Tonefish wrote:AFAIK the Acaia scales are the only ones that give real time flow rate. Since the Pearl is a large size relative to the Lunar, the only espresso scale that exists for me is the Acaia Lunar since I value flow profiling espresso.

I used to wonder how helpful that would be when I first started flow profiling. Now I know just how far to open my needle for about a 1.5ml/s pre infusion. The rest of the time I just watch the flow and adjust faster or slower based on watching how fast it's approaching the target weight and whether it's time to start trailing back the flow for the final third. I can't imagine doing it any more without one hand on the needle and both eyes on the tail and the scale (weight). Adding one more thing to watch sounds a bit much to me. But I suppose with enough diligence and practice, one could train oneself to do it.

-Peter

pcrussell50 wrote:I used to wonder how helpful that would be when I first started flow profiling. Now I know just how far to open my needle for about a 1.5ml/s pre infusion. The rest of the time I just watch the flow and adjust faster or slower based on watching how fast it's approaching the target weight and whether it's time to start trailing back the flow for the final third. I can't imagine doing it any more without one hand on the needle and both eyes on the tail and the scale (weight). Adding one more thing to watch sounds a bit much to me. But I suppose with enough diligence and practice, one could train oneself to do it.

-Peter

Decent espresso promotes their upcoming scale with built in flowrate measurement and monitoring:
https://coffeesnobs.com.au/brewing-equi ... post660019

decentespresso wrote:{...}
However, I now have placed two new feature requests with the firmware programmer we've hired:
flow rate measuring built into the scale : this would be wonderful, because it won't depend on bluetooth messages arriving reliably at 10x/second. It would be much more accurate to have the scale calculate flow and weight, and send both via BLE. No bluetooth scale currently does this, I believe.
{...}

You can dial into a specific debit by adjusting profiling valve on the fly without going thru the process of flushing T seconds of water thru the group to draw X amount of water, adjusting the knob after every flush and repeating the process. I assume you bookmarked your knob on the side panel with a marker and pointy sticker for the OPV setting (preferably slightly higher than the max pressure you use) you currently have for the values of debit you use most often.

Secondly your method of profiling is largely based on feeling. The adjustments you make on the profiling valve and the measurements you read on the scale both has a natural systematic delay. Delay in adjustments at the valve, delay at scale measurements.
As you pull the first shot with an unknown bean/dose/grind/profile you learn from it and in the next shot you can use the information from the first pull and you can estimate when the flow will increase and adjust the knob before it starts to.
With your current scale you receive an info (weight/time) and process it to have a feeling of the information that is actually useful to you (flowrate). If you have the flowrate as a feedback, I will speculate that you would have a better control over your profiles shots.

If you ever buy a scale with flowrate function, it would be interesting to read how it fares in manual profiling use.

None of this ^^^ is untrue.

However there is a contingent of us who are happy enough doing it analog/Slayer style, with weight benchmarks as our flow-change triggers. See the "rule of thirds" thread here on HB. I used to be smug against Slayer for only having "two speeds", where some of us have full control anywhere in between. But I realized that other than making small mid-course flow corrections which Slayer cannot do, (yet ), if your puck prep is right on, you won't have to make such corrections, and two speeds end up being enough for most palates.

-Peter

So after 2 weeks of daily use, the Lunar has become an indispensable tool. I use it in auto tare / timer starts with flow mode. Been able to pull some great shots (also using a Coffee Sensor thermostat), so I've got group head temp, extraction time and yield nailed down for my machine, grinder setup. Battery life on the Lunar is good - still showing 100% charge after 2 weeks. I've had water/coffee spilled on it with no issues, it's easy to clean. Also using the Acaia Brewmaster app running on an iPad, simple and easy way to access the Lunar's settings.

Overall it's a good tool albeit expensive. I'm now considering getting the larger Pearl as an exclusive portafilter scale due to its larger size - currently using a cheap digital food scale that isn't very accurate.

jevenator wrote:This is my problem. Is it my scale? It's been like this since the beginning and I just dealt with it. It's only if you add small increments like this.

video
Note from moderator (Sam): Video embedded!Feel free to remove it if you don't want it embedded

Sorry for not embedding. I couldn't figure out how to format the bbc code and I'm in a rush.

Hope it's not off topic too. Technically I'm defending acaia and saying go for lunar because it'll preform just as well as the pearl and in more applications as well (smaller, waterproof, etc.)

It's the scale! After several $10 scales that frustrated me beyond words, I purchased the Decent Espresso simple scale...did exactly what your video showed. Discussed the problem with DE and they sent me another one. It did the same thing! It's just not sensitive enough for accurate bean weighing, which is extremely important as Peter mentioned. I moved on to the Brewista2 which does the job. But now I'm looking for more, the app intrigues me. If it can help my extractions...then I'm diving into the deep end of the pool.

pcrussell50 wrote:Frustrating...Well.. it's either a lemon... or John got on with the wrong Chinese factory. I consider scale innards like watch movements. There may be (made up numbers here) a hundred different scales out there but only five or ten sets of innards. Some are good and some are not. And it's possible that some are hit or miss (most frustrating grrr...)

It's hard to believe John would consider that as good enough.

-Peter

Unfortunately...he does. However, the solution was to be his app scale for the DE1. Don't know how this is coming along.

Tonefish wrote:AFAIK the Acaia scales are the only ones that give real time flow rate. Since the Pearl is a large size relative to the Lunar, the only espresso scale that exists for me is the Acaia Lunar since I value flow profiling espresso.

BINGO...this is what I'm looking for.

BaristaBob wrote:I moved on to the Brewista2 which does the job. But now I'm looking for more, the app intrigues me. If it can help my extractions...then I'm diving into the deep end of the pool.

Well darn. Now you guys are piquing my curiosity.

I'm happy with the Brewista2 for it's weighing... it's fast enough (for me), and consistent. And it has the same conformal coating (waterproofing) of it's board as Acacia uses even though they no longer recommend rinsing it under running water. I still do this with my Brewista2 BTW, and mine is none the worse for wear. I just don't force high pressure water as deep as I can get it into every nook and cranny under the pad. Auto tare works great. The timer probably works fine too, but my machine has it's own built in shot timer tied to the solenoid and that is flawless. Runs forever and a day on a charge. You could go once a year with it. I've done it.

Sooo... what is piquing my curiosity about the Acacias? The flow rate thing. Not sure how I would use it yet, even though I have full flow control on my espresso machine, but it might just be something that I would eventually incorporate into my workflow.

-Peter

Fingers crossed for another 20% off Black Friday dealio on the Lunar

Iowa_Boy wrote:I agree with this! FYI - I was able to purchase at 25% off on Black Friday, so perhaps it may be worth waiting a bit for a deal.

Scott,

Who had the 25% off Black Friday deal last year? I'm itching to know...