Marshall wrote:...some of the most knowledgeable and devoted coffee lovers are not in it for the machine fiddling.

Exactly.

I count myself a non-tinkering lover of exceptional espresso. Nevertheless, years ago I went with the feature-packed Vivaldi to replace my e61 box so that I could simplify my espresso routine via dual boilers and volumetric dosing.

It's puzzling to me that the consumer-oriented Mini does not include volumetric dosing. Setting the initial H20 volume adds complexity, and I suppose if you're the tinkering type, one could endlessly re-adjust for different beans, climatologic events, etc. But I've not changed the volumetric dosing of my "double-shot" button in years. Like everyone, I adjust dose and grind regularly to get a shot I like. But it's basically always a shot that ends up with 30g of liquid pushed through 14-17g of finer/coarser coffee.

LaM might have decided against AV due to expense. Or they might have opted against it for philosophical reasons -- perhaps to ensure that the barista stays "close" to every shot or perhaps thinking that the initial H20 setting involves too much tinkering for the consumer market.

I would like a digital readout of the temperature, but i'd say 95% of the time, my roast profiles need more tweaking than my espresso machine.....

Maybe they'll add the auto brew ratio like the PB has... talk about awesome.

I was over at Ken's this morning dialing in coffees on his Mini. I'd tried it at SCAA but really didn't spend enough time with it. It's elegant in its simplicity. Since I can see the temperature setting on the dial I wouldn't want a digital readout that would clutter up its looks. The machine becomes a non issue as you dial in the variables on your coffee. Its performance is rock solid, consistent. Steaming power is commercial but tamer than that on my Conti Prestina commercial lever. I still prefer the declining pressure profile of the lever because it softens the shot intensity, but if I wanted a pump machine this would be hard to beat.

+1 Gary

Simple is sometimes better.
I love my POT on the DC that im using.

/Uldall

I was interested until I saw that the US version does not allow plumbed in water supply. Wow, kind of surprised at this--hope they change in future iterations.

Last I heard the plumb kit is supposed to be available next month. You might contact LM Home to find out if it is still on track for availability then.

It's been two months and so this past weekend I decided to clean out the reservoir, which by the way is much easier to do on the Mini than the GS3 since the top just pops off and there are no screws to mess with.

Anyhow, upon refilling it took about 2 liters to nearly completely fill it, which surprised me since I recall reading that it's 3.5 liters. Sure enough I checked the LM website and it lists it as 3.5 liters, but this is clearly wrong. Not sure how they got this wrong, but my guess is it was either because the GS3 reservoir is 3.5 liters or because the Mini's steam boiler is 3.5 liters.



I even measured the reservoir (273mm W x 146mm D x 64mm H) and calculated the volume to be 2.5 liters. But that actually overestimates the volume since those are outside measurements and they do not account for the cutouts for the rails. It is almost certainly no more than 2.3 liters.

So potential purchasers should factor this in particularly if you are thinking of using the reservoir. In my experience I find I'm filling it up every 3 days or so, but I'm doing screen flushes between shots and filling before its empty to avoid problems with it shutting off during a shot.

This just makes me want to wait for the plumb in version even more.

What type of water are you using? Are you having to soften it to avoid having to descale later? I noticed that LM does not recommend user descaling.