HB wrote:Egads, 24 grams?!? I hope that is a triple basket.

LOL - I've never made anything else BUT a naked triple since I went from my Saeco to Anita, in 2005.

You mean people actually make singles and doubles at home?

Nawwwww!

Ann
(who just taught her friend lisa to "tamp" and feels much like Huck Finn when he had to white wash the fence)

buzzmc wrote:The tamper's 58, almost on the nose. The Andreja basket is a bit larger, and the VBM basket is even larger still... So I might be on to something. Maybe.

I wonder how people get even remotely good results with the plastic tamper that doesn't fit that everyone seems to send with their machines.

I have a LM 21g triple basket for my naked portafilter. My Reg Barber 58mm American curve tamper is a bit too small for it and leaves me slightly prone to side channeling. After trying a few other baskets, I've settled on the Synesso 18g ridgeless basket. The tamper fits it perfectly, and side channeling has been nearly eliminated.

Truly amazing the difference a good fit can make....and a different basket.

Ok, it looks like that my optimum dose (at least with this coffee) due to the headroom is 23 grams as opposed to 24.

I also need to fine my grind a bit, I think - and this is where I'm hoping to hear your thinking.

What I notice is this - My shot, which extracts initially, really nicely and uniformly at the shower screen, developing into several nice dark streams into a stripey cone, does blond a little quicker.

I'm getting 2.25 oz instead of 3.0z before the blond.

Since I am making triples, this seems a little short - my instinct, to grind a little finer, and dose a little more.

Taste-wise - and this is what really matters, not too bad. I was surprised not to taste overwhelming sourness from the early blonding, just a note of it. I'm used to really noticing that when I've dialed in other coffees. Hmmm!

So what do you all think?

Oh - and milk steaming - I only steamed 7 ounces of organic 1% - my usual deal, and it was fine. Took much more finesse than Anita - the steam tip is different, yes... Anyway, I opened the valve much more slowly - the VBM makes a lot more steam! And it wasn't nessesary to crank it open all the way to finish, either, maybe 2 turns.

But the steaming time was half that of Anita. I usually surf till 78 degrees or so, plunge till 140 (farenheit) and it went very quickly.

I could see where a larger boiler would allow for a larger volume of milk to be steamed - but since I only make one drink at a time, I didn't notice any real deficincies.

Ann

I also have been following this thread very carefully as I have been getting pretty much the same results as Buzzmc.

I am getting blonding pretty early in my shots - at around 16-17 seconds. I have the PID set to 103 C....maybe I will try to go higher as per the suggestions in this thread.

Dosing is in the 14-15 gram range and I am using a Macap dynamometric tamper so I know I am consistent with that aspect of the process.

I must say though that the Macap tamper is only a 57mm, and there is space on the side. I am doing a light 4 corner tamp, but maybe I should use full force. I am still waiting for my bottomless portafilter so I am unable to see if there is specific channeling occurring.

I also wonder if the larger steam boiler will be available for Europeans??? Stefano, any info on that?

Ciao.

So my only 'complaint' so far is the steam tip. I guess I'm still not used to it. The tip on the Andreja has holes pointed more into the pitcher vs horizontal.

Are there other tips available?

Even better, one of the best features I think on the Andreja are the teflon(?) insulated steam and water wands... Any chance these are interchangable? That would "fix" both my issues I think.

Anything I should know or be aware of if I choose to take the two apart to see if they're somehow compatible? .. Oh that would be nice, imo.

As far as the other issues go.... I'm slowly bumping up the temp, but I think it's the fact that my basket's bigger enough than my tamper to cause me problems. I now do a normal center tamp/polish, and then finish with a 4-corner tamp, and this so far seems to be making things more stable.

annp wrote:people actually make singles and doubles at home?

If you are thirsty, drink water. If you want a good cup of coffee ...
But then, if you dilute the excellent caffè with steamed white stuff stolen from cow mothers intended for their cow babies ... you may need a triple .

annp wrote:I'm getting 2.25 oz instead of 3.0z before the blond.

You reported brew pressure elsewhere. It seemed you copied the setting from your previous machine. Note that adjustment of the pressure (through an OPV with a vibration pump) is likely to change the flow (speed). Different vibration pumps could have different basic pressure/flow ratio functions. How to look at this in the case of a rotary pump and its pressure adjustment, I am not sure of. Flow speed is extremely likely to influence extraction, maybe more so than pressure (even though they are related).

