Hopefully this helps some power through their issues pulling shots! Don't sweat the sprays (sometimes). Aim for taste. Be consistent. Don't be dismayed if there is a mess. And DON'T interpret this as naked=bad. I use them daily. Spouted are harder to clean. I just want to debunk the constant misinformation surrounding optics the basket gives. Hit the like and subscribe to support! Thanks all
Thanks for this - so much! I love love love the flavor I get out of the naked - and I was thinking I always had to give up and switch to spouted once my beans had been in the hopper for a few days. I appreciate the debunking.(Random side note - on the day last week I sadly switched back to spouted bc of spray I was telling my hb over morning espresso that I wished that there was a place to learn more with less boy ego and he told me about you. Perfect timing. I will look forward to more of your bad boy wisdom now that i'm signed up.
This is the most important thing. Clean vs dirty equipment has much more influence than some of the other marginal gains. I like naked portafilters because it makes it easier for me to put in a blanking disc for backflushing.
I was a barista in college and have continued that sickness into adulthood at home. 99.99% of at home espresso enthusiasts get so far out into the weeds about stuff that absolutely doesn’t matter. Shot taste good? It is good. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
Thanks for breaking me away from my need for perfection. If it tastes good, then it is good. As a detail obsessed person, it’s been incredibly freeing breaking the “rules” and following the taste.
THANK YOU for this video. I had managed to keep my shots looking like a bad slasher movie, but was still getting teeny little sprays. That's when I realized that people generally DON'T show real-time shots, and I started to wonder how normal these little sprays actually were. Now I know!
Lance, I’ve been following you for a long time, and let me tell you, your presentation style has improved so much! It’s incredible, you’re a machine man!
bottomless portafilter is just a beauty to look at. it makes the extraction phase THE moment to just watch and makes u feel good when all stars are aligned. you dont post reels when you're grinding or shaking the black thingy like mad lad, you always post the moment when the beautiful brown thing flows out from the bottomless portafilter.
Lance I have to say that although I have been watching you for quite some time ... I really truly appreciate every time you cut through the BS to help us coffee aficionados better enjoy our craft without getting caught up on "trends" and misinformation! Thank you for all you do for us especially when this is not your "real job." :-))))))
This was your best video yet. The clarity, confidence, style, cinematography, and writing were awesome. And thank you for helping us sort out what matters from what doesn’t! It helps reduce anxiety in our optimizer brains.
Thank you Lance, there’s so much nuance in everything we do and we do have a tendency to simplify and lose the very important details! Just got one and I was wondering if I’m doing something wrong as it didn’t look “good”. The shot was absolutely delicious and now I am well educated on the subject too! Thank you!
Thank god Lance touched on this. Thanks to some of the TikTok espresso pulling vids, it seems like anyone can pretend to be an expert in judging my espresso making techniques. Especially after knowing how much my equipment cost. Not that I care that much , but it's an ordeal to start explaining to them, and most of the time I had to either laugh it off, or tell them to go enjoy their Nespresso.
Thank you for making so much sense. I bought and used a naked portafilter for a while, but I eventually stopped using it. I was tired of chasing every last particle of coffee trapped in the mesh that caused squirts and sprays every other shot. I'm back to my trusty spouted portafilter. It's cleaner, and my coffee tastes exactly the same. As you said : the most important thing is the way you make your coffee, not the way it looks when you're bent under your machine to see every droplet going through the portafilter.
I just bought Pesado HE & Weber Unibasket. You are wright Lance, it is almost impossible to get "the classic shot" with those straight edge baskets. But thanks to your recent eye opening videos concerning extracion level outcome vs distribution methods, I don't worry anymore. Lance you had lots of courage to go upstream in you last videos and rock the coffee world.😊
@derhof Yeah that's true, it's hard to compare baskets because of that, but hopefully flow rate or grind size required is close to each-other. Feel free to report back later after you get the hang of both of them!
I’m so grateful for this video! I’m currently taking a break from espresso because it’s been a disheartening and steep learning curve. It’s good to hear you voice a little bit of my frustration. I can pull beautiful shots but it tastes horrible.
Good on you for taking a break. It can be a truly discouraging hobby at first (I think James Hoffmann used the phrase " a maddeningly frustrating hobby at the beginning"). I'm only in my first 4 or 5 months, and I've really had to stop comparing my stuff to social media perfection. Find what you like to drink, do the best you can, and don't reach for the ideal. Enjoy the process and someday you'll be pulling consistently good shots!
Lance, your channel has matured so much. You are absolutely my trusted source for coffee knowledge on TH-cam. You have far exceeded what anyone else on this platform is doing to help people make better coffee. Thank you.
Lance, thanks so much for making this video. Many of my pulls look like exactly like the shot at 16:02, and even though they taste great, and even though I’ve always subscribed to the “if it tastes good don’t worry about it” mentality, I always second guessed if I was missing something, and if my tastes were just off. Now I have no more doubts and I will love my ugly tasty lightly roasted espresso that much more!
Wouuuhaaaaaaa, what a build up, with the music and everything, what an inspirational speech. You just did the "I have a dream" of the coffee geeks !! Love you mate!
