IKAPE 54mm Bottomless Naked Portafilter

£0.00

This is a 54mm bottomless or "naked" portafilter from Ikape, with a very pretty handle, compatible with all the Sage 54mm espresso machines.

So this means the Bambino, Bambino Plus, Duo Temp Pro, Barista Express, Barista Express Impress, Barista Pro, Barista Touch & Barista Touch Impress.

Compatible with, by the way, doesn't necessarily mean that you should use this bottomless portafilter with these machines. More on that shortly...

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Just keep in mind that bottomless portafilters are messy until you're dialled in. You'll tend to get what we call "spurters" which are jets of espresso flying out at all angles, which will greatly reduce when you've found the right grind size.

It's common for people to see amazing footage of bottomless shots, and buy a portafilter like this expecting to see the same, only to be disappointed. So just be aware that you need to be dialled in with the grind in order to have great looking bottomless portafilter shots.

 

Features and Benefits:
• Great looking colourful handle
• Fits all the Sage 54mm machines
• Food grade stainless steel basket

• Shots look amazing, once dialed in

 

On the positive side, not only can it can be mesmerizing to watch, especially if you have a shot mirror, but it can give you clues about what's going on with the extraction, that you may not taste in the cup.

I'm in two minds about the real value of this, to be honest. One one hand bottomless portafilters are good training tools from that perspective, but then I can't help but ask the question, if you couldn't taste it in the cup, who cares? ;-).

Anyway, they are cool, there's really something special about using bottomless portafilters, again - once you're dialled in, before that it's generally messy, so you may want to lift your cup/glass right up to cover the bottom of the basket until this is the case, to safe your kitchen becoming espresso coloured.

IKAPE, which I'm told (by the brand themselves) is pronounced "I Capey", or just "IK" for short, is a Chinese coffee gear brand. Their products generally not the cheapest, but not the most expensive either. 

For me their products tend to be in that sweet spot in terms of being good value without going too far over to beyond the point of diminishing returns, and they've been one of the most prolific brands of coffee gear over the past few years, especially when it comes to espresso accessories.

They do a number of bottomless portafilters for the 54mm Sage machines, and they'll all work fine.

The only thing I could say as a negative for these, and various other aftermarket portafilters are that the you can very easily unscrew the handle, which does annoy me slightly.

Sometimes it'll come unscrewed as you're using it, so if I was using one of these and I didn't have any plans to swap the handle (their handles are interchangeable), I'd just add some loctite to the thread.

Sage do sell a bottomless portafilter for their 58mm machines, but not for the 54mm machines, by the way, so if you want to use a bottomless you'll need an aftermarket one.

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