Latest / Coffee People Podcast / S6:E14 - Coffee Smarter: Tamping

Transcript

S6:E14 - Coffee Smarter: Tamping · Coffee People Podcast

0:10
Hey, good morning everyone. Welcome to season 6, episode. 14
0:14
of the roast West Coast coffee podcast.
0:17
I'm Ryan Walton. This is the show where I bring
0:19
you the stories of coffee professionals entrepreneurship
0:23
and coffee education. Today's guest, Chris O'Brien is
0:27
the founder and had roaster of coffee cycle roasting, which
0:30
just celebrated their fifth anniversary in Pacific Beach.
0:33
San Diego. Chris is back to help us get
0:36
coffee smarter by walking us through the basics of tampers
0:39
and the act of tamping finely ground coffee to get the best
0:43
possible espresso. We also touch on water grind
0:47
size, laminar flow extraction, flavor profiles and penguin
0:51
sounds. If you haven't had coffee
0:53
roasted by Chris a coffee cycle yet.
0:55
I mean don't tell anyone but hurry to Coffee cycle
0:59
roasting.com to get some for yourself.
1:02
They roast coffee to order and ship fresh every Monday.
1:06
You can go directly to that link or detour through roast
1:08
westcoast.com where you'll find links to Coffee cycle and so
1:13
much more right there on the front page of the website.
1:16
I'm not sure where you're listening, but here in Southern
1:19
California. I've been enjoying the first
1:21
kind of cool overcast Marine layer mornings of the Fall with
1:25
big French presses full of the good stuff.
1:28
They're such a nice Comfort curling up around the hot coffee
1:31
knowing it's going to keep the chill out.
1:33
That's where I'm going to be for the next hour and I hope
1:36
wherever you are. A cup of coffee is making you
1:39
feel warm and cozy. While you listen to this podcast
1:43
and we all get a little bit coffee smarter together.
1:46
courtesy of coffee expert, Chris O'Brien on the roast West Coast
1:51
to Coffee podcast, We'll start there.
2:00
Chris, Chris O'Brien, welcome back to the show, I always
2:03
appreciate you being here and I appreciate that.
2:06
You have woken up despite your probably hungover state from
2:11
your recent anniversary festivities, just presuming, I
2:15
don't have any proof of that. I was not engaged in any illegal
2:18
activities with you, you know, just past history has led me to
2:21
that point. Welcome back to the show.
2:24
Thanks. And make sure you return, that
2:26
duck that you had last night. It was a penguin.
2:30
You must have really had not been paying attention.
2:33
No, it was walk-in a penguin suit.
2:36
Well that explains so much, I have to be honest with you, the
2:42
whole quacking thing was like freaking me out.
2:44
I thought he was having an identity crisis Penguins.
2:46
Plaquemine Penguins do not quack.
2:48
Of course they do. I would assume they make like a
2:52
like a penguin noises like, I don't know.
2:57
Yeah, that's a good question. I'm gonna google it.
3:01
Chris years ago. You taught me how to pull an
3:05
espresso shot. It took a long time for you to
3:08
trust me to do that but you did teach me how to do that, but
3:11
before we even got to the point where I was allowed to pull that
3:14
espresso handle, you made me Tamp coffee.
3:20
And then dump it tap more coffee and dump it just to get used to
3:25
the process of tamping coffee. And by that, I mean pressing
3:31
finely ground coffee grounds into the bucket that you stick
3:35
into your espresso machine. Yeah, I feel like I'm losing a
3:37
term there, but that's essentially what it is.
3:39
Like you're pressing it into a compressed Puck to put into the
3:43
espresso machine so that when the water comes through it's
3:46
forcing its way through that puck.
3:47
I want to ask you one about some of the about the technique And
3:50
above the equipment in about the style.
3:52
I think there's a lot more that goes into it than people
3:54
realize, but one am I correct in explaining to the audience?
3:59
What tamping is and two, can you explain?
4:01
What is at a specifically? The piece of equipment?
4:05
Yeah, I mean first of all I really like the term bucket for
4:09
the receptacle that the finely ground espresso grounds, go into
4:14
that you then insert into the espresso machine.
4:16
New term is baskets, or if you want to get really fancy
4:19
portafilter basket. Basket, you know, Ryan, if we
4:22
don't have fancy terms for things, nobody takes this.
4:24
Seriously I've only done 120 episodes of this show and we're
4:30
gonna coffee shop for a year. So occasionally, I'm going to
4:33
mix up bucket with portafilter I think that's fair.
