The steam wand has a no scald hose inside, so you can move it before and after you steam. Trying to hold any steam wand while you steam is inadvisable. If the wand is too hot to hold after steaming, you may need to contact the service department of the vendor.

The water wand is connected directly to the steam boiler, as with most other machines (a few very high end machines do the hot water through heat exchangers). This means you initially get a furiously boiling water and steam coming from the tip; and you have to be careful.

DaveC wrote:Go into PID setting menu and there is a TR parameter, you either set it to 1 or 0.

Dave -- noticed something strange on my Bianca ( well strange for me as I never encountered this before )
My Bianca's brew boiler temperature increases to as high as upwards of 120C when turned on - then slowly drops to the preset temperature of 94C

Is this normal PID operation ,,,my "TR" setting is set to "1" so as to show actual temperature minus the offset of 10

thanks

selmerfudd

I've noticed it too (although I'm usually shaving and brushing while the machine warms up). I think it might be a feature; by overheating the brew boiler, they can heat the group up more quickly. The Bianca's group is ready to go in about 20 to 25 minutes; my last E61 machine's group took about 40 to 45 minutes to fully heat up.

So I shouldn't be worried that the boiler might overheat and cause damage due to overpressure ?

Jake_G wrote:That would be a savvy trick. By contrast, an overactive P setting would have wild swings on every cycle. This is right up there with the SBDU trick of firing the machine up in steaming mode and then letting the group pull the boiler back down to temp as is warms up. If this is indeed a feature, it's a smart one.

Cheers!

-Jake

I also noticed that if extraction water is made to run upon starting up or at any time during the warm up cycle - --the overtemp feature does not kick in and the PID will indeed stop the temp at the set temp - but the group seems to not be ready for proper extraction and relatively cool to the touch

I must have read right past that part.

BTW, the brew boiler has a safety valve set for 12 or 13 bar since it gets full pump pressure. Heating up to 135C won't even get close to its pressure rating. You can cross this one off your worry list.

I'm intrigued by post #18 on this thread: Lelit Bianca User Experience

That chart shows that the range of flow from the Bianca is 1.4ml/s to 6.4ml/s. That isn't a very high max flow which would mean that pulling a 'traditional E61' shot isn't attainable on this machine, even with the paddle to the far right. I believe most Rotary E61s and I know the LMLM have a max flow of around 12ml/s. Reducing the max flow means the dwell time is extended (will take up to 10 seconds to hit 9 bar at a 6ml/s flow). In my experience, the longer the dwell, the more mouthfeel and body are reduced; however, the longer dwell allows for a finer grind which may be needed to better extract lighter roasts so it's a catch 22.

There has been very interesting on-going conversation on the DE1 private forum about this. Users coming from Rotary E61s and other rotary machines without preinfusion / flow control who prefer medium to medium-dark roasts have noticed that even with 'preinfusion' turned off, the body/mouthfeel is less on the DE1 compared to their old machine. The DE1 started with a max flow of 6ml/s like the Bianca and now has been increased to 8ml/s (and should be going up to 12+ in a future update based on conversations resulting from this topic). The purpose of increasing max flow is to better emulate traditional machines where 9 bar of pressure is reached in 2-3 seconds. It should also be noted that DE1 users who are used to flow restricted machines like Slayers, 0.6mm gicleur LaMarzoccos, etc do not notice a reduction in body/mouthfeel so there appears to be a correlation between a thicker shot and shorter dwell time.

To further test my theory, I asked Jake_G to run a test on his 2 group machine. One group he set max flow to 8ml/s and the other group he set max flow to 12ml/s. Side by side shots of Malabar Gold yielded a thicker body/mouthfeel on the 12ml/s group compared to the 8ml/s group. Thanks Jake for your continued contributions to this very interesting study on flow rates and the impact on espresso!

So I bring this topic to the Bianca user group to get more insight on your experiences. While you are likely pulling some of the best espresso of your life, especially with lighter roasted coffees, are you noticing a reduction in body/mouthfeel due to the limited max flow and extended dwell time resulting from it? Comment on machines you've used prior so we know what you are bench-marking body/mouthfeel to.

I was never a fan of 1990s Seattle style ristrettos; so I can't comment on the basic question. But I do want to note that on an E61, a very high water debit will not reduce the dwell/preinfusion time, which is based on the preinfusion mechanism. You are going to be waiting 8 seconds or so to get up to full pressure regardless. The lower water debit of the Bianca does not change that.