Big thanks to Chas as he hooked me up with one of the original triple baskets when I bought his Scace. For some dumb reason I never had a real scale so I simply filled the triple, stirred (not shaken) and then leveled it off. I was happy whatever that turned out to be.
It turned out to be exactly 21grams now that I have a good scale. In the mean time I'd heard so much about triples and even over dosing to 23-25g that I thought I'd try to make a "true triple" since I thought mine might be short. I had several doubles and a single so why not right? I'm lucky in that I have a full machine shop at my disposal but cutting these guys perfect was a bear since .5mm stainless doesn't part well on the lathe. I had huge respect for Lino once I started to try welding them - it's near impossible.
Eventually I found a laser welder who was willing to take it on provided I sent him perfectly prepped parts. The result was a larger than triple basket perfectly made. Here's some photos of the process.
Cutting the basket apart:
Here's parts cut but not prepped or dressed:
Here's the Super Triple (36mm), a Normal Triple (32.4mm), and a Double (27.4mm):
Since my triple is much larger I needed to cut a second bottomless portafilter that would accommodate it:
And here's the two triples together:
So here's what I've learned:
The 53mm portafilter has a hard time with anything larger than 21g. I'm still experimenting but if I put 24g in the big one it needs a lot of preinfusion and the tamp has to be right on 30lbs and the grind has to be perfect. If all that is on you get a really sweet ristretto and if not it's easy to back up the machine. It sorta made me sad since I now want a Speedster, GS/3 or GS/1.
In the end I found you can ever so slightly overdose the normal triple but 21g is where it's at. I get a pretty sweet 1.5oz from that. I'll keep playing with the big one though just for fun but I'm pretty confident that the normal triple is the right size if you like ristrettos.
John has found that you can buy Dalle Corte triples that seem like a pretty near perfect fit but they took a month to return my email and no one has them to order so I never got to try that option although it seems like a good one.
So the point of this poll is both to add to the pot of information here and to gauge if anyone would want me to make some more. It's a pain and it takes quite a bit of time and it's certainly not my day job so I'd only do it if there were at least 10 people and then maybe I'd make 20 just in case. If 800 people wanted them I'd finally get a Speedster but my guess that's not going to happen.
I might regret it but I think I can make them happen for the original $50. I could do the larger ones but it would be more since you have to do a fair bit more machining on the portafilter and frankly I don't know that it's worth it. Maybe I should send mine around to let people try it.
Anyway, I know a couple of folks have expressed interest and I thought I'd offer up a thread to see what folks thought.
Gregor
waiting................
woah. Nice and clear red fruits taste (the right flavor of this coffee) with a BIG gloopy mouthfeel which frankly makes me think if should I call this beverage Italian Espresso... American Espresso probably fits best.
