appfrent wrote:
There should be a rule for newbies or even many experienced ones, learn basic operation of machine, get good grinder, good beans, basic tamper (the stock plastic will do fine for this exercise) and do NOT buy anything or tinker with anything else except grind size till they can consistently extract good espresso.

If you have a good grinder, good beans and a basic machine, the only poor link in the chain to good espresso is you

It took me 2 month of failures to realize this for myself....

I agree to all of that, but the machine can be a big hurdle, what if the machine cannot achieve the temperature at the cake/puck?

After having my Pro 500 paired with a Ceado E6P V2 for about 5 weeks, I have to agree with appfrent. Good grinder, good beans, good machine and a solid understanding of how grind, dose and tamp affect your extraction, as well as using a scale for dosing and measuring shot mass. Ok, a timer for hitting the extraction window of 25-30 helps as well.

At first I was concerned about the temperature​ of the water in the group when extracting, but I've pretty much let that go. I flush the Pro 500 for 5-6 seconds after the hissing stops, then lock the portafilter and pull the shot. This combination of grinder and machine has been wonderfully consistent, and I'm using a bottomless portafilter, as well.

I think the detailed-oriented tech types (I include myself in this group) that are drawn espresso making can overthink the whole process. I have come to enjoy the rhythm of pulling shots, but I will say that it was something that took time to learn and couldn't have been done without the extensive knowledge I gleaned from HB.

So thanks to all of you who have shared your espresso knowledge!

I do the same, 4-5 sec flush until bubbling is gone and then i pull the shot. I ordered erics thermometer i will see how and what the temp is intrashot!

I ordered erics thermometer . . .

I certainly hope you also downloaded the install instructions. They are available on my crude FTP site below my sig.

You emailed it to me.

Radio.YYZ wrote:I agree to all of that, but the machine can be a big hurdle, what if the machine cannot achieve the temperature at the cake/puck?

But temperature adjustment is very fine tuning. On the machine in question, a few seconds cooling flush will get you into a relatively usable range. If there are big defects in the cup it's likely not due to temp, but due to something more significant like beans, grind or brew ratio. Once you get the latter sorted you can start playing with temp. As I mentioned earlier, too course a grind for example, could also cause temperature to drop quickly. In that scenario, if you become focusing on flush technique you will end up chasing your tail

If espresso was like landing a plane, temperate adjustment is landing on the right part of the run way; and beans and grind are landing at the right airport.

I own a Profitec Pro 500 and Ceado E37s grinder. I couldn't be happier.

I thought I'd share a low-tech flushing routine that achieves very consistent results, according to my and my family's taste buds. I have no temperature measuring devices, such as an Eric's thermometer, for example. I assessed the quality of the shots by taste. My starting point was Dan Kehn's "HX Espresso Machine Flushing Routine" on YouTube. I measured the total flush times he applied in his video by using a timer, minus the pauses in each flush he applied.

The flushing routine is with a fully warmed machine. I always warm up my machine for 20 minutes from a "cold" or room temperature state. I use a timer to measure the idle times and the flush times exactly. This is very important! Also, I do not pause during the flush routine as Dan suggests in his video.

I prep my shot, flush the machine, then pull the shot immediately. Here goes:

Idle < 3 minutes: Flush 2 seconds
Idle 3 to 5 minutes: Flush X - 1 seconds, where X = the numeric value of the idle minutes.
Idle 6 minutes: Flush 7 seconds
Idle > 7 minutes: Flush 9 seconds

My machine's boiler pressure and brew pressure settings are exactly what Whole Latte Love sets them before shipping. Also, I live at sea level (in the Caribbean).

One thing though, I allow at least 3 minutes idle time between shots. I find that pulling shots with idle times less than 3 minutes yields inconsistent results.

I truly hope this helps people who are new to the machine and are struggling with flush routines. I'm very curious to hear from folks who can measure a temperature using this routine.

Cheers!

I too am happily using the pro 500 with the ceado e37s. I have also installed Eric's thermometer and find this to be enormously helpful. Warm up time to a fully temp stable group head is ca. 45 minutes. I then flush down to a specific temperature depending on beans and immediately pull a shot with an already prepped basket. 107-108 works best, giving me shots that stabilize at 201-198 over about 30 seconds. I also experimented with flush and wait but preferred the results and work flow from flush and go. Eric's thermometer also allows me to note changes due to ambient air temperature and flush accordingly.

Hi

I received my Eric Thermometer 2 weeks ago and I realized that my Profitec Pro 500 is not flat during a shoot.

This evening I did some test.

The machine was on since 3 hours.

I left the machine idle for more than 30 min.

I flush until 206 F.

I start the shoot the temperature goes to 200 F and after 26 sec It was at 193 F.

The espresso is not so well!

It is very unstable.

I had that machine since February 2017 and I am not satisfy of it.

Is there somebody have and idea of what going wrong with my machine?

Regards

Ben

HX machines aren't exactly flat, but that seems like a larger dip than I've seen on some graphs. Most important thing is taste, if it tastes good, but the themperature profile doesn't match something you are expecting or have seen, then who cares! If the taste is off, the temp may be the culprit. What is your pressure stat setting?