4:36
Yeah, you know, like I, like I said, I like it.
4:38
It's the, you know, it's every man's.
4:41
Every Man's espresso machine has a bucket instead of a porter
4:44
filter basket, pretentious, I mean, if you don't know what
4:48
it's called, doesn't matter. Just had to call you out,
4:51
because your host the show. But so yes, you're putting
4:57
finely ground coffee grounds into this basket.
5:00
This bucket into this basket. That has some small holes on the
5:04
bottom. It's a filter, it's a filter
5:07
basket. So there's little holes in the
5:09
bottom of the metal, that's where the espresso comes out.
5:12
And when we put the portafilter basket, let me put this this
5:17
receptacle. For these espresso grounds,
5:19
these finely ground. Coffee grounds into the espresso
5:22
machine, we know that we're going to be hitting high
5:24
pressure water onto those coffee.
5:27
Grounds water wants to find the path of least resistance, right?
5:32
So if you haven't compress those grounds down, if you haven't
5:35
made them into a punk, you know, hockey puck looking thing inside
5:38
that basket water is going to kind of shove the grounds off to
5:43
one side and it's just going to shoot straight through without
5:46
really interacting with the water much make sense.
5:49
Yes. At a is a little device that we
5:54
use that fits inside, you know, relatively perfectly inside the
5:59
portafilter basket, it's round and flat.
6:02
So it's it's Circle. And you push that flat side down
6:08
on top of the coffee grounds. Can you push it down to
6:12
compress? The coffee grounds into this
6:15
little hockey, puck looking thing.
6:17
So if you were to tap that puck out of the basket, if you were
6:20
to remove it from the basket and it holds its form.
6:24
Hopefully, it would look, you know, kind of like a miniature
6:26
hockey puck and the the tamper itself is deceptively heavy, but
6:33
it looks like a stamp but without the stamp part, it's
6:35
just flat and smooth on the bottom.
6:38
So there are a lot of different shapes and sizes.
6:41
Is for temps. And I think most people that own
6:44
a home espresso machine home espresso machines, especially
6:49
well. I should just a lot of them have
6:51
sometimes, a built-in tamper temper, or temp.
6:55
Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably to refer to the
6:58
device, that's used to compress those coffee grounds.
7:02
And so, sometimes you'll have a machine that has this little
7:07
round piece hanging off of. It's almost like a like a rod
7:10
with a circle attached to the bottom of it in the circle sort
7:14
of perpendicular to the rod. And so what you're supposed to
7:17
do on those machines, you're supposed to lift your
7:19
portafilter basket and push up against the tamper that is
7:26
sticking out from the machine. So it sticks down from the top
7:30
of the machine and you lift the basket up and it pushes the
7:34
grounds down. Now, just get this out of the
7:36
way. Things are terrible.
7:37
The built-in tempers are terrible, can do a terrible job
7:41
and we'll probably talk about that some point, just know that
7:43
they're terrible and, you know, find find one online somewhere
7:48
that's not attached to your machine because you will get
7:52
better results. Yeah, the idea is you want to
7:54
compress that coffee and you want to compress it into ideally
7:57
a perfectly uniform. Cylinder and the cylinder is
8:02
going to have a wider diameter than it does a height.
8:08
So, the height will be, you know, maybe a third or a quarter
8:11
of the, of a quarter of the diameter and the diameter.
8:15
If it's a standard. Espresso machine will be about
8:20
58. Mm.
8:21
Standard portafilter basket is a 58.
8:25
Mm diameter basket. And that's a commercial standard
8:29
but a lot of homes. Machines are made to that
8:31
commercial standard. And then there are some that are
8:33
made to a smaller standard for home, use on those take less
8:37
coffee obviously and they have to have a specific temper for
8:41
that diameter basket. So the idea being you take the
8:46
Tamp, whether it's on the machine or it's a separate piece
8:51
that you're pressing down into this portafilter when you say
8:55
uniform, you essentially mean that that puck is compressed
8:58
equally across Throughout the entire thing.
9:01
So the same amount of finely ground rounds throughout the
9:04
thing so that when they steam or the high pressure water, hits
9:08
it, it infuses it equally. So all of those grounds are
9:13
equally being extracted for flavors that before they're
9:16
pressed out. Why does the tamping part of it
9:20
matter to the coffee product? Like if I don't Tamp something?
9:25
Well, if I just suck at it which I feel like was something that
9:30
was said, To me enough that I remember it.
