I use the doser to thwack away as the coffee is ground to distribute around the outside of the basket until it gets up to the edge or a bit beyond, then fill the center area that is still lower than the rest.. Then I use a straight edge to carefully level off across the top without creating any voids or compression of the coffee, to as great of an extent as possible.

But that is what works for me, my machine, the basket I use and the screen clearance my machine affords. The most important thing is to find something that works, do it exactly the same way every time, and then adjust the other parameters to find what you like. Of course, grind is the parameter that is the common adjustment available to us, but until you can get the dose, distribution, and tamp down to a narrow range, it is difficult to make the small adjustments to water temperature and water pressure that can take a good espresso into the realm of excellent on a regular basis.

Someone get out the buffer.. I think I just waxed poetic.

There are a lot of options. Some use the back of a knife, a cup saucer, your finger, a cut piece of flexible cutting board/plastic, etc.... You can even get purpose made 'tools' that are nothing more than a set of different radius curve cut pieces of stiff plastic (for a bit over $100 for the set ) or get out a drafting compass and scissors and make a set yourself. In the end, there is nothing right or wrong, just what works for you but it should be fast and easy. Dont spend 2 minutes leveling off your basket, it should not take more than 10 seconds, less would be even better.

Gentle side2side wrist shake of the PF to make the basket 'vibrate'
Almost never needs any other manipulation

spiffdude wrote:Hullo,

I currently am testing out some distribution techniques and am alternating between WDT and spinning the basket around while grinding with a mid-fill twach on the counter. My grinder, although more than questionable in terms of grind consistency, delivers pretty much clump free coffee.

I then proceed to level off the basket but am a bit surprised that most members seem to use a finger for this task. It seems the more technical baristas here use expensive equipment, precise weight dosing and then level off with a finger. Wouldn't using the straight edge (knife or ruler) provide a more precise result?

I've discussed this with the guys at my favorite shop, they use the side of a plate to level off with a N-S-E-W motion. Their coffee is the best in town. I won't mention the coffee places in Little Italy since the baristas over there just don't seem to care. Terrible coffee. Yech.

Anyway, just looking for some feedback on the pros and cons of the 'finger"!

I'm not much of a ritual guy when it comes to dosing. I use a Robur and rotate the portafilter when dosing so that the coffee distributes well in the basket. I use Stockfleths as a distribution scheme, because it works with practice, and it requires no tools. However, I used to use a levelling tool. I switched when I was shown how to do the Stockfleths thang by one of the folks who was doing machine testing for the WBC a coupla years ago. I judge my consistency by how far the tamper is inserted into the pf after tamping, and it works pretty well.

I think the tool might be helpful. I've seen it used in shops (Myriade in Montreal) and think it is commercially viable and maybe more precise. I may revisit it just to see if I still can justify my laziness.

More ambivalence for you. Hope it helps.

-Greg

I love the general theme of responses here: be consistent in what works for you. For my part, with my Pavoni, I tap the basket a couple times on the counter to bring the heap of grinds down - then tamp. I thought this might be a bit off (works for me), until I saw the 2008 (?) WBC Champion - Irish guy, Morrissey? (not the singer) do the same thing. He doses, then tamps - no leveling with fingers or anything else.

-phillip

cafeIKE wrote:Gentle side2side wrist shake of the PF to make the basket 'vibrate'
Almost never needs any other manipulation

+1

spiffdude wrote:Greg - Myriade is the shop i was referring to. It's where i get my supply of coffee. I also like to talk to the guys and gals over there. Nice bunch.

I think that those guys are really on the ball. I had great coffee there, when I was up for Roller 24 Montreal

http://www.24inline.com/

Great shop! Great Race!!!

-Greg

cafeIKE wrote:Gentle side2side wrist shake of the PF to make the basket 'vibrate'
Almost never needs any other manipulation

I've been using this method for the past month but I've changed other aspects of my prep. First, I dose around 14gm using a Synesso double basket and that amount of grounds doesn't fill the basket anyway. The other major change was to switch from the Mazzer Mini to the Robur so I don't need to worry about WDT or any other distribution tricks.

I haven't been able to get the PF to vibrate though!!