illy's glass portafilter

[Scott Rao]

i've been scouring the web for the elusive illy glass pf video. haven't gotten the video yet, but am getting warmer. i recently downloaded a paper by m. petracco of illy, which has several photos of the glass pf in action. unfortunately the photos are grainy and look a bit like a rorschach test, but there is a little that can be gleaned from them:

1.during preinfusion it looks like some surface grounds float in the water. if you've ever used an aerobie aeropress and tamped the grounds, you know some grounds mix with the water and turn the column of water a cloudy brown.

2.the cake compacts when full pressure is applied. (mea culpa)

what the photos don't show is the size of the cake when it was dry and if the cake swelled or not during preinfusion. unfortunately the first photo shows the cake after preinfusion has begun.

at the end of the paper it lists info to order a video of m. petracco's presentation of the paper. i don't know whether the video will have better photos or maybe actual footage of a glass pf shot, but i have contacted illy and am trying to buy the video.

p.s. i don't feel comfortable scanning and uploading the photos here since the paper is copyrighted and is for sale on the asic-cafe.org website. if it interests you, you can order it at:

http://www.asic-cafe.org/htm/eng/sectio ... &number=14

the cost is 10 euros

[barry]

uploading the photos only might constitute "fair use" under copyright laws.

check w/marshall.

[Scott Rao]

good idea. i sent him an email.

[James Hoffmann]

Damn it - now they've released the other CD-ROMs! Goodbye money! They are great value - I bought the 20th Colloq one and it was full of great stuff.

[Marshall]

"Fair use" involves a "transformative" use of the copyrighted material. This essentially means that it is used for a different purpose than the one for which it was originally published, such as a review of the material or a parody. Your proposed use seems much the same as the original's: to illustrate the appearance and function of the glass portafilters. So there is a good chance it would be an infringement. Why don't you just ask Illy for their permission, Scott?

[Scott Rao]

Damn it - now they've released the other CD-ROMs! Goodbye money! They are great value - I bought the 20th Colloq one and it was full of great stuff.

james-
the asic site confuses me, but if you go in through the link in my post then you can search through all the old proceedings and purchase individual articles for 10 euros, in case you don't want to buy the cd roms for 50. i don't know why, but when i go to the site directly it doesn't give me the option to buy individual articles.

also, i've printed about 10 or so, the ones which seemed most relevant to brewing and extraction issues; feel free to track me down at the SCAA and i'll show you the copies in print.

cheers
scott

[Scott Rao]

"Fair use" involves a "transformative" use of the copyrighted material. This essentially means that it is used for a different purpose than the one for which it was originally published, such as a review of the material or a parody. Your proposed use seems much the same as the original's: to illustrate the appearance and function of the glass portafilters. So there is a good chance it would be an infringement. Why don't you just ask Illy for their permission, Scott?

thanks, marshall. i'll contact them.
scott

[James Hoffmann]

It may be worth noting, from an economic point of view, that the CD-Rom I bought had around 100 papers on it. So 50 euros is pretty cheap all said...

[Scott Rao]

i had no idea. i think i'll get one.
thanks

[Jimmy Oneschuk]

Would it not be possible to make a glass portafilter?

What if one was to take a stronger pyrex beaker(if such a thing exists - in 58mm or so) and make a hybrid metal/glass unit, using only the horizontal portion of an LM basket (the space between the sidewall and holes would be good in this application - a glass cutter could cut out the bottom of the pyrex beaker, leaving a lip to rest the basket's dead space), metal tabs on the top and epoxy/weld 4 vertical straps to keep the whole thing together. Essentially, it would be a glass sidewall PF with built in basket and metal tabs.

Whether this would hold together at 9 bar is something else altogether.

What made me think of this was Cannondale's experiments with their Raven carbon/magnesium spine bikes from about 5 years ago. There they fused magnesium for the bottom bracket, headtube and the so-called spine of the unit.

While I personally lack the resources or connections (glass cutter/CNC) to make this happen (at this moment) - I know some of you might!

[stormer]

1.during preinfusion it looks like some surface grounds float in the water. if you've ever used an aerobie aeropress and tamped the grounds, you know some grounds mix with the water and turn the column of water a cloudy brown.

2.the cake compacts when full pressure is applied. (mea culpa)

what the photos don't show is the size of the cake when it was dry and if the cake swelled or not during preinfusion. unfortunately the first photo shows the cake after preinfusion has begun.

yes, but did the paper say what it TASTED like? as i was walking home from the grocery store i was musing about how a glass/ceramic portafilter would perform differently than a stainless portafilter. what if the coffee never touched metal post-tamp?

[onocoffee]

Glass portafilter????

Seems kinda useless to me.

Considering the basket is stainless - which you can't see through.

That is, unless the basket is also glass.

Otherwise, I can't see that you'd see more with a glass portafilter than with a naked pf.

Unless you just want to see how the espresso falls from the basket to the bottom of the portafilter and into the spouts.

[Deferio]

jay,
Maybe it is time for you to get x-ray vision....?
Just another option.
-cd

[Mark Prince]

"glass" is just a descriptive of something see-thru.

The actual portafilter design was a series of (I assume) plastics / polycarbonate that you could see through, combined with twin screw bars for tension and torsion. AFAIK from seeing the vid and pictures, there was no filter basket. It was designed into the unit that would fit onto an exposed-group espresso machine.

There was no handle, no traditional portafilter "look" to it.

Mark

[stormer]

I guess I misspoke. What I should have said was that I was thinking about glass or ceramic BASKETS. A ceramic portafilter would be troublesome because it would expand and contract differently than the grouphead would, causing either an imperfect seal or getting stuck.

Are there ceramic baskets out there?

[barry]

A ceramic portafilter would be troublesome because it would expand and contract differently than the grouphead would, causing either an imperfect seal or getting stuck.

Probably not.