I know that the Silvia doesn't work well with updosing - I've read it here and through my own experience learned that with the stock basket, anything over 15 grams or so seems to coat the dispersion screen.

When I bought a bottomless portafilter from Seattle Coffee Gear, it came with a cavernous triple basket. It seems like this basket is made for 22-23g doses. An 18g dose doesn't even crest the top of the basket, making it hard to level before tamping. No matter how careful I am with my distribution and tamping, I'm getting tons of channeling at this dose in the big basket.

Am I wasting my time trying to do 18g doses in the triple basket? Should I just buy a third basket that's "medium" in size? Or is Silvia's issue with updosing bigger than just the basket?

hi alex,

18g in a triple is a bit too low. imho anything below 20 won't work in this kind of basket.
I am not a fan of extreme updosing, but some coffees need a bit higher doses.
the synesso double basket works pretty fine for me. i am usually using 16-17g. 18g works as well, but i wouldn't go higher than that.

apart from that basket issue, silvia doesn't have any issues with updosing.
hope that helps.

cheers
Georg

I just bought a a LM ridgeless basket that is technically a double basket but can easily hold 18-20g of coffee. The fact that it is ridgeless means you don't have to use a huge dose to be able to tamp it.... I use a 19g dose and it works great. I would give it a try, I think you'll be happy-

http://www.espressoparts.com/cgi-bin/ep.pl?pgm=co_disp&func=displ&strfnbr=71&prrfnbr=2630&sesent=0,0&search_id=465725

Good Luck!

I also have the triple basket and it is not easy to work with. Tons of channeling. I guess this is more likely because the puck is deeper. The machine is also easily choked with the triple basket. So I just stick with the ridgeless double.

I use a triple all the time and dose 17-19 grams. On my machine the shower screen sits low in the basket. A double with 18 grams in it will be compressing against the shower screen. The machine also likes headspace. If you use the super secret HB search button and search for dosing below the rim you will get pages of information on how to do it. You dont need a heaped up basket to pull a good shot.

I use a synesso double basket in my Silvia and it pulls very nice shots, about 17 grams a shot. Much better than the stock rancilio double basket, which, as others have said, leaves no headroom.

I recently bought a Synesso double basket from Visions Espresso locally in Seattle (<$7), and it works really well in my Silvia, much better than the stock basket (and bigger). It's ridgeless, too, which I prefer when messing around with different doses and tamping pressures.