I believe Mary said they've had them since April, have sold 4, and they have one in stock. She reported no feedback, which I take to be good. The height at 20.75" may be the show stopper. I'd consider dealing with the height issue if it was "the" machine, or at least "the" machine in the under $3k and it's available now at a store near you category.

90 minutes to a Black Cat double,

Jack

Not sure this is the best place for this post but here goes. I had a chance to play a bit with the Aurelia on Friday at CCC. Dan was there and after a couple of attempts pulled some very sweet shots of CCC's latest Toscano +++. Thing is he pulled about six or seven shots - none bad and all with a very deep, dark crema and lovely berry flavour. I pulled a couple after Dan and the coffee geek crowd left. Took a bit of work but with a little updosing managed to get some nice rich chocolate, an initial hint of fruity cranberries and a great finish. I took the same grinder and beans went back to CCC's La Marzocco three-group and I could not recreate the really soft, rich front end. A much brighter shot and the color of the crema was much lighter. Not too scientific a post, I have no idea what the machines were set at pressure and temperature wise but I sure was impressed with the Aurelia.

Thank Ian for the reminder, it was a fun tour with the Aurelia. Peter has had one in-house for a month as part of their survey of available equipment. He asked if I was interested in checking it out early and this thread on the Appia reminded me set aside a Friday espresso lab for it. Peter prepared (and properly rested) a sample of Toscano + some Harrar that accounted for the ample comments about fruitiness.

I arrived uncharacteristically early because of a meeting at 9am. To avoid mixing equipment, we hauled the Robur from the espresso lab into their bench area where the Aurelia was setup. I had talked a little to their technician about the interesting HX design. Calling it an "HX machine" seems like a misnomer; apparently it's so large, it could be rightly called a second boiler (don't quote me, but I think its volume is almost as much as the GS3's dedicated brew boiler). Since the HX is so large, incoming water doesn't have a dramatic effect on its output temperature. The HX's output water is mixed with unheated water to arrive at the desired brew temperature. As reported earlier in this thread, swapping in a different mixing valve changes the proportions and the resulting brew temperature (the owner's manual only talks about tweaking the pressurestat; we did not measure how much effect that would have).

Our quick spin involved a series of extractions at different doses and grind settings. I started with a standard dose, then updosed for the next shot to correct for the pour speed and try to increase the body. Often an espresso machine has a preferred dosing style (i.e., standard dose, lots of clearance / downdosed, or little or no clearance / updosed). In the end we settled on an updosed basket (~19 grams) and a slightly finer grind, yielding the dark berries everyone talked about. Strangely enough, the signature Toscano flavors were nearly absent (i.e., chocolates and caramel). Maybe Peter tweaked the blend more than he led on, I don't know.

The Aurelia sports a toggle-like steam switch. That didn't go over well with those who prefer to finesse the steam volume with a turn knob. It worked for me, especially since the machine's boiler pressure was a very manageable 1.0 bar. It held at that setting indefinitely and steamed up good microfoam. First time visitor Bob Henry was impressed by my attempts as latte art. He's apparently never seen it, the leaves were fuzzy and the details all but absent in the second cup. I accepted his kind words nonetheless (no argument that the milk was very sweet, especially the second and third round macchiatos).

I can't say how well our positive impressions of the Aurelia translate to its little sister, the Appia. I wonder if the combination of a 5L boiler and 1500W heating element will mean slow steam recovery. Hard to say because the actual volume for steam may be a lot less than 5L given the super-sized heat exchanger.

PS: CCC's new espresso lab opens this week. A LM FB-80 is already installed (same machine as used in the WBC). A two-group Linea and GB-5 will be installed too in time for an espresso class on Thursday.

HB wrote:Calling it an "HX machine" seems like a misnomer; apparently it's so large, it could be rightly called a second boiler (don't quote me, but I think its volume is almost as much as the GS3's dedicated brew boiler). Since the HX is so large, incoming water doesn't have a dramatic effect on its output temperature. The HX's output water is mixed with unheated water to arrive at the desired brew temperature. As reported earlier in this thread, swapping in a different mixing valve changes the proportions and the resulting brew temperature (the owner's manual only talks about tweaking the pressurestat; we did not measure how much effect that would have).

