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Took me 3 months to figure out why my espresso shots were channeling every time
Turns out I was over-tamping with too much force and the distributor tool I got off Amazon was actually making it worse, has anyone else dealt with a tool that made things harder instead of easier?
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terryk101d agoTop Commenter
Maybe it's just me but a lot of those distributor tools feel like they're solving a problem that wasn't really there to begin with. Did you notice the channeling getting worse right when you started using it, or was it more of a gradual thing? I've heard some people say the cheap ones actually create uneven density across the puck instead of leveling it out. Might be worth trying a simple paperclip or toothpick method to break up clumps before tamping, just to rule out the tool being the culprit.
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oscar74318h ago
Funny you mention that, I had the same issue with a cheap distributor. It actually made my shots worse for a bit, took me a week to figure out it was the tool. I switched to just tapping the portafilter on the counter to settle the grounds and using a homemade WDT tool with some thin wires. That fixed the channeling for me way better than any gadget I ordered online.
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