My baskets (18g & 22g) arrived Sat morning and had the opportunity to compare the VST baskets with my Synesso double and the Expobar double that came with the Minore. I've only used the 18g basket so far for comparative reasons. I cleaned all components, Machine, basket and grinder. First impressions - Better build quality than the others, with visibly more holes that are more evenly spaced, and closer to the edge. The Synesso & Expobar baskets appear simmilar except the Expobar basket is rigded.. VST basket is more vertical than the others with a smaller radius at the bottom. Overall, looks and feels better to me. Cons - Unless you have an LM group handle or a naked handle, the basket might not fit. The straighter walls and smaller radius of the baskets do not allow it to fit into the Expobar group handle, lucky i've got a naked, but if I wanted to split shots I'd need a differend handle. Pros - Feels like it might have a teflon type coating and the puck, post extraction, comes away easier than the others. Might seem trivial but it makes cleaning the basket easier. Had to change my technique for the VST baskets, grinding finer to get a simmilar extaction. I settled on a 19g of coffee and a 27 sec extraction, double ristretto, to produce aprox 28mls of coffee for each basket. I purchased some beans for consistancy (and my roaster has been waiting for parts). I used my Expobar Minore III , Mazzer Kony E, naker handle and weighed the ground coffee before shot. Yet to try it with flat burrs but I don't see this as necessayy for the test. Conclusion so far........ Shots seem to be more rounded. By that I mean with the Expobar & Synesso baskets, the flavour of the coffee hit all the points on my pallet I thought it would, But with the VST basket, it seemed to fill the void that I didn't notice before. The flavour seemed to be not so compartmentalised, but fuller. This also pointed out that perhaps more body was produced by the new baskets. Yet to try the 22g basket, and for now at least I'm very happy with my $30 outlay per basket as I feel it's produced a better cup, at my house anyway.
