DIY Bottomless Portafilter How To – We’ve gone Naked

A detailed DIY guide for making your own bottomless (naked) portafilter and reasons for doing so.

 For a while now i've been interested in going naked. There were a few motivators for doing this

- Minimalism. If it's not really necessary, and it doesn't serve much of a purpose, then I don't want it. We do doppio ristretto's as our standard shot so we never need to split the shots. For a while now we've been running without the splitter, but naked is better for the reasons below.

- Easy to clean. Now we can just flip it over and give it a clean with a wet cloth. It's a no brainer than can be done in literally a second, even in the busiest rush times.

- There is nothing to lessen the purity of the shot between the basket and the cup. Nothing to get dirty or caked with oils.

- It looks damn cool and provides a nice visual tool for training and improvement.

So without further ado, below is a step by step DIY with pictures for how I went about getting naked. There are multiple ways of doing this. This method is just the way I went about it because it used the tools I already had. I seen people do it with lathes, hand held drills, jigsaws, etc.

Tools needed for this exact method:
- Drill press
- Hole saw of appropriate size
- Peice of wood of suitable size (see below)
- 4 x suitabe screws
- 2 x clamps
- Dremel (a type of rotary multi head tool)

1) Buy/borrow a drill press, and get it set up. Adjust the gearing belts for a low speed, maybe even the lowest. In the hundreds of RPM rather than the thousands.

2) Find a hole saw from the set that is the right size, and attach it to the drill press. My closest fit was marginally wider than the holes of the coffee basket. This was perfect.

3) Use the four screws to secure the portafilter to the peice of wood. Don't forget to take the coffee basket out first...

4) Clamp this onto the drill press so that the center of the drill lines up with the centre of the portafilter.

5) Drill away. Remember the slower RPM's are better. Voila! Naked.

6) Use the dremel with a suitable head to tidy up the burrs and sharp bits from the drilling.

7) Give it a good clean with a wet rag. Done! Bottomless portafilters.

This method proved to be pretty easy and super neat. As mentioned there are heaps of ways to do this, and there will be variations on even this method. Maybe you can do it with a normal hand held drill. You wouldn't need a dremel tool for the cleanup work, but it's nice and easy, etc.

On a portafilter like the La Marzocco's where the splitter doesn't come off, i would just get the angle grinder out and cut it off, then start at step 1.

My main concern with going naked is temperature stability. Presently we operate in an outdoor environment and are therefore affected by the weather a lot more than in a controlled indoor environment. Fingers crossed it won't be a problem.

Overall, i'm really happy with how they look and turned out. If you want to see/taste the results first hand pop in and see us at the Kelvin Grove, Urban Village Markets at Blamey St this, or any, Saturday from 6am to 1pm, where we'll be giving it a solid workout and trial. Maybe with the retrofitted doserless Compak K10.