ECM Classika PID or Profitec Pro 500 PID?

Recommendations for buyers and upgraders from the site's members.
freredesalpes
Posts: 4
Joined: 5 years ago

#1: Post by freredesalpes »

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autumncat
Posts: 4
Joined: 4 years ago

#2: Post by autumncat »

After asking the internet what these espresso machine are, it seems both have PID and E61 group head that will help with temperature control and stability to within a degree compared to having to do temperature surfing with your current non-PID Silvia.

ECM Classika has a 0.75 liter single boiler with 1200 watt heating element. Profitec Pro 500 is a heat exchanger that is 1.0 liter in size with 1400 watt heating element. The better specs such as size and heating element among others is what your dollar will be buying.

Personal opinion - the convenience to be able to pull a shot and steam your milk simultaneously is certainly a "I got an upgrade" moment.

LObin
Posts: 1792
Joined: 7 years ago

#3: Post by LObin replying to autumncat »

If you are going to be steaming milk, I would go for a heat exchanger all day long vs a single boiler.

The Pro 500 boiler is made out of stainless steel and it's volume is 2L, not 1L. That puts it above the average boiler size in it's category.

I would strongly advise you to get Eric's group thermometer along with the pro 500. Managing water/group temp can get tricky with a HX/E61 machine. Even more so when the love story is just starting.
LMWDP #592

Bluenoser
Posts: 1433
Joined: 6 years ago

#4: Post by Bluenoser »

I have a Pro500 PID that was difficult to use "out of the box". I've written a few posts about the issues I had with slow rebound. However, I am reasonably happy with my HX now.

I could not have used my machine without a group thermometer. And although some use HX designs without one, I truly can't imagine using the Pro 500 PID without one. So I'd strongly recommend that you factor that into the cost (along with a bottomless portafilter (for either machine you get). ) You definitely will need to learn a bit about flushing and, again, that is hard to learn without the group thermometer.

I've had the Pro500 for about 19 mo and as it arrived, it had very slow rebound.. that is, it took about a 10-15 minute wait after the 2nd shot to get back up to temp to make a 3rd shot. I finally removed the thermosiphon pipe and cleaned/reamed out the restriction hole and now it works much better. It may have had some impediment in that tube, and so while it works faster now, it still has a slower rebound than a double or single boiler, (such as the Classika.

Both have an E61 group head and that massive beast will affect the brew water, no matter what the PID displays; as it only measures the temp in the boiler. As long as you wait a proper warmup period, and your Portafilter is hot, the Classika likely will give a more consistent brew water temperature because of its design. In the Pro500, you'll have to learn about flushing and use your group thermometer as a guide.

The Pro500 has very good steam capability and while you can steam and pull shot, I mostly steam just as I turn off the shot. However, the single boiler needs to be heated up to steam and then it must cool to pull another shot. This would be inconvenient if you make milk drinks mixed with straight espressos (ie: guests). For me, I love cappuccinos and so make quite a few milk drinks so the Pro500 is much more convenient.

I think, no question, the Classika would be easier to use ... but less convenient if making more than the occasional milk drink.

A machine that is cheaper than both and makes, perhaps, better quality espresso, is the Breville DB (920 model). It is a DB with steam. However, I do like the aesthetics of the Pro500 and Classika better.

freredesalpes (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 5 years ago

#5: Post by freredesalpes (original poster) »

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Bluenoser
Posts: 1433
Joined: 6 years ago

#6: Post by Bluenoser »

I'll try not to color my info based on my one machine and explain what I've learned over the past 1.5 years.. Although realize many people on HB here have far more experience than I.

