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Yeah ... these things have been around for a while. We have had one at Maling Room and, earlier, at Maltitude for a few years now. We only really use it for training and diagnosis to make sure that we arent getting chanelling: http://malachi.coffeed.com/naked-diagnosis.html
Flavour-wise, were not massive fans. The espresso comes out a bit more voluminous, which seems to make it a bit more difficult to taste the characteristics of the espresso ... sort of like a carbonated beverage. If you bang and swirl the demitasse a bit it gets it more or less back to normal. I agree with Greg Kaans theory that most taste improvements that people notice with these are really due to a failure to compensate for the added volume leading to them really pulling slightly more ristretto shots.
In a commercial setup, where you often need to split a double and where the portafilters are cleaned all the time, I dont see that theyre that useful. At home, if you base your drinks of a double, they can make it easier to keep your espresso free from oils trapped inside the portafilter, simply because there isnt a bottom to collect dreck. Also, if you are desperate to use a 3x basket and your portafilter is too small, you can use a bottomless to enable you to fit it in.
Originally posted by Framey link=1151380438/0#2 date=1151412425
The main use my naked PF gets these days is backflushing. The compact size seems to make the whole process easier.
Yeah. Same with us. We loved the naked PF for this at Maltitude because we could fit it under the Azkoyen easily. Learnt from that experience and got higher legs on the Synesso, though ;D In a commercial environment, its incredible how clean you can keep your machine if you have a blind filter in a PF constantly at hand for lull periods. On Saturday and Sunday when I was doing our daily dispersion block scrub back, the dispersion blocks looked as clean as they were the day we bought the machine. Maybe thats just because stainless steel dispersion blocks are awesome!
I use my naked PF all the time. I actually prefer it over the standard as it stays cleaner and I can keep an eye on the extraction and check for non-uniformity and channelling. I also use the double spouts as a diagnostic to check for mousetailing. This is harder to spot with a naked PF. But in general its easier to use and I prefer the shots made with it although Im not 100% sure there is a taste difference.
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