Smash my like on "Trust Your Taste". I can feel your passion for making coffee and the background music almost tears my eyes. Then, the next second, you crack me up with a joke. LOL
Thank you so much Lance! I was really obsessed with trying to get that perfect, viscous, photographic pull with light roasted coffee and my Flair 58 and this video opened my eyes about the reality of coffee.
I've been pulling a lot of turbo shots lately and my little 3ft toddler always comments that it looks scary/angry unlike my "pretty shots" i used to pull
Thanks Lance for your contribution to this community. I have gone from knowing nothing more than Nespresso, to going all in into the coffee world in 1 year. Got myself a neat home setup learning new things, and starting a small coffee cart business in the next few months.
Absolutely great!!!! Blew my mind!!! It put into words what I had been observing for some time. Without a doubt, you are one of the best producers of videos about all things coffee on TH-cam. congratulations!
It's not about the end brew, it's about the channels we make along the way. I mean friends and arguments... no, I mean information and trolling... no, I mean...
Thanks for fighting against unrealistic beauty standards for espresso. I was feeling for a while like something was wrong with my ugly shots. I found using a tapered stock basket was easier to get nicer looking results than a VST type basket with a larger flatter bottom. I think it did correlate with a higher success rate though on the stock basket but potential was higher on the VST. The stock basket seemed like it flowed more even but had less flavour clarity and intensity which works well for some coffees actually. I was expecting the Weber high extracting basket to be even less forgiving but was surprised it seems more forgiving or I've Just been having better luck lately with my espresso. With those baskets they never really look good. I think we do have them to thank for getting more people to realize that the looks don't necessarily matter that much.
Lance with the last 5 videos, you really made everything really came together with releasing the test data with puck screen, paper filters, blind shaker baskets, the wdt, and feeding the hopper slow feeding I was always over extracting the espresso. Now I changed up my route to put it all together and am now always getting predictable tds and extraction percentage. I am using the Weber Unifier Portafilter, blind shaker, paper filter, and screen puck and slow feeding my Ceado grinder all in the correct amount now. I'm using September coffee Ethiopia wash light beans. Now, I can tell immediately if it is going to be great shot, just by if it's doing the donut shape appears, after that i don't care I just watch for my time and weights. 3 seconds preinfusion and then about 12 to 15 second shot pulls after preinfusion, and now it taste amazing to me! Now, with 3 seconds of preinfusion and then about 12 second shot pulls, I'm reaching a TDS of about 10.60% and total extraction percentage of 20.99% with repeatedly every time now! Here is a badly short short video slowing it being pulled. This is no lance quality video. th-cam.com/users/shortsyf1SUcqx7pQ?si=0f0m5uBO4D9R-p2l
These videos focused on the principles of extraction are great! TH-cam and especially the expresso community need more of this and less discussions about equipment and new gadgets
Love this video. I noticed all the tools and process helped me when I was clueless and learning though. Visual cues and feedback helped me get a better sense of what a good range was. Then after going through different coffees and continuing to see that visual feedback along with developing my palate helped me realize it’s just a sign and not a deterministic factor. I’ll still recommend bottomless for a whole host of reasons including easier cleanup, not having to worry about soaking portafilters, and generally as a learning tool. But thank you as always for putting the immense amount of work into studying and presenting information like this to help the whole coffee community understand this world of coffee more deeply and exhaustively.
I have to say if there was a singular influence that has changed the way I think about espresso (and that's not to say I don't look to others to validate/verify my thoughts on espresso making) it's thia channel. I always look forward to your videos, Lance because they genuinely have very data driven feel and when they don't (say simply because the data isn't there yet) it is very transparent and I very much appreciate that. I do very fall under the category of coffee enthusiast but you've helped me appreciate all the levels at which others are involved in the coffee communities, from baristas, to farmers, to coffee scientist (or I guess you can just call them scientist😂). I've really learned a lot here and I wish you all the love and support Lance because you have a great thing here that I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling!
I, too, was once under the impression that the ideal espresso looked like those videos, but one fateful morning rocked my entire world. I did the whole routine as usual, but somehow, during the shot, my whole setup was beamed with hot coffee almost breaking my now 4-year-old 10 dollar 0.1g digital kitchen scale. I reluctantly sipped the resulting disaster and to my surprise it was one of the best sips of coffee I've ever had, it was as if the flavor was bursting out of that cheap stainless steel basket. Thanks for putting this video out.
i just love the coffee bubble we all live in, thank you lance for bringing down the "snoppy" bullshit talks of so many people and let us enjoy our coffee!
Fantastic episode Lance. Really appreciate you going for the real prize of great tasting coffee via solid scientific substance and better knowledge performance over hype, habit and popular misinformation. Good on you! Listening and learning from you and your guests has saved me hundreds of dollars as I pursue an improved home coffee brewing experience. Much appreciated.
This is great, I've been getting amazing slayer shots with my dimmer, above 2 minutes sometimes but they can get a bit weird looking towards the end and the stream does often take a long time to form in the center, often get 2-3 seperate ones. So I'll just ignore most of that. BTW the biggest advantage of nudist portafilters is cup clearance!! Especially on the little single boilers us peasants have, that are often too cheap to own more than 3 or 4 espresso cups. So it's nice to be able to fit a regular big mug for the morning Americano, I don't like serving them in cappucino cups, I always spill a little. Tall cup is easier to transfer from extraction equipment to consumers.
