Stockfleth's move vs. circular finger dosing?

[dawgcatching]

I have been trying the Stockfleths move, without success. It seems that the base of my thumb is quite large, and just digs into the PF. Instead, I was trying the same motion as Stockfleth's, but moving my grip out slightly and moving the index finger across the PF in a circular motion (using the thumb as a guide along the rim of the PF). The index finger does the leveling, and can put downward pressure on the grounds if I so desire (plus it is board-flat, unlike my palm). Any reason this would be inferior to the Stockfleth move? Any other dosing techniques that may be worth trying? I tried the Schomer NSEW technique, but with the bottomless PF the results didn't look as consistent. Thanks!

[malachi]

The Stockfleth's Move is very hand size and general physiology dependent. This is one reason why I use a variant on the demonstrated methodology.

The key is to understand the goals and theory behind the method and make sure your variant addresses these effectively.

[HB]

The key is to understand the goals and theory behind the method and make sure your variant addresses these effectively.

Huh? Nobody prompted Chris to elaborate, so I contacted him offline ("English, please.").

The idea is to rotate a pile of coffee around a center point while providing consistent and even downwards pressure. As you have rotational force and downwards force, and rotate the coffee over the entire surface of the coffee while applying these forces, you create more even bedding.

OK, better. Jim described the classic Stockfleth's move in Cannot get good results with the naked PF:

Hold the PF and your other hand at your chest. Turn out your elbows. Put the fat part of the palm (at the end of the thumb) of your empty hand on top of the grounds, gently. Turn your elbows in. The 180 degree rotation levels the grounds. This move is also very fast, since it can be performed as you remove the PF from the grinder.

My own variant doesn't involve as much elbow action as Jim suggests, perhaps because I have to compensate for my small hands. I use the curve of the thumb / lower flattened palm to round the bottom half (first 180) and finish the top half with the index finger / upper hand area (second 180). This redistributing corrects the tendency for the center to be more heavily weighted during dosing. In my case, speed has nothing to do with it.

PS: While it is a relatively small difference, I have noticed the Mazzer Major at Counter Culture Coffee has an initially more even distribution and thus needs less "correction" than the Mini, I assume because the former ejects the grinds more vigorously.

[King Seven]

A long overdue morning with a crotchless confirmed that I had gotten lazy with my technique and was starting to put a little uneven pressure on the coffee causing an unpleasant pour.

All fixed now, and my technique is a little further away from the conventional stockfleths than it used to be. How I swipe the excess off has now changed quite a lot too, as I was being too aggressive with it.

[dawgcatching (original poster)]

I have been trying the "circular finger sweep" Stockfleth's-like motion, and now that I feel much more comfortable with putting an even amount of downward pressure, the extractions have started to look very good. They start with 4 or 5 drips around the basket in a circle, and come together into a cone about 10 seconds into the shot. The slight channeling I was getting before went away after I read Jim's thread (linked above) and stopped tapping the PF during mid-dosing (although now I don't get as much coffee into the PF). So, things are looking better, and I feel much more comfortable with this technique than the NSEW distribution (it is quicker too!). It is a bit messier though.