Video Overview | Pullman Chisel Espresso Distribution Tool

Transcript

Hey, it's Steve, Prima Coffee here. Today we're taking a look at Pullman's Chisel Distribution tool. Now, this is a tool which helps distribute or probably groom is the better word, the upper half to one-third of your coffee puck, prior to tamping. Now, that's a really useful thing because a lot of grinders don't really deliver an even bed of grounds into the basket such that when you do tamp it, it creates an even, uniform density throughout the puck. So, using a tool like this can help create a more even and evenly dense puck, prior to tamping and after tamping which will help get you more even extractions because the water's flowing evenly through all parts of that coffee puck. Now, this is an adjustable depth distribution tool, so I have a couple of parts here. Basically, it's kind of a nut or a cap on the top, a sort of central collar piece as well as the bottom piston. Very, very easy to adjust just by loosening that top, twisting the piston clockwise or counterclockwise to change the depth up or down, and then locking it back in place just by tightening that top nut.

Pullman Chisel Espresso Distribution Tool

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Fits most commercial baskets, piston is 58.4 mm in diameter

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The other nice feature here is that we have this collar which is going to catch against the rim of the basket. So, as you are setting the device in and turning it, it stays level with the basket rim so that's going to give you also an even and level surface of the coffee to tamp. So, that's particularly important because we're focusing on distributing the coffee in an even and level fashion. Now, the other interesting thing here is that there are a few tools like this, but Pullman's uses just this one sort of vertex for their distribution and that's because they want to distribute more coffee sort of outwards. So, as you spin this, these sort of slopes are going to push the coffee sideways. It will compress the coffee just a little bit you know, like vertically in the basket, so there is a sort of tamping action. But they're also moving quite a bit of coffee out towards the edge of the basket which is great because a lot of grinders produce sort of a cone or mountain-shaped mound of coffee in the basket. So, pushing that coffee from the center outward is going to help give you a more even and evenly dense coffee bed, again, which is the goal of using one of these distribution tools.

So, I'm going to show you how it works, I'm going to grind a little bit of coffee. So, again, I have this sort of mound here that I'm looking at. I'm going to tap to settle it just a little bit. I haven't set the depth for this just yet, but I have it set basically at a point where it'll do a little bit of work and hopefully won't compress it too much. So, really, all I have to do is set it on top and give it a quick little spin, just maybe three or four revolutions is fine and now you see I have a nice, even and flat surface, which I will then tamp, using whatever tamper I like. So again, that gives us an evenly dense puck, it's going to move some of that coffee from the center of the mound out towards the edge of the basket which is going give us a nice, even density of the puck again, because as water flows through that coffee, it's going to find the path of least resistance. So, if there are pockets of sort of less dense puck, it's going to favor those, and extract less out of whatever is more dense. So, you're going to get better tractions with something like this. I didn't really have to do anything in terms of adjusting my depth too much, I was actually pretty on point for that dose.

But again, very very easy to set and just sort of forget. There's not a lot of precision needed for setting the depth with something like this. You want to make sure that you're not tamping too much, you do want to make sure that this collar is hitting the rim of the basket so you get that even level as you spin. But you are tamping afterwards as well, so it's kind of up to preference in terms of how deep you want to set it, how much you actually want to affect the coffee and really you know, kind of deal with whatever you're being given by your grinder. Really fantastic tool, works with most baskets, it is a 58.4 mm diameter on the piston, so it may not fit some smaller 58 mm baskets, but most modern baskets, such as VST or La Marzocco baskets will work just fine with this. So, that is the Pullman Chisel Tool. Thanks for watching.