Holy~ Thanks a lot! I knew something was off with that review!

Only thing I can even remotely think of is that he is:
-in Canada
- plumbed in
- measured in the winter where the machine was adding 40 degree tap water to the boiler between shots

even then, that seems way too long. Maybe he did something weird in his LCC settings.

I'm in Canada and measure in winters No issue with back to back shots.

I'm officially out of ideas then

DaveC wrote:I would expect this in 6 or 7 months if you never lubricate the valve. My recommendation is to regularly lube those O rings. Every 3-6 months depending on usage. I have recommended that change to a Viton ring, which will help somewhat (especially installation on HX machines), but they will still need regular lubrication

https://coffeeequipmentreviews.wordpres ... valve-kit/
https://wordpress.com/block-editor/post ... ss.com/980

oh if you do want to buy FKM/Viton O rings for it the size of the OEM O rings are ID 6.07 x 1.78mm thick. I would imagine any of the 150 piece O ring kits on Amazon or the bay will have something that fits....in a pinch you can use Nitrile, but it's temp resistance isn't quite as high as EDPM.

I finally took DaveC's advice today and lubricated the profilers O-rings after 20 months of use. The paddle was getting pretty stiff. I should never have waited so long. It moves soooo much easier now. I also finally broke down and took EricS' advice and bought a set of metric service wrenches from harbor freight. These make working on the machine much easier and the chances of scratching it less likely. There were about $55 for the set, but I imagine its worth it over the lives of a couple of machines.

https://www.harborfreight.com/15-piece- ... 93668.html

.

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right thread for this, but I see no active Bianca recipe thread, and I've been playing around with the whole "LB pourover" thing - basically trying to imitate some form of drip coffee via flow profiling - and I wanted to share something. So far, I've mostly stuck to quite high coffee-to-water ratios (high for pourover, not espresso, obviously), around 17:120 - with some very good results - but today I decided to stick as close to my usual V60 routine as I could. 16 grams in, 250 out (with 60g/l being my standard ratio), slow and long preinfusion (~45s) to imitate a proper bloom, and then constant 2 bars. Took me about 3:15. I used a very light roast, a natural Rwandan Red Bourbon from Figa Coffee in Poland - lots of berries and plum with some citrus, they also say chocolate, but so far I hadn't been able to tell. Great coffe, but it's gotten a bit stale - I'd opened it probably some time in late February. Ground very finely, between espresso and Turkish (9 on my NZ). Temp was set to 96C.

Long story short, it turned out incredible - not only impossible to tell it's been lying around for a month and a half, it might just be one of the best pourovers I've ever made. Lots of clarity and this great deep caramel-like sweetness - and I can finally taste the chocolate I hadn't been able to find before. No bitterness at all and very mild acidity, although all the fruits are still there. Flavour-wise, basically the best of both worlds - deep chocolate-y undernotes, but still very bright and fresh. Texture is hard to explain. On the one hand, it's surprisingly light (much lighter than an aeropress with a metal filter, for instance); on the other, it's still rich and full with this very creamy mouthfeel (no grittiness, no sediment in the cup, nothing). I would probably compare it to a cloth pourover, but even then it's quite different. Like a really good moka pot maybe? I don't know - like I say, hard to explain.

Anyway, although I still have to replicate this (shouldn't be too hard) I think two things come to mind. First, if you like the idea of a pourover-like cup from your Bianca, you can go for really long cups - like, V60-long - no need to tone it down to make it more "realistic" (I know the idea of a 3-minute, 250-gram "shot" may sound ridiculous at first). Second, I know it's been said before, but it really seems like a long low-pressure extraction is a great way to revive some stale coffee - Idk if anyone has any scientific explanation on why that is, but it just seems to work.

(Also, it's my first proper post here, so I hope someone finds it helpful. And again, sorry if that's not the right thread for a recipe.)

TheDandyGiraffe... Hey, thanks for sharing this... great information! As of right now I can't think of a better place to post the information you provided besides this thread. At one time in the early the days of the Bianca there was talk about owners sharing their flow profile recipes... then almost overnight it seemed like every machine under the sun was offering flow profiling or at least an aftermarket kit so older machines could be upgraded.

Although a few Bianca owners have shared their profiles in this forum I don't think the idea of a dedicated tread ever gained enough traction. Another factor is the proliferation of Youtube videos demonstrating or explaining flow control and how to profile. For example: this video from WLL on how to flow profile on an E61. My problem with their flow control videos is they put to much emphasis on "counting the "number of turns" of the flow control valve plus they have a tendency to structure all extractions between 35 and 40 seconds (like its gospel.) Like you... I found depending on the coffee and its age, I've pushed some shots to well over one minute.

With so many different coffees at so many different age levels and with each person having their own prep technique... its pretty safe to say there's probably no perfect recipe that will work for everyone. That said... I go through a lot of coffee and try to consume the majority of it within 3 weeks of the roast date, so I even though I may never be trying to revive stale coffee... I'm anxious to do some experimenting with your "3-minute cups" to see how close I can get to replicating drip coffee.

Don Task wrote:Although a few Bianca owners have shared their profiles in this forum I don't think the idea of a dedicated tread ever gained enough traction.

Was attempted, but didn't seem there was a lot of interest.

Lelit Bianca profiles diary

I just swapped my machine to the v2 LCC. It was uneventful and took about 15 minutes, most of which was getting the machine apart. I wasn't going to bother upgrading for the $100 price, but 1st line is giving them free to v1 owners that write a review of the Bianca, so I took them up on that. The longer display of the shot time is the main feature I'm interested in.