Greetings I am just trying to confirm a good "waterdance" timing ritual for the livia 90s. From my standpoint I think the pump transition sound begins around 10seconds and I should go another 6 seconds or so.

Not really.

Have your pf loaded, tamped, foreplayed and ready.

Flush until about thee or four seconds after the sound of steam in the stream or from the OPV relief valve stops. I think steam in the stream stopped in the neighborhood of 12 seconds on your video, but its sound was less than great. At any rate the moment of truth will vary depending on how long the machine has been idle, ambient temps, etc.

Paranthetically, your saying 10+6, which is the same as 12+4 -- but the reasoning behind the times is different and mine will give you an equal or better shot every time.

Different coffees like different temps. The easiest and most fundamental way to temp the machine to the coffee is by tasting for sour/bitter. If the grind and dose are right and the coffee is too bitter, it's brewing too hot and you need a longer flush after the steam has stopped. If the coffee is sour, shorten the flush. Some coffees will give you both qualities -- adjust for the best tasting balance. Don't be afraid to mess with this -- the easiest way to learn is by overshoot and iteration.

This sour/bitter test and solution applies no matter what sounds you're getting. If you don't get any steam sound and the coffee tastes sour, you're brewing too cold. Assuming of course, that grind and dose are at least close.

The Pasquini/Bezzerra coil geometry is unique. Additionally, its placement in the boiler (how deep in the water), the materials and mass of the rest of the brewing path, and a lot of other physical factors combine to make a Livia very stable within the appropriate range, when the machine is temped and you keep pulling shots without much wait between them. If your intervals are less than two or three minutes, you probably won't need any inter-shot cooling. If under five minutes, a very short flush -- two or three seconds -- is probably all you'll need.

Basically, for any and all coffees you're likely to use, you want to get the boiler temperature high enough so that the machine is set to be right after a very short idle, or too hot after anything longer -- for any of the coffees you're likely to buy -- and use cooling shots to control the temp. Extra boiler pressure means extra boiler temp, so you'll get better steam performance with that strategy as well.

Once you establish a comprehensively adequate boiler pressure/temp, don't screw with it if you don't have to. Adjust your cooling flushes to suit. Flushing is the most versatile, most adaptable, and quickest on the fly method.

The Livia 90 is a really nice machine. With a good grinder and decent skills it will give smaller and mid-sized boiler HXs under $1500 a run for their money. I had one for more than twenty years and when it hit around 15 started surveying the market with an eye to replacement. But as long as it stayed reliable, I wasn't missing anywhere near enough in the cup to buy anything from the mid-prosumer price range.

BDL

Dont mean to rain on your parade, and the Livia is a decent machine for the most part, but my extensive Scace testing revealed very poor inter-shot stability. Regardless of how the machine was flushed, the temp during the shot would consistanty fall by about 6 F over the course of a normal shot. This was one of the earlier model machines (one of the first I ever owned, and there could be design changes that I'm not aware about that improve the performance of the machine these days). With regards to your video, i can't really observe any sort of flash-boil that would indicate the need for a lengthy cooling flush. 6 seconds is a good general rule to go by though.

Thanks again BDL!

I seem to be in the temperature tinkering stage as I adjust my taste buds to sour and bitter tastes
I find listening to my pump is rather challenging and may focus on the OPV relief valve as I get more familiar with the machine. Time will tell if I rent or purchase a scace.