Hello,

I wanted to update the H-B community about a product line that has begun to take the commercial trade by storm, and that is our new steam tips and shower screens for commercial espresso equipment referred to as the EP Sproline .

While Espressoparts appreciate those with Home Espresso Brewing equipment, we are unable to determine fitment of our parts to the various model home and semi commercial espresso machines. We hope within the year to develop products that will address this market.

With that said, we are not ignoring the Home Market, it is just not our area of expertise, and we will leave that to others when the time is appropriate.

Currently the Sproline Foam Knife 1 Steam Tip will only fit Commercial La Marzocco, Synesso, and Slayer Espresso machines, without the use of adapters. The use of an adapter (ep_tx_sim_adpt and ep_tx_cim_adpt) allows fitment to Commercial Nuova Simonelli and La Cimbali Espresso Equipment.

Espressoparts is a partner company of SS&W whom manufacturers these parts in Japan under the QC of Shojiro Saito our managing partner in Tokyo Japan.

The owners and staff of Espressoparts and it's related businesses do not have access to the coffeegeek community, so if you are reading this and post to both, please feel free to share our post on CG.

FYI, there is a CG thread about this tip, but no real info on it, mostly questions about it

http://coffeegeek.com/forums/espresso/latteart/519269

I have one of those precision shower screens and we did some blind testing in house and could not discern any difference between it and the stock GS/3 screen.

On negative side this screen keeps water droplets on it much, much longer than stock screen and requires wiping with towel after short flush before you can lock in the portafilter. Also due to flat surfaces, coffee gets stuck onto the screen and it requires that you clean it constantly since you cannot flush it to get rid of it like you can with the stock screen. And those small holes get clogged after you pull single shot... I packed it up and am not using it any longer...

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the feedback. There is a learning curve involved in both the tips and screens. Yes, it is true that grounds to stick to the surface, but only if the grind is not adjusted to a coarser than normal level. Preinfusion with these screens is very complete with 98% saturation in less than 5 seconds. This results in a better path of the water, and a much softer extraction. A difference in taste? No, not really, however the coffee oils are emulsified more and the vacuum that is present during extraction allows better creama development. A little wipe of the screen is really no more trouble than drying the basket in the portafilter, and will involve a change in practice. The holes will plug if left unwiped, and also if grind settings are too fine. Please try it again, with some of these ideas in mind, and you will find the benefits.

My screen story: My friend Paul and I bought a pair of the Txspresso screens, mine for my GS3 and Paul for his Cyncra.

Paul hated his screen on his machine. He said it would consistently clog up about 50% of the holes in such a way that the dispersion pattern was super-uneven, and that it was difficult if not impossible to clean the holes out. He switched back to a traditional Synesso screen within a couple of sessions and sent his screen back.

I actually love mine. The dispersion is visually perfect and noticeably superior to the Synesso screen that I normally use on my GS3 (which I find much better made than the La Marzocco screens I have used). Shots seem to flow just a little more even than normal, but I wouldn't say I've noticed any difference in taste at all, and I'd be quite skeptical of any such claims. I like it most because it's easy to clean for me. I take it off at the end of every session (I screw it on finger tight so I can remove the dispersion screw with my thumb and index finger covered by a towel to protect from the heat), and run water over it and then clean it with a pre-made solution of espresso cleaner that I keep in a soap dispenser. Usually one or two holes is blocked after a number of shots, and I find that if I just clean out the dispersion block and flush out any particles on it with a blind-portafilter wiggle, I can place the screen and screw in the blind portafilter basket and water backflush (or detergent backflush, every other day or so, sometimes every day) it in there a couple of cycles. I find that this clears all the holes with an absolute minimum of effort, and the screen ends up a good bit cleaner than you'll ever get a regular screen with a mesh screen placed over a metal back like you see on E61s, La Marzoccos, and every other machine I've ever used.

I can't explain the disparate experiences that Paul and I have had. I haven't remembered to bring my screen over to Paul's to see if it's as tidy on his setup as it is on mine. But certainly my cleaning routine (backflushing the screen loose in the blind portafilter) is different from Paul's or most people's, so maybe that's part of it. Still, I personally find that my own screen provides nice dispersion throughout a session without needing to be taken off or anything, which was far off from Paul's experience and unrelated to cleaning routines. Maybe it's a variation in how we grind, though I am skeptical of that because our dose range and our brew ratio range is quite similar, and we use a similar basket. I suspect it's possible there's some variation in the quality of the screens, but at $70 a pop I'm not about to get a good sample size to test that hypothesis.

YMMV, but that's been my experience. I would enjoy hearing more people's experience with the screen, myself.

terryz wrote:...however the coffee oils are emulsified more and the vacuum that is present during extraction allows better creama development...

**Edited by Terry Z 2/28/2011 to remove the term Vacuum. Replaced with low pressure zone**

Do the question marks mean you would like a clearer definition of this?

I will assume yes, and provide an additional amount of information, but will also ask that you visit the page describing the process and review the diagram, for a better understanding of our work.

Videos and more related info will be posted in the coming weeks.

http://www.espressoparts.com/EP_TX_SCREEN

By restricting the 9 bar pressure flow at the screen with reduced size precision made holes we are able to create a zero pressure zone right after the screens, creating a low pressure zone. This low pressure zone allows the coffee particles to absorb water at a higher rate, resulting in a far better saturation of the ground coffee. This allows for true emulsification of the coffee oils during the brewing process.

Forced particulate migration is often the result of pressure forcing the coffee through the brew basket during extraction. When you inspect a standard extraction puck, you can clearly see the stratified lines of coarse and fine particles. The extraction process involved with the use of our Sproline screen creates a softer extraction still utilizing 9 bar of pressure, just harnessing the pressure differently. Particle migration is hardly noticeable.

An increase in creama is noticeable, and the off gassing of fresh coffee reduced, or a smoother creama if you will. A coffee that is in it's declining stages of roast will also benefit from this process. As with any new process, this will take time for folks to "get" it but we suspect that it will work for some and not for all.


Terry Z

I'd read this blurb, hence the ???

Discharge Cavitation

If we assume a .7mm gicleur in the brew path, for the screen to have any effect on the pressure, the total area of the holes will have to be less than ~.385mm². Assume 150 holes in the outer ring. Their diameter needs to be about .05mm to affect the pressure. Divide that by 6 for the 6 rings and the figure is around .008mm, or about 1/10th the diameter of a human hair. From the image, the holes look considerably larger.

How is it's possible to pull a vacuum in a basket pressurized to ~130PSI? To pull a vacuum, the flow would need to be out of the PF and the coffee itself would have to be air tight.

If the flow sans puck is like a 'rain shower' and not a nozzle, then it's not affecting the pressure.

The device may have an effect due to more uniform wetting.

I agree with Ian, I am skeptical of the notion of there being a vacuum created during either preinfusion or full-pressure brewing. The standard Marzocco gicleur is 0.6mm; I have a custom-made ~0.7 mm gicleur installed on my machine, as well as a pump that's capable of pressure profiling. At a fixed motor speed (and therefore fixed flow-rate given equivalent restriction), my machine puts out 600 mL/minute with no screen attached... and 600 mL/minute with the precision shower screen on. There's no flow restriction taking place at the screen based on the small data I've collected, and it's my belief that any benefit the screen provides—and I'd casually agree that the crema is probably a little bit better (I haven't done any blind testing or anything, take with a huge grain of salt!), but I'm inclined to think that any such effect is more likely from more even puck saturation than any kind of vacuum or unusual pressure differential that it created above the puck.