Love my naked portafilter simply for the fact that it leaves enough space to put a latte mug below it on my gaggia cc. Hate to have to pull into something else first if someone wants a bigger milk drink. In the beginning it helped to find some other flaws as well like too fine shower screen...
Great video! Here here Lance! I've had beautiful looking naked shots that taste rubbish and hugely messy shots that taste great. There's definitely a bit of mystery with the naked portafilter, sometimes you'll do 4-5 shots of the exact same coffee/grind and all of a sudden on that next shot there's a mess, no difference in the puck prep - in the words of Bono "She moves in mysterious ways".
Always learning great things from you. Since I’m an eager beginner with espresso. I’ve been trying several different roasts however have gravitated to medium Brazilian, nutty sweet style coffee’s. I’ve tried several and have put the time into dialing in grind, shot times and finally I’m noticing the taste improvements I should be experiencing. Now I’m chasing the viscous perfect looking shot with nice crema…so this vid is helping to demystify things for me. Thanks!
Very valuable video. In fact I now totally trust my coffee, grind and tamp abilities without worrying about the sprays. Thanks to you!!! Just one thing… choosing wisely was The Last Crusade.
I pulled the splitter off the bottom of my stock sage portafilter for more cup clearance. I get the satisfaction of seeing the single stream of espresso fall straight through the hole in the bottom plus it catches all of the sprays or splashes!
How is it that everyone isn’t praising your take on the Frozen song!?! 10/10, no notes 😅 Thanks so much Lance. I’ve been wallowing in self doubt since getting my Profitec and Timemore grinder combo as an upgrade to my old combo Breville. I was fighting jets and all the demons you described. Now I feel like I can relax about so many of these things after your explanations. I’ve always respected your clear, objective videos as someone who has a passion for the data and science, but not enough time to become my own expert! Thanks again, Lance. You are the man!
This was so helpful! I've got the IMS nanotech basket and it's been driving me mad about seeing bald areas. I kept assuming channelling based on appearances. This has really helped put things into perspective given this rising trend of TH-cam shorts of sexy looking extractions, when perhaps it is more of a viscosity issue from the CO2
Really didn't expect the Frozen impression, but man did that put a smile on my face :))) Yet again Lance helps us and lights the "nice" path for espresso nerds! P.S. so glad that naked portafilter doesn't matter, because it was one of the few things that I considered for some time, but didn't think it was so important.
when I started making espresso, I was so confused why I couldn't make my light roast coffee shots look good. They would often spray and pull too quickly. but I enjoyed the taste anyway. Im glad im not the only one.
I’ll be honest: 99% of the reason I use a naked portafilter is because it’s easier to clean. It’s great that it’ll help me spot gross problems like “The left half of the puck starts flowing before the right half” or whatever, but really that doesn’t happen much at all with my regular prep routine so it’s just a way to avoid having to scrub coffee residue out the bottom/spouts of a “normal” portafilter.
Thanks for posting this. Fairly new to brewing (about a year). Bottomless was very important in the beginning. Helped me learn. Have recently switched back to spouted for better temperature management of the portafilter. Now I’m only using the naked when I use larger cups
i like the way the coffee looks coming out of bottomless. Nice to know that i don’t need to fret too much though about small deviations and just enjoy it.
Studying fluid mechanics, the more viscous the fluid the more likely it will form that "good looking" cone shape. However as you said this has almost nothing to do with taste basically. And as someone once said, food is meant to taste good, not look good. Great video!
How about trying to pull a shot directly into a glass of water/oil and filming it? That should show the liquid into liquid flow without the viscosity /surface tension effect. If you then see different rates of fluid flow across that should be a sign of channeling.
Love the added nuance Lance! I've pulled 15 bar 90 second slow dripping shots and super fast flow 9 bar 45 second shots that taste amazing. I go based on many things for timing and preinfusion, including the flow and smell of the extraction throughout. It's amazing how many little things you can use and adjust to help pull sometimes surprisingly good shots.
I really appreciate this video, thank you! I'm new to the world of espresso and I switched to a naked portafilter early on. I felt like I was getting further and further away from what I truly found tasty benchmarking it against the optics. I would always tweak my grind size, etc. based purely on how the stream looked or how messy it would get. It also didn't help that I prefer lighter roasted coffees. 2 weeks ago, I got frustrated and went back to spouted one. Since then, I've been able to focus purely on taste (and to some extent time) while being less concerned with how it looked or the mess it created and I've rediscovered tasty extractions! Agreed though, naked portafilters are great to see what's going on when you understand the dynamics of what is actually happening. Otherwise, it's easy to pay attention to the wrong indicators! Cheers.
I'm glad someone made a video like this. Because my shots can be a little inconsistent sometimes even if I use the same bean, same grind setting and same everything (I think)… to counter some of that I also look at the color that comes out of the basket. That was initially the reason why I wanted to get a naked portafilter, to see more of what actually happens. Thanks to your video I can tell much easier that it's not an definitive solution to all espresso-problems :)
I feel like your comments about "the perfect shot" at the beginning were validating what I have been experiencing. I still watch my shots in my flair 58 with a mirror, it is just one extra data point for me. Ultimately I allow the taste to tell me how I did.
