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Hydroforming Tamper

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  • Hydroforming Tamper

    From my Google news recommendations (the algorithm is learning)... From Idroprep, the same company that produce the Espazzola grouphead scrubbing device.

    Click image for larger version

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    While it looks like a normal tamper from the outside, a glimpse from below reveals that instead of a solid steel bottom, the Idroprep features a squishy polyurethane gel pad. When pressed upon a bed of ground coffee in an espresso basket, the pad hydroforms the coffee puck.
    Interesting to see some genuine innovation in a space that's been pretty static for a while; whether it offers any real benefit remains to be seen.

  • #2
    Interesting for sure. At the moment they are only shipping to Europe and the USA

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    • #3
      Ordered one but I had to have it shipped to my U.S. forwarding account so it will a few weeks before it arrives Down Under.

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      • #4
        https://youtu.be/nTBRUZIQUiw

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        • #5
          Quick demo animation of the theory behind it https://youtu.be/lYQXZszMpJs

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          • Lyrebird
            Lyrebird commented
            Editing a comment
            Hydroforming is just pressure distribution via Pascal's Law.

        • #6
          The theory seems interesting and they are very modest on the pricing. Irrespective of whether the theory is right or not, there is the question of whether the soft gel (described as polyurethane in one review) would behave as a liquid.

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          • #7
            And https://dailycoffeenews.com/2022/05/...spresso-craft/

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            • #8
              Only one way to find out ... Tamp and see...

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              • #9
                Update: the fluid tamper arrived via a third party address in the USA (they were not shipping to OZ).

                Unfortunately I had to abandon my attempts to test it due to worsening arthritis in my wrists.

                (My wrists are pain free other than impact type actions like hammering and tamping. Thanks for asking!)

                Initial observations reveal two interesting features that don't normally coexist in one tamper:

                A) it is not sprung

                B) it has a collar

                Most tampers that are not sprung have no collar. Having no spring and a collar means that the puck height has to be just right.

                After messaging CleanFinish he agreed to review it and let y'all know what he thinks. I have just posted it to him today so maybe give it a couple of weeks and check back to see if he thinks it's any good.

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                • #10
                  Sorry to hear about your arthritis.

                  I am sure Clean Finish will do a great job. Could you ask him to post the review on HB? Maybe with you writing a great teasing intro for it

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                  • tompoland
                    tompoland commented
                    Editing a comment
                    That should work well 338.

                    Hang on, is that the sound of pitchforks being taken from their racks?

                    (Always delighted to provide a platform for your entertaining pleasure)

                • #11
                  So I've been using this tamper before CleanFinish but will be giving it back to him next time I see him. Big thanks to tompoland for his generous travelling tamper.

                  First impressions are that it feels weird to tamp with. It doesn't give a lot of feedback pressure until you're really leaning on it, I suspect this is due to the gel having some give in it. I did my best to recalibrate my tamping stop to the output of force in my arm rather than the feeling of the coffee pushing back.

                  I'll be honest and say I haven't tried it in place of normal puck prep, their pictures seem to suggest you can tamp with an unlevel (yet somehow evenly distributed) bed of coffee and it makes it ok because it doesn't unevenly compress the bed. I find that notion to be fanciful at best, but I haven't tested it.

                  In place of a normal 58.0mm tamper it is equal at best. The aluminium ring usually caused a different ring around the edge, and the 58.0mm size left something to be desired. At worst it allowed me to tamp in a slightly unlevel manner and that made the gel move more to a level position but the aluminium ring did not, so there's a step around most of the circumference. Whether that was better than an unlevel tamp from a 58.0mm solid tamper I can't say. All I know the shots where the bed didn't look flat after tamping tasted like the extraction was less even, this was matched by the appearance of uneven flow when using a naked portafilter, so I quickly switched to spouted with the double basket.

                  Discussing this tamper with others online, I learned that perhaps it was actually designed for traditional single baskets, which have very sloped sides and are difficult to tamp well with a normal tamper unless you dose so high that the bed is level at the top. With the idroprep perhaps you could dose a bit lower so that only the gel portion of the tamper interacted with the coffee, and the aluminium ring stayed out of it. This proved to be finicky to achieve as the gel only sticks out 1mm past the aluminium ring.

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                  I ended up settling on a dose of 7.6g

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                  Once I got the dose right the pours looked much prettier.

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                  After all that I still felt like the shape of the basket was causing uneven (yet consistent) flow through the puck. Not harsh like channeling or a really wonky tamp, but tasted off in a way I couldn't get rid of. Who knows if I could dial it on better if I concentrated on only using this basket for a month, but right now I'd rather have tasty coffee!

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                  • #12
                    Here's what it looks like (best result) when tamping the full width of the basket

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