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Blew $65 on a tiny espresso tamper and my shots went from gushers to actual crema
I kept fighting sour, watery pulls at my usual spot in Portland and blamed the beans for about two weeks. Turns out my old tamper was a hair too small for the basket, so the edges never got packed and water just tunneled right through. Now I'm wondering if I should've just bought the right size basket instead of a whole new tamper, anyone been down this road?
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hannahm391mo ago
The part about blaming the beans for two weeks hits home, I did the exact same thing with a roast I was sure was bad. One thing nobody ever talks about is the basket itself can be out of round, not just the tamper being too small. I checked mine with a cheap caliper from the hardware store and the top of the basket was off by like half a millimeter, so even a perfect tamper would leave gaps at the edge. Might be worth checking before you spend more on gear, you can fix a slightly oval basket by just rotating your tamp a quarter turn and pressing again.
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