I don’t want to hijack the other threads, although I did post this in the Ikape baskets one, but majority of us have a standard stock basket lying around. They are already slightly tapered and I think this design does the same thing in a less aggressive manner, like the Ikape and Graph baskets, it creates a thicker puck, hence more backpressure, allowing you to grind coarser than you would with a precision basket (I personally use a Pullman 876).
So, today I set my brew temperature from 94°C to 92°C and ran a few shots with my stock Lelit IMS basket.
I’ve just started a bag of Toffee Apple Nicaragua from CoffeeWorks, so I’m not sure if it’s just the coffee or a placebo effect, but the latte seems noticeably sweeter and much less astringent.
To test it further, I pulled another shot using Luz Helena Salazar, my very last dose from the March group tasting session, which I previously couldn’t bring myself to drink because of the harshness. It ran really fast, even though I went 5 notches finer on my Niche Zero compared to the Nicaragua. I stopped the shot at 25 seconds, getting 40g out from an 18g/20g dose (I can’t remember the exact dose in the jar). Despite the fast flow, there was far less astringency, and it made for a much more palatable latte.
Next test will be Pullman 876 vs stock Lelit IMS 14-18g
So, before you go spending more money on niche gear, it is well worth playing around with these two variables first.
PS The standard basket that came with my Lelit is an IMS 14-18g. It’s tapered, and I just measured it, the perforated base area where the extraction holes sit narrows down to approximately 45mm in diameter, compared to the 58mm internal diameter at the top.