PIXIllate wrote:Interesting. I had not considered this. I do have the stock Profitec double I could try I guess. Are you saying that you've never been able to get consistent spritz free bottomless pours with a VST basket?

It's not impossible to get clean shots with VST but they are definitely more finicky and intolerant of shortcuts or anything but the most meticulous prep.

If you're not yet playing with light roasts, I recommend you go back to your stock Profitec basket if not one of the ones I recommended. And start with 9 bar for medium roasts before trying to go lower.

PIXIllate wrote: There's an amazing amount to learn for such a tiny little drink.

Yes. There sure is. My flow profiling mates and I are learning new stuff almost daily.

You should give the first six posts of this thread (skip #4): Lelit Bianca Review

It's an excellent primer on flow profiling and even though it's a Bianca review, the stuff I recommended to you is almost completely agnostic and applicable to any flow profiler.

-Peter

PIXIllate wrote:Interesting. I had not considered this. I do have the stock Profitec double I could try I guess. Are you saying that you've never been able to get consistent spritz free bottomless pours with a VST basket?

I use 15g VST baskets on my lever machine and grind with a Monolith Flat (Mythos burrs). I haven't seen a spritzer for years. Admittedly, my puck preparation is elaborate: grind into an Acaia basket, whisk briskly with Londinium WDT device, transfer grinds to basket and whisk lightly with a smaller, fine wire device and retaining funnel, tap down, spin a BT Wedge distributor over the surface and finish with a gentle LevTamp. This takes much less time to do than it does to write: about a minute, I suppose.

In addition to pretty pours, I get repeatable taste results and high EY measurements.

Occasionally, I substitute a similar sized IMS basket I have, but the results are so different I'd have to spend an age to develop new techniques. The VST baskets are fine for my purposes.

mathof wrote:I use 15g VST baskets on my lever machine and grind with a Monolith Flat (Mythos burrs). I haven't seen a spritzer for years. Admittedly, my puck preparation is elaborate: grind into an Acaia basket, whisk briskly with Londinium WDT device, transfer grinds to basket and whisk lightly with a smaller, fine wire device and retaining funnel, tap down, spin a BT Wedge distributor over the surface and finish with a gentle LevTamp. This takes much less time to do than it does to write: about a minute, I suppose.

This ^^^ is pretty much my routine as well. Elaborate puck prep was the key to happiness for me with VST. It also helped with my SSP Monolith Flat. In fact now that I have flow control and no longer need the fast flowing characteristic of the VST basket, I still do the elaborate puck prep anyway.

-Peter

WDT goals have always focussed on simplicity, ease, speed, and consistency... but never elaborate puck prep. Here is a short video that I recently made for the Decent Diaspora web forum to illustrate my methodology. As you can see, by far the most time-consuming part of my puck prep has nothing to do with WDT: it's weighing out the dose. puck prep at ~1:00, WDT at ~2:00

Please forgive my amateur videography skillz. This was a "one take, no do-overs" effort, and a slightly subpar pour (I'm not used to pulling shots with a camera in hand).

RapidCoffee wrote: Here is a short video that I recently made for the Decent Diapora web forum to illustrate my methodology.

Cool to see the WDT done with minimal fuss. I've seen videos of folks making quite a production of it; never saw the point.

Also, love how you eschewed the fancy funnel for the good ol' plastic yogurt cup!

pcrussell50 wrote:This ^^^ is pretty much my routine as well. Elaborate puck prep was the key to happiness for me with VST. It also helped with my SSP Monolith Flat. In fact now that I have flow control and no longer need the fast flowing characteristic of the VST basket, I still do the elaborate puck prep anyway.

-Peter

I am doing pretty much this.

Flush grinder with .5g for the first shot of the day. The Vario does not hold more than this when single dosed.
Weigh out 18.2g. Grind into PF with OE dosing funnel.
Weigh again to exactly 18.0g.
Stir with paperclip.
One downward tap on counter. Remove funnel.
One downward tap on counter to fill in small channel left by dosing funnel.
Spin my OCD-type leveler a few times.
Tamp with about 4-5lbs of pressure mostly with fingertips.
Visually inspect the level of the tamp against the ridge of the 18g VST basket. Most of the time it is VERY level.
Lock in PF and pull.

I have ordered one of those red handled key removal things in hope that it will be better than a paperclip. The only thing that struck me is that maybe I was not going all the way to the bottom of the basket with the paperclip out of fear of scratches. Maybe there is a layer at the bottom that I'm not stirring?

I'm struggling to see what I'm missing but even with all of this prep I am not spurt free. Maybe the new WDT "tool" will put me over the edge. I'd hate to give up and admit defeat.

I do some vigorous stirring in the basket. Then a side to side wiggle as I rotate the basket. I do this to level it. Then a couple of downward taps on the counter to settle the grounds. Then a tamp.

It's not that complicated and not that time consuming. But I honestly don't really know which parts of this routine are important. Or even necessary. And my bet is that that's true for many people who develop a routine, particularly a complicated one. It's very difficult to know if something helps, at least sometimes with some coffees.

It reminds of the quirks of baseball players, the little nervous routines batters go through. Or the tennis player Rafael Nadal. He's got a load of these little steps he goes through which I believe that, in his mind, are critical for his game to be on. He's doing an elaborate tennis WDT before every shot.

DaveB wrote:Cool to see the WDT done with minimal fuss.

To be fair, I used
* medium roast espresso blend (easier to pull than a light roast)
* dosered Robur grinder (I hate dosers, but they help declump and distribute)
* standard nonprecision Spaz double basket (not a finicky VST basket)

As noted in the video, my rotary pump Spaz rapidly ramps up to 9 bar pressure with no preinfusion. If there ever was a recipe for channeling... but even with minimal fuss, it's simply not a problem.

PIXIllate wrote:I am doing pretty much this.

Flush grinder with .5g for the first shot of the day. The Vario does not hold more than this when single dosed. It retains even less if you do the super simple flapper mod
Weigh out 18.2g. RDT. Grind into a separate vessel with high sides so you can give the grounds a really good mixing with an aggressive multi-tined mixer like a cocktail whisk or a Londinium tool. Transfer to the PF with OE dosing funnel.
Weigh again to exactly 18.0g.
Stir with paperclip.
One downward tap on counter. Remove funnel.
Several downward taps on counter to collapse any voids and fill in small channel left by dosing funnel.
Spin my OCD-type leveler a few times.
Tamp with about 4-5lbs of pressure mostly with fingertips.
Visually inspect the level of the tamp against the ridge of the 18g VST basket. Most of the time it is VERY level.
Lock in PF and pull.

I have ordered one of those red handled key removal things in hope that it will be better than a paperclip. The only thing that struck me is that maybe I was not going all the way to the bottom of the basket with the paperclip out of fear of scratches. Maybe there is a layer at the bottom that I'm not stirring?

I'm struggling to see what I'm missing but even with all of this prep I am not spurt free. Maybe the new WDT "tool" will put me over the edge. I'd hate to give up and admit defeat.

You're missing some steps, mate.
I'll insert them in bold...

Show me a link to the key removal tool. I hadn't heard of that one before. Always happy to learn about something cool.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:Show me a link to the key removal tool. I hadn't heard of that one before. Always happy to learn about something cool.

I posted a photo of one in this thread. It's comment #48

https://www.amazon.com/Hapurs-Remover-M ... 011BNCUH0/