Hi,

Looking at your post count you may well know all this already, so apologies in advance if you do

If you're still getting donuts with the WDT then there are only two things I can think of that might be causing it. First is that for whatever reason your distribution is getting more coffee in the center of the basket than at the edges, or the puck is denser there restricting the flow and forcing it to go through the edges. Is there anything that might be causing this?

Second, as several pours have started at the edges before the center has even begun it suggests to me that your puck isn't properly adhered to the basket. Are you knocking the basket after tamping to remove loose grounds? If so, don't do it. It isn't necessary to remove loose grounds and increases the chances of you breaking the seal between your coffee and the basket. Take care during lock-in so that you don't knock the pf too hard.

What tamping style are you using? If you have a flat tamper, try a gentle nutating (like a settling coin) tamp, followed by your usual straight-down tamp (no knocking the pf!) - that has worked wonders for me.

Finally, a question to you and Tim - what do these shots taste like? from your videos they look very short and take a long time. I had a play with shorter shots recently but I found them to be very sickly.

Hope this helps,

hbuchtel wrote:The donut is very much there...

I'm thinking my problem might be with the Presso basket and its ridge. I use two tampers, one plastic 53mm and one Thor 49mm. The 53mm takes the coffee to the ridge and I finish with the 49mm.

Henry-

Can you just use the 49mm tamper and do a four corner tamp? It's not ideal, but you can tamp the center and then NSEW, all equal tamp pressures and see if the donut doesn't improve...

Another thing you can try is a finer grind and down dose and maybe a lighter tamp, these sort of pucks seem to be self healing... course I think you are already pretty down dosed if you are at 11-12g.

'Course if it tastes fine, I wouldn't really sweat the details too much.

DC wrote:
Finally, a question to you and Tim - what do these shots taste like? from your videos they look very short and take a long time. I had a play with shorter shots recently but I found them to be very sickly.

I have discovered it's important to watch the extraction more so than the volume. Sure there are limits to every rule, but my espresso got better when I put away the measuring glass and timer.

My shots are full heavy bodied with an enhanced sweetness. In the doubles I find great chocolate notes. Very tasty!

hbuchtel wrote:With the same tamping technique (this time with the WDT) I got the same donut beginning on the Presso-

If there are any suggestions about how to deal with this I would very much appreciate it!



The Presso basket-

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Henry

Hi Henry,

There is a fellow in Australia who custom grinds tampers for the PRESSO, you can't get one right now but they will be on our site during may 07.

Cheers,

Cameron

Jeff, the NSEW with the 49mm seems to help, I'm looking forward to trying it a couple more times! I'm doing the 4 directions tamp quite heavily, so much so that I can feel the puck shift as I do it... too hard? Too much of an angle?

I was doing 8g very fine grind shots, they extracted very evenly and seemed to tolerate a lighter blond color but they were very fast- 15sec of flow at the most. I'm trying for something more normal...

DC, thanks for your suggestions, I'll be trying the nutating tamp after I get a grip on the NSEW one.

Hey Cameron, I'm pretty happy with my Thor tamper (Les of Thor Tampers also owns a Presso), is the one you are using convex or flat?

Taste- great! Compared to how they tasted before! I'm getting dark chocolate on the slower shots.

Henry

Wow! Tightened up the grind a bit, 12 grams, WDT and NSEW with the 49mm tamper- definite improvement in the beginning extraction!

There was a different quality to the taste, words are not coming to mind... how about "Good"? "Gooder?" "Goodlier?".



HB's Diagnostics Team strikes again

Henry

Looking good!

Did the puck shift that time? I would guess it didn't, and that might have been causing your problems last time

Henry,

Looking better, keep at it. Espresso is a journey, have fun and keep up the great work. I hope you'll keep posting videos of your progress. It's fun to share in the triumph of fellow home baristas!

Good job!

Better! That's an understatement. It's poetry Henry.

My tamper is flat, I've read the concave/convex debate and decided to be a fence sitter.

After a frustrating week trying to replicate my first success with the NSEW tamp, I've gone back to 8 gram doses like in the following video.

Anybody else doing this? If so I'd like to hear what shot times you are getting/expect.

Also... feel free to be critical! Yes, I think it tasted good, but I don't have much (one shot in Paul Pratt's workshop 2 years ago) to compare it to!





Cameron- Poetry? Hmph! You damn me with faint praise...

Henry