Espressoman007 wrote:Besides Eazytamp and Bravo tampers, who else is making tampers on demand?
Truemagellen, where did you buy yours? Is there an explanation from Strietman (Wouter), what is the reason for making a 49.5mm tamper and not 49.8mm one?

Cheers!

as an aside, everything everyone has said up to this point around tamper diameter seems spot on to me.

i believe the reason is that wouter might want to provide flexibility in dosing in the fashion others have recently mentioned above, i.e. dosing 18g basket with 15-16g. this is actually what i do as well, and by doing so, the tamper that comes with the CT2 fits well. his philosophy on tamping is that the tamping tool doesn't really matter too much. you'll see him in videos tamping with a small ~30mm plastic tamping thing and the shots seems to extract perfectly (by eye anyway).

personally, i rotate between:
- Pullman custom 49.55mm convex tamper
- Pullman custom 49.6mm flat tamper
- Strietman 49.5mm (stratified convex?) tamper

its fun to play around with the various tampers, and i chose 49.55 thinking it was wide enough and realizing it maybe could be optimized further so my subsequent order was for 49.6, which seems even more snug.

question for everyone: do you sometimes get "donut" extractions on the ct1/ct2 and how do you mitigate them? (donut extraction is when the first drops of espresso form a circle from the outermost basket holes.)

thanks!

truemagellen wrote:I gave up on the self leveling too, the tighter tampers clean the coffee from inner wall of basket better and you can still do a slight nutating/rotating start to the tamp to spread the coffee grinds in the basket before compressing the coffee into the basket.

very curious to hear more on why the coffee grounds on the walls of the basket matter and how they affect the extraction!

djcuvcuv wrote:as an aside, everything everyone has said up to this point around tamper diameter seems spot on to me.

i believe the reason is that wouter might want to provide flexibility in dosing in the fashion others have recently mentioned above, i.e. dosing 18g basket with 15-16g. this is actually what i do as well, and by doing so, the tamper that comes with the CT2 fits well. his philosophy on tamping is that the tamping tool doesn't really matter too much. you'll see him in videos tamping with a small ~30mm plastic tamping thing and the shots seems to extract perfectly (by eye anyway).

personally, i rotate between:
- Pullman custom 49.55mm convex tamper
- Pullman custom 49.6mm flat tamper
- Strietman 49.5mm (stratified convex?) tamper

its fun to play around with the various tampers, and i chose 49.55 thinking it was wide enough and realizing it maybe could be optimized further so my subsequent order was for 49.6, which seems even more snug.

question for everyone: do you sometimes get "donut" extractions on the ct1/ct2 and how do you mitigate them? (donut extraction is when the first drops of espresso form a circle from the outermost basket holes.)

thanks!

Chris, I'll give you one answer and one question.
The answer re: the donut extraction. I think that ordering a BPlus screen might be quite handy in solving this and ensure a more even extraction. Other than that, I think it might also be related to the hole surface at the bottom of the basket.

The question (for you and others) If one is downdosing (eg 13g in the 15g basket), then a 49.78mm tamper would become unsuitable?

Should be fine but I can check

It looks like mine IMS (Strietman 18g) basket is bigger in diameter (and the basket has straight walls, so the measurement is almost the same at the top and on the half of the basket). I've measured diameter with calliper, from a half depth of my 49.8 tamper. My tamper, which I enlarged to 49.9mm diameter, gets easily in when basket is empty, more then half. If it's hard to believe, I can post photos.
Coffee on the sides of the basket, I guess don't mind it for extraction, but it bother me because I like it clean and precise all the time
My dosing in Strietman depends on the coffee. It's hard to tell the level of roast, but I will try. At the moment, I am using medium roasted coffee, and max dosage is 16.7g to 17g. Before, I had a bit darker coffee and dosage was 16g. When I will use light coffee, I will probably go to max 18g.

I am still open for info if there is someone who produces tampers on demand (preferably in Europe).

Cheers!

Espressoman007 wrote:
I am still open for info if there is someone who produces tampers on demand (preferably in Europe).

Cheers!

thanks for the info around the coffee on the sides of basket and the other input. so basically you regard coffee on the sides as generally negative and you prefer not to have it? i ask because i never see coffee on the sides of my basket but i though perhaps the opposite was true, wherein by having coffee accumulate on the the sides it would provide a tighter seal around the perimeter.

oops i meant to tag you in one of the sections of my above comment. Pullman Tampers (based in australia though) makes excellent tampers and offers standard and custom diameter. that is where i got my two custom ones and they are excellent.

Now that I've had this machine for about 2 months, probably good time to give some impressions.

