THE ULTIMATE TAMPER: Which Tamper Style is Best?

With the growing number of tampers on the market, with different bases and springs and gadgets, which is best? This video tests 5 different variations and comes to conclusion based off the data. Curious to see the raw data? Below is the link.
Shoutout to Dr. Gagne for the crunching of numbers, creation of graphs, and data analyzation with me.

Data can be found here:

LINKS
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[LanceHedrick]

Make sure to tamp the like and subscribe! Lots of effort go into these and it would be hugely appreciated! Any questions on methodology not covered? Ask below!

[Kevinmageddon]

Hey Lance, I know it's not much, but here's a token of appreciation for all the hard work you're putting in. It's really nice to have videos with actual testing to refer to when making decisions like tamping or screen pucks. Keep up the good work!

[hayesgolightly]

this is silly but I literally just sent you a DM on instagram about three days ago asking this exact question. I was shocked to see that you took the time to make a whole video explaining it just for me, very kind Lance.

[coffeewithapril]

I am a big fan of the Force Tamper. I used them in two world barista championship finals, and we started to use them in our stores as well. The consistency resonates well with me, and as it's still "manual, " the user still pays proper attention - when it becomes mechanical, it's easier to overlook when something isn't right. I also don't use any types of distribution tools. Granted, that's very much based on the quality of the grinder being used. Great video, keep it up.

[kyrazy]

With tampers being covered im interested in a similar video with WDT tools such as the autocomb, moon raker, or 3D printed ones vs hand WDT. Thanks for the geeat videos! Always a awesome to get some coffee science in the morning!

[WillardTurner]

Love these more edited videos, as well as your live "unfiltered" series. Together they provide a wealth of knowledge to the coffee community, and these more "filtered" videos are much more friendly to new coffee nerds.

[erinoconnor]

I started double tamping by accident really just to get some loose grounds around the edges. Shots were always worse when I didn’t do this. I didn’t realise this was a thing until you said! Nice video.

[justinbouchard]

I've done a fair amount of ground work for foundations for buildings. Compacting and testing the compaction of the ground is part of it. Something I was doing naturally when tamping was just holding the tamp pressure for a few seconds. So I'm interested to try double tamping to see if it's similar. Material takes some time to compress. So it make sense to me that double tamping, or "ensured" tamping of the material so it's compressed as homogeneously as possible will help create more even flow/extraction through the puck. I think the ripples are just for show, the top of the puck is super porous as far as I can perceive even when tamped flat. I super have been thinking that a convex tamp would help with even extraction because of basket flex, but clearly that's not the case lol. Side note, that umikot you got printed for you is impeccably nice lmao
Too bad your electric tamper isn't wireless charging. You could just keep it on a charge pad and it would be ready to go. Maybe you have a person that could modify it for you to accept wireless charging ?

[ovi_]

You've mentioned numerous times the study shows that around the edges of the coffee puck, the coffee is always under-extracted no matter what tamping technique or basket type is used. Well, it must be because, around the edge wall of the basket, there are no holes made. So based on this assumption, I don't understand why the manufacturers do not simply put holes evenly spaced around the edge wall of all baskets so the basket then would no longer be a basket but a STRAINER. And to me, it sounds like the problem of under-extraction could easily be solved that way. Surely that would greatly improve the extraction consistency throughout the puck. Job done.

[StephenRandall]

Thanks for a fantastic video and excellent work on this. More digression please! :D

[aleksandrl]

Super succinct and immensely informative. Just outstanding. And your humour is always a wonderful addition. Thanks so much for your work, Lance!

[WTFA]

We gotta just compile a playlist of all of these ultimate showdowns to link people considering new purchases or getting into the hobby! Thanks for all the work you do and love all of these videos!

[jfess]

My first thought was that the convex tampers were back-asswards. Since the outside of the puck seems underextracted, the center should have a slight mound (to increase overall resistance), ie, the tamper face should be concave.

[nextlp]

Great little video! Thanks for clearing up some "rumors".
Personally I'm using a normcore self levelling spring tamper and I'm super happy with it. It's not fancy but does give me the consistency I want / need..
Cheers

[Kindreda]

This channel is criminally underrated. Subbed for the silky smooth milk foam, the silky smooth espresso and the silky smooth singing

[SonicFury]

Lance this is a great step up for you. It’s more concise, more salient points, and a consistent energy from the music and beautiful cuts. Keep this up!!

[TomJones-txpb]

I have been experimenting with tampers for the past year with a wide variety of tamper designs and coffees. 
I won't go into all of my findings that are more in depth than this video and its references, but will add a couple of comments relevant to the video. 

First off, I agree that a flat bottom is better than a domed bottom, and that the main difference with the ridges is extra cleaning of grounds off the tamper. 

After a year of use my Normcore spring tamper has a lot of play in it and regularly does not produce a level, evenly tamped puck. I can see this by inspecting the tamped puck. I can improve results by removing the guide and the weak spring so you can see what the tamp is doing and press down directly on the tamper. Doing a second tamp with a conventional tamper allows me to find and fix the areas of uneven tamping done by the Normcore. I have not used the similar Decent tamper to see if it has this play eventually.

Once a puck has been tamped, any sort of tapping or polishing runs the risk of breaking the puck away from the sides of the basket or cracking the puck, leading to channelling of various types. I have not used the Force tamper but have seen videos of it being used where it is clear in the video that the impulse it produces has this effect.

[GadgetsGearCoffee]

Love my new Force Tamper! I don't love the way it looks but I love how it just punches things and I have no need to use limited brain power in the am (did an entire full review on my channel). May get a bravo tamper in the future just for the fun of it to go manual if I want to. Interesting results though to see there is some fluctuation, I did wonder if the punch would affect the puck but counteract the variances of pressure which is their whole selling point of removing a variable

[DanielACroft]

I use the BOSE Tamper every day, I just keep it charged with a wireless charger. I was hoping you’d cover it since I’d like to hear your thoughts. Other than that, I have several tamps I use, the original Perg Tamp is my favourite out of those.

[eusevis]

Nice, i ordered a Decent-like tamper some days ago and your video justified my choice!