Vst basket

[rawill]

Hi rawill
What are your expectations, in terms of seconds, before your pour comes together in a single cone?

What are your actual times?

A good question, I guess I thought "immediately", no drips, no other streams, just a single pour straight away.

But now that you have challenged me, I am thinking that is probably impossible.

This morning there were about 3 or 4 drips, then a single cone.

Even at the longest, (without having timed it) I am thinking about a second or two before it becomes a single cone, unless of course I really mess up the grind and tamping, which can happen sometimes if I have old beans.

The beans last a LOT LONGER with a 7gm VST basket.

I keep them in an airtight can when I have opened the bag, and only put in a few at a time into the EM480 grinder.

AND, I just checked to see how many grams are going in to my 7g VST basket.
This morning it must have been about 5, I just dosed it again and it was 6, and it was filled up more than when I did it for my morning coffee.

Robin

[chokkidog]

1) No idea which espro you have, however all the calibrated ones I have seen are curved bottom.

Espro make flat and convex tampers.

I am still working away with my 7g VST Naked P/F.
I can still see my faults, I get a few 'pour streams' before it centralised into one pour.

But I like the coffee that comes out,

Hi rawill
What are your expectations, in terms of seconds, before your pour comes together in a single cone?

What are your actual times?

[rawill]

Great thread, great discussion.

I am still working away with my 7g VST Naked P/F.
I can still see my faults, I get a few 'pour streams' before it centralised into one pour.

But I like the coffee that comes out, so I will keep working away on it.
Still haven't made myself a good tamper yet, using my modified plastic cheap Breville one, the with the spoon on the other end!

Keep up the good work.

[TampIt]

First I notice that the shape of the vst basket is somewhat "squarer", I got a good firm puck but its a bit hard to knock compared to my regular basket.

I use 2 dosing technique (make a good centered mountain then tamp with my espro calibrated tamper) and dosing with coffee catcha (dose and level) all involve 2 collapses.

Hi ahhhespressso (love the handle)

Two VST gotchas seem absent in this thread.

1) VST's HATE tampers with a curved bottom. Flat is essential to match their designed flow pattern. No idea which espro you have, however all the calibrated ones I have seen are curved bottom. FWIW, I now use 316 Pullmans, however any reasonable tamper (i.e. standard old 6910, before they went curved or even older La Cimbali acetal) with a flat bottom will significantly outperform any curved one (including my two beloved old curved Reg Barbers). Too easy to spot with a naked p/f.

2) You mentioned the puck being hard to remove. That suggests you have the ridged VST's*. A flick of the wrist is enough to send the puck flying out of any ridgeless VST I have encountered, irrespective of roast / grind / dose / tamp / basket size (I have two complete VST sets and have used a few dozen other ones). If they are ridged, I would swap them for the ridgeless ones immediately before you drive yourself crazy. FYI, the ridged VST's are part of LM paying for the research, and they refuse to use ridgeless ones (why, shaking head). The shots they pull are quite different, and nowhere near as good on any machine I have tried them on (most LM's, a few other "up market" ones all the way down to a friends (very) cheap Breville. Kinda half a VST in terms of the shot quality.

* One cafe even swapped their "LM ridged VST's" for ridgeless when they saw the shots coming out of their Strada. Not a subtle difference, and no "bean saving" in sight for them in that case.

The other things I would back:-

JM's comment about interchanging the baskets without needing to alter grind: Yep, done it heaps of times from 7 through 15, 18, 20 to a 22g. A minor tamping adjustment is usually enough to stay "in the zone". Note: the 7g is "shelved", rather than "ridged". the centre flows like a ridgeless, and correct dosing is well "under the shelf" by a mm or more.

JM's dosing within +/- 1g: that is the ONLY way to get the higher extraction ratios (aka flavour quantity) out of a VST. Standard espresso baskets: 14 to 16% (look them up anywhere) for an optimised shot. VST's: correct dosing and grinding finer to optimise shot: 20%+ (I usually get 21 to 22% consistently). Half again the flavour whack for the same cost of beans... Oh, and when we deliberately overdosed them, extraction ratio was anything from 12% up to 16 or 17%. Ditto using a standard espresso grind and tinkering with the dose: standard extraction ratios (15%), with really thin weak flavour. That is probably why a number of CSr's have had no joy with VSTs: they are trying to use them like standard baskets. Five minutes reading the VST research papers would show them they are way out of spec that way.

Flavour quality: AFAIAC, once set up properly a VST wins hands down. Not even a close contest using any of my older baskets (50+ sets of all kinds of brands until I culled them recently) or any setup in any cafe I have tinkered with. Most of those cafes are now running VST's, as the owners have been convinced (saving on the beans undoubtedly helps). BTW, I do not sell VST's or get a commission in any way for that! Just some old friends who I worked with "way back when" who now have their own cafes.



Have fun


TampIt

[TampIt]

Yep... although to begin with I will probably try TampIt's trick with the top of a Lipton's Iced Tea bottle. (I think he used a Powerade one but I don't drink that at all )

Hi JM

The only exact fit I found was a "smartwater" guava & lime(???) 500ml(ish) bottle. All the others were too loose. Certainly not Powerade, one sniff was enough (reminded me of James Hardie's asbestos sludge in Welshpool when i was growing up).

I actually had to use one the other day at a cafe as I didn't intend to do any setup work that day... until I received the panicked call. FWIW, one third full is better than empty / full.

TampIt

[EspressoCorp]

Okay, I just received the 15 and 22 vst basket along with a naked portafilter. I am learning this so help me and tell me if I am doing something wrong

I dont have time to try the 22 but I managed to have a bit of trial with the 15.

