Hi everyone, I'm a newbie in the quality coffee brewing scene, so I would very much appreciate your comments in a couple of questions I have. I got hold of a Gaggia Classic 8161/40 and I've been reading around with respects to the portafilter and basket that comes out of the box; I must admit I am very much confused as to whether mine is a pressurised one or not. I've taken a few shots of the portafilter/basket, can anyone advise me on what I've got?

Thank you!

That's pressurized, the tiny hole and then the plastic insert are your tell-tale signs. You want to see if you have baskets with perforations throughout the bottom of the basket (and take out the plastic insert when using those).

Pressurized PFs let the masses make fake crema from crap beans. If you're poking around here, you probably want better...

AtlGator wrote:Pressurized PFs let the masses make fake crema from crap beans.

Being completely honest, I've always believed the same thing. But as I read your post, I began to wonder how good it could be with properly ground good, fresh beans. Is it possible to make acceptable espresso if the only limitation is a pressurized PF?

Sadly ( ), I don't have one to play with. But being unable to enforce the admonition that friends don't let friends drink bad coffee, we have friends who do. I may drag my grinder and some beans around the neighborhood to see what's possible. Of course, that means I'd have to clean their machines first. Hmmm - maybe this isn't such a great idea after all. But if any of you got a pressurized PF in the box with one of your machines, you might give it a shot (no pun intended...) to see how much it compromises the product when everything else is right.

AtlGator wrote:That's pressurized, the tiny hole and then the plastic insert are your tell-tale signs. You want to see if you have baskets with perforations throughout the bottom of the basket (and take out the plastic insert when using those).

Pressurized PFs let the masses make fake crema from crap beans. If you're poking around here, you probably want better...

PF's they are then! I've noticed that with good quality beans ground by my friendly neighbourhood barista, extraction is slooooow..

So thank you for that. As a next step up, what PF and basket is recommended? These ( http://www.happydonkey.co.uk/gaggia-bot ... ilter.html ) have come up frequently in googlings

You should be able to pop the plastic thing out. I have a 20g VST basket for my Gaggia Classic, and I like it.

I should have included the VST it came up frequently too. Any decent UK stockists you would recommend?

So I went ahead and got the 20g VST basket. First impressions, really unforgiving with my sub-standard tamper, so that needs to go on the to-buy list..

More important than tamper is quality grinder. Having your beans pre-ground by friendly neighborhood barista just won't cut it. Why? There is no one correct espresso grind. That is one of the things a pressurized pf masks.

Oh I see! What's the criteria for determining what grind is appropriate for my VST basket? A quality grinder I'm afraid is out of the budget at the moment, so maybe I can rope my local barista into running a few experiments for me, so at least I can figure out the grind setting according to their grinder, until I can scrape enough money to get my own.

Have you read any of the How-Tos articles? Pretty sure your question is answered.