The hottest I could get a cup of water from my Export at work today was 85C = 185F. At that temp the outside of the group was 92-94C, just right folk who want to brew hot, around 200F. I guess. I like to brew lower than that.

It sounds like to gauge is working fine - if the water in your cup was 190F the brew water would be considerably hotter. You said that you could hold you hand under the water - 190 sounds pretty hot to do that?

PC

Sorry, not under the water directly but the trickles coming from the shot. Probably to small of a surface area to really feel it. I will mess around with it some more, I probably just got used to my Gaggia Classic and Pavoni brewing hotter. Thanks for the help!

The temperature stability of this group and machine are known to be good, its finding the temperature that produces good tasting shots, to you, that's the thing that takes time.

You really should not have to flush it. You should get to the point whereby its a walk up and use it type of setting.

I grew tired of chasing the gauge readings, the flushing and measuring, so when the brain on mine started to fail, that's when I did the lobotomy and swapped in a PID. Now, controlling the temp is a push button affair. We only bump it up and or down 1-2 degrees, for variety and different coffee.
I can recognize cooler extraction easier than too hot, by its sour note, so I lower the temp until I can taste that, then bump it back up by 1-2 deg. Im hoping that helps with your search for initial results.

Also, wrapping the boiler and tubes in an insulating blanket brought the electrical use way down. Just a thought.

drgary wrote:OT for a moment. I've never seen a PV Lusso other than in pictures.



+1

Seeing it next to the Europiccola (and that tower of a Bunn grinder) puts it in perspective. That's a lot of machine in a small space, and having tried that group on the Export I'm confident you'll be making terrific shots with it.

Haha yeah that Bunn is huge, it was advertised as a G1 on Craigslist and when I went to get it and saw it in person I knew it was a G2. Great grinder, my encore gets no love anymore.

Thinking of getting some insulfiber from Joan Fabrics, Sprint Jinx can you shoot a pic of your boiler at all? I would love to see how you wrapped it.

Thanks

If I snapped a pic it would cause laughs. The boiler of my lusso is wrapped with 3 different materials. One is insulbright against the boiler, the other is a glass fiber wadding type of material, which is good for ripping into smaller chunks and stuffing into the nooks and crannies of the Lusso's frame work. Let's just say that the frame is stuffed to the point where all you can see is the fill cap. I wrapped all of the tubes and hoses with the wadding.
I also used silicon mat which I didn't have alot of, so I used it to separate the boiler from the brain box. I slipped several slabs of this stuff in between and I have to say that it has completely isolated the two.
I did this for energy use and heat reduction, and in both cases, its worth it. Do it, follow what looks to be appropriate and you wont go wrong.

Ok so I am on the right track than. I wrapped the boiler in insulbright today. I will look into the silicon mat stuff and glass fiber wadding,definitely don't want my brains melting as yours did and I don't know enough about PID's so having the original wiring harness survive for years to come would be great!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB1NRmvHLFk
Cheers
PC

hello there,

in your pictures with the cabinet off- there is no plastic cover going over the 'bran box' area. Was there a cover on your machine? That cover often becomes brittle and warps over time from heat- and in some cases parts of it contacted the boiler. I used to remove it and shave some parts off with a dremel cutting wheel to stop them contacting the boiler.

As for flushing: if the machine has not been on for long then flushes bring the groups up to temp faster- once they are hot there is no need for flushing. I attached small LCD temp readers to my groups like these:

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2x-LCD-Digit ... SwQPlV8jJ1

I just stuck the probe to the backs of the groups using blue tack. They work very well to give you an idea of what is going on- and for achieving repeat-ability.

As for the shower screen- yes they are tough the first few times but then OK. Did you notive the small grooves on the edge? Did you use these grooves to get a pry-point- or did you try and pry from the top? If you use the groove you damage the screen less.

Those seem like good recommendations except for the Blue Tack. When I attached that to the top of a La Pavoni sightglass it melted.