by orphanespresso on Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:18 am
I do not think that I have ever read such a concise bit of insight on pulls with a La Pavoni EVER!!!!
but allow a few observations on preinfusion.....we were just at CoffeeFest Seattle and Cafe Vita had their Bosco two group on the trade floor and there were two Victoria Arduino two levers as well (though not serving the best masters) and we were paying close attention to preinfusion times and in all 3 cases....Cafe Vita was the most attentive to actual espresso on the Bosco....no more than 5 seconds preinfulion time. they were shooting for extreme Ristretto and they were using their special CoffeeFest blend which was their usual espresso blend with some new Ethiopian they have just gotten in. While in Seattle we went to Hal Parry's and fiddled around with his Termozona HX one group and same thing 3 to 5 seconds preinfusion....tops. Never with a single drop during preinfusion. And then we come home to our Faema Wallbanger.....so our no tamp process (similar to Timo's description ie light or no tamp) and get drops at 5 seconds with a slowdown of drops (indicating that the puck is self packing.....an effecct I appreciate personally)....at the slowdown of drops I release the lever and get not a real long lasting crema but a very flavorful pull (using single origns beans from Stumptown).
The group heat on the La Pavoni is such a huge concept here. We have tested our line pressure at 1 bar and so on our machine we are preinfusing at 1 bar. If you have your machine set at .85 for heat control there is not going to be full preinfusion to the point of drips. Check Juanjo's videos with his Brunetti and he gets drips coalescing under preinfusion pressure which seems to be what one wants in any lever extraction.....full infusion of the coffee in the basket before application of lever pressure.
By the way, the Cafe Vita Bosco was very nice....a little old school with some cheesy braided brassette trim, but a very nice CMA group, very classic rectangular Italian "I am here to work not look good" format...lots of polished chrome panels....but really, the best shots in the room. The 2 group VA machines aslo very good and quite a small footprint (cost $8000) and the same group and lever as well, but lots of fancy hammered copperette and chrome. We went to Cafe Vita later that day and they use a Synesso 3 group and the shots at the store were not even close to flavor and just plain OOOOOOHHHHHH factor as the ones on the Bosco lever.....but the Baristas at the store were much cuter.
Doug Garrott