New recipe: 7g basket
We've sold a 7 gram basket for years, because it's part of the Italian tradition, but I've never been happy with the results. Because of the small coffee dose, the puck usually cannot resist 9 bar of pressure, and it channels badly. Sour, water espresso is the usual result. This isn't a commonly used basket size, but I do regularly get questions from German customers about it, and so it's been on my to-figure-out list for a few years.
When I hired coffee-expert Paul Chan a few weeks ago, one of the first challenges I gave him was to figure out how to make a good shot with a 7g basket. And see if he can do it would using dark roasted beans.
With advice from the Diaspora Forum (especially from Damian regarding a suggested flow rate based on calculations of projected puck integrity), Paul tried a lower flow rate during preinfusion. That turned out to be the key in getting the puck to maintain its integrity throughout the shot. He also lowered peak pressure to 7.5 bar, and overall shot time to 24 seconds. I'm using the new “flow limiter” feature to never go over 6 ml/s, which acts like a flow constrictor/gicleur on a traditional machine.
The notes for this profile are:
This profile is optimized for the 7g Decent Basket. You should weigh 7g of beans and dose them into the center mini-basket at the bottom. You'll need a small 36mm tamper. The flow rate is slowed down to prevent disturbing the puck. A lower pressure is used to compensate for the lower puck integrity. Final shot weight should be 18 to 28 grams.
We've used beans roasted from light to medium, with good success, with this profile and the 7g basket. No longer is the 7g basket appropriate only for dark roasted beans.
This is a nice example of how control over flow rate and pressure can solve real coffee problems. This new profile was released today as part of the v1.34.22 de1app beta.
We've designed a special tamper for this basket with a , and made the 3D file available for free on Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4771376 You can 3D print it yourself or have it printed for you by a service such as https://www.3dhubs.com/
You can buy our 7g basket here: https://decentespresso.com/c?s=30047+1
Here is the profile:
and here is a typical extraction of it:
Updated 2021/03/16