I drink single espressos only. If pulling a double, it becomes a milk drink or an Americano. I much prefer espresso as a single, it smooths out the caffeine jolt and you get to have 2 of 'em!
I started using singles instead of doubles after reading Samuel Law's (?) great post about his singles escapades... thanks Sam, you are the greatest! I had tried singles in the past with the same pf's that you are looking at and could never get it right, they always seemed kinda weird and no real tamp was possible given the strongly sloped sides. In my humble opinion, no true single can be pulled that is tasty and respectable unless you are using the LM straight walled single basket. Look for it. Its a 58mm basket, but it has a deeper depression in the middle, more or less straight walled, that holds about 8g. You will need to get a smaller tamper. The pull looks identical to a normal 18g pull in a regular basket, but it blonds much earlier of course because you are using half the amount of grounds. I find my ground size is slightly finer for singles than doubles and of course, about half the weight. Taste is slightly different than a double, but close. But the key, for me and others, is the basket. You MUST use the straight walled single basket otherwise I have no idea how you will get a decent puck and consistent water flow through it. I made my own tamper from a normal 58mm cheap tamper off amazon and just cut it down.
I have a pic posted in this thread of a single I pulled from my Londinium I after installing new seals. This is around 8g in and maybe 16g output: Londinium piston modification?
sorry, the pic is pretty close up so its hard to gauge dimensions. Its a Sorrento cup, if that helps.

walt_in_hawaii wrote: ......
LM straight walled single basket

.......

That's it! Thanks. I had read about these baskets somewhere but then I lost the link to the article.
It looks like all th info I can find on the net lead to the VST Precision Baskets. I assume they are the same product branded with different names. Is that correct?

Edit:
Found: https://home.lamarzoccousa.com/product/ ... le-basket/
Ordered one, thanks again.

baldheadracing wrote:Tidaka has tampers and dosing funnels designed for the La Marzocco (or VST) 7g basket. If I was making 7g singles all the time on a straight pump machine then I would avoid a lot of frustration by using their tools. https://www.tidaka.net/de/tamper/set-an ... grale.html

That is what I do. With these baskets
https://www.coffeehit.co.uk/la-marzocco ... et-7g.html

Is that the same as the VST single?

walt_in_hawaii wrote:I drink single espressos only......The pull looks identical to a normal 18g pull in a regular basket, but it blonds much earlier of course because you are using half the amount of grounds.

Walt,

Glad to see another convert! Been pulling 99% singles here as well. I thought singles is one of those things that I experiment for a bit before going back to the typical/habitual doubles. Turned out I've been pulling singles religiously for over 1.5 year and am not planning to go back to doubles.

The single shots don't blonde any earlier for me (if you normalize them based on the brew ratio). If I cut the shot based on blonding I typically get around 18-21 g liquid in the cup.

If you have the funnel, I highly recommend using 9g dose. It's just a tiny 1 gram difference, but seems to make a significant difference in the cup/extraction for me.

The pull this morning - closer to a ristretto. 9g in 16g out, 10s preinfusion 35s actual flow time.


And another shot of medium-light roast Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.

Phaedrus wrote:Is that the same as the VST single?

The Strada basket is supposedly the same as VST 7g. But I don't think VST is making those single basket anymore.

I have the Strada version of LM-shaped basket, but the regular version works just as well if not better. With the Strada basket, I have slightly more tendency to get spraying and less even pull, but did not notice a significantly better taste when the pull is right. I am not a glutton for punishment so the regular basket won me over for day to day use.

samuellaw178 wrote:Walt,

Glad to see another convert! Been pulling 99% singles here as well. I thought singles is one of those things that I experiment for a bit before going back to the typical/habitual doubles. Turned out I've been pulling singles religiously for over 1.5 year and am not planning to go back to doubles.

The single shots don't blonde any earlier for me (if you normalize them based on the brew ratio). If I cut the shot based on blonding I typically get around 18-21 g liquid in the cup.

If you have the funnel, I highly recommend using 9g dose. It's just a tiny 1 gram difference, but seems to make a significant difference in the cup/extraction for me.

The pull this morning - closer to a ristretto. 9g in 16g out, 10s preinfusion 35s actual flow time.
<image>

Hey Samuel... I guess you'll take ANY excuse to show off that Aurora, huh?!
beautiful, man... it was my first choice, but I had to settle for a Londinium as Auroras aren't in plentiful supply.

Sorry, by 'blonding earlier' I meant in terms of water quantity (roughly 16g going through for a single), you are right, in terms of seconds the single and double turn out pretty close. That's why my grind is finer on the singles and I have to wait longer for the first beads to appear.

I am actually at 8.5g pretty much all the time now. For my coffee, I have tried going up to 9g but its just a tad too much, the extra coffee is difficult to tamp into the small pocket of the single pf, I feel like I'm herding a bushel full of kittens back into the fold. I can do it, but it takes longer and that early in the morning who needs the aggravation? since making my delrin funnel, that's not much of an issue, I could compress it a tad, but the lower lip of the funnel blends in with the sides of the pf at about exactly level at 8.5g, so I've been leaving it there; a nice number. 9g would leave some sort of weird depression when I withdraw the funnel that I would have to deal with using the tamp. But I think I share your sentiments exactly; I don't think I'm ever going back to a double espresso, the single, although short lived, gives a reasonable tasting framework and doesn't amp you up too much. If I were younger, I'd say damn the torpedoes and gimme the real McCoy... but for us guys that have to watch all the things that come with *experience* like, oh, say cholesterol, blood pressure etc etc... I try to limit my caffeine input to no more than about 300mg daily. Try. Weekends don't count.

I did a really lousy job as a photographer, didn't I? I swear I was trying to show off the pour, not the machine!! The pour was sooo beautiful that I couldn't resist sharing.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make (for OP), to get good single shots, you could get really good results using the La Marzocco single style basket and a fitting 41mm tamper, regardless of the machine (including pump machine with no preinfusion).

The tapered single baskets (or other types of single baskets) may work with some effort, but not to the same extent (in my limited experience).

I felt like a broken record going waxing lyrical about the LM singles, but it literally changed the way how I drink coffee. I just hope more people know about them and at least give it a try (and not being dismissed outright due to the notion single=difficult).

Thank you ALL for the useful information!!!!

I am really looking forward to receiving the La Marzocco 7gr basket.
I'll wait before ordering the Tidaka funnel from Germany. I have a couple of things that may work and I want to try, just to get me starting. But I think that in the long run I may get one of those too.

One question for all of you that make single shots, do you by chance use single shot dose bean containers?
Currently I am drinking Counter Culture coffee, it comes in 12Oz (340g) bags. I would like to avoid opening and closing the bag several times per day, so I was thinking about putting the quantity of beans needed for a single shot in individual closed containers. I have many brand new 2 Oz small glass bottles with a 12mm mouth that I can close with a cork stopper. I also have a SS funnel of the right size, I tried both with the beans and they work well. I can either put one dose in each bottle even if there would be a lot of air in it, or put two doses in each bottle. Either way would probably be better than opening and closing the bag 3-5 or more times per day.
Any thought?

I've always assumed the individual vial thing was a cute phase. I believe the beans live better all together in the same bag rather than as portions in small bottles, but it might just be my nose playing tricks on me. My coffee is usually no more than about 2 weeks old, older than that and I start to get spritzes, so it gets thrown out.

I use the glass bean cellars, and routinely get 3-4 weeks with no spritzes, maybe a tiny adjustment for finer grind the last week or so. The usable storage time could be longer but I use up all of the beans by then, no waste.