• Accessories

  • Paper filter at the bottom of your portafilter?

The super fine eb baskets are good for a clean cup

Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

    I’d rather not filter out some of the goodness !

    8 months later

    Tried 2 shots with a cut to size Aeropress filter, that I wetted and then paper towel dried. Put the filter on top of the puck.

    First shot had bottomless PF squirts (haven’t had that issue for ages) and tasted terrible (awfully sour). Second shot had somewhat better flow, but tasted equally bad.

    Not interested in placing one on the bottom of the PF, as I do not wish to filter out body or flavor.

    I have no plans to bother with that again.

    I did however just receive a Normcore filter, and will give it a brief whirl before it probably collects dust in the discarded espresso accessory box.

    I like it. I do use it from time to time. But what I do is to simple cut a batch of aeropress papers to size.

      MediumRoastSteam

      Top or bottom of the puck?

      Not sure why I got that immediately pour distribution and sourness, when placing the cut Aeropress paper at the top of the puck?

          Hoffman thinks that paper on the bottom of the basket boosts flavor. I am inclined to agree. I have only recently been able to acquire 55mm paper filters that fit snugly in the bottom of a 58mm basket. Cutting them myself was too much faffing around.

          I also use a stainless disk (not mesh) on top to keep the shower head cleaner.

          All in all it makes for a nice clean basket due to a drier puck and a cleaner shower head post-pour.

          And because the puck stays in one piece I can also inspect the underside of the puck for color variation to confirm how even the pour was.

            tompoland Maybe I’ll pick up some of those Cafelat paper filters and give it a try. Could you tell me about your stainless disk? That might be worth it just to keep the shower head clean.

                thusband Maybe I’ll pick up some of those Cafelat paper filters and give it a try

                I understand that the Cafelat papers are considerably smaller than the 58.5 mm size of my VST basket. I saw another brand through google search, but they wanted $35US for 200 papers including a nice holder. Plus shipping. So I passed. I also saw reference to some kind of a cutter ….

                Still wondering why I got that terrible distribution and awful sour taste from paper on the top of the basket. Will try out my Normcore screen today or tomorrow.

                  I guess when putting a paper disc at the bottom I’ll have to be careful when using my WDT tool.

                    thusband OK good, I thought it might grab the paper and pull it up.

                    It did that to me the first time I tried WDT with a bottom paper filter. Since then, I’ve been more careful.

                      Tried paper a few times, in the end too much messing about for me,

                      Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                        Cuprajake Yeah, I suspect that will be my end result too but it’s fun trying out new stuff and who knows.

                          Yeah I like the idea of it as in it will keep excess fines out

                          But when ims e&b super fine baskets exist the paper kinda becomes irrelevant

                          It’s only for the fact they don’t make a 54mm version that I still don’t use one, if I moved back to 58mm I’d be back using one tomorrow

                          Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                          A theory for why paper filters below the puck are good is that they aid even flow and reduce channels, allowing you to grind finer and in general, boost overall extraction. As with other elements of espresso prep it’s down to how much of a problem you had before and if you can be bothered with the extra steps.

                          It’s not too much of an inconvenience for me and I find along with a top shower screen it aids cleanup by compressing the puck, but I understand it’s not for everyone especially those who enjoy darker roasts where it’s less effort to get the most out of them. For those interested, make sure the paper filter is not larger than the bottom of the basket and crawling up the sides as I’ve seen some YouTubers do. For ideal evenness it needs to cover the holes of the basket and not substantially more and it needs to be wet, but I’d suspect a roughly fitting dry paper filter would still outperform none in terms of squeezing the most extraction out.

                          What I found interesting about the new Wafo baskets is that from their testing, they said their basket boosted comparable performance to other precision baskets with a bottom filter. So they’re really offering convenience rather than an improvement on the combo.