Barista Hustle, founded by Melbourne-based barista and 2012 World Brewers Cup champion Matt Perger, is a coffee education platform created to provide coffee professionals and enthusiasts with the knowledge and know-how to enhance their coffee and espresso brewing skills. Barista Hustle offers material online that covers every topic you could think of on the subject of coffee, regarding everything from its preparation, its production chain and the deep science of its chemical make-up.

Additionally, Barista Hustle sells a handful of coffee brewing tools similarly aimed at taking your coffee brewing to the next level. The AutoComb is their latest and arguably greatest product (so far). It’s a kind of wire distribution tool, a once niche but now near-ubiquitous espresso gadget, but one that has been, in Barista Hustle’s own words, “excessively over-engineered”.

The AutoComb is essentially made up of two pieces connected at a set of ball bearings. The first is the chassis, a sturdy frame that fits securely onto most 58mm portafilters and holds the second part of the AutoComb, an expertly designed 12-needle comb. The idea is that once you’ve loaded up your portafilter with freshly ground coffee, you simply place the AutoComb on top, make sure it’s secure, lower the needles into the bed of coffee, and then rotate them. The needles stir the bed of coffee, breaking up clumps and evenly distributing grinds around the entirety of the filter basket. This ensures that your bed of coffee is perfectly distributed prior to tamping, minimising your chances of channelling and prepping your puck for balanced extraction every time.

It’s not complicated, but it is impressively effective. Moreover, once you’ve got the hang of it, the process really doesn’t take much longer than a few seconds, so the AutoComb won’t stall a barista’s workflow even on a busy day at the cafe. It really is a brilliant tool that ensures consistently great espresso with efficiency, speed, and ease-of-use.

Note: While the AutoComb chassis is sturdy, and the whole tool is easy to both use and maintain, its needles are delicate and can bend if they catch on, say, the edge of a portafilter. To avoid such an occurrence, and to get the most out of your AutoComb, consider checking out this helpful quickstart guide from Barista Hustle.

Barista Hustle AutoComb features and specifications

• Breaks up clumps in your ground coffee and distributes it evenly throughout the basket, in just a few seconds
• Dimensions (L x W x H): 135 x 115 x 80mm
• Weight: 305g
• Needle length: Needle depth adjustable for single, double and triple baskets, without the need for tools
• Needles replaced easily and by hand
• Compatible with most 58mm portafilters and baskets
• Durable build, made of anodised aluminium, impact resistant ABS, acetal and stainless steel
• Easy to disassemble, maintain and repair
• Comes with ~40 spare needles and a set of allen keys