IMO, a towel over the group is preferred to warming flushes. It functions the same regardless of boiler plumbing

Much thanks to cafeIke for the very helpful Celsius, instead of Fahrenheit 10* delta info.

More research = another much better looking pull.. Not up to standards for snob status, but much better than previous. Pretty sure the pour was still slow, though now that I think I have things a LOT closer to in the ballpack temp/pressure wise I need to go back and do more reading on when to start timing a pour/etc.

Maybe its time to get a video of a pull up and get some expertise on that from all the folks that are much better than I.

Slow? For what?

I'm currently pulling Caffe Fresco's new Bello blend, a coffee I've never tried. I also haven't read the thread.

So far, the coffee has a sweet spot Emma Maersk could sail through. From a 45s 100% ristretto to a 25s 50% normale, it's delicious. I think I'm gonna settle around 30s 65%.

Slow for the seemingly widespread "standard" of 30s.

The pulls have several "dead spots" for quite a while before many of them go away... But the color and tiger striping look good (to my eye).

Its also only really "slow" if you should start timing when you flick the lever, or when you start to see some espresso coming thru the PF.

I'll get a stopwatch out tho, and maybe try and get a video of an extraction, so I have reasonable data.

Tonight's pull:



The video's 49 sec, seems as though you can see the start of espresso hitting the bottom of the PF around 40. Long, short, indifferent... The pull was a little worse than normal, and I imagine I need to get closer to show some of the other possible problems.

The quick blonding on the left side for example isn't really normally lately. But the way the pour started, and the 2 streams, is fairly often.

How much coffee in the basket?

Looks like the center doesn't extract. How is the basket filled and coffee distributed?

Lots of twacking of the doser handle, heaping pile of coffee, a settling tap on the counter, a flat finger n-s-e-w distributing of the coffee with the last removing what excess is left.

And yes, often the center doesn;t extract.

Is coffee pre-weighed or dose by eye?

Try side2side shake, WDT then gentle vertical tap of the PF ring / handle junction on the edge of the counter.

The side2side shake is more like a vibration.

Dose by eye.

This new shake I'm adding is after I'm done with the grinder I take it?

IMO, consistent dosing by eye is next to impossible in home conditions, except for the supremely expert, which I'm not. The volume varies considerably with the weather and coffee age. I use a timer and a scale. The timer gives me a bit over my dose and I remove the extra by the scale. It's a total PITA, but 100% repeatable.

The shake is after the basket is full, but there's nothing to preclude doing it while filling, IF it improves the distribution.

The shake works here, where updoses are rare.