NAKED PORTAFILTERS ARE LIARS...sometimes 

Hopefully this helps some power through their issues pulling shots! Don't sweat the sprays (sometimes). Aim for taste. Be consistent. Don't be dismayed if there is a mess. And DON'T interpret this as naked=bad. I use them daily. Spouted are harder to clean. I just want to debunk the constant misinformation surrounding optics the basket gives. Hit the like and subscribe to support! Thanks all

My favourite thing about bottomless portafilters is how much easier they are to clean and dry.

Man these past few videos have really been tearing down alot of the supposed truths in espresso extraction lately. Im digging it

I feel like you've really dialed in your content on this one. Love the format, information shared, and anti-pretentious delivery!

THANK YOU for this video. I had managed to keep my shots looking like a bad slasher movie, but was still getting teeny little sprays. That's when I realized that people generally DON'T show real-time shots, and I started to wonder how normal these little sprays actually were. Now I know!

Thanks for breaking me away from my need for perfection. If it tastes good, then it is good. As a detail obsessed person, it’s been incredibly freeing breaking the “rules” and following the taste.

I'm so glad you made this video. I get sprays fairly frequently, and it always made me worry I was grinding or prepping wrong

Lance, I’ve been following you for a long time, and let me tell you, your presentation style has improved so much! It’s incredible, you’re a machine man!

Probably my favorite video yet in terms of your alternating talk/b-roll+music intro. The end was also great. I feel inspired 😂

The goblet was in the Last Crusade.

Absolutely great!!!! Blew my mind!!! It put into words what I had been observing for some time. Without a doubt, you are one of the best producers of videos about all things coffee on RU-vid. congratulations!

I love your work and you’re constantly thinking outside the box. Great stuff!

Thank you so much Lance! I was really obsessed with trying to get that perfect, viscous, photographic pull with light roasted coffee and my Flair 58 and this video opened my eyes about the reality of coffee.

I'm so happy to watch this! Amazing content!!

Awesome video Lance! Love your style and straight talk.

Wow, this was spot on. Greatly appreaciate the "rawness" of this video, Lance.

Thanks Lance for your contribution to this community. I have gone from knowing nothing more than Nespresso, to going all in into the coffee world in 1 year. Got myself a neat home setup learning new things, and starting a small coffee cart business in the next few months.

Naked portafilter “exposed” 😂

Great information! Your education you provide to the espresso community has been invaluable

Fantastic episode Lance. Really appreciate you going for the real prize of great tasting coffee via solid scientific substance and better knowledge performance over hype, habit and popular misinformation. Good on you! Listening and learning from you and your guests has saved me hundreds of dollars as I pursue an improved home coffee brewing experience. Much appreciated.

Love this channel cause I enjoy coffee and it’s lance is informative and fun

A lot of information summed up here and explained very well!! Great video!

Thank you for making so much sense. I bought and used a naked portafilter for a while, but I eventually stopped using it. I was tired of chasing every last particle of coffee trapped in the mesh that caused squirts and sprays every other shot. I'm back to my trusty spouted portafilter. It's cleaner, and my coffee tastes exactly the same. As you said : the most important thing is the way you make your coffee, not the way it looks when you're bent under your machine to see every droplet going through the portafilter.

Love this video. I noticed all the tools and process helped me when I was clueless and learning though. Visual cues and feedback helped me get a better sense of what a good range was. Then after going through different coffees and continuing to see that visual feedback along with developing my palate helped me realize it’s just a sign and not a deterministic factor. I’ll still recommend bottomless for a whole host of reasons including easier cleanup, not having to worry about soaking portafilters, and generally as a learning tool. But thank you as always for putting the immense amount of work into studying and presenting information like this to help the whole coffee community understand this world of coffee more deeply and exhaustively.

Lance, thanks so much for making this video. Many of my pulls look like exactly like the shot at 16:02, and even though they taste great, and even though I’ve always subscribed to the “if it tastes good don’t worry about it” mentality, I always second guessed if I was missing something, and if my tastes were just off. Now I have no more doubts and I will love my ugly tasty lightly roasted espresso that much more!

Lance- that background inspiring movie soundtrack music was really making me chuckle! Nice one. Keep on keepin’ on.

I’m so grateful for this video! I’m currently taking a break from espresso because it’s been a disheartening and steep learning curve. It’s good to hear you voice a little bit of my frustration. I can pull beautiful shots but it tastes horrible.

Nice video Lance. Glad you covered this topic

Every now and then after I wached your videos I worry less about making coffe and enjoying more the taste of it. This vid is one of them. Thank you!❤

New to the home espresso making world & definitely needed this video. Thanks Lance!

I'm glad you made this video because I kept thinking that my espresso is bad because it never looked like it does in people's shorts.

Not the Lance we deserve, but the Lance we need.

Learning so much from you Lance!!! Love all of this. Speak the truth brother!!!

Killing it dude! Great work.

Thank god Lance touched on this. Thanks to some of the TikTok espresso pulling vids, it seems like anyone can pretend to be an expert in judging my espresso making techniques. Especially after knowing how much my equipment cost. Not that I care that much , but it's an ordeal to start explaining to them, and most of the time I had to either laugh it off, or tell them to go enjoy their Nespresso.

