A bottomless (or naked) portafilter is a portafilter with the bottom cut away, so you can watch the espresso come straight out of the basket. It doesn't make better espresso by itself. It shows you exactly what's wrong with the shot, so you can fix it.
1. The size: 54mm Breville
The Barista Express takes a Breville 54mm portafilter. So do the Barista Express Impress, Bambino, Bambino Plus, Barista Pro, Barista Touch and Infuser, so the same portafilter moves with you if you upgrade.
It will not fit the Breville Dual Boiler, Oracle, Oracle Touch or Oracle Jet. Those are 58mm machines. Generic "54mm" portafilters for other brands won't lock in either. Look for one marked for Breville 54mm.
2. The basket: single-wall only
This is the mistake that makes people think their new portafilter is broken. The Barista Express comes with two kinds of basket:
- Dual-wall (pressurised): one tiny hole in the bottom. Made to be forgiving. In a bottomless portafilter it sprays foam everywhere.
- Single-wall: lots of small holes across the bottom. This is the one to use.
Both are in the box with your machine. Here's how to tell them apart.
3. Your first week will be messy (that's the point)
Expect a few spurts and sprays at first. Each one is a channel, a weak spot in the puck, that a spouted portafilter was hiding from you. A good shot looks like the coffee darkens evenly across the whole basket and joins into one steady stream in the middle.
Most spraying goes away once you stir the grounds, level them and tamp straight. Here's how to read what you see, and here's how to fix Barista Express channeling.
4. Two things that help
- Put a cup under it before you press the button. A naked portafilter has no spouts to aim the shot, and early drips go straight down.
- Use a tall enough cup or a shot glass so you can see the stream and weigh or measure the shot.
Ours
Our bottomless portafilter for Breville 54mm is made for the machines listed above and labelled with the ones it doesn't fit. Tell us your machine. If it doesn't fit, we'll make it right. You get 30-day returns and a 12-month warranty.
Everything else that fits your machine is on one page: Everything for your Barista Express.