Sworks, Wafo, Weber Basketorama Confusion

for sure there has always been a snobbery in coffee, ive seen people with eg1 for pour over. everyone has a budget,

ive been lucky,

re the duo vs zero night and day, i dont like the zero, im flat through and through

the baskets, shape, holes, hole size etc.

but also its down to the coffee you use, theres just so many ways you can do it, theres not right or wrong.

JHCCoffee Some espresso aficionados have been telling me that their upgrade to a very high flow basket like Sworks, Wafo or Weber was a game changing thing for them. But it’s also wallet changing, especially if you have 2 basket sizes x 2 each = 4 baskets to replace. 🫗 So I cast a wary eye on all of this.

What works best for you? Why?

My experience is mainly with VST baskets. A few months ago, I bought a Weber Unifilter and a WAFO Blend basket. I found that light espresso pulled with the Unifilter is appreciably sweeter than with the VST. Medium and dark roasts, however, taste better with the VST. (I haven’t found any benefit from employing the WAFO Blend.)

mathof2

same the blend basket is just that very blended, i picked it up cheap with my used force tamper, so not as fussed about it,

the unifilter would be along the lines of the pesado wouldnt it?

JHCCoffee Silvia Pro, Helor 106 for majority of daily use, Cimbali Jr. electric for occasional use to churn through a dozen or more doubles… My dialing in is having as many as 5 different coffees that are 1-9 days post roast and I sometimes use 2-3 different coffees daily and dial each in with the hand grinder. That gives me plenty of variability…

I don’t buy into the Niche thing… not into single dosing any electric grinder and could never tolerate the childish/weak design. No doubt there’s the ridiculous FOMO with lots of items on the market and to each their own of course, but I know I’m not missing out on anything.

Cuprajake the unifilter would be along the lines of the pesado wouldnt it?

I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about the Pesado.

Ernie1 😂

I sometimes think about upgrading from the stock ACS Minima baskets I have, but then I get distracted buying green coffee beans to roast.

Between IMS, VST, E&B Lab… it’s all lost on me. I like my from factory setup. Maybe I’m old school.

the ims/eb comps are a good all round upgrade

and they were on sale at blue cafe eu, for silly cheap

I have the Pesado, and I like it. It’s very reasonably priced (i paid like $75 including shipping to US, actually it’s cheaper now cuz it’s $65 including free shipping), and definitely boosts flow rate, so you can grind finer. You need good puck prep, though, and if you use a bottomless portafilter, it’s gonna look like ugly rainfall instead of a nice single stream. I also like that the options are simple - a 17-19g medium, and a 19-21 large. Weber’s basket at $85 also seems reasonable. Do you NEED one? Definitely not. But it will let u grind a fair amount finer, so it will yield a different extraction. Considering you just shelled out for a Decent, I’m guessing that it’s not a huge deal if you spend $65 on a Pesado and don’t like it, but potentially wasting $200+ might be another story lol.

TBH, I think Wafo and Sworks are making huge mistakes offering so many options. It strikes me as being too lazy to actually do testing to figure out what works best. For every person who actually wants to spend $1000+ on having the perfect basket for every situation (assuming that the various hole patterns even yield the desired effects), there are dozens more that, if they are willing to shell out for an expensive basket, just want one that works well for a variety of situations. This game could work if the baskets were $50 and you could buy several to play around with. At $200+, they’re potentially losing a lot of customers who get analysis paralysis cuz they can’t bear the thought of wasting $200 on the wrong basket.

JHCCoffee i was sent a weber unibasket to review by a CS member. Blind taste tested vs the Decent basket.

Unfortunately ($$$) I could pick it and I preferred it.

More flavor seperation. Not a game changer for me personally, just one of those 5 percenters that start to add up.

So to answer your question, the weber is my daily driver when it comes to baskets.

OldGregg

Pesado basket in the group

Funnily enough in all the YouTube and Instagram posts I’ve seen not one has said this basket will fit like shit …

yeah went private for a while