I (Les) have been working on a ultra-smooth method for tamping the last two weeks -- you can just think of as LUST

Anyway, it all started with trying to find a way around the messy needle-yogurt cup method of WDT. I started layering coffee in the basket and using the edge of a spoon to lightly pat across the grind to break up any clumps. I thought it worked pretty well, and wondered if sharpening the edge of a spoon would work better. It didn't because it created deeper grooves as I broke up the grind.

I had a tablespoon-sized wooden spoon with a relatively wide edge that is also perfectly round. I tried the edge of that and it worked great to break up clumps:



However, I noticed as well that the spoon tended to create a concave pattern, and it occurred to me that might help create a seal on the side (I'd been wondering about that since seeing the concave tamper). I left it concave when I used my tamper on it, applying 30 pounds of pressure as usual, but results were inconsistent, sometimes channeling still happened.

I remembered something Cannonfodder said to someone in another thread, "Try down dosing. When I was fighting this problem 90% of the time cutting down the dose by a gram or so, grinding a little finer and tamping a little lighter made the problem go away."

So my next attempt was to make the grind a few notches finer, use one of Rancilio's deeper baskets (a triple?), but weigh only 16 grams of coffee for it. I then used the wooden spoon to first break up clumps (tapping NS - EW), and finally applied the deep curve of the spoon to smooth the finish of, and give a concave curve to, the puck.

The finer grind was very responsive to both smoothing and allowing itself to be pressed tightly against the basket wall. Here's the puck before last touches:



I did discover later that the puck needs some firmness or it will collapse a bit in the center during brewing; I watched on digital scale as I pressed the coffee in place and never pressed harder than one pound of pressure with the spoon. I had difficulty photographing the concave part of the finished puck, but you can see I leave space at the top of the basket:



There is the typical learning curve of figuring out the right grind, pressure to apply with the spoon, being careful to create a smooth even surface, etc. If you've been using the 30 pounds of pressure tamp, you notice the LUST puck comes out more wet than before; this is one that took 24 seconds to produce a double shot:



I can say I've been consistently getting the best shots ever. I noticed right away that espresso started coming out of the two spouts (of my double portafilter) at the same time and flowed evenly without sputtering (which was very different than what was going on before). Taste is much better too, which is what it's all about.

Okay, I stand ready to be critiqued. I don't have a naked portafilter (yet), so I can't observe how the espresso is emerging from the basket. If anyone is interested in LUST enough to test it, I would appreciate if you posted the results.


My last little thing seems hardly worth starting a thread over, but . . . for all you using a thermometer that didn't come with a clip:

Very interesting. The key issue here is that multiple changes with technique were employed to achieve your results. It is easy to be distracted by the wooden spoon and forget this. Specifically:

-the dose was lowered
-the tamp was changed
-the grind was changed
-the distribution method was changed

All of this can account for changes in how the final cup of espresso comes out.

The fundamental issues of distribution are that coffee grounds tend to clump together, static electricity has an effect, and horizontal and vertical lamination occurs when solid particulates are poured into a container. Redistribution techniques work not only because they break up clumps, but also because they randomize the characteristics of solid particulate laminations to create more homogeneity and thus less non-uniform channeling.

On the face of it, using a spoon to fill the basket seems like a bad idea, and breaking up clumps with the spoon may be as good as using a wire or needle probe, functionally. It's hard to say.

What should be done is to repeat the experiment with and without the spoon. That is, keep the same changes in grind and dose, use the WDT to break up clumps, and then tamp just as lightly using a traditional method. This eliminates all the other variables. Then you can really see if the spoon is having an effect.

Oh, and get a bottomless portafilter.

The key issue here is that multiple changes with technique were employed to achieve your results. It is easy to be distracted by the wooden spoon and forget this. Specifically:

-the dose was lowered
-the tamp was changed
-the grind was changed
-the distribution method was changed

All of this can account for changes in how the final cup of espresso comes out.

The fundamental issues of distribution are that coffee grounds tend to clump together, static electricity has an effect, and horizontal and vertical lamination occurs when solid particulates are poured into a container. Redistribution techniques work not only because they break up clumps, but also because they randomize the characteristics of solid particulate laminations to create more homogeneity and thus less non-uniform channeling.

Thanks for your comments Adrian.

I probably should have made it more clear (is there ever too much clarity?), but it isn't the distribution technique of using the edge of a wooden spoon that I'm wondering about so much; from my observations it seems to work. I am totally open to being proven wrong on that however. Also, I have worked with down dosing and grind change already as well . . . I didn't detail the various things I've tried for the sake of brevity.

What really has been the most interesting in trying out LUST has been 1) shooting for the concave puck geometry, 2) grinding fine enough to both create the concave puck with a very smooth surface and, especially, 3) using that combination of fine grind and concave shape create a tight seal to the side of the basket. A sort of "3a" might be, using the rounded wooden spoon alone to tamp (with a firmness of 1 lb. or less) so that the puck can be left alone before inserting for brewing (i.e., and so not mess with the seal).

Well, I was going to let this quietly fade away and preserve my ego, but that seems like slap in the face of science . I was able to convert one of my portafilters to nakedity, and thereby observe the results of LUST (naked LUST?). There was good news (sort of) and bad news. The good news was, using the wooden spoon to break clumps worked much better than doing nothing, but it wasn't quite as good as using a needle to do it.

The bad news was, after running through a pound of coffee testing every variation I could think of, the concave tamping method proved inconsistent (probably because it requires too many touches to achieve). I suspect the all the improvement I got from combining the spoon-style WDT with the concave tamp was due to the de-clumping with the spoon (since I was doing no WDT before).

However, stay tuned. I bought some materials from the hardware store today to attempt a "screened" WDT. If it works, a report will follow; if it doesn't, never mind.