Bezzera Strega - new spring lever for home use - Page 9

#81: Post by **another_jim** » March 12th, 2011, 10:24 pm

I assume there are just two possibilities:
1. If the lever is drawing water from the boiler directly, the pump just fills the boiler, and the preinfuse is of the 10 seconds at 1 bar variety.
2. The lever is drawing water through an HX. In that case, the tank version also must have the pump doing a 3 bar, 5 second preinfuse.

#82: Post by **Carneiro** » March 12th, 2011, 10:41 pm

For me there is clearly a HX and the pump has to be on to fill the chamber and pre-infuse the coffee. There is a big OPV in one of the pictures, and I think the excess water from it goes to the drip tray.

Nice that the user probably can set a maximum pre-infuse pressure.

Márcio.

#83: Post by **michaelbenis** » March 13th, 2011, 8:03 am

The Italian copy clearly states that this is an HX with the pump filling the boiler from the tank and being used for preinfusion/driving the tank water through the HX. All this obviously only applies to the version with tank. What is a lot less clear is how the setup works on the plumbed in version...

#84: Post by **Bob_McBob** » March 15th, 2011, 6:23 pm

The bad news is I spoke to a vendor who contacted Bezzera and confirmed the plumbed-in version uses the same pump-driven pre-infusion. I gather it is still under development, but I don't know if there is any opportunity to voice concerns to Bezzera.

#85: Post by **Junior** » March 15th, 2011, 6:34 pm

That's too bad. While I am still interested in how this product is executed, I'm less excited about bringing it into my house. I already have a pump machine, I don't need another with a big stick attached to it unless it does something truly special.

#86: Post by **another_jim** » March 15th, 2011, 6:40 pm

You could just take the pump out, if you want line pressure to do everything. And there's lots of choices for 1 group commercial levers connected to the mains. There are only two tank commercial levers I know of, and the Pub is not sold in the US.

Despite the many previous failures of pump based preinfusion, the possibility exists that Bezzera is doing it even on the direct connect machine because they like the resulting taste. I know that sounds odd; but they did a good job on the BZ07 group heater, and that was another idea that produced miserable results when Gaggia tried it on several of their machines.

#87: Post by **Bob_McBob** » March 15th, 2011, 6:43 pm

While I am very disappointed that there is no option for regular line-level pre-infusion, I don't think you can call this "just another pump machine". As far as I am concerned, as long as they have worked out the thermal stability issues, it should produce results equivalent to similar spring-driven lever machines. The fact that the low pressure pre-infusion is done by a pump shouldn't make any difference; it's the spring-driven extraction that counts.

I will reply to the vendor with my concerns. It would be good if everyone could give some comments.

another_jim wrote:You could just take the pump out, if you want line pressure to do everything. And there's lots of choices for 1 group commercial levers connected to the mains. There are only two tank commercial levers I know of, and the Pub is not sold in the US.

It remains to be seen how simple a mod this is, but I've already seen people talking about it on kaffee-netz. The size and limited availability of all single-ground commercial lever makes them far less appealing for home use than the Strega. I am very happy there is a pourover version, but they could easily have killed two birds with one stone and offered a pump-less plumbed-in version.

March 15th, 2011, 7:28 pm

Bob_McBob wrote:While I am very disappointed that there is no option for regular line-level pre-infusion

I wouldn't be so sure about that.
I am still convinced that there is regular line level preinfusion if only for the reason that it seems ludicrous to do otherwise.

#89: Post by **Bob_McBob** » March 15th, 2011, 7:41 pm

Bluecold wrote:I wouldn't be so sure about that.
I am still convinced that there is regular line level preinfusion if only for the reason that it seems ludicrous to do otherwise.

It seems really bizarre to me too, but I wonder if there is some specific requirement to do with the way the group has been altered. Either that or they don't want to alter the design for the plumbed-in version?

Bezzera wrote: We are happy abouth your interest in our strega model find the follow
explaination to your question.

The water connection version is not finished at the moment, but in our
project also that version will be equipped with vibration pump.

In our Strega model the preinfusion is done by the pump: when you pull the
lever a microswitch is activated and start the pump untill you see the first
drop of water coming from the filter holder, after that you release the
lever, the pump microswitch is released and the pump switch off, and the
brewing is done with the springs power.

#90: Post by **Carneiro** » March 15th, 2011, 8:41 pm

What about the 3 kg more in the R version? I thought it could be a motor and vane pump, but maybe if it uses the vibe pump too the 3 kg could be a weight to balance the lack of a tank with water?

Márcio.