I recently purchased an Alex Duetto (with Macap M4), and even after a couple of months, I'm still coming to terms with pulling consistent shots, dialing in grind, etc. I've been using a Rancilio bottomless portafilter from day one to help evaluate my shots, but it's been frustrating getting good shot-to-shot consistency without any channeling in the puck.

I've been using the double basket that came with the machine for the most part. I tried a few tamping routines, like light tamp + heavy tamp, light tamp + tamp around the edges + heavy tamp, etc. I eventually decided to just stick with a single heavy tamp and no knocking the basket to eliminate any sources of channeling.

Two annoyances with the (Izzo?) basket: It's wider than my 58mm RB tamper, so I miss the edges when tamping, and it holds SIGNIFICANTLY more than 14g of coffee. This is an important point to me because it makes it very difficult to effectively use grind distribution techniques unless I want to pull shots with 19 or 20 grams of coffee. I've been sticking to 15g from the beginning, and it's difficult, if not impossible to effectively distribute and level grinds when they're so far below the top of the basket (especially around the edges). I have also noticed that several of the perforations in the middle of the basket are not formed properly, which noticeable affects the way the shot pours.

I noticed the Rancilio triple basket that came with my bottomless PF fits my tamper perfectly. I wanted to replace the double basket with one that had proper perforations, and the selection from stores in Canada was not great, so I ended up just ordering a Rancilio double basket from Green Beanery. It arrived yesterday, and I've been trying it out this morning.

It's much, much smaller than the one that came with my Duetto. It's pretty obvious it was designed to hold around 14g of coffee at typical espresso grind, before tamping. Unfortunately, because of the way it's shaped, I cannot tamp with my RB tamper. It binds on the side of the basket before I can put enough pressure on the puck, and there is always a deep impression from the dispersion screen. The fit is so tight that the suction from removing it from the basket is enough to release the entire puck from the basket and pull it up. I discovered this by dumping a freshly-tamped basket of grinds down my shirt

Is there another brand basket I should try, am I making too much of a deal out of the perforations and volume issue with the Izzo basket, or what?

I also had tamping probs with the stock rancilio basket on my silvia. Normal dose levels would hit the dispersion screw and create gushers.

I bought this ridgeless LM basket:
http://www.espressoparts.com/prod...filter_Basket.html

My 58mm tamper will now fit the double basket and give a good tamp. It only binds if doing a ridiculously low volume tamp and the puck will fall out from not being tamped correctly. Like you mentioned though, it's a pretty big volume. Normal overfill with WDM and leveling is really around 19 to 20grams in this basket.

It was only after I got this basket, performed WDM, and replaced the dispersion screw that I was able to get decent results. I still haven't been able to get a decent shot out of 15grams because of the distribution problems, only success with overfilling and leveling basket. Perhaps our machines are hitting our pucks with too much pressure from the get go, instead of ramping up the pressure gradually.

Bob_McBob wrote:I'm still coming to terms with pulling consistent shots, dialing in grind, etc.

If you're worried about tamping, you're barking up the wrong tree.

How fresh is your coffee?
Is it from a top drawer roaster?

How accurate is 15g?
Is your scale ±0.1g?

What is your brew pressure?

I'm concerned with tamping because I regularly see the effects of channeling in the puck, both when brewing, and when knocking it out afterwards.

My coffee is SM's Espresso Monkey blend, as fresh as I want. I don't usually bother even trying for several days after roasting, since I usually just get a cup of crema that quickly dissipates. A week or more is better in this respect.

I can only weigh my dosing to within 1g, but I can probably eye it a little closer by volume when repeating shots. I never bothered to try the weighing on a 0.1g scale routine because it would have cost so much just to get one of the ridgeless PFs. Espresso Parts wants $30 to ship one up here, which is ridiculous.

I believe the brew pressure shows around 9.75 when brewing, which is as the machine came from the vendor. I've never tried to modify this.

Pucks are compost. As long as your tamp is reasonably consistent AND level, you're good.

I take it you are home roasting?
In what and to what roast level?
What happens with, no offense, quality professionally roasted coffee?
I don't know eastern Canuck roasters, but two great west coast ones are 49th Parallel and Discovery Coffee.

±1g is way to wide a tolerance.
Is your M4 doser or doserless?
Are you loading the grinder per dose?
How much time elapses between shots?
You can weigh in something other than the basket and dump. Yoghurt cups are popular. Gentle side to side shake or WDT recommended after that.

Brew pressure sounds correct.
Brew temp is ~200°F?
You've verified boiler temp and offset?

Email to espressoparts asking for a Rancilio Epoca filter basket. Specify that it need to be the same that come with the Epoca because they have others similar Rancilio filter baskets.

I have around 12 filter baskets and the filter basket from the Epoca with around 14.5 g is my best choice for my Duetto. Some times prefer to use a deeper filter basket like the one that come with the Duetto to avoid that some blends taste insipid.

What's adding to your frustrations (which for any beginning barista will be coming from multiple places... kinda like working on your golf swing ) is indeed the basket. The stock Rancilio baskets that come with Silvias are, in my experience, a bit too shallow. A deeper basket (16g 58mm upper inner diameter) allows a bit more coffee depth, which makes a fairly significant difference in the extraction dynamic.

