Great post Ben! I've often wondered why the factory settings for Brewtus seem so sacked - 12.5 brew pressure and .8 steam pressure..... Do you think it has to do with the 220 versus 110 difference between the European/Aussie versus North American versions of the machine? In other words, do these settings make more sense at 220?
Pete On Apr 23, 9:32 pm, Benjamin McCafferty <[email protected]> wrote: > > My vendor explained to me that raising the pressure is largely > > unnecessary, because all it does is speed up the process. > > Having a double boiler machine is also unnecessary, it just makes better > espresso. :) Just poking a little fun, no offense intended. Speed is > pretty important for me, when I'm entertaining and have 5 or 6 people waiting > on coffees (and me being the last in that line...). And there IS a > difference--good microfoam depends on being able to roll the milk after > stretching, keeping tiny bubbles in solution. If you can't roll, your > bubbles will be converging to the surface, getting bigger and drying out. > Sometimes you can swirl the pitcher afterwards and get them back into > solution, sometimes you can't. Because of your posts, though, I'm curious > enough that I'm going to ask every cafe I visit what they have their steam > pressure set to. > > > He also > > maintains that all raising the steam pressure does is shorten the life > > of the heating element and pressure stat. > > To quote a bad movie, "You wanna live forever?" Four years into my machine, > steam set to 1.45, no failures of either part. They are not going to kill > your wallet anyway. Living with a difficult process for years, to save a few > bucks on a part because it lasted 12 months longer, is false economy. Having > a well-tuned machine that does what you want it to, with minimal compromises, > is what it's about. I don't know what you pay over there, but over here we > pay $1,500+ for these machines, hardly a purchase made by someone on a super > tight budget. > > However, I'm just type-A enough that I'll probably lower my steam to .8 just > so I can say that I have, and see how I like the result. :) > > talk soon, > bmc -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/brewtus?hl=en.
