It's worth noting that these baskets may require a different dosing technique to what you've used in the past. Anyone who's thinking about trying these units, or has tried them and is undecided about the results, should read Mark Prince's review on these http://coffeegeek.com/opinions/markprince/04-29-2011 If you can't be bothered reading the whole thing then this is a copy and paste of the relevant paragraphs: "There can be a bit of a learning curve to these baskets. I found that out myself when Fedele sent me a triple basket last summer. I tried it maybe a half dozen times, saw some flaws in the pour, and gave up. Last month I got a 17g basket. Again, saw some major flaws in my pours. I tweeted about it, and my good friend Andy Schecter wrote me the following: "Mark, I think your tweets about problems you're having with the basket may embarrass you in the end. There are pro baristas with some pretty famous names and pretty substantial street cred who like the baskets a lot. I suggest that the problems you're having may lie, as they say, "on the handle side of the portafilter."" Of course, I didn't much like getting this email, but it made me think: okay, I can't be right (these baskets suck!) and so many pros be wrong. So I did look at my technique and also had a very long phone call with Fedele. Then I figured out the problem. It was me. My tamping technique over the years evolved into something that (unconsciously) was helping overcome existing filter basket problems: namely the curved bottoms, the inconsistent hole sizes and more. I'd load up a filter basket with a central pyramid like cone, and avoid touching the coffee at all costs. I also would knock down the loading bed of coffee while grinding - one or two knocks at 1/3 full, another one or two knocks at 2/3 full. The result was a nice, even cone of coffee in the filter basket. This is why I liked the Anfim Super Caimano grinder so much: it can dose a nice even cone every time. Then I'd take my own tamper (one I designed) which has a trick: it leaves lots of coffee out at the edges. I don't want to get into too much detail about the tamper, but suffice to say, my dosing, leveling (ha!) and tamping technique left me with a bed of compressed coffee that had more density in the centre, and a lessening of that density as you go out to the outer edge. This resulted in pretty good extractions from most modern day filter baskets (especially my previous favourite, the Synesso 14g basket). But, using the same technique delivered questionable extractions in the new VST / La Marzocco baskets. Knowing some of the science behind extractions (and especially after my discussion with Fedele), I figured it out: since there's more straight-path flow in a VST basket, I was setting up an environment where the central part of my packs were not getting nearly as much water flow as the outer diameter was. Result: my extractions were poor, and showed many signs of a flawed extraction (bad ExtractMojo readings, pitting, fractures, jets, donut shaped pours from a chopped portafilter, etc etc)." The bottom line is that he's saying the technique is critical and that his problems were caused by technique 'hacks' to overcome prior deficiencies in his setup, i.e. heaped cone distribution + convex tamper to try to redistribute the coffee, undersized tamper leading to peripheral channelling. We've advocated against this sort of thing for a long time but it seems that with these baskets, 1) an even distribution of coffee grounds in the basket, plus 2) a tamper that tamps all the coffee, plus 3) a flat-base tamper to tamp all the coffee the same amount; is more important that ever. If you, like me, already do this, you'll probably find the results are improved over what you've used before. If not, as Andy Schecter says, "the problems you're having may lie, as they say, on the handle side of the portafilter."" 😉 Greg
