjoerd Jan

Ask four talented, professional, respected baristas how they dose, distribute, and tamp and you are likely to get four different answers. The most important thing to do is find a process that you can duplicate with as little difficulty as possible. Some baristas will tell you that a leveling tamp is all that is necessary, and one barista that I highly respect use the "handstand" tamp, and that guy weighs more than two of me, I think!

I have never bothered weighing a dose. It would seem to me that the volume of the coffee is more important than the mass of the coffee used. But that's just me— there have been a number of folks who report that weighing the coffee works for them.

It was mentioned that this has to be adjusted for the equipment as well as all the other variables (taste, technique, coffee, brew temp, etc.). As an example, Nuovo Simonelli has a commercial machine that can make a drinkable espresso even if you fill the portafilter half full and leave it untamped. Then, without adjustments to the machine, fill, level and tamp and you get another excellent espresso. Try that on a Silvia!

If you can establish the same headroom each time, and then adjust the grind to that, I think that establishes an excellent starting point. Once you can pull consistently with your chosen or developed procedure then small changes can be made to adjust to suit your taste.

I could document in detail what works for me, but it is more important for you to find what works for you.

Man! It's hard to type after roasting a batch, outside in 37 degree weather!

IMO, the e61 12g double baskets are less than optimum. Too wide and too thin. An updose to 9 or 10g in an e61 single basket gives a better cup with the Northern styles preferred here.

Timed dosing with a relatively consistent bean hopper load using a yogurt cup funnel and a gentle side to side shake delivers more repeatable results for me. Strike off dosing maybe an overdose, lead to poor distribution and waste a lot of coffee, at least on an e61. I prefer to grind ~1-2g of stale coffee into the bin before I charge the PF with fresh coffee. [ As a 'test' this Monday at the office, I didn't clear the stale coffee that sat since Friday. Spritz-O-Rama Next shot with fresh ground was fine. ]

The secret to timed dosing is that the time and the grind are interrelated. Rarely do I adjust one without the other. On the MaxH Supreme Bean Ring of Fire coffee was about 5.7s @ 0.75. My current roast is 5.0 @ 1.25.

I've come full circle on the tamp. Barely more than the weight of the tamper is applied.

sjjan wrote:What I mean is that with the described methods and having tried a dozen different baskets I get most often way too much coffee in a double basket and with one single basket I could twice not even get the basket/PF again attached to the espresso machine as there was not enough headspace above the coffee.

Hmmm...
Are you whacking or tapping or shaking the portafilter (while dosing or before distributing)?
I can pretty easily dose and distribute 14 grams in a LM ridget double and I use the Stockfleth's style distribution.
The key is to not shake or "settle" the grounds while dosing or distributing.

When you say "most often" - this implies that sometimes you get the desired amount.
What are you doing differently when you do this?

My gut says this is less of a distribution issue and more of a dosing and consistency issue.

sjjan wrote:Now you grind to order for each drink you make and you have no clue when you have approx. 7 or 14 grams of coffee in your basket and using a scale in a busy cafe is not practical.

Actually, that's not true.
I've trained a lot of pro baristas. One of the areas of training (taught to me originally by Aaron de Lazzer) was around consistent dosing. The test was to dose 10 times and have all 10 be no more than 0.3 gram difference. There were experienced baristas who were significantly below this variance.
It's just a matter of practice and being consistent in each micro-step that makes up the dosing phase.

sjjan wrote:So, I think the NSEW and other grooming methods being promoted should not be promoted for situations like in the home where you have time and can use a grinder with a timer to get a proper dose every time or when someone has a doserless grinder setup with a timer like the M4D (which is propably too slow for use in busy cafe's).

I actually find dosing consistently to be easier with a doser grinder like a Robur - and without a timer. Timers are great at minimizing waste, but dosing by time is not the same as dosing by volume (approximated as weight often). Of course... I'm one of the "flicky doser" guys that many people here complain about (grin).

GC7 wrote:I learned that 14- 14.5 gm. is what gives me the best flavor profiles (for my taste) in the cup for every blend I've tried.

emphasis above added to make a point