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Give it a shake as it's dosing, that's sorted it mostly for me.
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Sounds like you've got too much coffee going in there. What weight are you using? Try banging the portafilter down to level the grind before trying to ramp. Don't bang after the tamp.
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That double tamping thing will probably cause weird flow through the coffee as you’ll have a dense-loose-dense-loose distribution. If you’ve got so much going in that you can’t tamp it without it going all over the counter then adjust the dose down and grind finer to compensate, but normally if you’re really over-dosed then you can’t get the portafilter to lock in. If that’s not the case then just try to be a bit neater.
As there’s been a bit of discussion about tamping minutiae, I don’t do much re-distribution. Just a gentle shake if the coffee is mounded off centre then sort of gently tease the tamper down so the coffee can find its own way level, then a bit of gentle pressure once you’ve felt it compress. I feel like if you just welly it straight off then you’re going to get a dense area in the middle, but if you’re gentle then the high spots will tumble outwards evening everything out. Can’t be messing about with distribution tools in busy service.
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duncs
Sumo
Stevethecoffee
@sidewinder
Seems a good moment to ask a geek out coffee levelling/tamping question. Fairly recently got a sage barista machine which I am happy with.
While the grinds seem well distributed without clumping they are droppped into the portafilter in such a way (height/aerated) that there is quite a mound, when dosing what I think is the 'right' amount of coffee.
This mound can lead to coffee going everywhere when trying to level/tamp. I have as such developed a routine where I grind a 'single' baskets worth of coffee, light tamp to level initial dose, then another single dose and my 'normal' tamp.
While I feel this is giving an acceptable/delicious coffee, interested to hear suggestions as to why/if this might be having unintended negative consequences.