HB wrote: I'm sure you'll really appreciate the first one

You know it. Thanks for the shots.

HB wrote:Sorry Marshall, I don't know this prototype GS3's capacities, heating element wattage, etc. BTW, it's not shown in the photo, but the pump is underneath the smaller boiler and it's easily seen from the front when the driptray is removed.

The brochure says 3.5 and 1.5 liters 110V-15A or 230V 8A - 8 amps

The brochure lists a couple of points where one says "Brew water pre-heating system".
Can anyone tell how this pre-heating takes place?

Marshall wrote:Dan,

The GS3 spec sheet says each boiler is "5 liters." From your photo, I'd say that's impossible. Do you have the correct capacities?

In his review, malachi said: "3.5L PID controlled stainless steel steam boiler, 1.6L PID controlled stainless steel brew boiler."

Today was a nearly effortless exceptional espresso day. Really, really good.

It began simply enough with how I've started the rest of this week, by confirming the GS3's setup with a few test shots of Toscano. They were roasted last Friday and some would claim they'd be showing their age, but damn it was good. Chocolates you would need an SUV to climb, smooth and rich. Next up was a coffee that I was anxious to revisit after Abe introduced it to us at EspressoFest 2006:

Abe Carmeli wrote:That Yirg blew me away as espresso. The first Yirg to really make it as an SO. The shots we pulled of Miguel's roast at espressofest were so delicious, I think I had five of them, and by the time I finished feeding the hungry crowd the bag was gone.

What really got me excited is how versatile that coffee can be. It is extremely sensitive to dosage temp & extraction volume, and I'm saying it as a compliment. By changing those parameters, one can produce a different cup in every shot. I ordered 5 lbs of it green from Paradise Roasters, and I'm going to start experimenting with it in different roast levels. It will make a perfect coffee for a workshop entitled Exploring The Extraction Space, and I am thinking of putting together such a workshop in New York. Miguel is really pushing the envelope with espresso, and I'm thankful for that. He promises some new and exciting SO's in June.

another_jim wrote:Miguel sent me this coffee last month to review. At a light roast it was to regular Yirgacheffe as honey is to flowers, yrg-honey, so to speak. Since my first taste, I was jonesing to try it as espresso. There must be something in the air, since at the SCAA it appeared in three different guises as espresso. Heather Perry, former US Barista champ, used it as the center piece of her blend in competition. Steve Schulman of Dallis Brothers casually produced a bag of it in a darker roast, labelled as an ultra-premium espresso. In Miguel debuted his SO roast at the espresso fest, where it completely wowed all the participants.

(cont'd)

I neglected to re-read the above comments this morning and wrongly assumed it would be fussy as an espresso. But like Abe said, when you zig, it zags in a pleasantly surprising way. Part of the pleasure of this coffee is its uniqueness. The fragrance is sweet and light, a floral, fruity scent reminiscent of peeled white grapes. Remember to take in this wonderful smell as the grinds fall into the doser. In the cup, its gentle roast notes tame the acidity and offer an intriguing counter-balance to the more whimsical floral-lemon sweetness.

(Meta-comment: In my search for a better description of the fragrance, I asked a non-coffee drinker friend to smell the beans and even provided some suggestive hints. "Smells like coffee" was all I got. Bah!)

Another friend of mine is really into cars, more than I'm into espresso (seriously). He likes espresso too, but he had to ask how to spell "barista" to find this website. The past few weeks he's been asking me about super-autos. Richard has patiently listened several times why he should reconsider, but I haven't changed his mind, even after he was served disastrously bad espressos at Williams-Sonoma. The lure of the reputably "baddest home espresso machine on the planet" proved too tempting for the hardware junkie in him, so he stopped by to check the GS3 out. I wanted to challenge him with something off his regular menu, so I served him Yemen. "Woah, that is really something different!" were his first words. Heh heh... he asked me about borrowing an E61 and grinder next week while he's on vacation. Another espresso lover saved from decades of mediocrity? Here's hoping.

AndyS wrote:Bill Crossland describes the GS3 as an "easy" machine. I believe he says that it may or may not make better espresso, but it definitely makes it easier.

I know where he's coming from with that observation. I spent a few hours demonstrating the finer points of HX temperature management using an E61 thermocouple adapter:


With the chorus of praise for the GS3, some not-gonna-be owners may feel less enthralled with their own gear. Bill's comment may offer them some consolation, i.e., you may have to work harder for the same result, but your current setup isn't necessarily incapable of [*] the same result.

