At the Pull Down at Barefoot Coffee the Pavoni pulled shot after well temped shot for two hours. The key was the pressure gauge from Orphan Espresso with an espressme adaptor.

Using your palate as your guide, determine the ideal bar reading for your coffee. In the case of Barefoot's Element it was a cool .5 bar. Warm the machine to the desired bar setting, (if you get to 1.0 bar, with steam pouring from the safety valve, you overheated), start pulling the shot, but turn off the machine during pre-infusion and finish pulling the shot. When you are almost ready to pull the following shot, turn on the machine and repeat the process.

When the machine needs a refill, wait until the pressure gauge is at 0 then slowly and carefully remove the cap and add water.

Nice job Doug, I wish I could have tried a shot, but I have some caffeine limiting issues I'm working through so I was stuck on decaf for the evening.

Do you think this would work the same for any of the Lever machines that have the tendency to overheat like the Pavonis? I'd like to see if I can duplicate your success on the Elektra MCAL.

Thanks Jon, good question, I don't know why it wouldn't. The technique is new to me, developed yesterday at your "Pulldown."

I was lucky enough to try a shot when things were winding down and it tasted great, amazing that you were able to keep it going all that time and win the coveted GaryH prize of best shot. Congrats on great technique!

Sounds good! And this is basically the way I use my La Pavoonit Pro in practice (also pulling shots as soon as its up to pressure). I have my p-stat set to .75 by the way.

Anyways, I am confused- help me understand this better.

My understanding was that the pavoni water temperature should stabilize near boiling point, as required to produce steam pressure. Too much pressure, heating element turns off. Not enough pressure, heating element turns on.

The water temperature created by this cycling is too hot for ideal espresso, but channeling the water through a cooler grouphead cools the water down to somewhere near acceptable. After 3-4 doubles, the channeling hot water has heated the group head to a point where it no longer serves to cool the water... then pulls get slower/harder, causing over-extraction etc.

Is this not how it works? I don't understand how turning the machine off asap serves to actually keep the group head cool, if you are still pulling near-boiling hot water through it more than 3-4 times.