Thanks for this. Idea and the clarification. I’ll best myself up sometimes (not literally of course….lol) when my shots don’t look perfect coming out of my naked, bottomless portafilter
I'm still a beginner in the espresso game, but I have studied chemistry and I always see on forums that people never really learned what homogeneous means, with so many parameters and things you cannot control on the micro level its just impossible!
Lance, enjoyed the article! I first got a similar thought when seeing videos of Weber's portafilter a while back. those shots were in theory ugly too! fluid dynamics are complicated !
The Temple of doom didn't have the goblet. That was the last crusade! If you can't get your Indiana Jones movies right then I'm going to keep using my naked portafilter lol
I'm retired now always loved good coffee. Bought a cheap coffee espresso combo and down the rabbit hole I went.i now have a humble gaggia classic pro and a ranchilio Rocky grinder. I'm old keep it simple stupid going on here lol. I'm glad I watched your video I've had my little set up a year now. I've been driving myself nuts with exactly what you were discussing. Some of my best tasting shots ran over or quicker some sports but a good tasting shots. Great video.
The best YouiTube video I saw on the subject of uniform extraction was from an Australian cafe. For them, side channeling was a major issue arising from poor puck preparation. For me, I have had non uniform extraction when not applying sufficient pressure at the start, and this results in the top part of the puck extracting more than the bottom part. Also, I find backing off the pressure once the puck is saturated throughout (which I can see from the coffee exiting the portafilter) allows the coffee to bloom and absorb water. Finishing the shot with a higher pressure squeezes the puck, giving more extraction. I dislike taste of the solubles that come late in an extraction (thanks, Lance for the cucumber experiment) so I do not extend an extraction beyond 30 seconds. My pucks come out of the portafilter whole with no cracks or holes and of a uniform color throughout. If I could not pressure surf because of the machine, I would go for little to no pre-infusion and a straight 9 bar extraction. I find shaking better than WDT for puck prep. Hope all this helps.
This video absolutely Rocks 😂 love your content and love that you cut thrue all the bull shit. There is only 2x coffee channels with top content and that is you and big daddy Hoffman. Keep up the great work 🤘😎
Thank you! I'd like you to expand on this in a new video if possible and keep repeating it whenever you can. People, especially on Reddit, have been conditioned to dial their shots not only by optics, but by precise numbers as well. Instead they need to understand that shots have to be dialed in by taste only! Also, I believe naked portafilters are great as a learning tool until you get your process down right, however I prefer spouted ones because of their slightly better thermal stability and versatility.
Hopefully this helps some power through their issues pulling shots! Don't sweat the sprays (sometimes). Aim for taste. Be consistent. Don't be dismayed if there is a mess.
And DON'T interpret this as naked=bad. I use them daily. Spouted are harder to clean. I just want to debunk the constant misinformation surrounding optics the basket gives.
Hit the like and subscribe to support! Thanks all
The taste matters more than the look of the extraction
Thanks for pointing out the cleaning issues with spouted portafilters! This is why the cafe I used to work for ditched 'em two decades ago.
Another gem Lance. Thank you for taking all the time you do to make these.
Thanks for this - so much! I love love love the flavor I get out of the naked - and I was thinking I always had to give up and switch to spouted once my beans had been in the hopper for a few days. I appreciate the debunking.(Random side note - on the day last week I sadly switched back to spouted bc of spray I was telling my hb over morning espresso that I wished that there was a place to learn more with less boy ego and he told me about you. Perfect timing. I will look forward to more of your bad boy wisdom now that i'm signed up.
My favourite thing about bottomless portafilters is how much easier they are to clean and dry.
Absolutely. Lots of pros. I use them daily. This is more of a psa.
This is the most important thing. Clean vs dirty equipment has much more influence than some of the other marginal gains.
I like naked portafilters because it makes it easier for me to put in a blanking disc for backflushing.
but they mess up your espresso machine so it's meh...
@@petervansan1054clean it
they also take like 1/5 of the time to heat up.. if only they wouldnt make so much mess all around :D
Man these past few videos have really been tearing down alot of the supposed truths in espresso extraction lately. Im digging it
I was a barista in college and have continued that sickness into adulthood at home. 99.99% of at home espresso enthusiasts get so far out into the weeds about stuff that absolutely doesn’t matter.
Shot taste good? It is good.
Don’t miss the forest for the trees.
I feel like you've really dialed in your content on this one.
Love the format, information shared, and anti-pretentious delivery!
Thanks for breaking me away from my need for perfection. If it tastes good, then it is good. As a detail obsessed person, it’s been incredibly freeing breaking the “rules” and following the taste.
You are speaking out my thoughts!
Same here ... Starting making espresso at home taught me a life lesson of "you don't have to be perfect, you just need to be nice" ...@@assai74
I really like what you said. If it tastes good, it's a good shot.
The goblet was in the Last Crusade.
“You chose… wisely”
But the portafilter cannot pass beyond the great seal.
Can’t watch Lance anymore
Nooooooooo
@@LanceHedrickNow you have to take this down and make an apology video
You drink the bad espresso, you not wake up from nightmare
THANK YOU for this video. I had managed to keep my shots looking like a bad slasher movie, but was still getting teeny little sprays. That's when I realized that people generally DON'T show real-time shots, and I started to wonder how normal these little sprays actually were. Now I know!