One of my favorite video's of all time Lance, had to watch twice :)

Awesome and informative video, as always - the more you know!!

Awesome video! Thanks @Lance!

bottomless portafilter is just a beauty to look at. it makes the extraction phase THE moment to just watch and makes u feel good when all stars are aligned. you dont post reels when you're grinding or shaking the black thingy like mad lad, you always post the moment when the beautiful brown thing flows out from the bottomless portafilter.

Amazing video, thank you Lance!

Thank you. I needed to hear that.

Lance, I’ve learned alot from watching this video, especially about the baskets. I love it! Thank you so much for all the videos you make and all the time and hard work you put into making them. You are the best! I’m sorry that this is off topic , but will you be doing a review anytime on the Fiorenzato AllGround Sense grinder? I want to get a better grinder than the one that is in my Barista Touch. Any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much Lance!

Really appreciate this video Lance, was banging my head against the wall trying to get a visually perfect shot over the past few weeks, even though the taste was there. Cheers.

Thanks Lance, excellent video as usual. I enjoyed the more informal style of the video.

I'm glad someone made a video like this. Because my shots can be a little inconsistent sometimes even if I use the same bean, same grind setting and same everything (I think)… to counter some of that I also look at the color that comes out of the basket. That was initially the reason why I wanted to get a naked portafilter, to see more of what actually happens. Thanks to your video I can tell much easier that it's not an definitive solution to all espresso-problems :)

Lolol epic music to take it home. Thanks Lance!

Wouuuhaaaaaaa, what a build up, with the music and everything, what an inspirational speech. You just did the "I have a dream" of the coffee geeks !! Love you mate!

Lance, you are a value to community. 🙂

I really appreciate this video, thank you! I'm new to the world of espresso and I switched to a naked portafilter early on. I felt like I was getting further and further away from what I truly found tasty benchmarking it against the optics. I would always tweak my grind size, etc. based purely on how the stream looked or how messy it would get. It also didn't help that I prefer lighter roasted coffees. 2 weeks ago, I got frustrated and went back to spouted one. Since then, I've been able to focus purely on taste (and to some extent time) while being less concerned with how it looked or the mess it created and I've rediscovered tasty extractions! Agreed though, naked portafilters are great to see what's going on when you understand the dynamics of what is actually happening. Otherwise, it's easy to pay attention to the wrong indicators! Cheers.

I love the epic "call to action" music at the end. Made me laugh. Thanks as always, Lance!

Always learning great things from you. Since I’m an eager beginner with espresso. I’ve been trying several different roasts however have gravitated to medium Brazilian, nutty sweet style coffee’s. I’ve tried several and have put the time into dialing in grind, shot times and finally I’m noticing the taste improvements I should be experiencing. Now I’m chasing the viscous perfect looking shot with nice crema…so this vid is helping to demystify things for me. Thanks!

This video definitely helps people with OCD! Thump upssss.

Best video of pulling espresso shots out there

This was so helpful! I've got the IMS nanotech basket and it's been driving me mad about seeing bald areas. I kept assuming channelling based on appearances. This has really helped put things into perspective given this rising trend of RU-vid shorts of sexy looking extractions, when perhaps it is more of a viscosity issue from the CO2

Thanks for posting this. Fairly new to brewing (about a year). Bottomless was very important in the beginning. Helped me learn. Have recently switched back to spouted for better temperature management of the portafilter. Now I’m only using the naked when I use larger cups

Loved that video! I will start to frequently change with my LM Micra's convertible portafilter from spouts to naked now.

Best video ever. Thanks Lance from Espresso Rescue in New Zealand

Smash my like on "Trust Your Taste". I can feel your passion for making coffee and the background music almost tears my eyes. Then, the next second, you crack me up with a joke. LOL

Thanks for fighting against unrealistic beauty standards for espresso. I was feeling for a while like something was wrong with my ugly shots. I found using a tapered stock basket was easier to get nicer looking results than a VST type basket with a larger flatter bottom. I think it did correlate with a higher success rate though on the stock basket but potential was higher on the VST. The stock basket seemed like it flowed more even but had less flavour clarity and intensity which works well for some coffees actually. I was expecting the Weber high extracting basket to be even less forgiving but was surprised it seems more forgiving or I've Just been having better luck lately with my espresso. With those baskets they never really look good. I think we do have them to thank for getting more people to realize that the looks don't necessarily matter that much.

Absolutely brilliant video. Brilliant. Thank you Lance. Thank you!!!

Yup, thanks for the clear words, great!

Love this, thanks Lance!

Original piece of coffee content. Great stuff!

why the heck are you the only one who can always flip upside down our coffee knowlage :) hahah... informatif and entertaining ! very good !

@lancehedrick just de-shamed uneven-looking espresso shots! You rock, dude. Keep up the great vids.

amazing video And a really fun one aswell!