9:31
Five years later I was so nice. You're being mean to me right
9:35
now? Let's just hypothetically.
9:38
Say that I am I remember that a differently, hypothetically.
9:43
If I wasn't very good at it, let's say I did a bad Tamp or
9:46
maybe my Tamp when you say even, it also means some what level it
9:50
means flat. What if it was off a little bit
9:53
or there was a Groove, how is, how does tampin correcting
9:56
impact? The coffee or not, or tamping,
9:58
incorrectly impact. Coffee.
10:01
You know, I will try not to rent too long on this one because
10:05
it's, it's definitely a bit of a rabbit hole that there's
10:08
recently, a couple years ago. A paper released by a group of
10:11
scientists, including a guy named Chris Hendon, who is a
10:15
well-regarded coffee scientist, who also wrote a book called
10:18
water for coffee about the chemistry of water, and how it
10:22
affects coffee extraction, and Chris Hendon, and his colleagues
10:27
paper was written to mathematically model.
10:31
Know how water flows through an espresso Puck and not just
10:37
mathematically model that. But model it such that they
10:40
could take the equations. They use to model it and work it
10:46
backwards and come up with a ideal espresso recipe to make
10:50
espresso more efficient and better overall.
10:55
And I've done my best to read that paper and I've read most of
10:59
it, but it is on the technical level.
11:03
That is beyond my Ken, that being said, I have enough tech
11:07
savvy and enough for science Savvy and enough coffee
11:10
knowledge, that I got most of the gist of it out of there.
11:13
The reason I bring it up is because when you make this flat
11:18
cylinder of compressed coffee grounds and then you apply
11:22
pressurized water to it Force. Water through, and then the
11:26
espresso comes out the bottom. What's happening is actually
11:30
incredibly complex, so one of the things they started out
11:34
having to model in their mathematical model was they had
11:37
to write, you know, some differential equations, that
11:40
model, the particle distribution of the different grind,
11:43
particle, sizes, grind coffee, fine.
11:46
And you think that it's all exactly the same size, but of
11:49
course. Nothing is these aren't like
11:53
perfect little pieces of cubic zirconium.
11:55
These are or once part of a coffee bean that has been
11:59
shattered and cut and Broken Ground and broken up until they
12:03
reach approximately the same size each.
12:06
And when you're talking about making an approximate same size
12:09
each, you're going to have a bell curve distribution where
12:12
there's going to be most of the particles are in this kind of
12:14
ideal range. And there's some that are
12:17
outliers, some that are ultrafine particles and some
12:20
that are a little bit larger. Larger fines Boulders.
12:23
And so, you have to model how the water interacts with the
12:27
fines and the boulders and the averages of the ones in between,
12:31
then you realize that the water is going to flow differently on
12:34
the sides of the basket compared to the center of the basket.
12:37
The metal side of the bucket, the basket that we put our
12:42
compressed pocket coffee, in the metal sides are going to affect
12:46
how the water flows. It's going to create what's
12:48
called, I think laminar flow if I remember right from this
12:50
paper. But basically the waters gonna
12:53
be hitting off the side of the metal and coming back in to
12:55
interact with the coffee and some ways, it's going to affect
12:57
how that water flows closer to the edge of the basket rather
13:01
than in the center. So the water flow is not
13:03
perfectly Universal, and even in a lot of machines, we have a
13:07
screw holding up a screen above the basket.
13:11
It's called a dispersion screen. It's supposed to shower pulses.
13:14
And I'm told the shower screen, suppose, a shower water down
13:18
evenly and equally with this pressurized water.
13:21
Water among all the entire surface of the compressed Puck
13:26
of coffee we've made. Well, there's a screw in the
13:29
middle of it. So is that going to affect how
13:32
the water flows down into the center?
13:34
So I was suddenly realize that there's there's all these things
13:37
that are going on and there's even more than that.
13:40
When you compress that coffee with your temper, and then you
13:43
put it in the machine, you're probably not realizing this.
13:46
But the amount of pressure that water is putting on that punk of
13:50
coffee is. So much more than you were,
13:52
compressing it with your hands. My one son, illustration of
13:57
three ballerinas balancing their toes on one portafilter because
14:02
there's something like over 300 pounds of pressure, equivalent
14:06
being put on this Puck of coffee from the water pressure.
14:11
And so you know, we have a temp that has an auto leveling play
14:15
and a spring on there and the spring is calibrated to I think
14:18
20 pounds of pressure so you're putting 20 pounds.
