Paper filter at the bottom of your portafilter?

FadedFrontiers they add resistance and aid even flow, allowing you to grind Finer.

Thanks for the link, which I will carefully read.

I am confused by the statement that it increases resistance, which allows you to grind finer. If the paper increases resistance, then it slows the flow. If you wish to maintain the same shot time, you must grind coarser, right? Am I missing something here?

Instead, I suppose that (theoretically) the increased resistance is slowing the flow and thereby increasing the contact time with the grinds, leading to greater extraction. Except that I am experiencing faster flows and significant declines in taste.

JHCCoffee

JHCCoffee On each occasion the shots ran considerably (about 10 seconds) faster than without the screen/filter combo. And the shots tasted thinner (less body), with less strength, less flavour, less complexity and less length. Overall, a significant decline in taste.

FYI, these were 4 sets of paired shots. Same everything except the screen and paper. One shot with, one without.

JHCCoffee

Apologies, the grinding finer allows more resistance not the paper screen in itself. I’ll edit my post as that was confusingly worded.

In short your faster shot time is to do with basket geometry where the holes don’t all go out to the edge, so water at the edges need to move down then horizontally to get out. Water travels through wet paper more easily so it’s a more effective exit route and thus quicker than without paper filter at the bottom.

I’d recommend this video where the author explains it far better than I can:

JHCCoffee no water is not bypassing your coffee grounds, it’s still going through your coffee grounds to get to the filter at the bottom. It tastes weaker because it requires more puck resistance, the same logic behind why you need to grind finer with precision baskets than with regular ones. The paper filter isn’t creating the problem, the basket design is, which funnels water through the middle rather than the entire bottom surface.

The idea is that water will take the shortest and easiest route to get out, either to a filter directly below the coffee puck then out of the basket’s holes (after extracting more of the puck first) or alternatively straight to the holes that surround some but not all of the basket in the middle, bypassing some of the edges of the puck in the process.

I don’t think this is a YouTube bandwagon as it was something Decent espresso/Home Barista forum users experimented with first. While I shared your scepticism I was won over by the research that shows higher and more even extractions. Again not for everyone as you need to find what suits you, I think this favours lighter roasts that are inherently harder to get more out of anyway.

FadedFrontiers

Good points Fadingfrontier! And the article was an excellent read. I will look into the paper filter that he suggests.

His use of the Weber cup is also interesting, though maybe overkill and to much pfaf for the last tiny bit of potential extraction. Let me see: 1. the paper bit (including 2. the paper wetting). 3. Grind into Weber cup. 4. Wdt, 5. Twirl the knob thing while pouring into the basket 6. WDT again. 7. Put the screen on top. 8. Pour the shot. 9. Dump and fish out the screen. 10. Remove the paper. 11. Dance a little dance, genuflect and pray that the shot tastes better than if you just ground into the PF, WDT’d and poured. 🕺💃🧎‍♀️🧎🙏☕️

JHCCoffee I think you forgot a couple of steps:

7a. Draw pentacle with machine at centre, using blood of a virgin. Male if light roast, female if dark roast.
7b. Light 5 black candles at the pentacle corners
7c. Recite incantation to the gods of extraction

😉

(I honestly cannot see the point of the multiple WDT and twirling - the amount of clumping will be the same if one ‘adequate’ WDT pass is done once the grounds are in the basket; on the other hand, more WDT means more oxygen gets in contact with the grounds)

FadedFrontiers So they’re really offering convenience rather than an improvement on the combo.

100% agree. And ar US$200 a basket, I may stick to paper for a while yet.😀

What you need is a uni filter 🤯

I think we’re getting to a point now where we go way ott

Grinders that go way above and beyond so we have to then add something to change the shot back to what it was.

Are we getting back to the confirmation bias thing again?

For me Ive seen people use paper. I tried it, it was a pita as was the custom £30 mesh screen I bought. Not used it since.

If people like to do it, and it’s part of their routine fair do, but alot of people just copy to be one of the cool kids…..

Yeah it’s all totally over the top and I bet that it’ll get all the more popular, at least until things like the Unifilter, Wafo baskets and the like are far cheaper.

