After far too much hesitation, I finally made the jump last week. I shipped my perfectly good Ponte Vecchio portafilter to Lino Verna to get it sliced up and mutilated. Here are the results. The first three pictures were taken by Lino before, during, and after the cut. My first reaction when I saw Lino's pictures (by email) was "DAMN THAT LOOKS GOOD," and I repeated this reaction when I actually got the PF back today. The espresso coming out is from a 15g two pull shot of Gimme's Leftist at four days post roast.

The first shot that I tried (not shown) was a 12g two pull shot of a different coffee (blindly *not* dialed in as I had been brewing for chemex). If you can imagine an even worse version of the "System meltdown" photo in the perfecting the bottomless extraction article, then that was it. The first pull was perfect, but after the second, there was coffee all over the place and the shot tasted like it belonged in the sink. It didn't end up there because I had a class to sit through a few minutes later.

I sent my portafilter to Lino last Tuesday via USPS Priority and he shipped it back to me this Tuesday in the perfect form you can see in the pictures. From the 5 or so shots I've pulled through the naked PF my first impression conclusions are:

1. Unless you hold the cup right under the portafilter throughout the shot, don't bother with low doses. I reserve the right to repeal this conclusion with further testing and tuning of my technique.
2. Full-dose, two pull shots work great. To the naysayers who believe that the puck is completely destroyed during the upstroke in the middle of the shot: see the pictures below. You can hear the hiss of air being pulled through the puck during the upstroke, but with some care the second pull looks just as nice as the first. It's fun to watch the espresso get sucked back into the basket at the beginning of the upstroke.
3. The cone coming out of the basket isn't as full or thick looking as naked triple ristrettos on pump machines. But as you can see, it looks nice and creamy.

I'll be updating with more notes on any changes I make now that I don't have spouts, but so far things are about the same (for Leftist I would have gone to a high dose and finer grind anyway, but I need to do much more dialing in and experimenting.

I can't resist repeating how impressed I am with the portafilter finish. Lino did an absolutely amazing job here, and I'd highly recommend him to anyone looking to get their portafilter cut. He charges $25, which includes return USPS Priority shipping to you. In my opinion, this looks much better than the cut that EspressoParts did for my Gaggia Achille PF (no offense meant, but the rotary tool just looks much cleaner). I believe you can contact him at lino@vernadesign.com.

So please enjoy the pictures below. (Once again, acknowledgment to Lino for the first three.)

Looks wonderful. Just curious, but did you notice any difference in the taste? I can't say that I have with the "newd" pf I have for my Cremina. I use it almost exclusively, unless I am splitting the shot. I find I have no "sneeze" when I release the pf.

I don't think I've noticed a taste difference, but it's not a good comparison as I haven't tried this same coffee before and after getting the PF chopped. There's no change with the sneeze time, but I may have a better idea of when to take off the PF because I can see the drops slow down or stop. I recently saw a bottomless extraction video of a commercial lever where a puff of air passes through the puck at the end of the shot, providing a sneeze-free experience.

I don't think my phone could accurately capture what I'm seeing, so I'll try to borrow a friend's camera and post a video soon.

A note on the pictures: the photos that I took of the shot above were done on a Nikon D70s with a borrowed 50mm f/1.8 at 1/60sec and f/1.8, which explains the very narrow depth of field. It was nice to avoid the flash.

Very nice! I'll look forward to hearing if it helps you refine your technique. I've got to get one myself sometime.

PC

I think the biggest technique change is being extra slow and careful on the upstroke between pulls. I might try to speed it up a bit. I just got a half pound of Coffee Labs Roasters espresso blend, and their baristas use a double basket for a VERY small, thick, and delicious shot, so it may be a good candidate for a 1 pull shot (with a fellini move). More details once I figure them out, of course. I'll be working through the Gimme Leftist first, as the Coffee Labs beans have some aging time left (they're only at day 2 now).

I've been working on two- or three-pull preinfusions lately, something I first started with the Caravel manual lever. Timo wrote about Illy's emphasis on preinfusion, and lever machines are perfect for managing these. With the manual lever you pull down just far enough to see the very first drop into the cup. With the spring lever its more tricky, because you need to let the lever rise slowy, and can't "feel" the pressure on the puck in the same way.

I pull the lever all the way down (slowly), and then slowly allow it to rise until just one drop falls. I am beginning to notice when this will occur based on how much force the lever is rising with. Then I do this again. This fully preinfuses the entire puck. When the shot is pulled it comes though this "well-prepared" puck. One-pull shots done this way will yield a full ounce of espresso - I tested it yesterday in a shot glass. Very thick with long-lasting crema.

It all needs to be done in a such a way as an sculpture might kneed clay - its very organic. The bottomless PF would lend itself nicely to seeing when to stop the pre-infusion pulls.

I think this technique is best suited to full baskets, so there is not a lot of space for the puck to be disturbed.

PC

PeaceCup, I'm not quite finding these 1oz shots from this method. What is your boiler pressure set at? (Is there a pressure gauge on the Export?) I tried this method today, but I think I'll continue working on my previous two-pull shot technique for now. The naked PF is, in a sense, a curse: now I know that the hissing during the upstroke is liquid and air sizzling up through the puck, but at least now I know when I've done a good job with the upstroke (and distribution I suppose) and when I did not (splattered wattery channeling espresso all over the place).

I won't give up on this method; I definitely didn't get the full ounce, but I may need to raise the boiler pressure for a more forced chamber fill (I'm at .9bar or so now, but the coffee tastes good so I'm not leaning towards increasing it).

Thanks for the replies!

If you tamp harder does it reduce the puck damage? You'd need to grind a little coarser to compensate.

I just tried a much firmer tamp than I've ever used along with the PC preinfusion. It seemed to work fine, though it wasn't a picture perfect uniform stream like I had in the photos. The shot did taste good (14.5g of Coffee Labs Espresso). The pour ended up around .5oz; still not the full ounce promised, but, again, the taste was fine so I won't worry about volume.

A new thing that I learned today: during the upstroke after the soft preinfusion pull, the vacuum created by the upstroke almost empties the water from the puck (the hiss/sizzle) so I'm not sure how much the preinfusion is adding to my shot volume (with my technique-maybe that's where the difference between my shots and PC's is).

I decided to try making mini fellini-preinfusion style lever pumps until the bottom of the basket started beading. This worked quite well: the body was very thick and slurpy, the crema was healthy, and I had minimal water-pulling-up-through-the-puck hissing. To achieve this, I did slow, smooth quarter-pumps of the lever after taking it all the way down the first time. Once I saw some beading, I brought the lever back up and released it for the shot. I'll try to get a picture sometime, and I think I'll take the grind a bit finer to slow down the shot.