NS describes both the Aurelia and the Appia as having a "thermocompensated" group. http://www.nuovasimonelliusa.com/images ... ochure.pdf. If that's what they call the mixing system, this machine could be an amazing value for anyone who has the counter space.

Michael says that "thermocompensation" is an effect most thermosyphon machines, including the E61, both manual and solenoid, use. It means that some cold water makes its way up the thermosyphon return at the shot's start and tempers the initial in-rush of overheated HX water. In the Aurelia, this is well tuned, I suspect it was on real Faema E61s, including the classic, because Steve Schulman has pulled me lots of shots (a daily thing at the SCAA convention), and I've never seen him flush. I suspect that home e61 boxes don't have the all the parts required for this sort of tuning.

woodchuck wrote:Not sure this is the best place for this post but here goes. I had a chance to play a bit with the Aurelia on Friday at CCC. Dan was there and after a couple of attempts pulled some very sweet shots of CCC's latest Toscano +++. Thing is he pulled about six or seven shots - none bad and all with a very deep, dark crema and lovely berry flavour. I pulled a couple after Dan and the coffee geek crowd left. Took a bit of work but with a little updosing managed to get some nice rich chocolate, an initial hint of fruity cranberries and a great finish. I took the same grinder and beans went back to CCC's La Marzocco three-group and I could not recreate the really soft, rich front end. A much brighter shot and the color of the crema was much lighter. Not too scientific a post, I have no idea what the machines were set at pressure and temperature wise but I sure was impressed with the Aurelia.

I don't think you can make any meaningful comparison unless you know details of brew temperature and pressure. FWIW, the LM 3 group that was in the training lab at Counter Culture ran very cold during the my demonstration of the Scace device at EspressoFest this last spring. WRT the Aurelia, I spent a fair amount of time talking about thermometry and temperature stability in the Simonelli booth at SCAA. They had an Aurelia equipped with one of my thermometers and were demonstrating its temperature stabilty. It's extremely stable for a HX machine, and it's tuned so that no cooling or heating flush is required. The scheme is very clever. The temperature is tuned in two ways. It may be tuned by pressurestat, but it is also tuned by changing a pair of gicleurs that are located inside the group. I'm not sure that one method is better than the other because I haven't tested one. However, the gicleur pair idea seems to work very well for producing brew temps independent of group flushing.

The Aurelia made me rethink my opinion on HX machines. And I'm a staunch supporter of the double boiler concept. It'd be killer with a PID'd boiler.

-Greg

gscace wrote:FWIW, the LM 3 group that was in the training lab at Counter Culture ran very cold during the my demonstration of the Scace device at EspressoFest this last spring.

Ian is referring to a different LM. EspressoFest 2006 was in Charlotte and our Friday espresso get-togethers are in Durham. I didn't check the brew pressure of the Aureli, but Peter regulates the other machines to 9.5 bar.

another_jim wrote:Michael says that "thermocompensation" is an effect most thermosyphon machines, including the E61, both manual and solenoid, use. It means that some cold water makes its way up the thermosyphon return at the shot's start and tempers the initial in-rush of overheated HX water. In the Aurelia, this is well tuned, I suspect it was on real Faema E61s, including the classic, because Steve Schulman has pulled me lots of shots (a daily thing at the SCAA convention), and I've never seen him flush. I suspect that home e61 boxes don't have the all the parts required for this sort of tuning.

Michael told me earlier this year that a lot of machines destined for US markets were stripped of the restrictors used to implement this effect, in order to sell the machines on the cheap. According to Michael this scheme is well known in Italy.

The Aurelia HX is not exactly the same as that used in e-61 style machines. There are some very novel features of the Aurelia hx that make the mixing scheme much more effective.

-Greg