So my special guest is the 2008 Italian Cup Tasting Champion, Sauro Dall’Aglio. Born and raised in Italy, he now lives in Seattle and is the designer of the Barista Pro Filter Baskets, and an Executive Coffee Specialist with the LF Group. The BaristaPro baskets are LF Products that are made by IMS in Italy.
Sauro designed BaristaPro Baskets to produce an espresso with more flavor and roundness. He changed the hole dimension to reduce back pressure, the layout of holes for more even extraction with less channeling, and added a nanoquartz technology treatment for a cleaner basket.
A quick tip: you can identify baskets that were made in Asia by their circular grinding pattern. There’s none of that in the BaristaPro Baskets.
Now BaristaPro baskets are one easy upgrade. A second upgrade is the IMS Nanotech E61 Shower Screen. Like the nanotech treated baskets, it’s a lot cleaner than stock shower screens and it distributes brew water evenly to the surface of the coffee.
Our third upgrade are Caffewerk's Group Gaskets. These silicone gaskets are more flexible than stock group gaskets, allowing you to always lock your portafilter into the group at a six o’clock position for proper spacing between the coffee in the portafilter and the shower screen.
Most everyone is pulling double shots. Why? Singles are very challenging to do well. So let’s start with Sauro pulling a really nice naked single shot, after that he’ll tells us what makes his BaristaPro Baskets better, then we’ll talk shower screens and the IMS Nanotech shower screen for E61 groups.
So baskets, gaskets and shower screens. Three easy upgrades for better espresso. You know I get asked about pulling singles all the time and my typical advice is just do the doubles. But after seeing Sauro’s BaristaPro single baskets in action I’m changing my advice to: If you’ve got a BaristaPro basket, go for it.