They are like fishing lures; they are best at Catching the buyer... A few have functional behaviour - the rest are just $$$$ and if it costs more - then it must be better. Let alone the differences a Naked produces Vs a full group with covers over the spouts - And the environment of the air temp etc.
Thanks you for your in depth vids. Always enjoying them. And also appreciate the “at the end of the day, what things really boil down to” perspective. Cheers.
I heard once that the tapered baskets were designed to reduce side channeling. Probably because the puck better pressed against the tapered walls. Also the path for channeling is a bit longer.
Can you tell me why the water flows out of my shower head flush in the middle like a jet and not like a shower distributed like that on my Profitec machine and I have no idea what could be the problem
I got a Big Bang, mainly because it wasn't too expensive, and I was looking for a 14g basket. I can't get the puck out as easily or at all as my generic 20g ridged, tapered basket. Make sense, with a tapered basket, once the puck is loose, the walls wont stick to it anymore. Kinda like bottleneck versus straight-wall cartridges. Anyway, one thing I don't like about the straight wall. But otherwise, makes good coffee. That's about it really as far as I'm concerned. The ridge stuff, since I use a 'puck screen of some sort (mainly for cleanliness), when you drop the screen, the coffee underneath tends to puff out of the sides and make a mess. So basically, purely for practical reasons, curved (tapered) wall, and no ridge.
Not sure what you mean with kinetic energy. The amount of actual kinetic energy from a physics perspective that is contained in a few drops of water moving at a few mm/s is going to be very minor. I would expect the vertical pressure gradient across the puck to be far more influential in the extraction process. Water moving at even high velocity (say 50-100 km/h) would probably still be unable to make it through the puck, though that would be a fun experiment.
I have a Unifilter, the “syrup rain” only lasts for part of the shot and it merges into a “rat tail” about halfway through every time. Weber seems to cut the video when the extraction merges into one. I can share a video with you if you’d like.
For blends, I’ll always use a conical brewer to balance the different extraction rates of multiple coffees. A very even flat bottom brewer tastes terrible with light roasted coffees blended together compared to a v60. That’s the point of the blend filter-blending those extraction together in a more even way than just a small conical basket shape. I know many people who can increase EY by 2% however they are using low pressure, and well aligned burrs and don’t produce many fines. They use shot times like 15 seconds Mavam 3 bar pre infusion + 20 seconds 5 bar full pressure. I’d imagine traditional espresso approaches won’t do these baskets much justice.
Of a pressurized solvent passing through a bed of semi-soluble particles of varying shapes and sizes, with changing temperatures and pressures. Why yes, I think I have just the phone app for that :)
In case the irony didn’t come out: I think one can also overdo it… I’m perfectly with you: If the basket produces even extraction without channeling and it tastes great, I don’t see the need for a Unifilter.
Late to the party. Just have to beat this into the ground because not everyone understands the reality of CFD. Even though I know it's sarcasm, there's always this idea that you can do CFD and prove what's better for every environment. The reality is that CFD works for what you feed it. The given input must match reality. If you have bad input, the simulation won't help you at all. And hot fluids are more turbulent.
@@YoureSoVaneI'm not well-versed in physics or fluid dynamics or any type of engineering but I do somewhat understand what you're saying and also really appreciate the clarification... It's nice to kind of understand the joke whether I fully get it or not haha
Hope it's not too late to get a reply. I bought both the E&B Lab basket and shower screen based on what I learned from this series (as my priorities are a cleaner workflow and a faster flow basket) First issue is that after I tamp my coffee, when I turn the portafilter upside down (habits) the tamped coffee came out. And I'm sure I tamped enough pressure. What's up with that? Second, I'm aware that some people, when using this basket, are not getting a rat's tail flow. But in your video it does make a rat's tail. I struggle to get a rat's tail even after grinding fine enough to get 9 bars in the grouphead. Help? Third, and this one hurts the most, when I tried to remove the puck it didn't come out as cleanly like most, if not all, of the videos I've seen people using this basket. It still had ground residues after knocing the puck. Please help.
