another_jim wrote:Currently enjoying 6 gram singles from a medium roasted blend I'm playing with to reverse engineer Italian bar blends; as well as two light roast naturals, a Guji and the Elida Catuai.

Jim, I'm glad to see you enjoying singles. I drink them exclusively. I think they taste distinctly different (and better IMHO) than doubles and triples.

In addition to using a Tadika funnel, or similar, a well engineered basket and careful prep technique, I think gentle preinfusion is very helpful -- perhaps essential --- for avoiding the gushers most people get when they try to pull a single.

I sometimes wonder about the percentage of singles versus dopios historically consumed by Italians. Perhaps the American habit of "more is better", big milk drinks at Starbucks and the era of updosing to compensate for bitter 100% Arabica dark roasts at the beginning of the 3rd wave pushed us too far from the subtle pleasures of the original espresso drink.

Peppersass wrote:Those so-called benefits are not the reason flow control has become popular. It's really a consequence of a trend toward light roasts that began a little over 10 years ago......
IMHO, flow control has little or no benefit for medium-to-dark roasts, though some have said that some medium roasts extract better with some extension of the preinfusion time.

100% agree. I like dark roasts and for me I didn't see the value. Put it on, played around for a while, and pulled it off.

Jeff wrote:Ask a lever-machine aficionado and you'll hear that E61-style flow management is just an ugly hack for what lever machines have been doing well for decades.

It's just two different methods of achieving a change in flow rate. I'm not claiming that the E61 FCD is better than a manual espresso machine, but even if it is worse, it's not so bad as to call it an "ugly hack".

jgood wrote:I like dark roasts and for me I didn't see the value. Put it on, played around for a while, and pulled it off.

I am a dark roast guy too. In fact, the spring lever does improve the taste a little bit, so I am using it constantly. Because dark roasted beans extract more easily and quickly, lowering the pressure during extraction is more important for them than for light roast. This seems to me to be the only benefit of flow control for dark roast. Of course, the best solution would be a real spring lever machine. Maybe, it will be my upgrade in a few years.

I think Jeff's point about the quality of the greens and roast vs the level of roast is a good one. The "darker" medium roasts I use in rotation with lighter roasts all taste better with the e61 lever style pre-infusion I use. None of them are darker than about 18-19 on a Roast Vision and certainly no oil. About the same roast level as Lavazza Super Crema or Lavazza Gold.

For the record, the Lelit flow control and ECM/Profitec flow control are physically and mechanically the same except Lelit has used a paddle shaped to restrict movement of the needle valve to a limited range. If you swapped the paddle for a ball knob you'd have the ECM range. If you put the Lelit paddle (or shaped your own out of a piece of wood) on any other machine with a flow control kit you'd have the same range limit on an ECM, Profitec......

To Ursego/OP:

I have a Puristika with the ECM flow control kit (with original lower spring). If not already, view and try Pixillate/Chris's approach to using flow control. The video, narrative and cues are helpful especially since his machine and flow control kit share many of the internals of our Puristikas.

I had no practical experience with flow control before the Puristika and was tentative about using it. Chris' approach helped take a lot of the guesswork out of learning some of the fundamentals. It has also resulted in some true "ah ha!" moments as I become more practiced.

Even if you decide it's not for you, it's at least a jumping off point.

OK, I found the answer to the question "How can flow control compensate for incorrect grind size?".

If the grind is too coarse (i.e. the flow is too fast), immediately start closing the faucet gradually, and keep reducing the flow rate until the normal brew time (25-28 sec) is achieved (otherwise, the shot would be finished in, let's say, 15 seconds). That is the "spring lever" profile. The shot will be saved! It may not be perfect, but it will most likely be enjoyable. This advice is especially helpful when you're starting new beans and don't yet know what grind size you need. Set the grind size a little more than what your intuition tells you, and then you'll have a good chance to have room to maneuver with flow control.

If the grind is too fine (i.e. the shot is running too slow and water is barely seeping through the tablet), turn the flow down for a bit to let the puck saturate, then open it back up. That is the "blooming" profile. Maybe, it will improve the flavour to some extent.

In the beginning, I regretted paying money for the flow control. I even said to myself, "At least it looks cool!" But now I see that I did the right thing, even just for partial compensation of incorrect grind size - without diving deep into the world of flow control.