sympa wrote:I have to pour boiled water into a cup, which I usually overfill and end up spilling some when I sink the piston into it.

I weigh the pre-heat water to prevent overflow (and water inside the piston, you need to stay below the screw unless you've sealed it somehow). Still, I don't think a double pre-heat would be any easier (you'd also need to wipe the hot basket) - but it's nice that you could use any cup to catch the water instead of having to look for something specific that fits. A built-in workflow instead of a DIY hack.

The portafilter seems like a nice change compared to other threaded espresso makers like Portapresso, Aram and Kazak Rota.

DenisSabou wrote:This machine is handmade with passion in UK by a small team who has a lot of knowledge. No plastic or cheap materials, it's not for everyone because it's not cheap for what it is, it's in the same pot as the strietman. You buy it cause you like the concept, what the producer does, the materials.

Sure. I kind of like the concept. But at £750/£950 I'm out.

Never occurred to me that I might be getting water into the piston, though I don't suppose that should matter too much. I'll take it apart tomorrow and see if I find anything.

I really like the way they've figured out how to measure the pressure in the two units without having any port in the brew chamber. Very cool.

sympa wrote:Never occurred to me that I might be getting water into the piston, though I don't suppose that should matter too much. I'll take it apart tomorrow and see if I find anything.

You could just invert the Robot after brewing and see if it dribbles. Mine sure did. Could be fine of course, but I prefer that it stays dry. It is indeed pretty neat how the Epoch avoids extra nooks and crannies for water/coffee to be trapped inside.

There is at least one person on HB who preheats the piston by intentionally pouring boiling water into it.

Super cool video and I love seeing the engineering behind it. Lots of nice well thought out details. One thing though that I do strongly question is the
large metal piston. As long as I see it correctly it looks like the water is drawn through the piston into the brew chamber thus if the piston is not sufficiently heated it will instantly strip the water of its heat. The Rok uses the similar design but with plastic and a much smaller piston so the heat lost is minimal . The Robot seems to address this issue by pouring the water directly into the brew chamber thus avoiding water touching the piston. Pretty good solution to the problem but I'm not a big fan of the workflow. It seems hard to imagine that with two cycles of preheating that would be sufficient to bring it up to the stated 95 degree brewing temperature. That said the engineering work behind the rest of the work is amazing so perhaps their engineering is beyond what my simple mind can comprehend. Either way beautiful work!

bialettibarista wrote:The Robot seems to address this issue by pouring the water directly into the brew chamber thus avoiding water touching the piston.

Unfortunately that's not true. While the water isn't in contact with the piston initially, once you apply pressure the piston absorbs a lot of heat and has a very large effect on how fast the temperature declines. That's why people go to the trouble of preheating it.

As bialettibarista wrote, I'm skeptical about thermal management and the claimed brew temp that would be as high as 95C.
A well preheated Flair58 with an electric heat cartridge just about reaches 93C. The 58X max brew temp is closer to 89-90C. Unless there is something we don't know yet, I fail to see how this design can brew at 95C.

I wish more companies explored the thermal jacket or sleeve design, like that chinese company that makes steam punk lever machines.
Or simply make add heat cartridges like the Flair58 and Meticulous.