During working hours, a barista will shoot hundreds of #espressos. One of the basic skills needed by a barista to make good espresso is to evenly distribute and compress the freshly ground coffee inside the #portafilter.
While this may seem like a simple, mundane task, it's also one of the most difficult for any barista to truly master.
It is quite difficult to constantly manually press the coffee, to execute it perfectly every time. Any #barista will tell you they need something that can dispense coffee a little better than a traditional tamper.
It's more of a need for a delivery tool that can produce the same results regardless of the barista's skill level or response to the stress of a busy period where you typically start to see poking skills and consistency begin to shake.
Straightening causes a small amount of coffee to come into contact with too much water, while the rest of the coffee remains under-ground. The resulting ground espresso will leave a sour, bitter and unpleasantly thin mouthfeel.
This is where the espresso straightener helps to eliminate some inconsistencies and human error while evenly distributing the coffee to your portafilter.
The job of the espresso straightener is to straighten your coffee before pressing to help reduce areas of high compression and low compression that can lead to channeling.
You probably hit your loaded portafilter on the side of the table and think you have a relatively even-looking surface before you zip it up.
You won't realize it, but when compressing there is almost always a certain part of the coffee package that will be compressed more and other parts that will be compressed much less depending on how the coffee is dispensed before compression.
As we mentioned earlier, this will cause the pressurized water to find the easiest path from the part with less resistance (less coffee), which will result in an over-ground bitter and tasteless coffee.
The concept of the coffee dispenser is that you have three pallets and an adjustable straightener, so when you put the dispenser tool on top of your portafilter and rotate it, it will flatten and help distribute all the coffee evenly inside the filter basket.
Using an espresso straightener reduces the possibility of human error and helps ensure that your coffee is evenly distributed inside the filter basket with minimal effort.
If the coffee falls into an uneven bump in the basket after grinding, you won't be able to level it enough with one compression alone, even with maximum pressure.
Of course, the surface of the coffee disc will look smooth and even, but there will be different imperfections under the surface. Also, there may be no lumps on the surface, but they will remain below the surface of the coffee disc.
All these unseen problems with your packaged coffee will contribute to the formation of higher or lower density sections where a homogeneous flow would be impossible.
Tamping compresses the coffee inside the filter basket, but does not free it from clumping and roughness.
Espresso Motta Coffee Straighteners or Tampers? Which Should You Use?
By now you should have a better understanding of the pros and cons of both the espresso straightener (dispensing tool) and tampering. So which one should you use?
This is where opinions differ. While many "old-fashioned" baristas prefer to stick with the tried-and-true espresso tampon, newer baristas seem to like to take a quick spin with a straightener instead of a tampon.
Ideally, it would be best if you use both. The barista should create a uniform surface in the basket with the espresso coffee straightener before the tempering step, which will add additional compression to achieve adequate water pressure resistance.
The stabilizer removes the tamper inconsistency factor and makes each shot as consistent as the next. Motta coffee straighteners make it an excellent choice for busy cafes where barista skill levels may differ.
With this style of espresso straightener, you can adjust the depth so that the tool is rotated down so that you get a solid "pinch" when it touches the basket rim. As a bonus, your bumper will be perfectly level every time!