Marmot wrote:Nice looking shot!

With flow control your usual timeframes don't stick anymore.
Especially preinfusion time can vary a lot. You reached a level where you don't have to take shot times so seriously anymore and can fully rely on your taste.
I do sometimes set the flow control to stock flow and extract a coffee with the usual E61 parameters just to see what grind setting that would need and how it would taste without flow control.

Yes! One of those occasions where it looked as good as it tasted.

I will run a shot with stock flow once I get my wdt tool to see where I need to improve my puck prep. Should be getting it next week. For now I get to keep playing with pressure profiling I'm going to loosen the grind just a hair more. I don't know the duty rating for the vibe pump on this machine, but not comfortable running it for 90 seconds on a regular basis.

i agree, tastebuds are the deciding factor on your shot quality. however i do tend to go a little faster than you. my total shot time is in the 40sec range for a 2:1 ratio but thats just what i like with my med/light roasts.

sam

Here's the latest shot. Looked nice. Tasted nice. The pump seemed to be laboring towards the end of the shot. Started pulsing at around 60 seconds. I had to open the fcd wide open and it only got up to 8 bar and was dropping on its own. I cut the shot shorter than I wanted.

So having to pivot the knob to rotate the fcd is a bit awkward. So here's my temporary (maybe) inelegant solution. The whole unit fits inside the original hot water/steam knob. A little tape to get a tight fit inside and just tighten it down with the coffee sensor knob.

Got my wdt tool today and ran a shot. Fourth shot for today so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to play with it more.

High vis. Don't want to accidentally stab myself. Not a licensed acupuncturist.


Ran the shot full open the whole way. The wdt tool definitely helped. No channeling or spurts. Will have to loosen up the grind even more now. This shot ran long and only got a one to one ratio. Was good though, but I like 2 to 1 shots more.

The puck says it all Typical shots, especially wide open no preinfusion shots would have signs of channeling in the puck. This one is nice and solid.


About 18 grams of goodness in there.

Been running the last three shots on 9 bar and seeing the results of using a proper wdt tool. Then I noticed something on the last shot and now I can't unsee it.

At 5 -6 seconds of this clip, everything stretches. I've always seen the e-61 handle move, but not the other things. The portafilter basket swells and the portafilter handle moves a bit too. Just makes me appreciate the amount of pressure everything goes under.
I'm loosening the grind more and more. Want to aim for around 40 seconds for the shot. Got it below 60 seconds.
Got stuck on an Uber long write up on deep vs shallow wdt technique. All the data went way over my head. But I think the takeaway was to get all the way to the bottom of the portafilter and slowly move up.

9 bar shot. WDT tool. Shot looked good. Shot tasted good. Ran a shot with the same grinder setting with a shot profile starting at 2 bar, absolute gusher when I opened up to 9 bar. So for now, grinder is perfect with a flat 9 bar shot. I'll mark it and go tighter a notch or two when messing with the flow control.

I think I found the flow profile I'm gonna use for the rest of this batch of beans. Unfortunately there's only enough for five more shots.
What I'm doing is starting the shot at half a turn which is 4 grams a second. At 8 seconds I shut the flow control until 20 seconds. Open it up to 9 bar and slowly tighten it until the end of the shot.
30 or so grams at 40 seconds.


They've all been delicious but not sure if it's the flow control or wdt tool that's made the most difference.

It's interesting to see that almost everyone ends up with more or less the same profile. I open flow until I get about 1.5 to 2 bars and hold it there until I see even wetting at the bottom of the basket and then open it up to 9 bars (or full flow) and let flow and pressure decrease slowly until the end of the shot.
On a spring lever machine it is very similar if you let it preinfuse for a longer time before lifting the lever. However I was never able to get the same shot on my Strega as on my Izzo with flow profile. The Strega is always creamier but flavour separation seems to be lower.
This kind of profile makes the most sense if you think about the puck having to be evenly prewet and eroding during the shot needing less and less pressure.
As far as I have seen most people owning a Decent mostly end up with this kind of profile as well

Couldn't get a lever machine so I guess I got the next best thing. I wanted a slightly more precise way to change grind settings so I printed out a thing. There was a template in the grinder forum but I wanted to try and make my own. I had been using the notches on the side of the ring for years and didn't realize how big the gaps were until I put the printout on. I'm thinking of making the lines even closer together for more precision.