I hardly ever have shooters . . .
. . . because I use very freshly roasted coffee with lots of CO2. 😁
Lance, I’ve been following you for a long time, and let me tell you, your presentation style has improved so much! It’s incredible, you’re a machine man!
I'm so glad you made this video. I get sprays fairly frequently, and it always made me worry I was grinding or prepping wrong
bottomless portafilter is just a beauty to look at. it makes the extraction phase THE moment to just watch and makes u feel good when all stars are aligned. you dont post reels when you're grinding or shaking the black thingy like mad lad, you always post the moment when the beautiful brown thing flows out from the bottomless portafilter.
Probably my favorite video yet in terms of your alternating talk/b-roll+music intro.
The end was also great. I feel inspired 😂
Lance I have to say that although I have been watching you for quite some time ... I really truly appreciate every time you cut through the BS to help us coffee aficionados better enjoy our craft without getting caught up on "trends" and misinformation! Thank you for all you do for us especially when this is not your "real job." :-))))))
This was your best video yet. The clarity, confidence, style, cinematography, and writing were awesome. And thank you for helping us sort out what matters from what doesn’t! It helps reduce anxiety in our optimizer brains.
Thank you Lance, there’s so much nuance in everything we do and we do have a tendency to simplify and lose the very important details! Just got one and I was wondering if I’m doing something wrong as it didn’t look “good”. The shot was absolutely delicious and now I am well educated on the subject too! Thank you!
Thank god Lance touched on this. Thanks to some of the TikTok espresso pulling vids, it seems like anyone can pretend to be an expert in judging my espresso making techniques. Especially after knowing how much my equipment cost. Not that I care that much , but it's an ordeal to start explaining to them, and most of the time I had to either laugh it off, or tell them to go enjoy their Nespresso.
Thank you for making so much sense. I bought and used a naked portafilter for a while, but I eventually stopped using it. I was tired of chasing every last particle of coffee trapped in the mesh that caused squirts and sprays every other shot. I'm back to my trusty spouted portafilter. It's cleaner, and my coffee tastes exactly the same. As you said : the most important thing is the way you make your coffee, not the way it looks when you're bent under your machine to see every droplet going through the portafilter.
I just bought Pesado HE & Weber Unibasket. You are wright Lance, it is almost impossible to get "the classic shot" with those straight edge baskets. But thanks to your recent eye opening videos concerning extracion level outcome vs distribution methods, I don't worry anymore. Lance you had lots of courage to go upstream in you last videos and rock the coffee world.😊
How's the Pesado and Weber baskets compare?
@@BensCoffeeRants
It is to soon for me to compare each others wright now since I got them recently, but they both are fabulous quality.
You also have to grind much finer. I also get quite confused by these baskets
@derhof Yeah that's true, it's hard to compare baskets because of that, but hopefully flow rate or grind size required is close to each-other. Feel free to report back later after you get the hang of both of them!
I’m so grateful for this video! I’m currently taking a break from espresso because it’s been a disheartening and steep learning curve. It’s good to hear you voice a little bit of my frustration. I can pull beautiful shots but it tastes horrible.
Good on you for taking a break. It can be a truly discouraging hobby at first (I think James Hoffmann used the phrase " a maddeningly frustrating hobby at the beginning"). I'm only in my first 4 or 5 months, and I've really had to stop comparing my stuff to social media perfection. Find what you like to drink, do the best you can, and don't reach for the ideal. Enjoy the process and someday you'll be pulling consistently good shots!
What really rocks is appeal to science. Thank you so much.
Lance, your channel has matured so much. You are absolutely my trusted source for coffee knowledge on TH-cam. You have far exceeded what anyone else on this platform is doing to help people make better coffee. Thank you.
This!
Lance, thanks so much for making this video. Many of my pulls look like exactly like the shot at 16:02, and even though they taste great, and even though I’ve always subscribed to the “if it tastes good don’t worry about it” mentality, I always second guessed if I was missing something, and if my tastes were just off. Now I have no more doubts and I will love my ugly tasty lightly roasted espresso that much more!
The poor choice was not in Temple of Doom, it was in the The Last Crusade. Just figured I'd point that out :)
Every now and then after I wached your videos I worry less about making coffe and enjoying more the taste of it. This vid is one of them. Thank you!❤
I use a naked portafilter for two reasons - 1. It's easier to clean after extraction and 2. It's easier to tamp on a level surface....
Not the Lance we deserve, but the Lance we need.
I'm glad you made this video because I kept thinking that my espresso is bad because it never looked like it does in people's shorts.
Lance casually destroying what we all thought about naked portafilers. Couldn’t be happier to now know my ugly shot really isn’t that bad.
To be fair, this is only news if all your coffee knowledge is coming from surface level instagram, YT and reddit exposure.
Wouuuhaaaaaaa, what a build up, with the music and everything, what an inspirational speech. You just did the "I have a dream" of the coffee geeks !! Love you mate!
Lance- that background inspiring movie soundtrack music was really making me chuckle! Nice one. Keep on keepin’ on.