This video absolutely Rocks 😂 love your content and love that you cut thrue all the bull shit. There is only 2x coffee channels with top content and that is you and big daddy Hoffman. Keep up the great work 🤘😎

I just bought Pesado HE & Weber Unibasket. You are wright Lance, it is almost impossible to get "the classic shot" with those straight edge baskets. But thanks to your recent eye opening videos concerning extracion level outcome vs distribution methods, I don't worry anymore. Lance you had lots of courage to go upstream in you last videos and rock the coffee world.😊

Thanks for this. Idea and the clarification. I’ll best myself up sometimes (not literally of course….lol) when my shots don’t look perfect coming out of my naked, bottomless portafilter

That is the most awesome thumbnail I have ever seen! Cheers!

Yo Lance, you lookin fresh my dude. Keep it up!

Thanks Lance, good info

Lance with the last 5 videos, you really made everything really came together with releasing the test data with puck screen, paper filters, blind shaker baskets, the wdt, and feeding the hopper slow feeding I was always over extracting the espresso. Now I changed up my route to put it all together and am now always getting predictable tds and extraction percentage. I am using the Weber Unifier Portafilter, blind shaker, paper filter, and screen puck and slow feeding my Ceado grinder all in the correct amount now. I'm using September coffee Ethiopia wash light beans. Now, I can tell immediately if it is going to be great shot, just by if it's doing the donut shape appears, after that i don't care I just watch for my time and weights. 3 seconds preinfusion and then about 12 to 15 second shot pulls after preinfusion, and now it taste amazing to me! Now, with 3 seconds of preinfusion and then about 12 second shot pulls, I'm reaching a TDS of about 10.60% and total extraction percentage of 20.99% with repeatedly every time now! Here is a badly short short video slowing it being pulled. This is no lance quality video. ru-vid.comyf1SUcqx7pQ?si=0f0m5uBO4D9R-p2l

lance, ur voice and tone is beautiful!

I had so much fun watching this video!

am loving these pretty espresso shots - I think they make for awesome b-roll

Thank you Lance.

love the added music of the video up to the climax

Damn dude, you’re putting out lots of content. Love it! Agree with how pulling the shot looks. I use a Weber basket and pull 20-25 second shots. They look terrible but taste like chocolate and apricots.

What a great video. Love the debunking of our coffee assumptions. Off to get a spouted filter now, as the spray is making a mess😂

Excellent video as always!

Great video! Here here Lance! I've had beautiful looking naked shots that taste rubbish and hugely messy shots that taste great. There's definitely a bit of mystery with the naked portafilter, sometimes you'll do 4-5 shots of the exact same coffee/grind and all of a sudden on that next shot there's a mess, no difference in the puck prep - in the words of Bono "She moves in mysterious ways".

Good video. At the end of the day it all comes down to what YOU enjoy drinking.

Thanks Lance for this insightful video. Being relatively new to the Espresso world (thanks btw for getting me to buy a Cremina) I came across the same realization. I have pulled ugly shots that tasted wonderful - and the other way around. What I found was that I need to watch my WDT routine because I seem to force particles into the basket holes by scraping the bottom of the filter too much (I might be wrong here). If I watch that process more careful, then my shots taste great - some look good, some spray my kitchen to no end.

amazing video keep up the good work

More transcendental content from Saint Lance of the Coffee 😱💪🏻

Thanks for the video!!! If you’re planning on doing an unfiltered video in your second channel I’d love to know how me might be able to tell if spurting, for example, means something or not, or what I’m tasting for. As a beginner my taste buds can’t quite be trusted yet!

Love my naked portafilter simply for the fact that it leaves enough space to put a latte mug below it on my gaggia cc. Hate to have to pull into something else first if someone wants a bigger milk drink. In the beginning it helped to find some other flaws as well like too fine shower screen...

Great video, as usual! The reason I use and will continue to use the naked portafilter is the ease of clean up! 😊

My man Lance rocking the Whoop 💪

Looking good Lance!

Rad! Keep it up! Thank you.

Now I have Frozen stuck in my head. Thanks Lance!

super helpful as always. and the larger point is important. its easy to hung up on superficial details. especially in videos. the truth is in the cupping. if you are getting the flavor profile you want thats the proof. no advice or accepted wisdom stands in for the satisfaction of your own palate.

Thanks so much for this Lance! I'd been wondering why some shots that don't look great coming out could still taste amazing to me😅

i like the way the coffee looks coming out of bottomless. Nice to know that i don’t need to fret too much though about small deviations and just enjoy it.

I pulled the splitter off the bottom of my stock sage portafilter for more cup clearance. I get the satisfaction of seeing the single stream of espresso fall straight through the hole in the bottom plus it catches all of the sprays or splashes!

Lance, enjoyed the article! I first got a similar thought when seeing videos of Weber's portafilter a while back. those shots were in theory ugly too! fluid dynamics are complicated !

We love you Lance

Great video, I tried a a botomless portifilter with IMS Big Bang filter and sprayed everywhere, first thing I thought was channeling, so went back to my double spout and even though you could see a lot of wobble I've pulled some great shots, very tasty, go figure, so now I work on Taste :)