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20g VST basket, maximum dose?
recently purchased 18g Vst basket hoping it will help with the puck touching shower screen. Unfortunately, it didnt and just realised that bosco group has a lower shower screen so underdosing those basket is essential. For 20g basket , what are your everyday dose range for it , cos im thinking of getting it?
Comments
There is no thing like "a bosco group" -- even though several manufacturers like Londinium and Bosco buy similar groups to use in different machine architectures.
The Profitec for instance has a lower shower screen than most, but not the Londinium.
You can dose 19-21g in that, depending on the beans, roast, freshness and grind.
the 18g VST is currently the go to basket for most londinium users who want to dose around 18g
as frans says the coffee puck floats when the water enters the basket, you can observe this in his transparent portafilter experiments from several years back, so an indentation on the puck post extraction is not a meaningful indicator
if you fit the loaded PF to the group and then remove the portafilter from the group again immediately, without pulling the shot, then it should be unmarked. as long as it passes this test you are good
18g in an 18g VST basket definitely works.
On VST 18g and IMS 200 (it maybe higher than standard) with 17g I have no screen impression, but coin gets bury halfway.
SO I would say 1mm headroom.
hope to send your DHL parcel today
i think you should start with what it tastes like in the cup and work backwards if you are not satisfied
if you are getting an even flow across the entire face of the bottom of the basket i would be most surprised if it doesnt taste good
please be assured that an 18g dose in the 18g VST works absolutely perfectly in any of our machines and it is one of the most popular specialist baskets that londinium owners use
the most important thing you have is the londinium distribution tool
kind regards
reiss.
BTW you already got custom IMS 35u screen? If so put one into order...
After extraction of 17g I have nice impression of screen. I think on coffeeforums.co.uk I saw recommendation of slight under-dosing. I know in Bezzera Giulia beforehand,
with 18g in VST for sure had more space...
Regarding the flow seems quite good, still looking for perfect grind (and 7s pre for light coffee). Though twice I got very bad canal. One time because of mentioned coin test (it left little hole in puck).
But yesterday's have no idea, but it made a big hole in center and extraction was half of normal...
In general though given pesky nature of VST, the results are very good, that made me positively surprised.
After the extraction, when the pressure on the soaked puck went to zero, the flexible wet puck expands and it can easily touch the screen, but by then you have already pulled your cup, tasted and possibly even finished your espresso so for the quality of the taste that 'touching' is not at all important.
Also keep in mind that different coffee will fit different amounts comfortably. I can fit a lot more of my decaf vs any of the 'regular' coffees I roast. They vary a little, by fractions of a gram but then my roasts are not crazy dark or crazy light.
what grinder are you using?
kind regards
reiss.