If you're using those nano coating baskets, yes dry puck (before pulling a shot) falls out very easily. I actually suspected it causes more side channelling but I didn't notice such in my shots. Another common cause is your tamper may not be a prefect fit for the basket. Too small will cause the sides not tamped, while too tight cause suction of the puck to leave the basket. If you moved from a VST, the diameter are not the same. If it is too loose, try wrap the tamper with tape/foil tapes to fit. If it's too loose... the only way is to heat the basket before you fill and tamp, or freeze the tamper, which both are not feasible options in reality. For not having rat tail, make sure you do the WDT as good as you can. If your machine can do a pre-infusion see if that helps too. Another way is try to grind coarser. Basically try anything that would avoid an uneven flow I had bits of dirt sticking to the basket too, very likely due to wet puck as I am using a Decent. If you're using a standard E61 see if the puck is totally dry when you knock it out. I end up not using the E&B because I am using a 2mm puck screen. Without the coating, a light knock knocks out only the puck screen, making the cleaning process easier. With the nanocoating, the hot puck came out together with the screen at the bottom which I need to dig it out
@@tamninja thanks for the reply! Thankfully, the dry puck coming out only happened once, in the beginning. On the rat's tail, I noticed that for the coffees that I have (2 blends and 1 single origin), for the blends it all ended up having a rat's tail stream, while for the SO coffee it was way more difficult, but not impossible to achieve (as long as I take my time w/ WDT, which honestly sucks that I have to rake more) What's consistent w/ the basket though is how fast it flows, and how easy it is to clean w/ minimal effort compared to standard baskets.
From my understanding, the wafo baskets are based on the same principle that adding a bottom filter increases extraction. The point of the "blend" basket can be compared to the osmotic flow v60 technique. To extract less on purpose for darker blends and avoid unpleasant flavours. While the other baskets are for maximising extraction for the more lighter roasted coffees. Nothing seems contradictory in these claims to me. Although I certainly get your point of view on the matter. In any ways, all these talk about 200$ baskets seem to me like a lot marketing mumbo jumbo :) looking forward to Lance's review on the subject to see the actual impact on the cup of such filters Great content as always
Sorry. Dumb question: Why do all reviews of portafilters focus on a single shot. I have never seen a video of someone using the bottomless filters to make espresso for two or more people
The Lance Hedrick basket review is up! Looks like $200 baskets make sense in two applications - commercial settings and home users wanting to maximize extraction.
Maybe the idea of the straight walled baskets like the one from weber is not to produce better tasting coffee but to extract more evenly and therefor have a higher EY% and ultimately wasting less good coffee.
@@wiredgourmet That's true of course. But I didn't said it'll taste bad just not necessarily better. I guess less complex and weather you like it or not is subjective. Objective is that the coffee is used more efficiently and that's great.
I know I'm late on the puck but man, your stuff is really interesting. I've changed my mind on two things already and I though I knew EVERYTHING :-) (jk) I will not allign the burrs though, no I refuse.
Nice video with many good points for using a Profitec machine with flow/pressure control. Decent has just brought out a video on this subject also. If you gently pre-wet the coffee as described in this video, I have found baskets do not make a difference for 18g doses in an appropriately sized basket. However, a tapered basket should make a difference for low doses in a 58mm basket as it increases the depth of the coffee and reduces the effect of channeling - maybe Lance could then pull a 12g shot that he is happy with. As for screens, when I did not pre-infuse under a low pressure and used a screen that had few holes, I found that the water would "punch through" the puck, cause channeling, and uneven extraction that was easily visible by breaking apart the puck of coffee after extraction. This is easily fixed with a screen that lets water out through most of the screen, and/or pre-infusing. Any machine that does not do this adequately as purchased is broken IMHO.
Honestly very helpful and well put together video, although I've got to disagree on one point; contradicting theories producing well functioning baskets does not take away from the value of said theory. While I'm sure they both tasted, like you said; fine, I'm not sure that's the goal of either company, but probably rather to enhance certain flavors in coffee. Seeing as they are both high end enough to the point where poor shot quality would be a crime, I'm not sure a scale of Bad to Fine is relevant. Just my 21 cents, insightful video nonetheless!
