Knluk
Okay Really went out to make this little girl work fine, Had it plumped in with two accumulators to stabilize the intake of water from outside of the system.
Pics of the system:
Water System:
Mandatory things to do if you get an R91:
1- Get it plumped, Either through the mains or like the one I have shown here. The pumps gets a lot less noisy and I am seeing a lot less variation in the pressure (it doesn’t spike all over the place).
2- Replace the geclur (Thanks R91 telegram group!) for an E61 0.5mm one. Made a world of difference during pre-infusion for the setup.
Let us start with the things I didn’t like:
1- The screen is laggy. Seriously laggy. Only major gripe about the thing. BUT, once you have everything setup you can forget it.
2- The placement of the steam lever, Made me redo my steaming method.
3- Grouphead height makes it that cups that used to work fine on the bianca can’t fit on the R91.
4- The steam wand requires a bit of purging. Lots of water inside of initially but once you purge it nice and thoroughly just steam for ages.
Those are the only major gripes for now.
Things I loved about it:
1- Once setup, You can have the machine come online at specific timings and turn off at specific timings. Mostly if you have a daily routine that rarely changes, You are okay for a fast cup.
2- Speaking of daily routine, Once your puck is ready and installed, The automatic extraction is a godsend. It also has two modes, I and II. I have the I set for 1:2 ratios (35-36g extraction) and the II for 1:3 extraction ratios (53-55g).
3- The profiles are easy to configure and forget. I basically have two that I use regularly,
A- 10s at line pressure (2.5bar) and then full fledged 9bar. For regular espresso.
B- 10s at line pressure (2.5bar) than 10s at 5bar than 25s at 7bar with a drop to 4bar until extraction ends for modern espresso (AKA 98mm SSP HU).
4- Steam power is perfect. 350ml pitchers are done within 8 seconds and 600ml in 12-14 seconds. This at the lowest steam power. Tried the max… two fast for my taste.
5- Overall construction is decent. Can be more pretty but it does the function perfectly.
6- Manual control of extraction is a breeze but needs a beady eye on the graph or it’s gonna overshoot.
