Question for yogurt-cup WDT practitioners - Page 2

Beginner and pro baristas share tips and tricks for making espresso.
walt_in_hawaii
Posts: 665
Joined: 9 years ago

#11: Post by walt_in_hawaii »

1. Don't listen to Joo. He printed that funnel because he is under the mind control of rain forest tree frogs that use that funnel as camouflage to propagate across the face of the earth in order to eat more house flies. Not that I like house flies, you understand. But if trump won't let people get past silly gates at the border, why should we let the tree frogs roam at will?? I think not.

2. It doesn't seem to show up in a decent sized double, I'm not sure why, probably has to do with the large flange channeling water to the middle; but when I pull a single of ~8g in the LM single basket, I have to make sure all the sides of the puck are sealed up to the edges of the basket otherwise I get drips down under during the pre-infusion stage waaaay before the preinfusion should show, so is obviously due to water jetting down the sides and not going through the puck. It doesn't seem to happen with the normal doubles basket of 18g or better, only the singles basket. On my doubles basket I have tried to tamp as lightly as possible to try to replicate this, but it does not happen; so your shaking/banging the pf to settle the grounds to get rid of the channel appears just fine. I shake and bang mine too (the doubles basket) since I don't have a surface groomer to even it out. Haven't seen a need to make one of those. I made a funnel as well, out of delrin, and it sits up on the rim without dipping a toe into the grounds.

Bret
Posts: 611
Joined: 8 years ago

#12: Post by Bret »

I've got a couple funnels that leave that thin gap. I ordered a funnel from Tidaka (when I was ordering something else) that sits on the rim of the basket and would allow tamping thru with the funnel in place. While I did try that with a pullman tamper just to see if it worked, I never intended to use it that way, as I use a Kafatek LevTamp, so tamping thru a funnel is out of the question.

My thought was simply that it would let the coffee grind right into the tamper with no gap. It did do that. But the funnel itself did not rest on the basket in a way that 'sealed' so what actually happened was the grind not only settled nicely against the basket walls, it also flowed easily into gaps between the funnel and the basket. So it just made a mess, and grind spilled out when removing the funnel, so the dose was altered.

I've not tried any other tamp thru funnel for the reason above, so some may be better. But I've found that using the Londinium distribution tool works very well with the normal funnels in place, the tap to settle works well, and removing the funnel and using the tamper to gently prep the grinds before the groomer goes in, and then the level tamp after that works very well.

Frankly, I'm unconvinced so far that the groomer is adding much value. It does 'pre-level' the surface before the leveling tamp goes in. Not sure it matters. The Londinium distribution tool is easily and by far the best such tool I have tried, consistent and effective. The LevTamp is the only leveling tamper I have tried, but it is so effective and tolerant of varying doses that I have zero need to try something else.

So this was a wordy way of saying "don't worry about the small gap caused by the funnel, as it sorts itself out with the other good practices." And also that, for me, the value of a leveling tamper far outweighs getting a fancy rim-resting funnel to address the negligible gap left by typical funnels.

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