Target temp for best temp control on Pavoni Europiccola

[da gino]

I've been working on mastering temp control on my Pavoni Europiccola, and I can follow a ritual that gets close to the same temp every time, but without fancy tools measuring the temp is a little tricky. I have just have a good instant read thermometer. The best strategy I've found for trying to measure the temp is just to run the water into a preheated cup without the portafilter in place and then measure the temp in the cup. What would be a perfect target temperature? Obviously the water will drop in temp a bit as it goes through the air and as it hits the cup even though it is preheated, but if it doesn't have to make its way through coffee or a portafilter, I wouldnt' think it would drop much. (I recognize that this obviously only helps you to practice as the real shot would then be too hot if you pulled it next, but I'd just do this practice test when I wasn't planning to make coffee to master the timing)

Perhaps a better test would be to pull a real shot and measure the temp of the coffee, but I figure that temp would be much lower as you will have gone through the portafilter, the basket, the coffee, the air, the cup... and thus also more variable based on how hot each of these things were, the grind, and so many other factors.

Advice is welcome!

Hugh

[Droshi]

The place you really want to control temperature is ideally right as it hits the bed of coffee. Alternatively most people control boiler temp, or outside grouphead thermal temp could be a less common route. But most of these are somewhat impractical on the europiccola without some major mods.

For your target temperature, there will be a different sweet spot for different coffees. And that range can depend on the coffee, the more "finicky" ones tend to have a very narrow range, which usually means they appeal mostly to the PID crowd that can accurately and reliably control temperature shot after shot. What I would suggest is to worry less about the hard numbers for temperature, and go based more on relative temperature with a blend that has a large sweet spot window. The main reason is that the europiccola will tend heavily to ramp up in temperature as you pull more shots, and though there are cooling techniques, they only give a ballpark amount at best.

By far, the best measure of temperature is taste. And I would say it's pretty easy to determine for a given blend on the Pavoni. Try this experiment (I have a 2 switch older europiccola, so maybe it'll be different for you):

(1) Prepare enough ground coffee for 5 double shots, if you have 2 baskets, it will help immensely.
(2) Start warming up the machine with the portafilter not locked in (this should give you the first shot around the lowest temp you would reasonably want).
(3) Pull each shot, switching off the machine in between, also don't actively cool the grouphead or the portafilter.

This experiment should give you 1-2 shots that taste the best. Afterwards you can tailor your routine to fit that blend, if it likes to run hot, lock in the portafilter as the machine warms up, and maybe even do some dry lever pumps to heat the group head even more. If the blend likes a cooler temp, keep the grouphead and portafilter cooler prior to pulling the shot.

[da gino]

I like your suggestion for finding a favorite brew strategy for a particular bean, but I'd still love to be able to get a fairly scientific/precise read on the temp of the water exiting the grouphead despite owning just an instant read thermometer so I'd love to know if there was a way to measure how much the temp of the water drops as it falls from the grouphead (ie when it would have hit the coffee if it were in place) into the cup.

I'm very happy with the taste of the coffee I'm getting out of the Pavoni and obviously that is the most important thing, but the scientist in me wants more data. (I think of coffee and food as the perfect blend of science and art).

[Droshi]

In that case try searching for "PID Pavoni"