First I notice that the shape of the vst basket is somewhat "squarer", I got a good firm puck but its a bit hard to knock compared to my regular basket.

I use 2 dosing technique (make a good centered mountain then tamp with my espro calibrated tamper) and dosing with coffee catcha (dose and level) all involve 2 collapses.

Both dosing results in even surface just on the ridge of the basket.

The first dosing results in faster pour, thicker crema, the second one results in slower pour less crema. The centered mountain dosing did not give out centered pour on the naked portafilter and the coffeecatcha dosing is centered. Does this mean we should not "mountain" the dose and level at all time with vst basket?

I tried 3 shots of each dosing technique and they all produce the same results. All shots done in 25 seconds by timer. I forgot to measure the ml, but the mountain dosing yield more extraction in 25 seconds and more crema. The coffee does taste better with coffeecatcha dosing. More aromatic as my wife put it.

Then I tried 3 shots each of the dosing technique using my old basket, however the basket i am using is an 18 gram basket so, cant really compare really but all shots taken were nicely centered with the naked and timed 25 seconds.

My wife and I agreed the coffeecatcha dosing with vst basket yields the most aromatic and sweeter taste. The 18 gram regular basket yields stronger coffee taste but lacking something. Is it just in my head or something you guys can tell me?

Thanks alot in advance.

Chiming in a few weeks late here... Great to hear that your brewing with the Coffee Catcha is going well. Let me know if you have any specific questions around that particular product. It would be awesome to see a photo of you using it too, if you'd like to send one, feel free - info[@]espressocorp[dot]com. Thanks, Steve.

[Journeyman]

My understanding is the VST's are made to provide a given extraction percentage for a particular amount of grind. That's why there's the general rule-of-thumb to stay within a gm of the rated size. It's also why they are so carefully made, so that the rating can be consistent; normal baskets with a wider spread of hole size are less predictable due to fines and particle size spread.

My experience is that VST's give me a wider range for grind/dose/tamp and at the machine will provide a reasonable coffee both at the same g/d/t as the SB basket as well as several notches finer in grind. But there is a definite sweet spot where the flavour takes a leap heavenwards (in keeping with the god-shot idea ) and it is with the grind fine enough to consistently choke on a SB basket.

Puck height for me is quite a bit lower than I used to pack the SB basket - once I started measuring the dose weight I realised how much I was overdosing. Interestingly, the VST taught me to lower the dose but the same process gives me better decafs from the SB basket now. i.e. I started by lowering my VST dosing and then tried it on the SB basket and found a happy spot for that as well - in both the dose is at least 5mm down from the rim, well clear of the shower-screen and low enough even a $2 coin doesn't leave an imprint.

Both VST and SB baskets now get 15g - 16g normal dose. (I can't judge it finer because my scales are only 1g accuracy)

[Pete39]

I agree, I don't think you can generalise. VST suggest to stay within +/- 1g of the rated mass of the basket, however some people report success for them outside this range.

My experience has been that puck height (relative to the shower screen) is irrelevant, provided it is not touching the screen when dry.

[Hildy]

I don't think you can generalise. Aren't the relative parameters:
- puck height (relative to shower screen)
- puck resistance, being related to puck thickness, grind, and to a minimal extent tamp

I like the VSTs too, but I use the EP baskets because they are more forgiving at 5am.

[Barry O'Speedwagon]

FWIW, I'm not 100% convinced that one can make absolute generalisation re dosing weight and nominal capacity of VSTs. I (presently) use a 15g (or 14g?) VST ridgeless basket, in a Diadema Reale, with K3 touch or Macap M2m grinders. While I can grind fine enough to get a sensibly paced extraction at the nominal weight, I much prefer a dose b/w 17-19g (which would still be classed an underdose relative to shower screen height in a regular basket). I weigh the doses only for the purpose of communicating this to my other half who otherwise has a margin for error of +/- 5g.

Maybe I'm missing something, but it's not clear to me how one can generalise absolutely about dosing weights when machines differ re the height of the shower screen (and pressure at the group I guess, but I know little about this).

That said I quite like the VSTs (but have decided to experiment with some Espresso Precision baskets from Chris).

[ahhhespressso]

Thanks i ll try that and grind one click finer

[MrWhite]

I use a 22g vst and dose around 21g depending in the beans. You perhaps could try to dose ~15g and grind slightly finer as an experiment. The pour shouldn't really look any different to a good standard basket pour once you've dialled it in correctly.

[ahhhespressso]

I adjusted my grind size few times and had 10 or so shot trial, i couldnt seem to get things right at first then i checked with my digital scale and i was shocked that if i dose dose collapse dose dose collapse and dose then level (putting back excess ground coffee into the chamber), the ground coffee weigh 20 grams in my 15 gr vst basket. Extraction was awful. This happened when i adjusted the grinder size to finer. And if i do a mountain for 4 dose clicks (i have a manual doser wega max grinder) they weigh 16-17 gram on the digital scale, i get a good centered extraction with a very thick crema. I also read that mountain dosing doesnt work on these baskets on other websites, but it looks ok to me...maybe i am wrong? How thick does a pour should like? The pour was crema thick but not gushing out like watery gushing out.

[muppet_man67]

I'd consider the 18 or 20gm baskets normal, I like the 18 and 20gm for espresso, the 20 and 22 if you want to cut through milk better.

[MrWhite]

Make sure you distribute the coffee to the edges and make it level before tamping. I use my index finger and works well. You may need to grind finer than your standard basket also. The 'mountain' won't work well for VST's.