Recommendations for precision baskets for smaller doses for the Flair 58 and Niche?

I'm interested in having a traditional Italian sized basket to brew with 7-10g of coffee, as well as another step up or 2 (12g, 14g). I'll be pairing my flair 58 with a Niche grinder, which will arrive in Jan, and a C40 red clix while I wait for its arrival.

For the single basket, ideally I can find one without the triangular shape or at least one to a lesser degree.

I've heard IMS, VST, and Decent are all great, but I'm a little overwhelmed after looking at the options from IMS for just a single basket alone.

Anyone have suggestions or advice for which specific baskets would suit me well? Thanks!

7 gram single shot?? Mission impossible!

A VST-style, fast-flowing basket may not be what you want for the "tweener" size. They can be very tweaky for dialing in. Some of the IMS baskets are a bit slower than the VST or faster IMS baskets. As I recall, the M pattern is the slower of the IMS baskets. You might also try the EPNW HQ 14, though it has the depth of an 18. With a Flair 58 and its puck-topper, the depth probably doesn't matter much.

Thank you Jeff! What about a 12-15g dose instead of the tiny 7g mission impossible size? Any recs for that approach?

I'm not sure what your'e tying to achieve with a 12-14 g dose.

For me, the LM1 gives a similar quality in the cup with 7-8 g as I get with my normal 17 g shots (I pull light roasts, not "espresso" roasts).

The thinner a puck gets, the better your prep needs to be. Unless you've got a specific reason for wanting to pull much under 15 g in a Flair 58 (or any 58 mm machine), I think you're asking for more trouble than it's worth. The LM1 "works" because its puck has effectively the same depth and cross-section as a "normal" dose would in a standard, 58 mm basket.

Thanks! As far as what I'm hoping to achieve - simply smaller doses to spread more shots throughout the day. For pour overs for instance, I usually spread numerous 12g-15g doses throughout my day, rather than 1 or 2 larger cups. So, I'm looking to do the same with my espressos, rather than operating in the 16-22g that the Flair 58 basket can hold. Does that make sense, or am I trying to pursue a difficult path?

Even with the LM1 being close to the same grind as what I use in a full-sized basket, there's still dial-in involved. Changing by even a gram in dose in a 58 basket requires a change in grind to have a similar (though not the same) flavor and balance. 17-18 g is a pretty typical dose for a 58 mm basket with light through medium-dark beans. With lighter roasted beans (Passenger, George Howell's lighter roasts, I would assume Sey, ...), you may find 17 g a good balance.

You may see marketing claims that BasketX in an 18 g size with 18 g in it works just like their 15 g size with 15 g in it. There's a lot of evidence that many of us have been through that indicates that is a marketing claim, not a usable reality.

Years ago, I purchased a Synesso '12g' basket. I purchase coffee from all over and it's very rare the 12g gets used and when it does, around 14g was the sweet spot. IOW, not much of a difference.

You could pull ristretto to reduce the caffeine. Two coffees I love as ristretto are Wolf Coffee Organic and Columbia River Roasters Highwater. Neither are light, tending toward medium-DARK

In my experience, the LM1 basket is good for 7-8 g, but fitting more than that is not really feasible.

One option could be to pair your Flair 58 with a Flair Classic. The basket diameter is 40 mm (the LM1 is 41 mm), but since it has much more depth, you can dose more if desired (with correspondingly coarser grind, of course). I'm currently doing 9 gram shots with the Flair Classic, with excellent results.

I agree with Jeff that some dial-in is involved when switching between single and double: it's difficult to find a pair of baskets on which the exact same grind size works equally well. But, on a Niche Zero, that's not a problem at all. I tend to grind about one notch finer for singles than for doubles on the Niche (if memory serves - I don't pull many doubles these days).

I recently bought a couple of different single IMS baskets for the 53mm PF on my Spaziale Dream. Normally I dose 16-17 gr with the IMS competition dble basket. I'm finding good results pulling smaller, single shots with the 7 gr. rated IMS basket called "The Single". I'm dosing 8 gr IN, 15 gr. OUT. I found I need to grind a bit finer on my Atom 75 tih the single than I use with the IMS dbl. basket