If you haven't done it, read how the basic HX design works. It has a tube that runs through the boiler that heats water. This tube runs to the group and returns to the boiler in a "thermosiphon (TS)" loop. This water is your brew water and the nice thing about it, is that it is fresh from your tank and doesn't sit in a boiler for a long time. This loop circulates the water just by convection currents. In older designs, this loop ran pretty fast and the water in it became pretty hot, pretty fast. Because this is your brew water, you need to cool it down to 200F by flushing. In the older designs you could count seconds from when the water stopped steaming and be reasonably accurate with your brew water temp. The disadvantage of this is that it uses up tank water and people were filling their tanks too often. The advantage, is that the TS heats back up in seconds and so you can pull successive shots as fast as you want. Many manufacturers then made 2 design changes in the HX. A PID was added which kept the steam boiler temperature consistent; and added a restriction in the TS loop so it circulated slower. The restriction caused the major change. With the restriction, the water in the TS stays cooler and so you don't need as much flushing. In an ideal setting, if the TS loop is tuned perfectly, you could set your PID to a temperature and could get a brew water temperature that was pretty predictable. Just turn on, wait for the warmup (30-45 minutes) and pull your shot.

Here is some opinion, based on my experience. I do not believe setting a PID on a number of Pro500s will guarantee the exact same brew water temp within 1-2degF. I think there are manufacturing tolerances on the volume of water in each TS loop that vary slightly, the 2.5mm pin hole may vary, you may get just a bit of scale in the pin-hole, your ambient temperature may vary across users which changes the influence of the E61 group. All these things are variables that cannot be predicted. So setting a PID on one Pro500 to 250 may result in a brew water of 200F, where on another you may need to set the PID to 254. There is just no way to know.

The restrictions in the TS loop tend to prevent the TS water from flash boiling (as it did in older designs without the restrictor). And so you can't flush by looking at the 'steam' stopping. To accurately flush, you MUST (opinion) use a group thermometer. The group thermometer tells you roughly what your TS water temp is; but even more important, it tells when your TS water has heated back up from the previous flush. If you always make only one or two espressos at a time, maybe not so important. Many HX owners consider a group thermometer necessary.

If you look at how WLL did their video, they dialled the PID to a different temp than recommended in the manual (manual recommends 248F). They used 252 or 254 (depending on which vid you see) with zero flushing. But they only knew this because they used an $800 SCACE to determine what PID temp would translate to the magic 200F brew water temp. If you look at Clive's video on the Pro500, their workflow is to crank the PID to 258-262 and do a 7 second flush to get near 200F. Again, they used the expensive SCACE to develop their workflow. Note that Profitec's manual recommends a PID of 248F to achieve a 200F brew water but with Clive's workflow, this would seem to give a brew water below 190F which would likely result in sour shots. Clive's workflow also seems to indicate you could not achieve a brew water of 205F, which you might want on light roasts. I can easily get 205F on my Pro500, using my own workflow, guided by the group thermometer.

(Clive Video) See 2:16 @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h0A868qu-8

These are significantly different workflows for the same machine! and without a SCACE I don't think anyone could duplicate either. If the Pro500 was a 'user friendly" machine, you'd think both would use the same workflow.

Some users say not to worry so much about brew temp, as realistically a medium dark espresso roast will do great from 192-200F.. and this is "paralysis by analysis".. but I had a really hard time troubleshooting bad espresso shots as the machine was delivered. I delivered several espressos to friends which were too sour to drink. I could not tell that my brew water was too cool after warm up.. and I was also pulling successive shots without waiting a sufficient recovery time. The group thermometer solved all this for me.. although what is displayed on the thermometer won't be the exact brew water temp because it is still some distance from where the water exits.. But its only 3-5F high. You can see my prior posts for comparison.

I agree, that HX manufacturers could do so much more to make their HX machines more usable. They all should include temperature measurement near the screen. (And they all should replace their single spout portafilter, with a naked one). They should publish some performance parameters so that a user can tell if their machine is performing according to their intended design, or if it needs some service. I cannot believe that Profitec/ECM offer virtually no performance reports on making successive shots with/without steam (milk) to show the boundaries of what a user could expect. I bought my Pro500 based on WLL videos and my machine did not exhibit anywhere near that level of consistency. I don't blame WLL; but I wonder if they tested, say 50 Pro500 machines to see if they all delivered identical performance?