This whole topic is super interesting and it shows once more that there are many different approaches and believes in coffee and that extraction doesn’t always work the way we’d expect it to be. Wafo does in fact offer different baskets with different approaches and taste profiles to mirror this (still 200 bugs 🥵). I recently started experimenting with a paper on the bottom of my basket. It’s supposed to give a more even and higher extraction just following the Weber approach. It does in fact let me grind a bit finer and increase the temperature a bit without hitting a wall of astringency. More sparkling acidity as well and the espresso tastes well (…) paper filtered and therefore „cleaner“. I’m not sure yet whether this is truly definitely better. From a visual perspective the puck looks super evenly wetted.
No, It's just I'm a culinary guy and French is the language of gastronomy. Plus, hearing the Italian word for mousse in an English sentence makes me cringe :)
@@wiredgourmet dude i am literally french and a chef . and here in france we respect apelations (cultural names for food) we dont just say everything in french . the only french used in culinary arts is the things we invented . we did not invent espresso . dont call yourself a culinary guy if you dont respect names . respecting names for food is how culture is even possible .
Looking for Part One? Here: you go: ua-cam.com/video/q2VHiDkkIOc/v-deo.html
9:40 You had me startled for a moment, showing my comment on top of the screen.
(I still stand by it though 😁)
You're thinking of the unibasket, not unifilter, which still costs $360 @Paradox1A9B2w7
I am stunned by how you can answer questions I never had but somehow still wanted those answers for years...
Thanks for all your videos!!
Thank you - the best presentation about that theme ever!
They are like fishing lures; they are best at Catching the buyer... A few have functional behaviour - the rest are just $$$$ and if it costs more - then it must be better. Let alone the differences a Naked produces Vs a full group with covers over the spouts - And the environment of the air temp etc.
Thanks you for your in depth vids. Always enjoying them. And also appreciate the “at the end of the day, what things really boil down to” perspective. Cheers.
Excellent, commonsense and non-biased advice as always thank you.
So much more than I ever wanted to know about making coffee....but I love the deep dive
I heard once that the tapered baskets were designed to reduce side channeling. Probably because the puck better pressed against the tapered walls. Also the path for channeling is a bit longer.
Can you tell me why the water flows out of my shower head flush in the middle like a jet and not like a shower distributed like that on my Profitec machine and I have no idea what could be the problem
I got a Big Bang, mainly because it wasn't too expensive, and I was looking for a 14g basket.
I can't get the puck out as easily or at all as my generic 20g ridged, tapered basket. Make sense, with a tapered basket, once the puck is loose, the walls wont stick to it anymore. Kinda like bottleneck versus straight-wall cartridges.
Anyway, one thing I don't like about the straight wall. But otherwise, makes good coffee. That's about it really as far as I'm concerned.
The ridge stuff, since I use a 'puck screen of some sort (mainly for cleanliness), when you drop the screen, the coffee underneath tends to puff out of the sides and make a mess.
So basically, purely for practical reasons, curved (tapered) wall, and no ridge.
What microscope are you using ? I like to check my basket as well.
Thanks.
Not sure what you mean with kinetic energy. The amount of actual kinetic energy from a physics perspective that is contained in a few drops of water moving at a few mm/s is going to be very minor. I would expect the vertical pressure gradient across the puck to be far more influential in the extraction process. Water moving at even high velocity (say 50-100 km/h) would probably still be unable to make it through the puck, though that would be a fun experiment.
Given the context of the video, maybe "turbulence" would have been a more appropriate word choice. But I'm just assuming.
Superbly done very informative
If you choose one between vst vs e&b. Which one should I choose?
I have a Unifilter, the “syrup rain” only lasts for part of the shot and it merges into a “rat tail” about halfway through every time. Weber seems to cut the video when the extraction merges into one. I can share a video with you if you’d like.
Why am I not surprised? You can email me the link if you like; YT treats links as spam so it won't show up here unless I post it.
@@wiredgourmet what’s your email?
@@heytchap See the 'about' tab
interesting video. thank you.
Sir, would you ever consider doing a practical video about brewing water? Droppers and bags of chemicals seem quite over the top to me.
For blends, I’ll always use a conical brewer to balance the different extraction rates of multiple coffees. A very even flat bottom brewer tastes terrible with light roasted coffees blended together compared to a v60. That’s the point of the blend filter-blending those extraction together in a more even way than just a small conical basket shape.
