Hi all

I am looking for an appropriate thermometer to measure water temperature in the grouphead of a La San Marco HX machine. Does anyone have any experience with these machine, or any recommendations for appropriate thermometers?

To be clear, I'm not looking at PID'ing - just measuring water temp in the grouphead.

Thnx

Sam

Does that machine have an E-61 group? If so, you can use one of Eric's thermometer adaptors. If not, you might have to put something together yourself and attach it to a cheap PID or digital thermometer.

no, i'm fairly sure it is not an e-61 grouphead.

giffsa wrote:To be clear, I'm not looking at PID'ing - just measuring water temp in the grouphead.

How about this low tech way to measure brew temperature?

Will this work?

http://www.espressoparts.com/prod...com_Exclusive.html

Absolutely, assuming the basket is 58mm and you don't mind the cash outlay. You can read more here.

Sam,

If you're handy at all, you could find a screw that attaches to the grouphead along the brewpath (most have one to cover the hole they drill to make the brew path), and order a thermocouple and compression fitting that will fit in this space. It's often a fairly trivial, inexpensive operation--a cheap PID readout is about $40, a thermocouple another $20-40, and the compression fitting ought not be over $10-20.

Note that with the Scace device, you need not only the $275 thermofilter, but you'll also need a Fluke or other thermocouple reading device. It's certainly the best thing out there at simulating shots, but if you're looking for something to use all the time to help you flush more consistently and constantly monitor brew temperature (with a guessed offset), you may find it irritating, and obviously rather expensive for something you may find you don't want.

Does your grouphead look like this, either with/without the preinfusion chamber? What is the exact model number of your LSM machine?

I'm really not sure what the grouphead profile looks like - the whole thing is encased so I can't see it.

The machine is a 95-Series Sprint E.

Well, I suppose you could break out the wrenches and screwdrivers and have a look here:

http://www.iberital.com/iberital/CAFE/SAN%20MARCO.pdf

The installation of a thermometer would be difficult. I suggest you follow the advice that Nicholas provided a couple of posts up.

The san marco is not 58 is 55mm

Correct, the LSM is 55mm - however on espressoparts.com the Scace Device appears to fit a variety of machine types (including LSM). I had hoped this meant it came in a wider variety of sizes. Obviously not, however.