It's a bit like discovering a new and wonderful musician you've just heard for the first time.

For the longest time, I've been pulling out standard doubles (18g of grinds on my old HX pump machine, 15g on my Bosco lever). After messing around with larger baskets, I found these to be my optimal quantities, even as I moved from EPNW to IMS to VST baskets (on the pump), with the coffees I like. Settling on these benchmarks has made it easy to dial in coffees on my grinders, and target the brew ratios and extraction times that work best for a given coffee. Happily, it means I can consistently turn out really nice shots without wasting a lot of time and coffee. A little like asking Google Music to construct a playlist based on all the music to which I've given the Thumbs Up.

I'm kind of a traditionalist at heart, so in the past, on my Vetrano, I tried my hand at pulling true singles (i.e., 7-9g of coffee) using the stock single basket and eventually various IMS "The Single" baskets. Those baskets, on a pump machine, are pretty finicky, and I suspect the Mazzer grinder I was using at the time didn't make it any easier. At any rate, while I was able to get occasional nice shots, more often than not, I didn't, and the unpredictability would get frustrating enough for me to go back to my comfort zone.

Getting my Bosco seemed to reawaken that traditionalist thing, so I decided to try my hand at pulling good old traditional Italian singles on it. This time around, I got a La Marzocco 7g basket (the VST variant is somewhat rarer, and in any event, VST told me they manufacture the LM baskets). I also picked up a really nice 40.7mm tamper from Coffee Complements, which is optimized for the LM/VST single basket. And I was a little astonished to find it didn't take long to perfect my workflow to get consistently great single shots. Here's the basket in my Bosco naked portafilter:


And here's pretty much all you need to make a true single:


That's the portafilter w/LM basket, the 40.7mm tamper, and 7.3g of Mr. Espresso Organic Neapolitan beans.

My grinder setting is quite a bit finer than what I use on the same coffee to pull a double (for comparison, my current Monolith Conical setting is about 2.7 for a double, 1.3 for a single). It's really nice having a competent grinder for getting a nice fluffy bunch of grounds. No RDT on this batch:


I use a little hunk of plastic to push the grounds around the edge into the center for tamping. In an old H-B thread, someone suggested a light tamp works best with singles, which I confirmed through experimentation (i.e., trial and error). I suspect hard tamping that small amount of coffee in the center of the single basket amplifies any imperfections with coffee, grind, distribution, etc. Tamping with a light hand, just enough to slightly compress the grounds evenly, yields better results (at least with my Monolith, etc.). Here's the tamped basket:


I use 7 secs preinfusion on the Bosco, at which point the first droplets appear. This particular try shows a tiny bit more flow around the edges, but the shot turned out beautifully.


25 seconds later, the finished shot (this is a NotNeutral 3oz Lino, one of my go-to cups for macchiatos). I neglected to weigh it, but it's about 16g:


Add a dollop of foam:


And ready to drink:


And the spent puck:

A couple of things about singles:

• A single tastes different from half a double, all other things being equal. Not better or worse, but good, and different.
• It takes about 5 seconds longer to make a single, because of the need to arrange the grounds before tamping. Not a big deal.
• I get to drink twice as many singles without turning into a supercaffeinated Bobcat Goldthwait!

So if you've never tried pulling a single on your lever, take a shot at it! The investment in equipment isn't a whole lot ($100 gets you the cute little tamper and a couple of baskets). It's a nice bit of technique and craft to perfect, and a lever machine seems ideal for this (maybe a Slayer would work as well, but most pumps might not). I'm happy to answer any questions, so please fire away if you have any.

Meanwhile, time for a single straight espresso!

A Bosco and a Monolith. Lucky guy.

Thanks, Barney. I'm a *lot* more lucky, frankly, to have had the sense to marry my wife, which is a whole other story (and off-topic, except that I *did* addict her to good coffee).

But since I mentioned marriage, to push an analogy, I spent most of my life dating different grinders and espresso machines, and finally found what would make me never stray elsewhere, nor ever want for anything else.

Or to borrow Guy Clark's apt phrase, I'm all through throwing good love after bad.

I had an additional thought on levers and singles. In addition to the ability to gently preinfuse the grounds bed, the slowly declining pressure profile typical of spring levers probably makes single shots a heckuva lot easier to pull than on standard pump machines, which impose a rapid 9 bars of pressure and maintain it for the entire shot. Has to be hard on the relatively small bed of grounds used for a single shot to withstand that.

This is purely speculation, but I think it's plausible speculation. Would love to see validation from elsewhere.

I have been using single baskets on my L1-p for a long time, but I confess to up dosing them and using a Reg Barber EuroCurved tamper that is 58+mm.

The VST with its deep well, and I suspect the LM is made by VST or visa versa, does take that small tamper to get a good 7g shot. All in all it is worth messing around with and is easy on bean consumption

I pull singles at the bar in a single basket. A 9g dose gives me a nice flow without adjusting my grinder. But since the lever group supplies a double dose of water, I find pulling the shot away short a bit of hit and miss. I'd rather not pull out the Lunar scale during a rush. How do you modulate the shot volume on a lever with a true single?

Singles ftw!

Since you're using the LM-style single basket, I highly recommend this funnel from Tidaka. I've been using mine daily for 5x singles for the past 3 months. Just tamp through and no need to manicure the ground into the center hole. Don't miss the double at all!

I went for the 30mm height funnel so it's seamlessly interchangeable with the funnel from Monolith for a normal double basket (no need to readjust the fork).

Interestingly, using singles cut down my consumption too. Instead of going for my usual 3 daily doubles, I find that I am content with just 3 singles and going 4 shots+ just feel like an indulgence.

https://www.tidaka.net/de/trichter/boar ... r-lm1.html

I had not thought about that reducing funnel, but it makes sense! I kmow what I will be building in the shop next after one job for a friend.

Almico wrote:I pull singles at the bar in a single basket. A 9g dose gives me a nice flow without adjusting my grinder. But since the lever group supplies a double dose of water, I find pulling the shot away short a bit of hit and miss. I'd rather not pull out the Lunar scale during a rush. How do you modulate the shot volume on a lever with a true single?

It really just comes down (in order of importance, IMHO) grind/volume/tamp. Really a package deal. The other thing to know is how much of your favorite cup your target volume will take up. I'm not too anal about target extraction/weight in this case: if I come to within a couple of grams of target either way, I don't fret. I was shocked at how fast and easy it was to dial in that shot on a lever after my struggles with a pump machine.

I'm putting together a little video of my workflow, and should be able to post it within the next day or so. But as a preview, one of the nicest things to see is that razor thin stream of elixir from such a tiny dose whispering into a miniscule demitasse.

This is interesting as I didn't think anyone actually used the single basket.
For me, the only reason for a single basket is to help dial-in a new brand of beans w/ less waste or when I'm waiting for my beans to be delivered and I don't have enough left for a double

samuellaw178 wrote:Singles ftw!

Since you're using the LM-style single basket, I highly recommend this funnel from Tidaka. I've been using mine daily for 5x singles for the past 3 months. Just tamp through and no need to manicure the ground into the center hole. Don't miss the double at all!

I went for the 30mm height funnel so it's seamlessly interchangeable with the funnel from Monolith for a normal double basket (no need to readjust the fork).

Thanks, Sam, I've been eyeing that Tidaka funnel...but I just can't stomach paying almost $30 to have it shipped from Germany. I do agree it would likely make for a more efficient workflow, though.

I had been thinking of approaching Stephen Sweeney about the feasibility of fabricating one, and as serendipity would have it, I see that he replied to this thread. My reply will be just below.