bakafish wrote:video
10 seconds from 129C to 125C, which is about 0.3 bar.
1 minute from 129C to 119C, which is about 0.7 bar.
I have a ECM Synchronika steam wand with a 2 hole steam tip. The steam tip of ECM Synchronika cannot be installed on the Nurri Leva due to the inner diameter of the ECM steam tip is smaller than the inner tube of the Nurri Leva. The 2 holes diameter is also smaller than Nurri Leva's.

To me, it is not a useful test to leave the sream wand open. Surely if one does that, it will cause the pressure to drop markedly for a steam boiler witj only 1.8L volume and 1000w heating element. But rather what matters is whether the machine can steam cup after cup to be able to keep up with a barista who is grinding and preparing for the next shot, doesnt it? If so then it doesnt have to provide a sustained jet of steam without stopping for minutes on end - it needs to be able to keep up its force for the bursts when it will be used and then recover fast enough for thr next steaming burst.

I did a tougher test that is possibly quite unreasomable in pace for a single group machine even for a cafe for a single barista - i did 5-6 continuous steaming bursts of 10 secinds each with only.30 seconds in between each sustaimed burst. Each time the boiler fell 0.3 to 0.4 bar but recovered very quickly. There waa no perceptible diminution in steam power throughoit and the ending tempeeraruee at the end of all those bursts was 126 degrees that immediately incressed to 127 degrees as i looked at it when i stopped.

I frankly cannot see a non cafe situation where this steam boiler will not be more than adequate - even for a cafe that is more focused on serving food than coffee and that thus only requires a single group machine....to me there is no steaming problem whatsoever with the nurri and on the contrary it makes lovely milk texture easily.

Dela wrote:Hi guys,
jumping in fresh from registration to this thread, found mainly because I am in talk with Antonio regarding the Leva. I know this questions lands amidst other discussions, but I hope to join the discussion none the less.

I was never looking for a Lever machine, but stumbled on to the Leva by happy accident when looking at the upcoming GTO, and now can't really shed the thought of not going with a lever machine over e.g. Decent, Bianca V3, GTO etc.

I saw Lance Hedriks review on the ACS Vostok L as well, and suddenly I am really in doubt what to go for!? I have read this entire thread, and patents and such aside, it seems a lot of the functionalities are identical. From a personal preference, the Nurri has a better/simpler design, and I like the paddle thing over the button pressure release on the ACS. But other than that, extremely identical in size, functionality, warm-up time etc.

Have any of you that hasn't bought the Nurri yet, but consider it, had the same considerations?

It is good that you are considering levers - it is no coincidence that after most people have bought a lever, they seem to stay lever heads!

I am a nurri owner. I havent had tbe chance to try out the upcoming vostok so i am just basing my views on the forum reports and the video clips.

The vostok seems bigger than the nurri from reports. However among all the espresso machines in the market, from the specs it is the nearest match to the nurri leva in terms of its capabilities. On top of that they share the same underlying la san marco type grouphead design andbthus have the same sized portafilters. Both companies qre also based in Naples, Italy. (In fact before setting up his own company, antonio nurri used to work for acs, the maker of the vostok (and before that he worked for izzo, a major Naples based maker of traditional type spring levers and roasted coffee and which made my previous spring lever).)

However both machines execute these functions according to different approaches and philosophies. As a result they have different operating methodologies and aesthetically they present very different looks. In terms of the automation options that it gives, the vostok would appear to be more suitable for a small cafe if one wants to use the machine in that environment whiile the nurri would be more suitable for a user who wants to have a fully manual as possible, and a analogue and tactile experience as enabled by the paddles and the upcoming pump control dial and who dowsnt want digital touchscreens.

A good analogy is an apple iphone vs a android phone. They appeal differrently to different people, but both are great products. It just depends on you which machine captutes your imagination and which one you would feel happier to be on your kitchen counter for years to come, because both these machines are pretty much end game spring levers without any real upgrade path - you can spend a lot more to buy much more expensive machines but they arent really going to give you anything that will make them any functionally better for your home use needs.

Primacog wrote:To me, it is not a useful test to leave the sream wand open. Surely if one does that, it will cause the pressure to drop markedly for a steam boiler witj only 1.8L volume and 1000w heating element. But rather what matters is whether the machine can steam cup after cup to be able to keep up with a barista who is grinding and preparing for the next shot, doesnt it?

I don't care about the ability to steam cup after cup since I am a home user. Even my Nurri Leva steam pressure drops quickly, it still can recover when I prepare the next shot. But using the constant steam pressure and declining steam pressure to steam milk is a little different. I don't have any problem using declining pressure to make silky milk foam but I prefer constant pressure.

In my experience, the key to make really silky milk foam should be the steam volumn in the same period of time, not the steam power. It relates to the diameter of the copper or silicone pipe in the machine and the diameter of the inner tube in the steam wand. That's why the commercial machines can make really really silky milk foam but the home machines can't. The milk foam looks the same, but different in mouth feel.