I described my machine exactly to both my vendor and to Profitec who both thought my slow rebound and low brew water temperature was a workflow issue. However, when I finally took off the TS tube to clean and slightly enlarge the restrictor opening, my machine's performance changed significantly. So I would say that it is possible my machine may be an edge case of the Pro500 designs. However, if you read some of my previous threads, you will find some users of Pro 500s (and a few other brands) HX's that had similar slow rebound and some eventually sold their machines.. But these are not prevalent, I think.

So a few things.. If you buy a prosumer machine, expect to maintain it. At first, even though I am an engineer, I balked at the idea. But it teaches you more about your machine and most repairs are minor.

There was a thread in HB recently about a user who had an HX Appartmento (pretty sure it was the Rocket, but could be wrong), on 30 day trial. He would not buy a group thermometer and struggled significantly trying to learn a flushing routine. I don't think he eventually kept the machine.. The thread was locked by HB because of frustrations expressed in some of the posts. So even in other HX designs, it takes a bit more work to learn to use them effectively. That is not necessarily a bad thing.. it depends how you view the hobby.


I'm pretty happy with my Pro500 now.. But I wasn't for the first 1.5 years. And I had to work at it. I can't really speak to the steaming ability of the Classika, but I'd suspect it would be fine. You can use the steam gauge to tell when the steam rebounds.

freredesalpes (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 5 years ago

#7: Post by freredesalpes (original poster) »

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Bluenoser
Posts: 1433
Joined: 6 years ago

#8: Post by Bluenoser »

It's a well built machine..

The Profitec 500/600/700 are now being sold in US with a flow profiler knob on top. They aren't sold that way in Canada so not sure if that is something Profitec is going to add to all units. So you might want to check with WLL to see if they supply it with the flow profiler and how much extra that is. Problem is that it puts a pressure gauge in the head and you can't add a temp gauge. If you buy from WLL I think they extend the warranty 2-3 years, which is nice.. See if they pay shipping both ways if something happens to the machine. IDC here in canada did and that was nice when I had to get my SSR replaced in my 500. (I should have done it myself).

I think the temp gauge is mandatory .. I watched the latest WLL video on flow profiling and it is possible to measure the flow for each 1/4 turn of the know and then run a profile based on that.. you might not need the pressure gauge and so can mostly leave the temp gauge on the head.

Flow/pressure profiling is sort of the rage now.. I think it can give a better extraction.

Or you might want to buy just the stock 500 and add the profile kit down the road, if you want to play around with that parameter.

The Profitec stuff is certainly very well built; and looks great. I think with the temp gauge from the beginning, you'll know how to adjust flushing to get your brew water to the temp you want.. and you can always ask here for suggestions. Get the Eric thermometer, it is an excellent kit and comes off very easily.

Also get a naked portafilter.. I bought one with my machine.. an extra $50-75 but you'll be very happy with it as it will tell you how well your distribution is. Maybe you can dicker with the seller to throw one in, or exchange the single spouted.. I never use the single spouted PF.. (well, it only holds my back flush disk.)

And get a cheapo $20 scale.. 500g 0.01g resolution. (Don't get American weigh.. they are really slow).. I got one from walmart that I've been using for nearly 2 years.

It's a really nice looking machine.. I think you'll be happy with it because it appears you are willing to tinker.. And likely if your friends are just getting into espresso, they will first like the milk-based drinks best..So the convenient steaming is a big plus. Egg nog lattes are really popular this time of year :). .. I have a lot more visits as Xmas approaches and I stock up on light eggnog.. (use 1/2 light eggnog and 1/2 milk and steam normally)

Dave

freredesalpes (original poster)
Posts: 4
Joined: 5 years ago

#9: Post by freredesalpes (original poster) »

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