I bought the Classika with flow control, mostly to allow pre-infusion, but I’m not really playing with it whilst I learn more about the machine in ‘default’ mode. However, as part of my learning, I’ve been slowly closing the flow a bit each day - not dynamically, but setting it and forgetting it before each cup - and today I reached an interesting point.
Previously, the pressure would ramp up to 9-bar (where I set with the OPV) and then stay there until gradually coming down a bit.
Today, the first drops appeared at around 12 seconds, and then the pressure had a much slower rise to 8-bar (after about 20 seconds total) and then dropped to around 5.5 bar where it sat pretty much until the end. I was expecting the upper-limit to be lower, but the drop and rest to 5.5 surprised me. I guess, as it’s ‘flow control’ rather than ‘pressure control’.
The result tastes the same to me, although it does make a very nice cup. Running a 1:2.5 to tame the acidity nicely, so around 18->46g in 30s, and I can’t taste any real difference between the two ‘profiles’, but I’m happy to leave it there and see if/how things change over the next few days. I suspect the ‘setting’ would also need to be different depending on grind/beans so it’s only ‘good’ for the current dial-in.