14:21
Pressure on there. And that takes some force that
14:22
takes and pushing. And there's some schools of
14:25
thought Essentials but 30s. Some schools of thought is that
14:27
15 is fine? Whatever it is.
14:29
None of its close to 300 pounds. So the puck actually compresses
14:34
further after you turn on the water at nine bars of pressure
14:38
in your espresso machine. Well, how does that affect how
14:41
water flows in there? And so now I've demonstrated at
14:44
this thing is pretty complicated, right?
14:47
Pretty complicated. And then you can say, I'm fairly
14:50
confused. Yeah, absolutely.
14:52
I mean you look confused so I just cannot thought I'd check
14:54
it. So since we know that it's super
14:58
complicated, well, we know that, there's all these ways that we
15:00
can screw it up from the main way, is that we can screw it up
15:03
our by temping unevenly creating a high side, and a low side to
15:07
that cylinder. Which then would cause the water
15:10
to run further down, One Direction or overflow on one
15:13
side than the other. Right?
15:15
Water is going to want to find the path of least resistance.
15:18
So there's less coffee. In the way on one side.
15:21
More water is going to flow through the side.
15:23
That has less coffee and less water.
15:25
Is going to flow the side that has more coffee.
15:27
So if you've unevenly tamped, we have an under extracted side
15:32
where there was more coffee and less water.
15:34
And we have an over extracted side where there was less coffee
15:37
and more water. That's not going to taste very
15:39
good and it's gonna be hard to figure out what you did wrong
15:42
because it's going to taste both over extracted and under
15:45
extracted. So a level temp is very
15:47
important to try to make it as perfectly level as possible, is
15:52
essential the other thing when things really tend to go wrong.
15:56
Is what we call channeling and channeling occurs in all coffee
16:00
preparation and a channel. I liked I always get this
16:05
visual. When I think of a channel, you
16:07
do you have an ant farm when you're a kid?
16:09
I did not but I always wanted one so I know what they look
16:12
like. Right.
16:13
So like you get this like kind of get planes of glass and
16:16
there's dirt in there. And you can kind of imagine that
16:18
that dirt is kind of like your your espresso Puck if you're
16:22
like looking at a cross-section of it and then maybe there's a
16:26
little tiny hairline crack in that puck that you can't see,
16:31
just visually, but your 300 pounds of water pressure is
16:35
going to find that crack because it's going to find the path of
16:37
least resistance. And it's going to burrow through
16:40
that crack like your aunt, makes its little line to make the ant
16:44
farm. I always think of an ant farm I
16:46
think of channeling because I just, it's like a perfect visual
16:48
of like, okay. You think you have this dirt but
16:52
really an ant can find its way through that and when you have
16:55
it and these panes of glass you can see it.
16:57
Well, we can't see it in the coffee, but we can sometimes see
17:02
it when we're looking at the bottom of the portafilter
17:05
basket, as it's extracting, if we have a naked portafilter It
17:09
doesn't have Scouts in the bottom, you can send them.
17:11
See the water will jet out in one direction or espresso will
17:15
jet out in one direction or from one little spot.
17:17
Sometimes, you have a stream of water that kind of watery
17:20
espresso, that kind of shoots in One Direction and those are
17:23
channels that you can see visibly and that they're not
17:25
great. Because when you have water
17:28
flowing through that channel, sure that water is going to be
17:31
under extracted because it's not interacting much with the
17:34
coffee, but it also means that that channel is going to grow
17:38
larger and larger. Larger as that water keeps going
17:40
through, it just like a Roshan, you know, as a river keeps
17:43
running through the same path year after year, eventually you
17:46
get the Grand Canyon. You know, you don't want to
17:48
Grand Canyon in your espresso Puck, you want less than an ant
17:52
farm Channel. You want really?
17:54
Really, tiny channels because they're never going to get no
17:58
channels, and your espresso Puck, even when we talk about
18:01
Brewing, pour overs or batch, brewing channeling is a problem
18:04
where water is going to find the path of least resistance.
18:07
It's going to try to not To that coffee because the coffee is
18:11
slowing it down and it wants to just follow gravity's directive
18:15
and find its way into your cup, you know, or follow the
18:19
pressure, directive that it's being forced through there.
18:21
So, if we can avoid channeling and we can have a level temp, we
18:24
can have an evenly extracted espresso.