Nurri Leva can make really good milk foam near the commercial machines because it has the bigger diameter of the pipe and inner tube. The steam pressure drops quickly also resulted from this and the 1000W heating element and PID (compare with the Lelit Bianca, 1.5L boiler with 1400W heating element and dual PID). I want the Nurri Leva to have more constant steam pressure, but if it changes to use the smaller diameter of the pipe or inner tube and smaller holes steam tip to lower the steam volumn like some E61 machines, I would rather it keeps the original design.

Primacog wrote:But rather what matters is whether the machine can steam cup after cup to be able to keep up with a barista who is grinding and preparing for the next shot, doesnt it? If so then it doesnt have to provide a sustained jet of steam without stopping for minutes on end - it needs to be able to keep up its force for the bursts when it will be used and then recover fast enough for thr next steaming burst.

I did a tougher test that is possibly quite unreasomable in pace for a single group machine even for a cafe for a single barista - i did 5-6 continuous steaming bursts of 10 secinds each with only.30 seconds in between each sustaimed burst. Each time the boiler fell 0.3 to 0.4 bar but recovered very quickly. There waa no perceptible diminution in steam power throughoit and the ending tempeeraruee at the end of all those bursts was 126 degrees that immediately incressed to 127 degrees as i looked at it when i stopped.

I frankly cannot see a non cafe situation where this steam boiler will not be more than adequate - even for a cafe that is more focused on serving food than coffee and that thus only requires a single group machine....to me there is no steaming problem whatsoever with the nurri and on the contrary it makes lovely milk texture easily.

I don't value the need for steaming for consecutive coffees (wasting a good feature of the Izzo's 5 L). Never had a boiler machine that was slower to recover than what it took me to prepare the next bed.

What I do value is being able to start and finish steaming for two during extraction to bring shot and milk together with just the right resting time of the steamed milk, before the crema starts dissipating or milk marshmallowing. I like that mix. I like to be able to clean the wand in that extraction time too before the milk cakes on.

The stock Synchronika (Australian model) didn't allow that with a slightly bigger boiler than the Nurri (2 L vs 1.8 L), and more powerful heating element (1.4 kW vs 1 kW). Aftermarket steam tip fixed that though. But it also had a very painful issue where if the steam boiler went low during steaming, it would steal the pump from extraction to refill the steam boiler (!). Not only extraction killed, but steam boiler temp killed with all the new cold water taking serious time to recover. There was plenty of steam to finish, refill isn't a priority.

bakafish wrote:I don't care about the ability to steam cup after cup since I am a home user. Even my Nurri Leva steam pressure drops quickly, it still can recover when I prepare the next shot. But using the constant steam pressure and declining steam pressure to steam milk is a little different. I don't have any problem using declining pressure to make silky milk foam but I prefer constant pressure.

In my experience, the key to make really silky milk foam should be the steam volumn in the same period of time, not the steam power. It relates to the diameter of the copper or silicone pipe in the machine and the diameter of the inner tube in the steam wand. That's why the commercial machines can make really really silky milk foam but the home machines can't. The milk foam looks the same, but different in mouth feel.

Nurri Leva can make really good milk foam near the commercial machines because it has the bigger diameter of the pipe and inner tube. The steam pressure drops quickly also resulted from this and the 1000W heating element and PID (compare with the Lelit Bianca, 1.5L boiler with 1400W heating element and dual PID). I want the Nurri Leva to have more constant steam pressure, but if it changes to use the smaller diameter of the pipe or inner tube and smaller holes steam tip to lower the steam volumn like some E61 machines, I would rather it keeps the original design.

Thanks for your explanation - i tbink i understsmd what u r looking for better after your post above. I agree the diameter of the stean wand is thicker than any other rmachine i have used but i didnt realise that could be q big part of the reaaon why it ateams milk excellently.

As i have a 15A circuit for my machine, i wouldnt have minded more powerful heating element, but i assume thwy kept the power to 1kw due to the need to keep the overall power draw down given the machine has to be able to work in any kitchen in the world and especially for the important US market.

jontyc wrote:I don't value the need for steaming for consecutive coffees (wasting a good feature of the Izzo's 5 L). Never had a boiler machine that was slower to recover than what it took me to prepare the next bed.

What I do value is being able to start and finish steaming for two during extraction to bring shot and milk together with just the right resting time of the steamed milk, before the crema starts dissipating or milk marshmallowing. I like that mix. I like to be able to clean the wand in that extraction time too before the milk cakes on.

