Just to chime in quickly on the LR workflow, I also found it stressful to steam milk between lifting the lever and pulling the cup. I've found my ideal cup results from around a 20-25 second extraction (not counting the 4-5 preinfusion). It's a bit tight to steam, clean, and pull the cup.

Here's my workflow for a cappuccino, and I find it preferable to what I'd do on a pump machine:
- Weigh out beans for single dose (using a Kafatek Monolith)
- While grinding, put hot water in cup from spout, move scale under head
- Distribute grind, tamp, lock in filter and toss water/place cup under head
- Pull down, look for drops in reflection, push up once I see some form while also starting timer (I do this manually on the Acaia Lunar - the timer detection for first drop was too unreliable)
- Purge wand, then watch scale
- When weight/time is good, I swap a latte cup (which sits nearby for this purpose) under the head and pull out my cup
- Steam
- Pour cappuccino
- Pull out portafilter (which is always dry)
- Purge quickly into latte cup
- Wipe shower screen with cloth, put clear porta filter back in

I do all this without skipping a beat or waiting around. There's never a single drop of gunk or anything in the drip tray, I never have to backflush, and the shower screen looks new after 3 months. Before I turn the machine off after my last drink, I use an Espazzola to clean the group (with the latte cup underneath).

Personally I'd give the LR another shot. Pulling the cup was annoying me until I started swapping for another cup, and the completely clean workflow has me sold.

forbiddenbeat wrote: Pulling the cup was annoying me until I started swapping for another cup, and the completely clean workflow has me sold.

I agree with this.

forbiddenbeat wrote: Personally I'd give the LR another shot.

Totally agree. My routine with LR after more than 10 years with E61 is somewhat slower, but it is due to other parts of the preparation process: single dose, grounds distribution, group cleanup with Espazzola between the shots.

After selling my Bricoletta E61 I never looked back. So much pleasure from the coffee and no tampering with cooling shots etc.

Phaedrus wrote:Thanks everyone for your comments. So if I understand this correctly, as far as home levers are concerned, the LR is pretty much the only game in town that can pre-infuse at a pressure greater than boiler pressure? Is that fair to say? Also, regarding the Izzo levers, while they do look pretty solid, unfortunately at this time I can't plumb in, but more importantly I'm too heavily invested in the 58mm ecosystem (levtamp, multiple VST baskets, etc).

Also, is it fair to say that the LR is the only home lever that when plumbed can pre-infuse at line pressure?

Nope, what you want is the Strega. It preinfuses at line pressure (plumbed in) and up to 12 bar with the pump.

Phaedrus wrote:Update!

So I ordered an LR. I've had it for the past few days. Here's the verdict from someone coming from a Vetrano V2b Evo:
Steaming: AMAZING, dry and plentiful steam. I've made the creamiest cappuccinos and lattes so far on this machine.
Shots: definitely softer, not as "intense" as the shots from the E61 machine. I can definitely see the natural declining profile in action here.
Design: Fantastic, this machine is beautiful, truly a work of art.
Cleanup: Measurably better than an e61. Pucks come out clean and dry. Hardly any mess from the bottomless during the shot.

Workflow: Meh. This isn't an LR thing but a lever thing in general, having to watch the scale and pull the cup makes it almost impossible (for me) to pull a shot and steam at the same time. Here I was thinking that waiting for the lever to reach its peak before pulling the next shot would be the problem, but that ended up not being a big deal at all.

I was planning on getting the LR and selling the Vetrano, but, believe it or not, here I am thinking about selling the LR to someone who can truly appreciate it and keeping the Vetrano. Maybe because I'm so used to the E61 workflow, but there's just something about the lever workflow that I just don't like.

I would love to hear the group's thoughts on this. Maybe there's something I've missed from the countless videos I've been watching over the past few weeks.

Decide what brew ratio you want,check in mg what the outcome of the LR is and adjust your grinder settings.Once you've done this you shouldn't have to worry about the shot anymore.
The 30 to 40 seconds that the lever does its thing should be ample time to steam your milk I'd say.

Oh interesting, so you don't pull the cup and just allow the full volume to flow? Can you get the right ratio with a 20g basket? Seems like the LR volume is almost twice what's desired in a standard double shot.