Loved the crowd motivation to not been lied to :-)
It kept my acquisition syndrome at bay for naked liers
Smash my like on "Trust Your Taste". I can feel your passion for making coffee and the background music almost tears my eyes. Then, the next second, you crack me up with a joke. LOL
Thank you so much Lance! I was really obsessed with trying to get that perfect, viscous, photographic pull with light roasted coffee and my Flair 58 and this video opened my eyes about the reality of coffee.
I've been pulling a lot of turbo shots lately and my little 3ft toddler always comments that it looks scary/angry unlike my "pretty shots" i used to pull
😂
Thanks Lance for your contribution to this community. I have gone from knowing nothing more than Nespresso, to going all in into the coffee world in 1 year. Got myself a neat home setup learning new things, and starting a small coffee cart business in the next few months.
Absolutely great!!!! Blew my mind!!! It put into words what I had been observing for some time. Without a doubt, you are one of the best producers of videos about all things coffee on TH-cam. congratulations!
It's not about the end brew, it's about the channels we make along the way. I mean friends and arguments... no, I mean information and trolling... no, I mean...
Brilliant.
Thanks for fighting against unrealistic beauty standards for espresso.
I was feeling for a while like something was wrong with my ugly shots. I found using a tapered stock basket was easier to get nicer looking results than a VST type basket with a larger flatter bottom. I think it did correlate with a higher success rate though on the stock basket but potential was higher on the VST. The stock basket seemed like it flowed more even but had less flavour clarity and intensity which works well for some coffees actually. I was expecting the Weber high extracting basket to be even less forgiving but was surprised it seems more forgiving or I've Just been having better luck lately with my espresso. With those baskets they never really look good. I think we do have them to thank for getting more people to realize that the looks don't necessarily matter that much.
Lance with the last 5 videos, you really made everything really came together with releasing the test data with puck screen, paper filters, blind shaker baskets, the wdt, and feeding the hopper slow feeding I was always over extracting the espresso. Now I changed up my route to put it all together and am now always getting predictable tds and extraction percentage.
I am using the Weber Unifier Portafilter, blind shaker, paper filter, and screen puck and slow feeding my Ceado grinder all in the correct amount now. I'm using September coffee Ethiopia wash light beans.
Now, I can tell immediately if it is going to be great shot, just by if it's doing the donut shape appears, after that i don't care I just watch for my time and weights. 3 seconds preinfusion and then about 12 to 15 second shot pulls after preinfusion, and now it taste amazing to me!
Now, with 3 seconds of preinfusion and then about 12 second shot pulls, I'm reaching a TDS of about 10.60% and total extraction percentage of 20.99% with repeatedly every time now!
Here is a badly short short video slowing it being pulled. This is no lance quality video.
th-cam.com/users/shortsyf1SUcqx7pQ?si=0f0m5uBO4D9R-p2l
These videos focused on the principles of extraction are great! TH-cam and especially the expresso community need more of this and less discussions about equipment and new gadgets
Yo Lance, you lookin fresh my dude. Keep it up!
"I'm coming for you"
~Lance, 2024
😂
Love this video. I noticed all the tools and process helped me when I was clueless and learning though. Visual cues and feedback helped me get a better sense of what a good range was. Then after going through different coffees and continuing to see that visual feedback along with developing my palate helped me realize it’s just a sign and not a deterministic factor. I’ll still recommend bottomless for a whole host of reasons including easier cleanup, not having to worry about soaking portafilters, and generally as a learning tool. But thank you as always for putting the immense amount of work into studying and presenting information like this to help the whole coffee community understand this world of coffee more deeply and exhaustively.
The beauty standard only started during Soc Med boom only. Most of us dont even know how espresso look likes during extraction
Sheeeesh
why the heck are you the only one who can always flip upside down our coffee knowlage :) hahah... informatif and entertaining ! very good !
Wow, this was spot on. Greatly appreaciate the "rawness" of this video, Lance.
I have to say if there was a singular influence that has changed the way I think about espresso (and that's not to say I don't look to others to validate/verify my thoughts on espresso making) it's thia channel. I always look forward to your videos, Lance because they genuinely have very data driven feel and when they don't (say simply because the data isn't there yet) it is very transparent and I very much appreciate that. I do very fall under the category of coffee enthusiast but you've helped me appreciate all the levels at which others are involved in the coffee communities, from baristas, to farmers, to coffee scientist (or I guess you can just call them scientist😂). I've really learned a lot here and I wish you all the love and support Lance because you have a great thing here that I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling!
I, too, was once under the impression that the ideal espresso looked like those videos, but one fateful morning rocked my entire world. I did the whole routine as usual, but somehow, during the shot, my whole setup was beamed with hot coffee almost breaking my now 4-year-old 10 dollar 0.1g digital kitchen scale. I reluctantly sipped the resulting disaster and to my surprise it was one of the best sips of coffee I've ever had, it was as if the flavor was bursting out of that cheap stainless steel basket. Thanks for putting this video out.
i just love the coffee bubble we all live in, thank you lance for bringing down the "snoppy" bullshit talks of so many people and let us enjoy our coffee!
