Coffee baskets?

[mattyb240]

Hope I'm using the right terminology? After unblocking my hand me down coffee machine, I've discovered the basket only has one tiny hole for the coffee to pass through. Is this normal? I'm not at the stage where I have my own grinder, so a lot of the coffee I buy is quite fine which is why I assume its getting blocked, and not draining the remaining liquid through.

Can I change the basket for anything else? It's an elevation coffee machine if that makes any odds but I believe it was super cheap when it was originally bought.

 

[Lose the beard]

The baskets that came with my Gaggia Classic only had one small hole in them, they were designed to be used with Easy coffee pods. I have replaced them with ones that have lots of holes on them, like a very fine colander, which seem to be what you are meant to use for ground coffee.

The coffee you are buying will not be as fine as it would be if you were grinding it yourself.

I bought my replacement baskets from here http://www.happydonkey.co.uk/filter-baskets.html not sure if any of them will fit your machine though.

 

[shrink]

yeah the one with a single hole is a "pressurised" basket. its designed to compensate for crap coffee or poor grind by creating a constant pressure behind, forcing it through a single point and then aerating it to generate better crema etc. It makes these low end machines tolerant of the pre-ground they will likely be used with.

If you're using pre-ground.. stick with it, you absolutely wont get pre-ground to work properly with a standard basket.

if you have a grinder and its capable of doing proper esspresso grind (most sub £200 grinders can't) then get a normal unpressurised basket. If its just a cheap grinder, then see above