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Ever seen a video of a barista stirring their espresso grinds in the portafilter with a paperclip and thought “What the heck are they doing?!” Maybe you’ve seen this viral video making the rounds on Instagram and wondered what on earth that spider-looking contraption is.
Believe it or not, the goal is the same whether you’re using a $500 specialized tool or a paperclip - break down clumps for more even extraction.
As many of us have experienced - home espresso grinders can produce a significant amount of clumps when grinding. Clumps create channels that give an uneven extraction - leaving you rather underwhelmed with your shot. Not only can channelling leave you bitterly disappointed (pun intended) but it also makes it difficult to get a consistent result when making espresso at home.
Enter the Weiss Distribution Technique - WDT. The Weiss Distribution Technique was introduced by retired computer science professor and home espresso fanatic John Weiss as a way to remove clumps from the espresso grinds and get a more even and consistent extraction from his home espresso setup.
How do you WDT? It’s very simple - after grinding your espresso, before tamping, take a paperclip or WDT tool and stir the grinds until the coffee bed is smooth and free from clumps. You might want to put some sort of funnel around the portafilter to stop grinds going everywhere. Then you can proceed with tamping and extracting as usual.
What kind of tools do you need? Well - Mr Weiss uses a needle at home, but you can also use a paperclip. Some more creative ideas are to get a cork and put acupuncture needles through it like this to make a homemade WDT tool. There are also a tonne of WDT tools on the market including the famous Moonraker from Weber Workshops that we mentioned earlier.
So what do we think of WDT? Well, while you might not see this technique adapted to the commercial high-volume cafe environment, I think it is a wonderful help for home espresso aficionados. Introducing this technique should give you a more consistent extraction shot after shot. So go on, give that coffee bed a little stir!
-P.T.
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