Fantastic episode Lance. Really appreciate you going for the real prize of great tasting coffee via solid scientific substance and better knowledge performance over hype, habit and popular misinformation. Good on you! Listening and learning from you and your guests has saved me hundreds of dollars as I pursue an improved home coffee brewing experience. Much appreciated.
New to the home espresso making world & definitely needed this video. Thanks Lance!
This is great, I've been getting amazing slayer shots with my dimmer, above 2 minutes sometimes but they can get a bit weird looking towards the end and the stream does often take a long time to form in the center, often get 2-3 seperate ones. So I'll just ignore most of that. BTW the biggest advantage of nudist portafilters is cup clearance!! Especially on the little single boilers us peasants have, that are often too cheap to own more than 3 or 4 espresso cups. So it's nice to be able to fit a regular big mug for the morning Americano, I don't like serving them in cappucino cups, I always spill a little. Tall cup is easier to transfer from extraction equipment to consumers.
HOW did you get your surface vernacular to such a level?! It's so refined, and still cool. Always a pleasure to learn from you, man.
We need a full version of that song
Love my naked portafilter simply for the fact that it leaves enough space to put a latte mug below it on my gaggia cc. Hate to have to pull into something else first if someone wants a bigger milk drink.
In the beginning it helped to find some other flaws as well like too fine shower screen...
Great video! Here here Lance!
I've had beautiful looking naked shots that taste rubbish and hugely messy shots that taste great.
There's definitely a bit of mystery with the naked portafilter, sometimes you'll do 4-5 shots of the exact same coffee/grind and all of a sudden on that next shot there's a mess, no difference in the puck prep - in the words of Bono "She moves in mysterious ways".
@lancehedrick just de-shamed uneven-looking espresso shots! You rock, dude. Keep up the great vids.
My favorite part of this video was the epic theatrical music during the end of Lance's summary 📽️🎶🎵🎶
Always learning great things from you. Since I’m an eager beginner with espresso. I’ve been trying several different roasts however have gravitated to medium Brazilian, nutty sweet style coffee’s. I’ve tried several and have put the time into dialing in grind, shot times and finally I’m noticing the taste improvements I should be experiencing. Now I’m chasing the viscous perfect looking shot with nice crema…so this vid is helping to demystify things for me. Thanks!
Very valuable video. In fact I now totally trust my coffee, grind and tamp abilities without worrying about the sprays. Thanks to you!!! Just one thing… choosing wisely was The Last Crusade.
I pulled the splitter off the bottom of my stock sage portafilter for more cup clearance. I get the satisfaction of seeing the single stream of espresso fall straight through the hole in the bottom plus it catches all of the sprays or splashes!
How is it that everyone isn’t praising your take on the Frozen song!?! 10/10, no notes 😅 Thanks so much Lance. I’ve been wallowing in self doubt since getting my Profitec and Timemore grinder combo as an upgrade to my old combo Breville. I was fighting jets and all the demons you described. Now I feel like I can relax about so many of these things after your explanations. I’ve always respected your clear, objective videos as someone who has a passion for the data and science, but not enough time to become my own expert! Thanks again, Lance. You are the man!
I love your work and you’re constantly thinking outside the box. Great stuff!
This was so helpful! I've got the IMS nanotech basket and it's been driving me mad about seeing bald areas. I kept assuming channelling based on appearances. This has really helped put things into perspective given this rising trend of TH-cam shorts of sexy looking extractions, when perhaps it is more of a viscosity issue from the CO2
Same. I knew that you can't judge only on optics, but it still didn't look right to me. The bald spots look very scary but the shots taste great.
I love the epic "call to action" music at the end. Made me laugh. Thanks as always, Lance!
This video definitely helps people with OCD! Thump upssss.
Really didn't expect the Frozen impression, but man did that put a smile on my face :)))
Yet again Lance helps us and lights the "nice" path for espresso nerds!
P.S. so glad that naked portafilter doesn't matter, because it was one of the few things that I considered for some time, but didn't think it was so important.
Now I have Frozen stuck in my head. Thanks Lance!
Learning so much from you Lance!!! Love all of this. Speak the truth brother!!!
Best video of pulling espresso shots out there
Wow every single person making espresso needs to watch this!!!
when I started making espresso, I was so confused why I couldn't make my light roast coffee shots look good. They would often spray and pull too quickly. but I enjoyed the taste anyway. Im glad im not the only one.
I’ll be honest: 99% of the reason I use a naked portafilter is because it’s easier to clean.
It’s great that it’ll help me spot gross problems like “The left half of the puck starts flowing before the right half” or whatever, but really that doesn’t happen much at all with my regular prep routine so it’s just a way to avoid having to scrub coffee residue out the bottom/spouts of a “normal” portafilter.
It’s actually an optical illusion, it’s the pattern on the tamps
Good video. At the end of the day it all comes down to what YOU enjoy drinking.
Thanks for posting this. Fairly new to brewing (about a year). Bottomless was very important in the beginning. Helped me learn. Have recently switched back to spouted for better temperature management of the portafilter. Now I’m only using the naked when I use larger cups
That’s what I was thinking ,better thermal stability
i like the way the coffee looks coming out of bottomless. Nice to know that i don’t need to fret too much though about small deviations and just enjoy it.
