News - The Appia has left the kitchen

And I consider that to be a bad thing - BUT it totally dominated our new kitchen - so I decided that it was better off placed in the room next to the kitchen.

But that made it much easier to connect directly to water - so now it is connected. And I have adjusted the brew pressure to somewhere between 8 and 8,5 (I think). And what I have noticed is that the blonding occures much later in the shot! I believe that is at good thing - and it has also made the espresso taste better both according to me and the missis ;-)

Espresso and electricity

When you have a 1800W espressomachine you use a lot of electricity. So I decided to buy solarpanels. I bought it from WhiteAway.com I chose the 3KW model.

So now I hope for a lot of sun so I can keep the Appia running.

Plans for the new kitchen

Hi everybody. The new kitchen is on its way. The plan is to connect the Appia directly to the Brita filter.

You can look forward too see many pictures.

New kitchen

Hi everybody. Sorry about the lack of post lately. But now I have news. We are having a new kitchen. This gives a chance to rethink how my espresso was placed so you can look forward to seing it in aproximately 3 weeks.

Scace Readings part II

Latest Scace readings (hx jet 1.6 mm)

1.6mm hx jet

Has been installed. And the first set of scace readings have allready been made. It will be published shortly.

Scace device

Just to informa you. I Will be back with more scace readings in a week or two? Looking forward too see what the 1,75 mm jet has done to the temperature?

Tuning the Nuova Simonelli Appia

Hi there

It has been a long time since my last post. But now there is news on the way. Saturday I am fine-tuning my Appia with a 1,75mm hx restrictor that should lower the brew temperature apr. 3 degr. C. This will make a dramatic change in my machine and should held decrease the cooling flush. I hope that it will increase temperature stability as well.

I will have it installed saturday - and hopefully I will have access to a scace device so I can measure the changes. I hope I will be able to increase the boiler pressure at the same time and thereby increase the steaming ability.

I will be back :-)

Future experiments

I will never stop experimenting on perfecting my equipment. I am planning on replacing the hot water inlet jet in the Appia in order to lower the brew temperatur. I hereby hope that I can avoid long cooling flushes.

This will hopefully make it easier for me to control the temperature in my home setup. As I have written about earlier I have to do a series of flushes to nail the temperature at 93,5 C. If I do these routines I really got a temperature stable machine.

I will be back when I have this new jet installed.

Compak K10 WBC

Now it is here

Going conical?

If everything works out then there should be Compak K10 conical WBC comming here soon.

I sure am looking forward too try it. I promises you I will be back.

Holiday - A perfect time to experiment with your equipment

The resent scace-measurements shows that The Appia is extremely temperature stable but also that it is heavily affected by your flush routine. So now it is time to find out what my routine is during making coffee. Normally I only make a set of cappucino's and then nothing else. But when guests show up I sometimes do more shots in a row. Normally though I only do one double shot at a time - but I let the machine stay turned on for a long time. These thoughts must lead to two experiments:

1. Doing multiple shots in a row for more servings: Measure the real time between shots - and measure what temperature the Appia will perform.

2. After a long of heating: Measure the amount of water needed to be flushed before the normal routine of making espressoes.

Eventually these experiments should make it possible to find out what routine I should use in a WBC 15 minutes competition style (Don't worry I am not going to the WBC - but EspressoBars HomeBarista Championship also uses 15 minutes competition time)

Scace reading III

Scace 2

These are yesterdays readings:

Scace reading on my Appia - update

After yesterdays great experience I decided to do a list of scace readings with my new found profile. The findings where a bit different than yesterday but not totally off.

A bit to the cold side so maybe I should raise the boiler pressure. The three shots that are lowest in temperature are shot numer 3, 4 and 5. 3 and 4 where done with 10 seconds between shots - 8 seconds flush - 20 seconds rebound. Only change with shot 5 was a 20 second slip between shot. The grey shot was done after 30 seconds from the shot before - 8 second flush - 20 second rebound.

FANTASTIC ESPRESSO

Today I Think I cracked the code.

First shot for the zink. Wait 10 seconds. 8 seconds flush 20 seconds rebound. Seemed pretty stable om 93'5 celsius through most of the shot. Test data and diagram Will follow and hopefully show that I am right.

One thing I have noticed is that if the flush is too short the temperature Will rise through the shot. If it is too long it Will Fall during the shot. 8 seconds seemed right.

Scace reading on my Appia

I have recently installed a restrictor in my appia and adjusted the boiler pressure to apr. 1 bar.

After that I set on to work on temperature profiles for my Appia - I borrowed a Scace device and here are my initial readings - I still have a lot to work with I see. The way I work is that I change the time between shots : flush time : rebound time. The best profile yet was after a long time of pre heating I made a shot after that a 3 minute reheating : 2 seconds flush : 15 seconds rebound - you will see it as the yellow shot :

After changing boiler pressure I discovered that the temperature still was'nt low enough. So I had to experiment with the intershot timing. Remembering Michael de Renouard saying that in a professional environment the intershot time was 30 seconds I tried to incorporate this in my testing. First impression of this test is that it is much more simple to reach the desired level of temperature. The only problem is consistency during the shot.


I am stille using the flush'n' rebound method rebound set to 20 seconds and experimenting with flush time. It seems that 2 seconds flush and 20 seconds rebound gives apr. 94 degr. celsius which I find acceptable but fluctuation during shot is still a bit too unstable to my likings. I will make more graphs later.

World Barista Championship 2010 - v. 2.0

I was lucky to get invited to another session at Growers Cup participating in Søren Stiller Markussens preparations for the championship. Once again I was amazed and inspired with the complex variations a small change in the preparation of the espresso makes in the final cup.

Besides tasting a lot of splendid coffee it was also inspired to different ways to work with my own coffee preparations. I am especially inspired to try to experiment even more with small changes in the different parameters.

World Barista Championship 2010

After seeing the Danish Barista Championship 2010 I feel pretty convinced that Denmark will be doing pretty good this year.

I am so lucky that I will be able too see one of Søren Stiller Markussens prep. days next monday. Looking forward to taste some good coffee - and perhabs learn a few tricks.