Friend said I was choking my shots by over-tamping - changed everything

I always pushed down hard on my tamper, like really leaned into it, thinking more pressure = better espresso. A buddy watched me pull a shot and said "you're making a brick, not a puck, back off like 90%." I dropped from using full body weight to just a light level press, probably 10 pounds instead of 30, and my shots stopped channeling completely. Now I get 25 second pulls with proper crema every time. Anybody else get told they were using too much force and had to unlearn bad habits?

1 comments

1 Comment

jason_robinson1h ago

Didn't I read somewhere that tamping too hard actually hurts extraction?