Good coffee even with pressurized portafilter

#1: Post by **brunorosso** » March 16th, 2015, 3:36 pm

Hello everybody, I've joined this forum today and I am happy about that!
I bought a Saeco Poemia espresso machine, which comes with a pressurized portafilter. I read a lot about the characteristics of such pressurized filter, good on one side (the facility to make an espresso for starters), bad on the other side ("fake" cream, etc). Now, my question is: if i use a very fine grind, correct dose and correct tamping, is not possible to make a good espresso even with a pressurized portafilter? Because at the end, the coffee that will go out from the basket (before going into the little hole of the pressurized system) will be correctly extracted, or I am wrong?
Thank you very much for your thouths, and sorry for my not-perfect english!
Bruno

#2: Post by **cmin** » March 16th, 2015, 4:14 pm

Not really, you can still make decent coffee with fresh beans and a grinder. But the way the pressure mechanism works by forcing coffee through the tiny hole, is completely different vs normal extraction. You don't even need to tamp pressurized baskets really, the clip regulates pressure release. If you had an espresso capable grinder, the grind needed for a regular basket, would choke a pressurized basket. I started with a similar machine and depressurized it. You can replace the basket with a regular one on your machine, but you'll need an espresso capable grinder, whereas with a pressurized basket it doesn't care what grinder is used or if stale beans or preground etc, but what comes out may look like espresso but doesn't taste like it.

When I started I had a DeLongi and with fresh beans made much better coffee than Charbucks. Depressurized and an espresso capable grinder was an even larger difference... then the bug bit

#3: Post by **beanville837** » March 19th, 2015, 8:55 pm

My understanding of how espresso works (what actually creates a good shot) has been much improved as a result of reading brunorosso's posted question and the related earlier postings suggested by the forum webpage, especially a 2013 posting entitled, "Why are pressurized portafilters bad" by AlexKilpatrick back on Feb. 2, 2013. Other members who replied to this back in 2013 including Spitz.me; coffeedom and MerleApAmber really shed light on my understanding the essence of the extraction process and why it can go wrong (or right).
I'd suggest to other newbies that a much better (clearer) understanding of extractions can be obtained from reading these posts. Thank you HB!