I love this machine, makes some very tasty espresso. I used to own an HX before this, but downsized due to relocation and having less counter space. I was sad to give up my HX and started to look into levers such as LaPavonis and Ponte Vecchio Export. They all looked fairly good and functional, but I did not want another machine that needed temperature management like the HX before it. So I ordered a Flair 58, but decided cancelled the order after finding the Strietman and deciding it would meet all of my goals. The Flair 58 would be great as well, but I didn't want the extra step of heating water. What finally pushed me over the edge though was ordering a Nanofoamer and make good coffee drinks.

Well the first time I tried the CT2, I actually really enjoyed a straight espresso drink since I've gotten into home espresso. Before this I was only drinking milk drinks. I tried making a milk drink and somehow no longer enjoyed it compared to pure espresso. Now I'm just probably addicted. I still use the Nanofoamer to make milk drinks for my wife and occasional guests, but much less frequently than before.

One thing is that in the two months I've had it, never made a undrinkable espresso. All of them have been acceptable and good or really good. I started to experiment more with different ratios. This brought back the fun to experimenting with coffee again. I was concerned I was using too much pressure when making drinks, so ordered a Naked Portafilter pressure gauge, which is just as nicely made as the Strietman, and was surprised to find that I was actually barely using 6 bars of pressure and my preinfussion was too low as well. Once I made a finer grind, it actually takes a bit of force to get in the 7-8 bar range, but with a 3 bar shorter preinfussion I was able to get rid the muddiness I was getting in the cup. Much better. Do I think I'll need it forever, probably not, since it's easy to figure out what proper pressure should be based on feel, but it does look good and helps with learning.

Best parts compared to e61 HX, fast heat up. I don't need a timer in the morning since it's ready so quickly and it's a saturated group head so very consistent temperatures. It also uses way less water and always fresh water, so much better then the constant flushes and temperature management.

It will require more work to keep the copper and brass looking good, but it's a small price to pay. Really happy I found this machine and really happy to have something that lets me make coffee with simplicity.

that is awesome feedback and i fully agree about every single espresso being good haha, not possible to pull a truly bad shot.

few follow up questions for you:
1. did you get the wireless pressure profiler or the analogue gauge one? and did you get that cutaway lid too?

2. can you expound on your pressure profile procedure? how long do you take to lift the lever; how long is the 3bar pre? and how long do you take to ramp up to 7-8bar? how long is the is the total shot time not including the lever lift? and is there any benchmark on grind fineness? lastly, what coffee beans do you use and/or what roast level is it?

as you can see i'm always curious to experiment with the ct2 no matter how set in my procedure i may be!

best,
chris

Hey Chris, looks like you have quite a collection too.

I got the analog. Didn't see a digital option, though not sure if the digital would fit under the lever, not a whole lot of room there. I did get the cutaway lid. I guess I could have done without, but figured preserve as much heat as possible.

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As for my routine, when I first started I pressed down with light pressure until first drop then ramped up the pressure until I was near the end, about 10g left, then I reduced to keep a flat fish flow rate. I typically do 15g in and aim for 25-38g out depending on coffee. Having a pressure gauge that was probably just under 6bar full pressure. These were probably some of the better shots when I wasn't over thinking the workflow.

I started to experiment with longer preinfussion, light pressure and slow down until drops, took about 10-20 seconds, then wait and pull down to full pressure and ramp down towards the end. Here I was getting muddier shots and probably also hitting about 6 bar pressure. More preinfussion did not make a better shot, though maybe with a flat burr grinder and less fines it might have been better (one day I might get a flat burr grinder).

Now with the Naked, I'm doing a 3bar preinfussion until first drop, about 5-8 seconds. Then ramp up fairly quickly to 8 bar and hold 8 bar until resistance lowers and back down finishing around 5 bar or so. Still need to experiment with ratios, but for the current coffee (Slate Roasters Unfiltered) I was able to get a really tasty shot at about 1:2.2 ratio. Nice notes of blueberry came through.

Not sure if these are the best profiles, always looking for more inspiration. I'm actually curious if using a scale is helping or hurting, but it does makes it easier to repeat previous shots.

thanks for the info! very much appreciated and very helpful. ive found that with the monolith max, the preinfusion can be quite long ~30s and not much muddiness in the cup, but the flavor is relative and maybe i could get less muddiness if i try your 3bar to 8bar approach, which i will certainly try.

how long do you take to raise the lever initially? i usually raise it quite slow and gingerly, maybe 15s, with the very very first part of the raise being especially slow and careful.

i used to use light/medium natural process coffees geared towards drip with 17.5g in and ~40g out, but lately ive been using light roast for drip (maybe considered very light for espresso) with 15g in and 42g out. the extractions with these lighter roasts are definitely a little disappointing compared to the slightly darker natural process coffees i had been using, but the taste is certainly very interesting and flavorful. maybe im vain but even if the flavor is more interesting with this 15g/42g very light roast shots, there is such a satisfaction with the ct2 when the extraction looks beautiful so im tempted to go back to the light/med 17.5g recipe so i can see those beautiful pours.