# Updosing smaller baskets



## les24preludes (Dec 30, 2017)

I'm quite new to pulling shots - about a week but learning fast. I've been using 14g in the double basket that comes with the Gaggia, but the coffee has been under extracted. Admittedly I could play around with the time, grind, tamping etc.....

But on a whim I put 10g into the Gaggia single basket and suddenly got my best shot ever - sweet for the first time. I timed it at 30s from switch on. I assume it worked because of more resistance with less holes. My Gaggia is stock, so probably 15 bar and this may have compensated for that. This is all with Sumatran decaf and milk in approx a 3:1 ratio.

So I'm wondering whether to stay with the single basket for a while and explore it before going to the double basket. I may also be headed for a VST 15g basket, even though I read they're hard to control and everyone goes for the 18g.

Thoughts on all this?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Single baskets are a law unto themselves , personally id stick to a double, why are singles a pain . tamper , size , shaper etc.

upside might be more effective in your single . You should be able to get a sweet shot in a double with the correct grind and dose.

Updosing to far in any basket can lead to pour extraction , are you weighing your output yet?


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## les24preludes (Dec 30, 2017)

Mrboots2u said:


> You should be able to get a sweet shot in a double with the correct grind and dose.
> 
> Updosing to far in any basket can lead to pour extraction , are you weighing your output yet?


I started an Excel spreadsheet to analyse my shots. Last one was 30 secs, 8g in to 36g out so ratio 1:4.5. Not as sweet as the last shot where I used 10g in the single basket at 30 secs. I didn't weight the output then. I think 10g must be the limit for updosing before the coffee fouls the shower disc.


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## rob177palmer (Feb 14, 2017)

In general, the earlier part of an extraction brings most of the sweetness and, as you keep pouring, the more sour over extracted flavours dominate the later parts of a shot.

1:4.5 is a very long pour, and I would guess moving well into the realms of over-extraction, certainly if there was any channelling developing in the puck.

Most people tend to start with aiming for a 1:2 ratio, and then tweak from there, longer or shorter as desired.

There was a repost recently highlighting a Chris Bacca you tube video on "salami slicing a shot" or something similar - I wonder if you tried this, whether you might discover something about the flavours going into the shot?


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## rob177palmer (Feb 14, 2017)

Oh, and I totally agree to stay away from Gaggia single basket.

I use a 15g VST in my Classic without any problems. I find it performs very well between 15-16g dose. You have a good enough grinder to enable you to benefit from the teachings of a VST.


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## 9719 (Mar 29, 2015)

Here you go:-


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

rob177palmer said:


> In general, the earlier part of an extraction brings most of the sweetness and, as you keep pouring, the more sour over extracted flavours dominate the later parts of a shot.
> 
> 1:4.5 is a very long pour, and I would guess moving well into the realms of over-extraction, certainly if there was any channelling developing in the puck.
> 
> ...


The sweetest shots are usually just before over-extraction, or before you push too much silt into the cup (many may never over-extract even at 1:4.5).

If the sweetness came out first we'd all be pulling super short shots.

Even if you pull sweet shots at 1:2 with a double, the lower resistance of the single basket might need more liquid to be pushed through the puck to hit a balanced extraction.

If @les24preludes is hitting sweet shots at 1:3, has enough coffee in the cup & enough strength, I'd stick with it for now, ensure it is repeatable...enjoy the coffee & use that flavour balance as a basis for experimenting with getting similar from the double basket.


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## rob177palmer (Feb 14, 2017)

MWJB said:


> If the sweetness came out first we'd all be pulling super short shots.


TBH that's one of the reasons I always attributed for the consensus moving from 60g output of a "classic Italian" espresso down to closer to 30g


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

rob177palmer said:


> TBH that's one of the reasons I always attributed for the consensus moving from 60g output of a "classic Italian" espresso down to closer to 30g


Sweetness is related to extraction level, with 18g of coffee that can be anywhere from 36-54g up to 250g of output, the grind size changes accordingly. An awful lot of 1:2 shots are not sweet.

Lighter roasted coffees have less intensity, so pulling them shorter help boost that. By the way, Illy have always discussed espresso in terms of a range, 30ml to 100ml for a double (pretty wide & overlaps with current trends if ml is used as a proxy for grams). Even the INEI have a range of 45-55ml from 13-15g dose. The idea that a double was strictly 60ml seems to have always been a myth/gross generalisation.


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## les24preludes (Dec 30, 2017)

mines_abeer said:


> Here you go:-


Thanks for the link. It's true that I don't yet know how to recognise under or over extraction - not quite sure of the difference between sour and bitter, though sweet is more obvious.

I did get my best shot yet with the single basket at 10g so I'll continue using 10g and varying the extraction time and volume. At some point I should get a reference. I think the grind is viable since the last shot I made at 11g and well tamped took ages to drip out - around a minute - and only came out of one of the two spouts. It was probably right against the shower disc. Backing off to 10g was OK previously. 9g seemed to come out a little too fast. I'm probably not so very far off and learning all the time.

I use 220ml cups and decaf coffee with around 125ml milk. Those aren't variables, though I suppose I could play around with the volume of milk a bit. I don't want to go much above 14g coffee in the basket. 220ml total is enough for me in one cup. I tried 350ml but it tended to go cold and was more than I really needed.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)




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## les24preludes (Dec 30, 2017)

Thanks for the link. My finding is that the Gaggia single basket only goes up to 9g before going right up against the shower disc, so that basket isn't good for updosing since also my 58.4mm tamper barely works with 9g before grounding. So unless I try the VST 15g or equivalent, it's back to the standard double basket. I made the grind one notch finer and this works with 14g in the double, so I'm in the ballpark now. At some point I'll have to lower the Gaggia to 9 bar, which will need a pressure gauge. That should help standardise things.


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