When customers tell me they just bought a Silvia for home, I often go to our "junk drawer" and give them an old basket from our Marzocco Linea. It makes a BIG difference!

Unless there are a significant number of fouled perforations or a clustering I would not worry too much about them.

As for basket annoyance, get used to it and go ahead and invest in some more until you have a few varying sizes that you like. I believe baskets have a much greater potential effect on your coffee than tampers. I tamp the same way, with the same tamper, every time I make espresso. I do not use the same basket every time though.

I tamp with the basket removed from the PF. After dose and distribution (WDT / shake shake) tamping is a simple matter of centering the piston head just above the coffee surface and lowering it down compressing the coffee with only the weight of the tamper. Once the tamper has come to a stop I gently press it down until the top edge of the piston is level with or just below the rim of the basket. This generally involves less than 10 lbs. of force. I use only the slightest unweighted twist when removing the tamper to help break any friction between the piston head and the compressed cake. Same way, every time.

Baskets come in different sizes to help accommodate different optimal doses. I have a pile of baskets just for this purpose. The pile includes two ~14 gram (22mm), two ~16 gram (25mm), and a ~19 gram (28mm). One of them came from a café junk drawer. With this collection I am able to easily move between various doses while still being able to maintain sufficient headspace and incorporate basket rim leveling. The larger sizes are all ridgeless, 2 LMs and the stock Gaggia. The others are ridged, 1 Rancilio and ?? for the others.

My 58mm Bumper fits all of them sufficiently with the exception of one of the 14 gram baskets. The spring clip on that basket is inverted and binds the piston head. All of the baskets that I use most have similar profiles and perforation patterns. All of the baskets I use give around 1mm clearance for the piston head. There is always a little coffee stuck to the edge of the basket, and that is where it stays.

I have certainly purchased a few baskets that I do not use but in the end I think it has been a worthwhile investment, and I'm pretty sure the cost of all of them does not add up to another Bumper much less an RB.
If someone has 2 stock baskets and a pile of beautiful tampers, they might be collecting the wrong thing.

Ian, I'm not concerned about the puck, I just wanted to point out that I can see the effects of channeling when pulling shots, and examining the puck afterwards shows clear signs of this.

I am home roasting, both to the level recommended by Sweet Maria's (a little lighter than typical), and sometimes darker. This has very obvious effects on the resulting espresso, but doesn't really make much difference to the shot consistency. I haven't tried any high-end commercially roasted espresso.

I will see what I can do about getting a 0.1g scale and weighing grounds more precisely. My M4 is a (stepless) doser model, so I don't have clumping issues. I usually load coffee in the hopper as I use it, but I don't specifically weigh it out because of grind retention in the chute, doser mechanism, etc. I am quite careful about cleaning out spent grinds after each session.

I typically brew at 200F, and try not to vary too much since I'm still getting other factors under control. I have not verified the PID offset with a thermometer, but I do recall performing the suggested routine of checking the temperature at which the water flash boils. I am pretty slow at cleaning, grinding new coffee, weighing, etc. so the machine has a good amount of time to recover between shots.

To put this basket issue in perspective, I have been pulling shots using the original Duetto double basket and 18 grams of coffee over the last couple of days. I am able to get consistent shots this way, even with the perforation issue I mentioned earlier. Filling the basket makes it much, much easier to evenly distribute grinds following the various distribution and levelling methods I've seen demonstrated. Tamping is relatively simple and has much less of an effect on the resulting shot. I am not seeing any channeling in the shot or the puck. Is it typical to fill the basket like this rather than attempting to pull shots with smaller amounts of coffee in a larger basket?

Gus, I wouldn't have thought the perforation issue would be such a big deal either. There are three holes that aren't stamped out properly in a line near the centre of the basket, and I can often see a void in this area when pulling a shot. I would be happy to try some different baskets, but the selection here is very limited, so it would have to be a special (expensive) order from somewhere like espressoparts. Are there any other accessories I should consider purchasing at the same time? Do you have any specific basket suggestions other than the ridgeless LM?

Seeing fractures in the puck when normal / low dosing is completely normal. The puck blows apart going from 130 to 0. Repeat after me : Pucks are compost.

With an M4 and no 0.1g scale, doses by volume will be all over the map. Brush out the chute after each shot. A timer will do wonders for consistency with some coffees. Some coffee are horribly inconsistent with a timer.

When changing the grind by more than ¼-½ turn on an M4, the first two shots are likely to be sinkers. Pretty much guaranteed when changing coffee.

Several of my baskets have blind holes. No biggie.

The biggest issue is probably coffee. You still haven't named your roaster. Unless your home roast setup looks similar to this, it's difficult to get consistent results.

Roast several batches at one time and blend them, freezing the bulk in two day packets. Blending the batches will level out roast variances.

Decide on a dose style that works and adjust the grind for consistent results, never pulling less than 3 shots at 1 grinder setting.

Pay attention to the age of the coffee. Many roasts have a dead zone from days 4-6, 6-10, 8-12, etc.