Posted by Eric on December 4, 2009 at 12:39pm in Espresso
Last night I was involved in a training session on espresso techniques, and as I was done tamping, I polished the puck by spinning the tamper 360 degrees on the puck. The trainee asked me why I polished and I was dumbstruck for a second not knowing the reason behind polishing. I quickly regained composer and thought back to my reading of the Gimme barista manual where it says that polishing "smooths out any small ridges on the surface of the puck and creates a perfectly flat surface for the water to hit once the pour begins." But it got me thinking, about the Reg-barber C-ripple and its waved design... in the evaluation of it at www.espressorun.blogspot.com they say the results of the ripple " is almost resemblant to that of a flat base." Billy Kangas in another discussion here on bx notices a sweeter extraction, but only in certain situations. Which to me means that with relatively huge ridges in the top of puck the effect is almost negligible. So, does polishing really make a huge difference? Is it important? I am not finding much on polishing the puck in any Internet sources... and as a general disclaimer, I am playing devils advocate a bit here to see what will potentially come up?
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