F1 wrote:What blows my mind is that neither company mentions the need for that very, very important step. That does rub me the wrong way a little bit.

Yep, to address the general population of people buying their tampers (home user / self-trained baristas & n00b) I believe manufacturers should highlight the importance of ensuring the leveling plate remains flat when applying the tamp and even suggest it may help to use your free hand to ensure it remains flat against the portafilter. That said the Decent Tamper, both V2 and V3, also work via a leveling plate that rests on the PF. They also make no mention in any of their videos or instructions on using your free hand to ensure the leveling plate remains flat.

However... to be fair to the manufacturers... I'm guessing this is not even considered to be an issue for baristas who are familiar with using the proper tamping form (i.e., tamping arm perpendicular to the countertop / portafilter.) Then again, if that's the case... a properly trained barista wouldn't need a self leveling tamper.

"lacolombe.com" - When tamping, it's important to have the correct form. Our baristas tamp and pull hundred of espresso shots a day, and repetitive stress injury is so real. When tamping, your wrist and arm should be a straight, upward extension of the tamper, with your elbow at a 90 degree angle (pictured).

And from another perspective, the idea that someone would think that they could keep that plate level without holding it in place is difficult to grasp. Even the first time I used a leveling tamper it just seemed like it was necessary to hold the bottom plate in place to insure the tamp was level. So I can understand why they would not have mentioned it.

Ira

Yes...this ^^^
When you're using a tamper that goes off like a shotgun, you just feel like you should hold it down!!

In effect it might be hard to hold the leveling plate against the pf (which I do), if you don't use a pf holder (which I do) and are holding the pf firmly in your non-tamper hand against the counter.

Bob

ira wrote:And from another perspective, the idea that someone would think that they could keep that plate level without holding it in place is difficult to grasp. Even the first time I used a leveling tamper it just seemed like it was necessary to hold the bottom plate in place to insure the tamp was level. So I can understand why they would not have mentioned it.

Ira

And from a NON-FANBOY perspective, isn't the idea of this type of tamper to make the process as SIMPLE and ERROR proof as possible. They even call them "AUTO LEVELING" tampers. Even the videos from the creator(Zubing Sun) like this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZe6Yp0JAHo show a poor form(with no elbow at a 90 degree angle) and no holding of the leveling plate. If it truly is that obvious, then why don't do it themselves in their own videos? Again, this reflects very poor on the manufacturers and we shouldn't be trying to sugar coat it for them.

I'm not trying to argue, nor am I claiming it shouldn't have been in the manual, I'm just stating my experience. It can be difficult to account for how people will use something when writing manuals if you can't stand back and visualize all the many ways people will use and abuse your product. Hence the stories of CD drives used as cup holders, 5 1/4 disks folded in half and stuffed in 3 1/2 drives and myriad other weird things people do.

I've always, well since giving up my very first calibrated tamper, used my fingers on the bottom edge of the tamper to press and level my tamps so holding the plate on my two self leveling tampers just came naturally.

Ira

Good points Ira. It reminds me of an exercise in middle school where we wrote directions to make a peanut butter and jelly and the teacher did it literally. We might've ended up with 2 sandwiches out of 20 sets of instructions. It was silly, but illustrates your point

WIth force tamper you do not need to bend you hand and make life complicated.
The push force is much lower than force tamp/ impact (you can even trigger it with one finger).

On the other hand , holding plate with other hand insures that plate won't move during impact. And it would be good if they mention it in videos or manuals...