My experience is you FOR SURE need to be doing a warming flush on double boiler e61, the group is noticeably undertemp after sitting idle.

Just a note to everyone talking about double boilers, OP has a single boiler on PID.

Just FYI.

Using a double boiler machine to compare to I believe is perfectly appropriate. It sounds very similar to the brew boiler in a ECM Syncronica or Profitec 700 sans the steam boiler. The group is heated by the brew boiler and does double duty for steam. I would bet the pid settings are close to the same as well.

sluflyer06 wrote:My experience is you FOR SURE need to be doing a warming flush on double boiler e61, the group is noticeably undertemp after sitting idle.

I've had a bit of difference experience. My e61 group idles right at 198.5 when set to 200.. if I do any more than a screen wipe, I start losing heat during the actual brew.

I had a Vibiemme double boiler and now I own Profitec Pro 700. I tried tons of a different flushes and at the end I am convinced that a double boiler E61 needs no flush. The flush confuses the PID in my opinion. You only need to set correct offset, which seems to be 26-28 F for an european model of Profitec Pro 700. I installed also Eric thermometer, which confirms my supposition. The group head temperature is somewhat what is over emphasized. It varies very often. This is valid for a pace of an one doubleshot in lets say 5 minutes.
By the way, the grouphead temperature after a long idle is 196-197 for a Profifec with t1 set to 200 and offset set to 26-27 with portafilter locked in summer. Eric says, theres no need for a flush in a DB machine On the other hand, Dan claims that one should do 2 oz flush and 30s wait after a long idle. But in my experience the taste of coffee is better with no flush at all. So, who knows.

+1

My offset is about 28f. Came set at 18 which is way low. Confirmed with both Eric thermo and Thermofilter.

Come to think of it, maybe it was meant to run in celsuius and hence an 18c offset? Huh.

With my Profitec 700 I do a 3 second flush and immediately lock the portafilter and pull. After trying many routines I found that by doing this I get the most stable temperature during a 25 to 30 second extraction. This is using a SCACE thermofilter. At the beginning I used to do the 2oz flush, wait 30 secs and pull for my first shot in the mourning or after a long idle period. The shots always tasted off by doing this. I found out with the SCACE that even though the temperature readout was mostly stable it would take at least the first 10 seconds of the extraction for the temperature to slowly climb to 200F. I think the shots were under extracting during those 10 secs which would through the taste off. Also, not doing any flush would result in the same bad scenario. Now, by doing a 3sec flush and immediately pull the temperature would go up to 200F in about 2 to 3secs and stay there for the duration of the shot.

"With my Profitec 700 I do a 3 second flush and immediately lock the portafilter and pull."

Thanks for the tip. I will try it. I also ordered Eric's Thermometer.