A quick shot comparison using different baskets

I have written a few posts about the different espresso baskets that I have gotten to use with my espresso machine. While I can go on and on about talking about the differences these baskets can and cannot cause I thought that seeing is believing. I took some video of two shots that I pulled using two different baskets. The first is using the 14 g HQ Ridgeless basket, and the second one is using the VST 15 g basket. Please turn down the volume on your computer before watching these I do not have a video editor so all you will hear is a very loud vibe pump!

Honestly, neither shot is probably the great of a shot as it was the first two pulls in the morning and the HQ basket shot probably needed to be tightened up a little bit so as to get a better pull. However, putting that aside the fact that it ran a little quicker it's still fairly obvious that the VST basket ran much faster going over two ounces in about 20 seconds where as the HQ judging by the results in the cup maybe just hit 2 ounces in a longer amount of time.

I think we can gather from the above since the VST basket is going to make you grind finer than with other baskets you are probably going to get a lot more of the 'flavors' of the coffee out that are not as soluble as the sweet notes in coffee, chocolate and carmel. This would explain why I got more fruit notes in the Espresso Nuevo than with the other basket as I said in a previous post. Whether or not this is good or bad, I do not know, it's just another item to add to an espresso gear armory really.

If anyone is still interested in these baskets I would suggest taking a loot at this discussion here and here, as most of these people have pratically commercial setups and are probably able to easily detect changes these baskets provide.