18:27
And that's the idea is you want to get all the stuff out of the
18:31
coffee grounds and into your liquid, espresso as evenly as
18:35
possible, you want to get everything at the same rate and
18:38
at the same Same time and we know that's not going to happen.
18:41
That's what Chris hendon's friend is colleagues, paper was
18:44
all about, is this is in an imperfect organic experience.
18:49
How can we make this as reputable as possible?
18:52
But if you don't want to dig through all that science or try
18:55
his style or anything like that, the best thing you can do is
18:58
just try to Tamp evenly and consistently.
19:02
One thing you mentioned during that was that when you fail to
19:06
do that, when you fail to Tamp evenly consistently You end up
19:10
with an espresso shot that has been simultaneously over
19:12
extracted and under extracted, depending on where that water
19:16
went through. But all that espresso shot, all
19:19
that water is ending up in the same, little, little cup.
19:23
Let's say you're practicing your learning.
19:26
How are you able to taste both of those things when they are
19:29
now Blended together in the cup? Is there something that I can
19:32
like pull out of there and just be like, oh no, there's clearly
19:35
something wrong here that instinctively or that you would
19:38
say to a new Employee, perhaps, who's learning this for the
19:40
first time? Well, you know, I do my training
19:46
the way I do it. Not because I try to be mean to
19:48
you Ryan, but because I try to establish good habits and
19:52
procedures. So the reason we had you Tamp
19:56
coffee and then throw it out without extracting, it is that
19:59
we wanted you to get used to the even temping before we had to
20:02
try to taste for it. The seeing the evenness of your
20:05
tamping is actually quite easy. If you have a pretty standard,
20:08
traditional temper, which kind of almost, it's like a chess
20:11
piece is actually a pretty good way to look at.
20:13
It will take a chest piece of the really wide base.
20:17
If you take your chest piece tamper, and you set it, gently
20:22
onto the puck that you just tamped, you should be able to
20:26
see pretty clearly whether your Tamp has a high side and a low
20:30
side, or whether it's pretty even the whole way around. and
20:34
we I remember watching you hold that, portafilter basket with
20:38
the tamper perched in it up to eye level and just inspecting
20:42
all around it and looking at it very carefully from every
20:45
direction because You wanted my approval it was so sweet.
20:51
Emotional scars Run Deep. Chris.
20:55
No, because you actually cared about making a good product and
20:58
you knew that I was trying to guide you to making a good
21:00
product. And if you can tip it evenly, if
21:02
you can not see any visual discrepancies from that
21:07
inspection, Then you're already on the path.
21:10
Now when we're tasting it, can you taste under extraction over
21:14
extraction at the same time and yes.
21:17
The answer, but it's hard. It's much easier to taste under
21:21
extraction or over extraction. And so, the taste I have people
21:27
look for for under extraction are salty, metallic and sour.
21:32
And those salty metallic and or sour tastes are going to come
21:36
from under extraction, whether you're under extracting my ratio
21:40
by time or by channeling and then over extraction, easiest
21:44
thing to kind of look for, is I look for barbecue sauce and
21:47
espresso that taste barbecue sauce that to me is an over
21:52
extracted, Espresso shop. There's some schools of thought
21:55
that don't like to talk about over extraction being like a
21:59
real thing. They like to say that all over
22:01
extraction it Really know where they're getting out of that.
22:03
But I know that there's some people out there that are better
22:06
at coffee than I am. That say that over extraction is
22:11
just a poor version of good extraction or something like
22:15
that. I don't know exactly but but I
22:17
know that there's some people that avoid the term over
22:19
attraction I don't mind it. I think that if you leave the
22:23
puck with Wolves Crush pressurized water flowing over
22:27
it for too long, you're going to start getting the taste of
22:29
barbecue sauce and I don't like that.
22:32
I to get something that's clean. Suite has a nice acidity.
22:36
You know, maybe there's a slight detectable saltiness but as long
22:39
as I get a good amount of sweet to balance out that saltiness
22:42
and that, you know, detectable of silly, I'm pretty happy with
22:46
this Presa, but I want sweetness to balance out those salts and
22:50
sours, so You need to extract it enough to get sweetness out of
22:56
that and that's why it's always a good idea to stir your
22:59
espresso, when you're tasting it, to evaluate it because the
23:02
sugars will fall to the bottom. And you want to really bring
23:05
those up to the top and taste them.
23:07
You want to always take at least a couple sips out of your
23:09
espresso stirring and every time to really see, do I get
23:12
sweetness out of this, because espressos pretty intense.