Remember, these machines were designed in Italy: 14 grams of coffee, little tamping, high volume grinders (high quality), ground into a doser chamber (i.e. somewhat pre-ground), ground very fine, giving two single espressi (each 25ml), in a very thin trickle of caffè (mouse tail), giving a nice and strong crema with red spots (tiger skin), in a time that seems to take ages compared to the 25-35 second reference when you are watching the barista pull your shot. I think that would be a good starting point for an exploration of the parameter settings you want from your machine (once you found this design-ideal, start changing parameters one at a time by large enough deltas but small enough not to skip over some (local) optimum).

Regards
Peter
Netherlands
Europe

Absolutely as I expected, grind adjust finer, smaller dose to accommodate differences in head room between my Quickmill Anita and the VBM. So far my guess on temp is good for the coffee I'm using, like 99 degrees c.

I'm only, ultimately dosing .2 grams less, but the grind is somewhat finer then I use for Anita (with the same beans) on my Macap M4 and I'm going to assume that this is all an issue of headroom between the two group heads. Sadly, all these things are so relative to the equipment and the coffee we are working with - that I cannot say exactly what the magic temp, grind and dose specifics are for everyone!

I am using a Rancilio portafilter cut down to a naked, and I've got a number of Rancilio triple baskets. My scale is a "Toyo" which out of all the scales I've used for coffee in last 3 years, seems to be the most accurate and the most reliable.

A couple of tips on milk steaming which make make the steam tip and steam power (even with the small boiler) a little more manageable and more likely to lead to microfoam.

I steam about 8 oz of milk for my husband's drinks and about 4 oz for myself. I use a thermometer. What seems to work really well, is to only open the valve a little - maybe 1/2 a turn, especially for small volumes of milk until I surf to 80 degrees f. Then I plunge and open the valve several more turns, to really get that milk roiling and steam to 140. So far, so good - nice microfoam, but far faster than I'm used to, so you have to really watch it. My hand on the outside of the pitcher cannot keep up with temp to provide accurate feedback.

What is different than Anita is that I used to just purge the steam wand, stick the pitcher under it with the steam tip just below the surface of the milk, open the valve all the way and adjust the tip to optimal "surfing" position.

And as to eliminating all the vibration - easy!

It seems like there are two sources for the vibration, the plate the water reservoir sits on and the top.

With the plate, you want to deaden vibration, but not limit movement on the plate to activate the micro switch.



I used the loop part of velcro. Its self stick, so I just trimmed it. It occurred to me after I stuck it in there that the hook part would have worked just as well and probably had less friction up against the case. Still, it worked - the microswitch functions and turns the machine on - the plate does not rattle against the case.

The top took more work as there were several more points of contact between the lid, the U shaped outer case and the inner supports.



I tried it at this point (just running the blank disk for a couple of seconds) and it was better, much better - but still, I had to deaden the top up against the back of the case.

There was already a small strip of sticky foam already on the top - but it wasn't long enough or dense enough to really deaden vibration here.



Now its dead quiet, if you don't mind the sound of an Ulka vibe pump.

Oh - slidey furniture feet on the legs are great, if your machine sits on the counter and you have to spin it around to reach the water tank. If you are one of those massively strong people who just slams that portafilter right into the group head and makes your machine skitter across the counter, you could put the slidey feet on the back legs - and leave the front ones with their rubber tips.

I'll try and get some shots of my shots as soon as I'm not crowding two machines into a teeny space. I've got no room to set up my little desktop tripod and d-SLR on the counter.

Ann

Nice. I hadn't thought about the water reservoir tray being some of the vibration... The only other source for me is the drip tray.. Not sure what can be done about that really.

I used electrical tape on the cups tray and that helped a ton... Someone else had mentioned that so I stole that idea.

Steaming milk.... I finally figured it out, for me anyway. I just let the machine do the work. Tip straight down in the middle of the jug, and open it up. listen for the familiar tearing sound, and when you've stretched enough (which takes very little time with this machine), plunge the tip in deeper to get that nice rolling effect, and presto - Nice microfoam, and very easy.

My drink mostly latte's due to the fact that I never really did get the hang of making really good espresso's w/the Andreja, and well frothed milk forgives a lot of sins. Part of the reason for me getting the VBM was to be able to make better espresso's, so I'm hoping this works out to be the case. Either way though, even my latte's are "smoother" now, texture-wise. The espresso has more of the 'velvety' texture that my La Pavoni Lever machine produced.. Very nice.

Ann,

That's a great acoustic job. Personally, in my machine I had worried about tubes and cables that seemed to (cause) rattle. Your work put me to reflect on further improvement, still. Thanks.

Regards
Peter
Netherlands
Europe

The Domobar Super has the same rattle cup warmer. I ran electrical tape around it in the bench article and it took care of most of the vibration. I also had a gauge that was not completely seated in the front bezel and was rattling about. I popped it out, snapped it back in and made sure the capillary tube that supplied it was pulled snug.