Studying fluid mechanics, the more viscous the fluid the more likely it will form that "good looking" cone shape. However as you said this has almost nothing to do with taste basically. And as someone once said, food is meant to taste good, not look good. Great video!
How about trying to pull a shot directly into a glass of water/oil and filming it? That should show the liquid into liquid flow without the viscosity /surface tension effect. If you then see different rates of fluid flow across that should be a sign of channeling.
Love the added nuance Lance! I've pulled 15 bar 90 second slow dripping shots and super fast flow 9 bar 45 second shots that taste amazing. I go based on many things for timing and preinfusion, including the flow and smell of the extraction throughout. It's amazing how many little things you can use and adjust to help pull sometimes surprisingly good shots.
Awesome video Lance! Love your style and straight talk.
I really appreciate this video, thank you! I'm new to the world of espresso and I switched to a naked portafilter early on. I felt like I was getting further and further away from what I truly found tasty benchmarking it against the optics. I would always tweak my grind size, etc. based purely on how the stream looked or how messy it would get. It also didn't help that I prefer lighter roasted coffees. 2 weeks ago, I got frustrated and went back to spouted one. Since then, I've been able to focus purely on taste (and to some extent time) while being less concerned with how it looked or the mess it created and I've rediscovered tasty extractions! Agreed though, naked portafilters are great to see what's going on when you understand the dynamics of what is actually happening. Otherwise, it's easy to pay attention to the wrong indicators! Cheers.
I'm glad someone made a video like this. Because my shots can be a little inconsistent sometimes even if I use the same bean, same grind setting and same everything (I think)… to counter some of that I also look at the color that comes out of the basket. That was initially the reason why I wanted to get a naked portafilter, to see more of what actually happens.
Thanks to your video I can tell much easier that it's not an definitive solution to all espresso-problems :)
One advantage of these naked portafilters is that they are so much easier to clean on the go than one with spouts
Oh absolutely! I still use and love mine.
I feel like your comments about "the perfect shot" at the beginning were validating what I have been experiencing. I still watch my shots in my flair 58 with a mirror, it is just one extra data point for me. Ultimately I allow the taste to tell me how I did.
Thanks for this. Idea and the clarification. I’ll best myself up sometimes (not literally of course….lol) when my shots don’t look perfect coming out of my naked, bottomless portafilter
Great information! Your education you provide to the espresso community has been invaluable
I just like how they let you see the coffee being extracted. I think it looks really nice
I'm so happy to watch this! Amazing content!!
I'm still a beginner in the espresso game, but I have studied chemistry and I always see on forums that people never really learned what homogeneous means, with so many parameters and things you cannot control on the micro level its just impossible!
Lol..my naked portafilter just arrived today. Perfect timing!
If anything, I just want a portafilter that's easier to clean.
Naked portafilter “exposed” 😂
Lance, enjoyed the article! I first got a similar thought when seeing videos of Weber's portafilter a while back. those shots were in theory ugly too! fluid dynamics are complicated !
I hit the like button immediately after you started singing. 😃 Love your work. 🙂
My favorite thing about naked portafilters is the extra clearance you get with them. The Solis Barista Perfetta needs all the help it can get there.
The Temple of doom didn't have the goblet. That was the last crusade! If you can't get your Indiana Jones movies right then I'm going to keep using my naked portafilter lol
Ughhhhhhhh I knew it. After I watched the edit.
I'm retired now always loved good coffee. Bought a cheap coffee espresso combo and down the rabbit hole I went.i now have a humble gaggia classic pro and a ranchilio Rocky grinder. I'm old keep it simple stupid going on here lol. I'm glad I watched your video I've had my little set up a year now. I've been driving myself nuts with exactly what you were discussing. Some of my best tasting shots ran over or quicker some sports but a good tasting shots. Great video.
The best YouiTube video I saw on the subject of uniform extraction was from an Australian cafe. For them, side channeling was a major issue arising from poor puck preparation. For me, I have had non uniform extraction when not applying sufficient pressure at the start, and this results in the top part of the puck extracting more than the bottom part. Also, I find backing off the pressure once the puck is saturated throughout (which I can see from the coffee exiting the portafilter) allows the coffee to bloom and absorb water. Finishing the shot with a higher pressure squeezes the puck, giving more extraction. I dislike taste of the solubles that come late in an extraction (thanks, Lance for the cucumber experiment) so I do not extend an extraction beyond 30 seconds. My pucks come out of the portafilter whole with no cracks or holes and of a uniform color throughout. If I could not pressure surf because of the machine, I would go for little to no pre-infusion and a straight 9 bar extraction. I find shaking better than WDT for puck prep. Hope all this helps.
This video absolutely Rocks 😂 love your content and love that you cut thrue all the bull shit. There is only 2x coffee channels with top content and that is you and big daddy Hoffman. Keep up the great work 🤘😎
Love this channel cause I enjoy coffee and it’s lance is informative and fun
Thank you! I'd like you to expand on this in a new video if possible and keep repeating it whenever you can. People, especially on Reddit, have been conditioned to dial their shots not only by optics, but by precise numbers as well. Instead they need to understand that shots have to be dialed in by taste only! Also, I believe naked portafilters are great as a learning tool until you get your process down right, however I prefer spouted ones because of their slightly better thermal stability and versatility.