I know many people who can increase EY by 2% however they are using low pressure, and well aligned burrs and don’t produce many fines. They use shot times like 15 seconds Mavam 3 bar pre infusion + 20 seconds 5 bar full pressure.
I’d imagine traditional espresso approaches won’t do these baskets much justice.
I would still like to see a computational fluid dynamics simulation on this though…
Of a pressurized solvent passing through a bed of semi-soluble particles of varying shapes and sizes, with changing temperatures and pressures. Why yes, I think I have just the phone app for that :)
In case the irony didn’t come out: I think one can also overdo it… I’m perfectly with you: If the basket produces even extraction without channeling and it tastes great, I don’t see the need for a Unifilter.
@@timgerber5563 Oh, it came through fine. I was just rolling with it :)
Late to the party. Just have to beat this into the ground because not everyone understands the reality of CFD. Even though I know it's sarcasm, there's always this idea that you can do CFD and prove what's better for every environment. The reality is that CFD works for what you feed it. The given input must match reality. If you have bad input, the simulation won't help you at all. And hot fluids are more turbulent.
@@YoureSoVaneI'm not well-versed in physics or fluid dynamics or any type of engineering but I do somewhat understand what you're saying and also really appreciate the clarification... It's nice to kind of understand the joke whether I fully get it or not haha
Does anybody know if a Profitec double shot basket will work with the Gaggia Classic Pro?
i like your videos , keep it up. learned a lot from you, thanks so much 💖
looking for your video about machine with zero chemical
Hope it's not too late to get a reply. I bought both the E&B Lab basket and shower screen based on what I learned from this series (as my priorities are a cleaner workflow and a faster flow basket)
First issue is that after I tamp my coffee, when I turn the portafilter upside down (habits) the tamped coffee came out. And I'm sure I tamped enough pressure. What's up with that?
Second, I'm aware that some people, when using this basket, are not getting a rat's tail flow. But in your video it does make a rat's tail. I struggle to get a rat's tail even after grinding fine enough to get 9 bars in the grouphead. Help?
Third, and this one hurts the most, when I tried to remove the puck it didn't come out as cleanly like most, if not all, of the videos I've seen people using this basket. It still had ground residues after knocing the puck.
Please help.
If you're using those nano coating baskets, yes dry puck (before pulling a shot) falls out very easily. I actually suspected it causes more side channelling but I didn't notice such in my shots. Another common cause is your tamper may not be a prefect fit for the basket. Too small will cause the sides not tamped, while too tight cause suction of the puck to leave the basket. If you moved from a VST, the diameter are not the same. If it is too loose, try wrap the tamper with tape/foil tapes to fit. If it's too loose... the only way is to heat the basket before you fill and tamp, or freeze the tamper, which both are not feasible options in reality.
For not having rat tail, make sure you do the WDT as good as you can. If your machine can do a pre-infusion see if that helps too. Another way is try to grind coarser. Basically try anything that would avoid an uneven flow
I had bits of dirt sticking to the basket too, very likely due to wet puck as I am using a Decent. If you're using a standard E61 see if the puck is totally dry when you knock it out. I end up not using the E&B because I am using a 2mm puck screen. Without the coating, a light knock knocks out only the puck screen, making the cleaning process easier. With the nanocoating, the hot puck came out together with the screen at the bottom which I need to dig it out
@@tamninja thanks for the reply! Thankfully, the dry puck coming out only happened once, in the beginning.
On the rat's tail, I noticed that for the coffees that I have (2 blends and 1 single origin), for the blends it all ended up having a rat's tail stream, while for the SO coffee it was way more difficult, but not impossible to achieve (as long as I take my time w/ WDT, which honestly sucks that I have to rake more)
What's consistent w/ the basket though is how fast it flows, and how easy it is to clean w/ minimal effort compared to standard baskets.
From my understanding, the wafo baskets are based on the same principle that adding a bottom filter increases extraction.
The point of the "blend" basket can be compared to the osmotic flow v60 technique. To extract less on purpose for darker blends and avoid unpleasant flavours. While the other baskets are for maximising extraction for the more lighter roasted coffees. Nothing seems contradictory in these claims to me. Although I certainly get your point of view on the matter.
