Someone mentioned a slower ramp to full spring pressure in the Dialing in Fellini and two pulls (Ponte Vecchio) thread. I noticed that when I slowly released the lever (after preinfusion) and more gently brought it to the point where the spring fully kicks in, my shot would flow more quickly (and the taste was very different) than when I quickly (and less gently) release the lever after preinfusion (allowing the piston/water column to attack the puck). The quicker release worked better for me on the Klatch Belle Espresso, but I'll definitely be trying both when I'm dialing in a blend. This may be an obvious observation to manual lever users (I've seen a/some thread(s) where people mention choked shots when slamming the lever down and perfect flow for gentler ramp up), but I had never noticed this before.

I think that there is a lot to sort out on the slow vs quick ramp idea. We go for full preinfusion on our Faema commercial group.....since it infuses at line pressure we always get drips but interestingly enoug get first a few drips then they slow down and after a couple of seconds speed up again.....we take this to be the swelling of the puck a the slowdown of the infusion drips and right after this slowdown release the lever. With the lever fully down and the spring fully compressed you are pretty much at the maximum spring strength so there is more going on than just the force of the spring. It is as strong as it is going to be at release, either fast or slow, but the flow of the espresso does not correlate to the extending of the spring....at first the flow is slow and builds to mousetails about half way through and then when the spring is nearing it's full extension again drips and blonding. I think slow release or fast amounts to the same thing, but for a short burst at the hard release.

Now, it seems to me that the extraction during preinfusion....and lately we are more and more just thinking of it as infusion rather than using the pre....infusion of the grounds with water you are getting an extraction like from the Verticale of old...straight steam or hot water extraction....this pre or infusion period iis not just for swelling the puck but for actual extraction at low pressure and high(ish on a lever) steam or hot water temp. This method of extracting coffee served for half of the existant century of epsresso until crema cafe came along. So there is some good in the first extraction of the coffee and this shows in the complexity of the lever espresso over the pump method which has a strong and immedieate pressure ramp....even with an e61 or a timed preinfusion cycle machine. We always infuse before the pull to drips and the length of time under low pressure extraction may account for the difference in the cup.....a slow release may account for 10% or the time of the pull and you get 10% more non pressureized infusion....which is not a bad thing.

If you get drops at preinfusion, let them drip a bit and taste it (I know, hard not to pull the shot, but pull the cup and substitute another for the pressure part of the pull, pull that cup and see what the last drops taste like. It is a kind of interesting experiment which to me has proven that the first drops are pretty darn good and the last pretty darn bad and the crema portion seems to somehow lack something without these two ends of the spectrum, leaving off the last of course.

But the fast or slow ramp may be an artifact of an actual longer or shorter (pre) infusion period and I favor the slow using the logic that the fast will distrub the puck surface, but this may be another artifact altogether.

Just my observations. Preference for slow ramp up on both the lever machines used (PV Lusso2 & Elektra MCal). Choice is based on what I feel is a better tasting pull. "Fellini" double pulls with fast ramp ups have resulted in some not so good looking pulls. Taste in this case is usually reflected in the ugly pulls.