23:16
So, you really want to make sure that you're letting your palate,
23:19
evaluate it fully. Now with with tamping, I also
23:25
want to ask you does tamping correctly matter to the Barista
23:30
and I ask that because I remember you correcting my
23:37
physicality while I was doing it you know us I would take the
23:41
grinds and put in the portafilter at tap on the
23:43
counter. You know.
23:44
I kind of leaned over it so I could put as much weight down on
23:48
that Tamp as possible you know pressing from the elbow down.
23:52
Down through the wrist into that, that tamper and you would
23:55
always correct, you know, the position of my elbow, or my
23:58
wrist or how I was doing that. Why does that matter?
24:02
Why can't I just push it down? However, I want and and how does
24:06
it impact that Barista? Obviously, if you are you, or
24:12
you work in a cafe and so you're doing this repeated old-time
24:14
over time over time which will have a different type of impact.
24:17
But even for somebody who is tamping at home, why does this
24:22
Form matter. Repetitive motion injuries is a
24:26
real problem. And so you know professionally
24:28
Maurice does, you know, were highly susceptible to repetitive
24:33
motion injury from the action of tapping and I just want to make
24:37
sure I go back and I don't want any listeners to get the wrong
24:41
idea. I don't I know you didn't intend
24:43
this but you do not put as much pressure as you can on that
24:46
puck. That is going to start hurting
24:49
you because your body isn't really meant to be putting that
24:53
much pressure in these He's directions, you know regularly
24:56
so you want to push until the coffee pushes.
24:59
Back is sometimes the way it gets put obviously the copy is
25:03
not actually pushing back, it's just sitting there in early but
25:08
as sort of a guideline for like how it feels to push onto the
25:14
finely ground coffee grounds, you know, they're gonna you're
25:17
going to feel them getting smaller and more compact until
25:20
you stop feeling that when you stop feeling that and you are To
25:24
push that's when the coffee is cooked pushing back.
25:29
And there have been some studies done on the impacts of different
25:33
amounts of pressure on the extraction of the coffee
25:37
different amounts of tamping pressure on the extraction of
25:39
the coffee. And most of them have basically
25:42
said that however, hard you Tamp is, you know, really not going
25:46
to make that big of an impact. Because again, 300 pounds worth
25:50
of water pressure kind of hitting hitting this pup but He
25:54
wants to be injured, nobody wants to strain, you know, and
25:57
although or back or an arm or pull a muscle.
26:01
And so it's a good idea to try to exercise good form at all
26:04
times. So you don't really want to be
26:06
leaning over the thing. Ideally what you do is you have
26:10
your thumb in line with your forearm and your forearm at your
26:16
elbow at about a right angle. So that your whole forearm and
26:19
thumb is pointing straight down at the counter.
26:22
And obviously we want the A to be at a perfect flatness on the
26:28
top of the coffee grounds. So we're going to be pushing
26:32
that straight down. So the bottom of your tamper
26:35
should be approximately perpendicular to the countertop,
26:38
where your portafilter basket and your coffee grounds or
26:42
sitting there, you know, close to level and pushing straight
26:45
down of that. You can have some tilt to your
26:49
portafilter basket if that enables you to get straight up
26:52
and down or straight into the And perpendicular to the top of
26:56
the portafilter basket more easily, but you really want
27:00
that, right? Angle of your elbow.
27:02
You don't want to be leaning over too far.
27:03
It can be really helpful to turn your hips, 90 degrees to the
27:07
countertop, so that you can really apply the pressure and
27:12
have the pressure from pushing down.
27:15
Go up through your thumb and ball of your hand up through
27:19
your forearm, get transferred over through your perfect,
27:22
right? Angle elbow.
27:24
Through your upper arm and into your shoulder and all through
27:27
your back bruises are very susceptible to repetitive motion
27:31
injury in the elbow and the wrist.
27:34
A lot of the time, I see what I call Baristas with a broken
27:37
wrist or there, there's an angle between the top of their hand
27:40
and their forearm. You don't want that, you want
27:44
your thumb and your forearm to be in line and this is with the
27:47
type of temper that looks kind of like a chess piece.
27:50
There are a variety of different a out there now There's a really
27:55
cool temper out there. Now that I am very eager to get
27:58
called the boss. Eat a, that's a Portable
28:03
electronic temper that you just put on top and twist and it
28:07
automatically tamps. This is a more accessible lower
28:12
price kind of consumer grade version of the puck.
28:16
Press p, uq p uq. Press.