The stock Synchronika (Australian model) didn't allow that with a slightly bigger boiler than the Nurri (2 L vs 1.8 L), and more powerful heating element (1.4 kW vs 1 kW). Aftermarket steam tip fixed that though. But it also had a very painful issue where if the steam boiler went low during steaming, it would steal the pump from extraction to refill the steam boiler (!). Not only extraction killed, but steam boiler temp killed with all the new cold water taking serious time to recover. There was plenty of steam to finish, refill isn't a priority.

Since the extraction phase of hybrid levers lke the nurri is done purely with lever power and with the pump switched off, that issue with the synchronika should never arise at all for the nurri. I would assume that we would usually be too concerned about observing the bottom of the naked portafilter during those short few seconds of preinfusion to worry about steaming the milk then?

I thought the nurri and the Evo shared the same boilers but I don't think they do from a quick Google the Evo has a 2.3l - 1200W steam boiler but the same 0.8l 1000w brew

bakafish wrote:I don't care about the ability to steam cup after cup since I am a home user. Even my Nurri Leva steam pressure drops quickly, it still can recover when I prepare the next shot. But using the constant steam pressure and declining steam pressure to steam milk is a little different. I don't have any problem using declining pressure to make silky milk foam but I prefer constant pressure.

In my experience, the key to make really silky milk foam should be the steam volumn in the same period of time, not the steam power. It relates to the diameter of the copper or silicone pipe in the machine and the diameter of the inner tube in the steam wand. That's why the commercial machines can make really really silky milk foam but the home machines can't. The milk foam looks the same, but different in mouth feel.

Nurri Leva can make really good milk foam near the commercial machines because it has the bigger diameter of the pipe and inner tube. The steam pressure drops quickly also resulted from this and the 1000W heating element and PID (compare with the Lelit Bianca, 1.5L boiler with 1400W heating element and dual PID). I want the Nurri Leva to have more constant steam pressure, but if it changes to use the smaller diameter of the pipe or inner tube and smaller holes steam tip to lower the steam volumn like some E61 machines, I would rather it keeps the original design.

Baka, I think I finally understand what you want. Because it's like 3 pages talking about a "steam issue", but then you have comments saying this:

bakafish" wrote: As I said, the steam performance is enough for me (Even steam 300ml milk there is not a problem for a skilled person. The pressure recovers when I prepare the next shot.) and the milk foam quality is good (The mouth feel is better than my previous machine did, Lelit Bianca)"

The Bianca is an excellent machine, and you get better results. So it's pretty confusing for me. Sorry.

So what you want is constant pressure but don't want to reduce the flow rate with another tip?

I'm afraid this is not possible and it goes against physics. IMO to achieve that, it's necessary to reduce the tip hole diameter to get less flow rate and sustained steam.

Machines used in coffeeshops may achieve this, but how much water (boiler size) do you have to heat to get this? I had a GS3, great steaming power, but every time I wanted a cappa I had to warm up the 3.5L steaming boiler. Frankly, I would rather never have to do this at home again.

I understand you want high flow rate sustained steam to get milk quality like coffeeshops. IMO, this won't give you by itself what you're looking for. Foam quality relies heavily on the technique to introduce air and vortex forming, and how much water is introduced into the milk.

With too much power, most users are going to get difficulties to froth right a little jug. As you have seen, this is not an issue with the current L-Type configuration. Works well for littles too. If you can't control the vortex, you will get poor foam, for sure.

Let me tell you something. Decent users (me included) are using variable flow rate during the frothing process. John Buckman introduced this feature to achieve this. You have a slider on the screen which you can move to alter the steam flow rate in real time during the frothing. In the air introduction stage, you select a high flow rate, then in the vortex stage you may want to lower it to get full control and achieve high quality foam.

Dennis Hew has a video where you can see this:
Steaming starts at around 19'. At 19:19 you can see how he touches the screen to the right, he's moving the slider to the right to get a higher flow rate. When vortex at 19:30, he moves the slider to left to reduce the flow rate.

We are using flow rates as low as 0.5 ml/s to get dryer steam.

If you want sustained steam, a solution would be to change the steam tip with one with fewer diameter holes or replace the joystick with a knob valve.

Having said that. The experience that L-Type users can get, would be something like this.

I don't see any problem here.

Primacog wrote:Since the extraction phase of hybrid levers lke the nurri is done purely with lever power and with the pump switched off, that issue with the synchronika should never arise at all for the nurri. I would assume that we would usually be too concerned about observing the bottom of the naked portafilter during those short few seconds of preinfusion to worry about steaming the milk then?

Correct, not a problem with shots being wrecked with levers (one of the reasons I could never go back to pump brewing).

However the Izzo lever is not off the hook. Single boiler - so filling the group chamber with water can frequently take the boiler low. Shot protected, but goodbye steam pressure.

So the Nurri/EVO arrangement of lever and two smaller boilers is the ultimate IMO.

Well, for the izzo u would have to pull a lot of consecutive shots to run such a risk i think because while it only has a single boiler, that boiler is a 5 litre one!