In any ways, all these talk about 200$ baskets seem to me like a lot marketing mumbo jumbo :) looking forward to Lance's review on the subject to see the actual impact on the cup of such filters
Great content as always
Sorry. Dumb question: Why do all reviews of portafilters focus on a single shot. I have never seen a video of someone using the bottomless filters to make espresso for two or more people
Great concise video! New subscriber here.
Thank you. Again a great video :-)
The Lance Hedrick basket review is up! Looks like $200 baskets make sense in two applications - commercial settings and home users wanting to maximize extraction.
Wow "kinetic energy" triggered me every time
In a good way, I'm sure.
Maybe the idea of the straight walled baskets like the one from weber is not to produce better tasting coffee but to extract more evenly and therefor have a higher EY% and ultimately wasting less good coffee.
OK, but if the high EY coffee doesn't really taste good, wouldn't that be even more of a waste?
@@wiredgourmet That's true of course. But I didn't said it'll taste bad just not necessarily better. I guess less complex and weather you like it or not is subjective. Objective is that the coffee is used more efficiently and that's great.
Why do you call crema mousse?
I know I'm late on the puck but man, your stuff is really interesting. I've changed my mind on two things already and I though I knew EVERYTHING :-) (jk) I will not allign the burrs though, no I refuse.
Nice video with many good points for using a Profitec machine with flow/pressure control.
Decent has just brought out a video on this subject also.
If you gently pre-wet the coffee as described in this video, I have found baskets do not make a difference for 18g doses in an appropriately sized basket.
However, a tapered basket should make a difference for low doses in a 58mm basket as it increases the depth of the coffee and reduces the effect of channeling - maybe Lance could then pull a 12g shot that he is happy with.
As for screens, when I did not pre-infuse under a low pressure and used a screen that had few holes, I found that the water would "punch through" the puck, cause channeling, and uneven extraction that was easily visible by breaking apart the puck of coffee after extraction.
This is easily fixed with a screen that lets water out through most of the screen, and/or pre-infusing. Any machine that does not do this adequately as purchased is broken IMHO.
Honestly very helpful and well put together video, although I've got to disagree on one point; contradicting theories producing well functioning baskets does not take away from the value of said theory. While I'm sure they both tasted, like you said; fine, I'm not sure that's the goal of either company, but probably rather to enhance certain flavors in coffee. Seeing as they are both high end enough to the point where poor shot quality would be a crime, I'm not sure a scale of Bad to Fine is relevant. Just my 21 cents, insightful video nonetheless!
This whole topic is super interesting and it shows once more that there are many different approaches and believes in coffee and that extraction doesn’t always work the way we’d expect it to be. Wafo does in fact offer different baskets with different approaches and taste profiles to mirror this (still 200 bugs 🥵). I recently started experimenting with a paper on the bottom of my basket. It’s supposed to give a more even and higher extraction just following the Weber approach. It does in fact let me grind a bit finer and increase the temperature a bit without hitting a wall of astringency. More sparkling acidity as well and the espresso tastes well (…) paper filtered and therefore „cleaner“. I’m not sure yet whether this is truly definitely better. From a visual perspective the puck looks super evenly wetted.
Oh my god
- No please don't shoot, i am idiot
- Prove it
-I got a wafo basket for 200$
'shot looks pretty good to me' as it blonds beyond all hope.
A bit of a surprise to see my own comment in this video. 😊
grit size, mhm
47 second shot?
It's what I like, nice and bitter. You actually timed it?
First!
(For the algorithm)
did he just call crema "mousse" ?? im sorry i cannot subscribe to this
Proudly, in fact.
@@wiredgourmet I've never heard of that before. Is that something you do personally or is it a regional thing? Or is it just common and i missed it?
No, It's just I'm a culinary guy and French is the language of gastronomy. Plus, hearing the Italian word for mousse in an English sentence makes me cringe :)
@@wiredgourmet dude i am literally french and a chef . and here in france we respect apelations (cultural names for food) we dont just say everything in french . the only french used in culinary arts is the things we invented . we did not invent espresso . dont call yourself a culinary guy if you dont respect names . respecting names for food is how culture is even possible .
My house, my rules.
2nd