28:21
The puck press is an electronic tamping device.
28:25
That's sold, especially coffee shops, it's to avoid Barista
28:29
elbow Barista wrist. I have repetitive motion injury
28:34
in my right elbow from tamping for years with bad form.
28:38
And even though I haven't tempted my right arm and have a
28:40
78 years, When I do try to tamper with it again.
28:45
If I do it for you, no more than five or six drinks even three or
28:50
four drinks. Sometimes I'll start getting
28:52
shooting, pains up and down my right my entire right arm, and
28:55
it's like quite painful. It's not comfortable.
28:59
You know, there's a reason that Starbucks has all fully
29:02
automated espresso machines. Now that grind Tamp and empty,
29:06
the products, all all-in-one on. That's because they had with
29:10
some of the really high volume cafes.
29:11
They had some really bad injuries.
29:13
Now, my understanding is that most of those injuries, while
29:15
there was a high proportion of repetitive motion injury.
29:18
If the ones, they were really avoiding where the stress
29:22
fractures in the forearm form using the knock box and I can
29:26
verify that that can be uncomfortable.
29:29
Knock boxes are usually have a rod across them to knock the
29:33
portafilter against to break the puck out of there.
29:36
They used Puck when that Rod is usually coated in some kind of
29:39
like rubber or foam, but that foam is going.
29:43
Wear out over time and the rod is usually metal and so it tends
29:46
to happen. Most places is that you're
29:48
banging metal on metal again and again and again and over time in
29:53
a busy Cafe, you can actually get stress fractures in your
29:56
forearm and it seems kind of ridiculous because you think,
29:59
oh, it's just making my coffee to talk about stress fractures
30:03
and repetitive motion injury, but you know that stuff hurts
30:06
and it can be a chronic hurt and the chronic pain.
30:08
And so it's, you know, if you want to keep doing this for a
30:11
while or you want to do it the right way, Way, you know, it's
30:14
important to do it in a way that's easy on your body.
30:18
So there's another type of Tamp out there get there get like a
30:22
generic name for it but it kind of looks a bit like a hockey
30:25
puck itself and then it just has a little short narrower cylinder
30:29
sticking out of it and now when you're actually supposed to push
30:32
with the palm of your hand with the base of your palm when that
30:37
one, it's sort of okay to have a little bit more break in your
30:41
wrist because you're putting The pressure more directly against
30:45
your forearm, you're not using your hand as much as you're not
30:49
creating as much of a stress point there, the train, your
30:52
hand, and your forearm and those temps are very popular Baristas.
30:57
I've never really loved them, but I haven't worked with them.
31:00
A ton. Our temps have an auto leveling
31:03
plates on them, so it's impossible, or near impossible,
31:06
to Tamp, unevenly with that plate on their plate, will rest
31:11
against the lip of the basket. And make sure that your tamper
31:15
can't really be at an angle as you push it down.
31:18
And I find that, you know, helps a lot of consistency, but it
31:22
also helps with this newer problem that we're experiencing
31:25
as we get precision tampers. This is something you asked me
31:29
if this is a topic that I was interested in doing today and I
31:32
kind of thought I'd be talking about Precision at a more.
31:35
But instead of just talking about tamping Basics, do you
31:38
know anything about Precision, tempers, I don't.
31:41
But here's what I would say is let's save that for another
31:44
episode. Okay, we'll do a second one.
31:47
And this is great because we've never actually talked about
31:49
tamping Basics on the show. So we'll, we'll split that into
31:52
another episode so people can kind of debt digest this yeah,
31:56
or if they're already Beyond this point, they can skip right
31:59
ahead to that Precision. Tamping episode in the future.
32:02
Cool. Awesome.
32:04
Why? I appreciate you very much Ryan.
32:05
It's always a pleasure to chat about God, be with you and I'm
32:08
pretty sure that you have no repetitive motion injury from
32:10
working with me. Not from working with You.
32:17
Chris, thanks for being here. Obviously, I love chatting with
32:20
you. No matter how many sirens run
32:22
past the apartment. I'm looking forward to sitting
32:26
down with you and just enjoy a cup of coffee that, hopefully
32:30
somebody else makes for us. Sometimes I appreciate as long
32:36
as you're not viewer, be all right?
32:45
Okay. To recap, if I've learned
32:48
anything at all, about coffee in the six seasons, I posted this
32:51
show. Is that getting a good cup of
32:53
coffee is all about minimizing the variables.
32:56
That can f it up to pull a great espresso.
