I'd be curious to hear if any other Strega owners have played around with delaying the pump engagement on the Strega? Lately, I've been trying different approaches to how I begin the shot, besides the tweaks to the pump's pressure. I can't state with any certainty that it makes a better shot, consistently, but it does seem to up the forgiveness factor on shot flow by allowing the puck to saturate more completely before the pressure kicks in.

I started going very gently thru the point at which the water enters the group which is about 90° parallel, rather than my regular- pull all the way down in one motion. Then I started delaying the pump engagement an extra second or two by pausing after the water filled the group before letting the lever all the way down. Doing both has been fun to try. It seems like it has allowed me to grind even finer if I want, and get sweeter shots. I'd be interested to hear if any other Strega owners have played with this.

I've done the same thing the last week and wanted to ask the same question. I also tried to let the pump run for 2-3 seconds and then pull the lever up a bit to stop the pump and after a couple of seconds pull the lever down again to build up the pressure completely.

I haven't noticed big differences. Flow does seem to be better in some cases but not in other cases. I'm still trying to find out what the exact effect is and get more consistency.

You guys probably aren't moving your levers much up and then back down, but I wanted to add a little word of warning.

On my Strega, at the end of a slow shot, I do a short pull on the lever briefly to pull some air into the lever chamber and push the last drips out of the puck. I find this speeds up the finish of the shot, allows for safe removal of the PF, and also lifts the puck in the basket so all I have to do is invert it over the bucket and the puck falls out (tapered basket). When I do this I make sure not to pull it far enough that the water port gets opened. I know I need the "air flush" when the PF is locked in tight, quick air flush will hiss out the last drops and a tilt of the lever will let the PF unlock easily. (I should make a video I guess.)

The biggest reason I like to do this is the fact that it lifts and loosens the puck. If you do the same lever action up/down during a pre-infusion you might cause a dislodging of the puck as they are quite air proof once wet.

When I "slow saturate" the puck I pull the lever all the way down in one motion, but I don't take it all the way back to the switch. This has the piston at full up position and only a slight movement will engage the pump switch after whatever pre-infusion time I like.

And yes, I do often use a short soak at the beginning of my shots. Some coffees work well, and others not as much - depends on what flavors you are after sometimes. It does make things more forgiving though, as it gives the grinds more time to swell and seal before the pressure starts pushing through.

Most of my recent shots have been preinfused with the pump running in the 1.5b-2b range. I was surprised to see that the vibe pump would pull this low but it does produce a very nice shot.

another_jim wrote: I don't see any point in delaying the pump before it comes on at all, since you will not get an adequate amount of water into the group. You want to get the pressure up to around 1 to 2 bar at least, so the group is at least half full.

I can drain as much water thru the group as I want, pump or no pump. I just stopped after 300ml now to prove the point.

When I flush the group by simply pulling the lever just past parallel, I get more volume into the drain bowl than I'd ever want in the shot, so delaying the onset of the pump doesn't rob the shot of water, just the pressure ramp to 11 or whatever your OPV will cut off at that the pump provides.

Is your Strega plumbed in? I'm wondering how you got that much water through without some pressure behind it.

My Strega is running off of the tank, and I tried several times to see how much it would dump. My maximum output was 40ml. Topped off the tank to see if the gravity feed would make much difference, but it didn't. I do get some drips after the 40ml, but they soon taper off to nothing.

40ml is just barely enough to wet the puck and extract a 20-25ml shot probably. Like a La Pavoni shot size.

Yep. Plumbed in. I knew there was an inherent difference between tank and plumbed in; the last time I took the Strega on the road to one of our meet-ups at Gary's (the one that Jim and Abe came to) it behaved the same as yours.

Mine runs from the reservoir. I did some test last week. I had some lesser beans roasted FC+ and they didn't benefit from extra pre-infusion. The taste just got a bit worse in that case. The Monssoned Malabar roasted City+ also didn't want a longer pre-infusion and gave a really bad taste when doing this.

Now I'm using some freshly roasted 2014 Costa Rica Montanas del Diamante Washed microlot. I roasted it just beyond City+ and it had a bit too much acidity yet some really nice sweet notes with the normal strega profile (starting extraction when the pump gives less sound and the lever picks up just above horizontal). I tried grinding a bit finer (half a notch on the HG One) and doing a pre-infusion of around 10s at 5 bar (4-5 seconds pump first then lifting the lever slightly to stop the pump) and then put the puimp back on and a normal extraction of 25s giving me a 60% brew ratio. The acidity was almost completely gone and the shot tasted very sweet and thick. It was definitely a big improvement over the espresso using my normal profile.

Tom - If you are running a typical 3 bar line pressure you should be able dial down the dimmer & pre infuse at a lower pressure (1.5-2 bar) using the pump. Of course if you lift off the switch then you are back to line pressure. This is where the tank feed combined with a dimmer would have an advantage over a plumbed in with dimmer as you can lift off the switch & hold the lever in no pressure land letting the puck pre infuse or "pre brew" with no flow other then group pressure.