(*) I originally wrote "nearly the same result," but the week's not over...

annp wrote:The heat thing sounds a little scary. So will we have an article pretty quickly after the GS3 reaches market called "How to Insulate the Boiler of your GS3?"

That would be a bad idea.
It would be very likely to result in degraded temp stability for the machine.

annp wrote:I'd hoped that a production model would have less of a discrepancy between gauge readout and actual temp - it better for the price!

Why?

If the brew temp is accurate to the temp that you program - why does it matter what the display says when you're not programming it?

Yesterday's extreme HX temperature tuning exercise was put to good use today. Jim asked me to run a quick side-by-side of an E61 and the GS3. Nothing statistically significant, just an off-the-cuff answer to the question: Can the GS3 make his house blend a whole lot better than my E61 espresso machine? His house blend:

another_jim wrote:My blend is a pretty basic Ethiopian, Brazil, and Indo combination. 37.5% Yellow Bourbon, 22.5% Ghimbi, 15% Harar, 10% Yrg, and 15% Aged Sumatra. The over-complicated mix of Ethiopians is simply because I have lots in stock, and I remix it to keep the taste roughly right as the beans age or new lots come in...

I pull the blend at the iconic 202F - 204F, about 1.25 ounces to a well packed Faema style basket.

First, my gut reaction: When the E61 was at its absolute best, the espressos were very, very close in terms of flavor profile and tactile balance. I used the same grinder and they poured nearly the same visually. The GS3 poured a little more slowly (enough to suggest a 0.5mm grinder adjustment). Instead of running two grinders, I tweaked the amount of grounds by 0.75 grams. That got it within a couple seconds of the same extraction rate and volume.

I liked the blend as a ristretto, almost as much as Abe's homeroast he nicknamed "The Big Lebowski" (sorry Jim, it was more "interesting" in the finish; he never told me the composition). Back to Jim's homeroast, I was surprised how much it changed as a double versus ristretto. Many blends pick up bitters / harshness as they tighten to 1.25 ounces, but his held nicely and added sweetness that was lost at the higher volume, where it increased in brightness.

Keep in mind that I only sampled three pairs. I am almost convinced the shots coming from the GS3 had more generous mouthfeel and better clarity (i.e., you taste different individual flavors as the shot lingers in your mouth). However, with such a small sample and knowing which machine produced which shot, I could be projecting my own reaction. To my own defense, I noticed shadows of the same thing in an (unpublished) E61 versus Elektra A3 comparison, so it may not be utter hogwash.

Of course, these results are not easily produced on the E61. The "humpness" of E61 espresso machines can be twiddled to emulate an GS3-like flat profile and with nearly the same precision, but it requires warm up flushes and very careful attention to timing. Not all HX machines have this sort of malleability. For example, the Cimbali Junior's initial temperature spike was immutable (even Ken Fox's PID'd version retains this characteristic), and the A3's temperature hump was modest and immutable.

To its credit, the GS3 would be able to reproduce these results with ease for one person or a crowd. Semi-commercial E61 espresso machines like mine require you to stand on one foot, swing a bloody chicken, and count to twenty on your fingers and toes to produce the same result. In the end, that's a lot of what you're paying for - ease of use and reproducibility. It's a big premium. It goes without saying for many HB members, but for the newcomers, I would remind them them that the coffee, grinder and technique are well ahead of the espresso machine in importance - even one as forgiving as the GS3.

In fairness to the GS3, this test is "cooked" towards the E61. This is my house blend, developed to be used on my set-up. i.e. the Tea. Dan's Valentina has the solenoid group rather than the levetta, but the same boiler and HX. In a side by side several years ago, the machines were indistinguishable. So the blend should "fit" his machine to a tee.

AndyS wrote:LM has an insulation wrap for the machine and have been experimenting with variations on it. So insulation may or may not make it onto production versions.

The prototype I saw at the factory a couple of weeks ago had insulation on both boilers (plus a paddle group).

Jacob wrote:The brochure lists a couple of points where one says "Brew water pre-heating system". Can anyone tell how this pre-heating takes place?

There's a heat-exchanger through the steam boiler.

Br,
Teme

Teme wrote:There's a heat-exchanger through the steam boiler.

And in addition, there's a hot/cold water mixing device. This ensures that any overheated water from the heat exchanger is cooled down before it enters the brew boiler.