beanflying wrote:
Another kg or so in using the dosing tools and I am starting to like the now very consistent results out of the VST's and the resulting shots for flavour. Did some back to back shots with matched grinders today with Synesso Triples against VST 22g close but allowing for it not being blind the VST's have it by a touch for flavour. My current thinking is still the Synessos are a good easy to use basket while the VST's with a good dosing/distribution technique will be better. The downside to the VST is it is easier to get it wrong and get a bad cup than the Synessos so you need to be on your game or you may as well use Synessos. I would seriously consider grabbing one of each and playing 🙂 My hesitations to totally drop the Synessos are based on commercial realities of production speed and the additional care needed by me/staff. For home use time is generally not an issue.
I've been mulling over why, if VSTs are so much better than other baskets, that some of those with ugly looking holes are said to be more forgiving. Surely the VST should work better all the time? I think the scenario is closer than many may think to the case of a pressurised basket vs an unpressurised basket. Consider for a moment a pressurised basket; there is only one (or a few) hole(s) and no matter what you do with the puck the espresso will always come out about the same time and at the same flow rate. That's why pressurised baskets are used (apart from making fake crema) so it *LOOKS* like you're getting a good result from stale beans, poor technique and badly ground coffee. In the same way with an unpressurised basket with some holes in the basket significantly larger than others, it's obvious that the espresso is going to favour coming out of those holes rather than the ones that are nearly blocked, to a point regardless of how bad your dose or levelling technique is. Of course in the case of either basket, the extraction path within the basket (if you could see it) is going to be all over the place - edge channelling, perhaps some swirling, flow crossing from one side of the basket to the other to get to the more open holes etc, all the time mixing the underextracted coffee with the overextracted coffee so when the mixture finally makes it out... it *LOOKS* like the results are good. And to the taste there would be some body and some complexity as you have a mix of underextracted, properly extracted and overextracted coffee. Maybe that may even be pleasant to the taste in which case there's an argument for sticking with it. However when we move to a basket like the VST where the holes are all perfectly evenly sized and positioned and the water has no reason to take one path or the other apart from irregularities in the puck, there's no mask to hide the flaws in your technique. If you underdose on one side then guess what, the coffee's going to flow out of that side first and you'll taste overextraction. If you tamp unevenly you'll get the same result. There's simply no layer of protection to hide behind and hope something else will cater for the deficiencies in technique. Of course if you get the dose / distribution / tamp done properly, then you have even extraction flowing evenly through the whole puck, capable of giving an amazing in-the-cup result because you finally have the puck being evenly extracted so you get all the puck delivering body, sweetness and complexity at the same time. So is it true that a poorly formed basket is more forgiving than a well formed basket? Yes. Just like a pressurised basket is in turn more forgiving than an unpressurised basket. But none of us use that logic as grounds to switch to pressurised baskets because we recognise the unpressurised basket is capable of providing better results if our beans / grind / dose / distribution / tamp is on the money. Take the same argument the next logical step and does it make sense to ditch well formed baskets simply because the poorly formed baskets are more forgiving and better at hiding the problems if we're truly seeking the best in-the-cup result possible? Greg
