Precision showerscreens .. do we need them?

The whole coffee community is going crazy over custom shower-screens.

But what is a shower-screen? And why do we need it? 

Lets go back to basics on that,

A coffee machine basically is a big water boiler. It boils water to a certain temperature and keeps it that way.  

Then the water exits through the grouphead (the big thing on the coffee machine that we put our coffee handles on) (imagev: 1)

But the question is, what makes the water flow smoothly and evenly distributed? 

Answer: The shower-screen. 

A shower-screen (Image: 33) points water out in a concentrated direction where we can use it to brew our coffee. 

Im sure you’re thinking okay big deal it does its purpose, why should i invest in a good one? 

Most coffee manufacturers create their own showerscreens with the intention of it doing its job. But since its a factory producing bulk, there are imperfections.

 Such as: 

All of these imperfections will affect your consistency, and will not release the full potential of your extracted coffee.

Companies such as IMS and Pesado create their own shower-screens that will fit into your coffee machine like a stock one would fit.

They also have an option of the showerscreen being coated with a nanotech technology. Nanotech usually fades away within 6 months, less if you’re in a cafe setting. So you need to keep that in mind when you’re looking to buy one.

so if you’re thinking about buying a custom shower-screen, you will need to know their benefits and drawbacks!

Benefits of custom shower-screens:

All these benefits will increase consistency and make your coffee taste notes much clearer.

In a perfect world that would be your solution, but once you solve one problem you are faced with another.  

Drawbacks of custom shower-screens: 

The easiest way to combat this is to clean your showerscreen with cleaning powder more often. 

For home use I clean them after every 2 days with Caffeto cleaning powder and they’re as good as new. For more commercial usage look into cleaning them at each end of shift. 

Author: Hamad Al Majed

@hamadoescoffee