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After 4 years of designing manual espresso makers, specifically in the 58 mm space, i thought WHOOOAAAA maybe we need some flexibility with 58mm?
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I have reviewed loads of machines and learnt lots of interesting stuff about espresso, americano, latte, flat white, etc. One in particular, that surprised me, was the difference the aspect ratio of a filter basket can make. It REALLY surprised me.
Aspect ratio - Basically, I found that a deeper and narrower basket tastes sweeter compared to shots pulled with the commonly used 58mm type that many commercial machines use. Both styles are full bodied, the 46mm was sweeter. As I went down the rabbit hole I saw others saying the same. Have you seen Lance Hedrick's YT on this topic? 🥸
You can have both - Is narrow and deep necessarily better? That depends. And the brilliant thing here is that you can do both - swap between 58mm and 46mm
Flavour exploration - A standard 58mm filter with it's shallow and wide aspect ration is more sensitive and can elevate acidic notes. I am not dissing these acidic notes by they way - I love those too and they can be really good acidic notes. Interestingly, with the stepped 46mm basket the flavour profile moves away from the acidic and goes sweeter. Which means the 46mm is as great as the OG 58mm, just in a different way. Really great. So the stepped basket is a great way to explore different flavours - feel like bringing out the delicious acidic blueberry notes go with the 58mm, feel like a delicious full bodies sweet coffee - swap over and use the 46mm.
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So, use this 46mm stepped basket to convert your 58mm portafilter to a narrow-deep gauge flavor profile. Beautiful crema and a rich, sweet flavor profile derived from a deeper coffee bed and courser grind
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Swap it over, easy - So through this design, if you have a 58mm naked portafilter, you can have both. just snap the original basket out and insert the 46 stepped basket that you can buy here on this kickstarter.
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More forgiving - the other observation is that coffee is ground a little coarser with the deeper bed profile which can also be more forgiving. Traditional 58mm for comparison can be quite pernickety when it comes to grind size. The other pernickety factor with 58mm is the tamping. Here with a 46mm basket tamping is less sensitive. I even found pressure was less of a driving factor - using my manual press I could do great shots at 6bar as well as 9bar.
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Flavour profile - Delivers a sweet and full-bodied flavor with 16-22g shots
What are your thoughts?
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