Jump in! Lottery Opportunity for a newly designed 58mm basket. VST is introducing a newly designed basket at the SCAA Expo this weekend. Join in and have the basket for a weeK. (Interesting read on the theory of basket redesign). La Marzocco is impressed -- it will be shipping new machines with the baskets.
I have pre-ordered a 58mm - tamper size, double basket, 17/18 grams. $25.00 plus $8.82 shipping plus PayPal fees results in these costs, based on number of players. Merely post your interest below. Once we have 10 folks, I will send out reminders. We will pass it around, each having it for a week. Winner will be selected via and that winner will be repositioned to receive it last and keep it. Ten reviews pending.
4 $9.10
5 $7.35
6 $6.15
7 $5.30
8 $4.70
9 $4.25
10 $3.85
"...And the shots? On the Extract Mojo I started noticing something: I could use the same amount of coffee, same grind, same dose, level and tamp. I'd vary how long I pulled the shots - sometimes pulling 28g brew volume (ristretto); sometimes pulling 35-38g volume (normale as Fedele calls that) and sometimes pulling up to 45g (a luongo). All these shots were still within good extraction ratios Brewing Control Chart! But more importantly, all the shots maintained a decent amount of sweetness in the taste, throughout the size differences. For me, the normales tasted the best, but the luongo was definitely drinkable, and the ristretto even more so....
Then, we pulled shots with the VST 17/18g basket, using the new dosing, leveling and tamping technique. Found that every single shot tasted better, but even more impressive, varying the shot output (going from 30 to 40g brewed) still resulted in shots that tasted better than our "best" Synesso basket shot.
This isn't me claiming these taste results. This is three seasoned local baristas and two consumers over three testing sessions. It was a lock for the VST / La Marzocco baskets and a serious eye-opener on how important the filter basket is to the brewing process."
(Note: The basket itself is a 61-mm and fits Marzocco. I stopped at Alterra's (3-group Zoccos) and asked what tamper size fits their baskets -- all were 58s).
Venturists
2. TheJavaMan
3. CFSheridan, the Commodore
4. JSpain
5. StevieBoy9
6. ReddyK
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7. BoldJava
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8. Dante