WDT was looked at with the exact same scepticism but I’d guess that lots if not most on here now WDT or do some sort of distribution, which is a lot more effort, with greater cost and more negligible results than putting a paper filter in your basket.

It’s always up to how much effort you want to put in, but this seems both easier and a lot cheaper than a lot of other steps and accessories that are more popular and part of the espresso orthodoxy now.

CoyoteOldMan as it makes you happy, it doesn’t matter if you’re not raking the espresso zen garden for long enough to make a difference to shot quality 😆

I had aeropress filters lying around, as a fellow lefty I managed to cut one just about to an acceptable standard and will give it a rinse after I’m done so it’s ready to be reused next time. So I guess that’s £0 and under 10 seconds every time. 🙀

But as I said, totally get it’s not for everyone, I just find it slightly odd that people seem to draw the line at a paper filter which has more evidence of improving shot quality than half the espresso fads people get into.

FadedFrontiers it doesn’t matter if you’re not raking the espresso zen garden for long enough to make a difference to shot quality

That’s the only thing I would disagree with. 10 seconds are ample for distributing the grounds very uniformly in the basket. And compared to simply tamping what comes out of the grinder, it makes a heck of a difference to shot quality - a reliably good extraction vs. a 5 seconds gusher.

My ASD self would question some other of the assertions you make, but… as I said, horses for courses.

CoyoteOldMan you’ve found something that works for you and that’s what matters.

Is 10 secs better than none at all? I’m sure it is.

Is a slower more thorough stir going to produce better more repeatable results? Yep, but stirring for twice as long as you originally said every time wouldn’t sound quite as low effort versus dropping a paper filter in the basket. 🤷

FadedFrontiers stirring for twice as long as you originally said every time wouldn’t sound quite as low effort versus dropping a paper filter in the basket.

Maybe - but then there are a couple of other considerations:

1. I quite like ‘body’ (fines) in my coffee. I drink a fair amount of Turkish, and I don’t like filter brews (too weak and ‘clean’ for my taste). I suspect putting a paper on the bottom would produce those effects, even if actual extraction may improve (though again, since I like medium/dark+ roasts, I doubt it would or that it would increase “pleasantly”).

2. Picking up the paper from the bottom of the puck, rinsing and drying it is not effort free, and it takes more than 10 seconds - nor is the cutting of more papers (which are more expensive and less durable than needles). I often pull 4-6 double shots in a row because I have guests or I cook something (mainly desserts) that requires large amounts of good coffee. I can do that with WDT quite quickly; with paper - even assuming I’d like the result more - it would mean cost and/or significant increased time.

What I’m trying to get at is that the assertion that ‘a paper filter on the bottom produces better results with less effort and cost than WDT’ is, if not outright incorrect, at the very least highly circumstantial.

CoyoteOldMan I definitely agree with you that it’s highly circumstantial, and my previous posts did try to get across how it’s very much effort and taste/bean dependent. I also see a lot of studies with lighter roasts in espresso so would be interested to read more looking at darker roasts.

But my comparison to WDT wasn’t helpful, it was more to draw parallels about broader skepticism over new developments in espresso but I slipped into bad generalisations about cost and effort! I also should have been clearer that by results I meant extraction yield but that doesn’t necessarily equal a better coffee.

For the record I do think WDT is great 😂

Interesting thread. Im going to give the 55 mm Whatman 5 filters a go and see how i get on!

I have been using one filter paper disc at the bottom and one at the top and then a stainless steel mesh disc on top of the filter at the top. I have not been finding any negative tangible difference in taste. On the other hand the shot usually runs faster than if I don’t use filter paper so I assume that it’s helping the flow through the puck.

My main reason for doing it is because some studies apparently showed that it cuts down significantly on the fats that are transferred into the espresso. I have started using two filter paper discs at the bottom for this health benefit to enhance the filtering out of fats even more and I am not really finding any tangible diminution in the taste.

Here is a study that seems to suggest that two fats found in espresso can cause a significant rise in blood cholesterol.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070614162223.htm