ECM 58mm Stainless Steel Bottomless Portafilter, Stainless Steel #89476
The ECM Bottomless Portafilter has no spout which allows you to monitor your shot’s quality while it extracts. The bottomless design allows you to look for channeling and see that you get a smooth and consistent single stream – the best way to pull a shot!
Ideally, every particle of the ground espresso should be of the same size, and when compressed or tamped into the portafilter basket, it should likewise have no differences in how tightly or loosely it is compressed from side to side or top to bottom. Although perfection in this regard is impossible, a Bottomless Portafilter can help identify things such as channeling, blonding, tiger striping, among other things.
- Channeling is when the water finds its way through cracks or small inconsistencies in the coffee “puck”. This means that the coffee gets an uneven extraction, producing an inferior shot of espresso. Common causes are an uneven tamp, or too much coffee (referred to as overdosing).
- Blonding in the shot can happen when the coffee is being under extracted, causing an off-taste. Although this is expected near the last part of the shot (and a cue to think about ending the shot), blonding should not occur during the majority of the shot.
- Tiger Stripes that are uniform are usually a good sign, as long as most of the stripes are medium to dark in colour and the pour time is not too quick or slow; most agree a 2 ounce double should run about 22-30 seconds. Always let taste be your ultimate authority.
- Also having multiple smaller streams coming straight down instead of one unified stream can also be a sign of channeling. And assuming your machine is perfectly level, even a unified stream that is off to one side can indicate side-channeling. A perfect extraction will not exhibit any of this behavior. And of course, the perfect looking shot can tell the Barista that his technique is probably fine. Of course, we all know no matter how good the shot looks, it still has to taste good.