32:59
You need properly, ground coffee and a well-executed Tamp to
33:04
avoid channeling. Tamping is the act of
33:07
compressing finely ground coffee grinds into the coffee bucket,
33:11
that then locks into the espresso machine.
33:14
A coffee bucket is more accurately referred to as a
33:17
portafilter. And it is where the grind sit.
33:19
While the espresso machine is forcing water through them to
33:23
quote. Chris, if we don't have fancy
33:25
terms for things, nobody takes us seriously to which I might
33:30
reply. I'm not sure people should take
33:32
Chris. And I seriously The champ is
33:34
important because an uneven Tamp causes over and under extracted,
33:39
coffee in the same shot of espresso, which makes it very
33:43
hard to identify. Identify what the hell went
33:44
wrong? If you are new at pulling
33:46
espresso, it is doubly hard because you may not have dialed
33:50
in your taste buds to be able to identify the differences.
33:54
According to Chris, a barbecue sauce flavor is common for an
33:57
over extracted shot and under extraction causes salty, sour,
34:01
and even metallic flavor notes. With tamping also comes the risk
34:06
of injury in the cafe. Repetitive motion injuries are
34:09
common place and even at home, you want to make sure you're not
34:14
using an improper tamping. Motion to avoid causing stress
34:17
on a weak joint or ligament push the Tamp down onto the grounds
34:22
until the coffee pushes back. Don't over push or put your
34:26
whole weight on your elbow and wrist.
34:27
Like I did not only might you hurt yourself but you'll have
34:30
less control leaving you susceptible to causing an uneven
34:34
tan Which as we know leads to channeling and a crap espresso
34:39
shot not from the show today but just some good news in the world
34:42
of coffee, a study in the European Journal of
34:45
preventative. Cardiology found that drinking
34:48
two to three cups of coffee per day.
34:50
Can be good for your overall heart health and fairly
34:53
significantly reduce the risk of heart related ailments and even
34:56
death. The study followed 450,000
35:00
people over about 12 and a half years so it definitely has some
35:04
way. Weight behind it more
35:06
interesting to me, was that the benefits were seen albeit at a
35:09
slightly reduced rate, among participants who drank decaf.
35:12
And even instant coffees the correlation between positive
35:16
benefits. And coffee is clearly not
35:17
limited to caffeine study Author.
35:20
Peter Kistler said quote, it is likely, the non-caffeinated
35:24
compounds were responsible for the positive relationships
35:27
observed between coffee drinking cardiovascular disease and
35:31
survival. Our findings indicate that
35:33
drinking modest. Of coffee of all types.
35:36
Should not be discouraged but can be enjoyed as heart.
35:39
Healthy behavior and quote, so between the coffee and the wine,
35:44
I'm feeling pretty good about my heart health right now
35:47
disclosure, this is not an endorsement to drink wine for
35:49
your heart. I am not a doctor.
35:50
Please don't send me emails. I'm going to share that study,
35:54
more coffee, news and some details on those tampers that
35:57
Chris mentioned in this episode in the new edition of the roast
36:00
westcoast.com newsletter. Go there ASAP.
36:04
Which I hate when people say that.
36:06
So just go there as soon as you can, while you're there.
36:09
Maybe I don't know, subscribe, the newsletter gets sent out,
36:12
twice a week once with each episode and features a lot of
36:15
from the show and not from the show details and it's only
36:19
growing finally, I did Google penguin noises which did not
36:24
sound at all. Like I thought they would
36:44
Thanks to Chris for coming back. Once again he's going to be
36:47
rejoining us in season 7 and I've already sent him a list of
36:50
topics to study up on coffee cycle.
36:52
Roasting is one of the show's industry Partners who along with
36:56
are paid newsletter subscribers and sure that this show gets
36:58
made every single week and helps us continue to grow in the craft
37:01
coffee Community, other partners include Cafe lechera, mostra
37:05
Coffee Company, steady-state coffee, roasting Camp, Coffee
37:09
Company, coffee cycle, roasting ignite, Coffee Company.
37:13
Maria coffee, Cape Horn coffee, importers and Ascend Coffee
37:17
Roasters. Thank you, all for listening and
37:20
for supporting this show, this episode of the roast West Coast
37:23
coffee podcast is was has been written produced and recorded by
37:27
me. Brian Walton, I hope this
37:30
episode is found you happy healthy and with at least enough
37:33
sanity to make it through the day, always tip your Baristas
37:37
and be sure to drink a coffee.