MediumRoastSteam Lelit MaraX, as it also has the overheating technique at the start, hearing the water to 140C? Isn’t that ready in 15 minutes? If so, why not? MaraX review says it heats up in 24 minutes, that’s 40% slower than the Bianca.
CoyoteOldMan Assuming the MaraX group is largely the same as the Bianca, the answer is:
- MaraX single boiler, capacity 1.8 l, 1400 W element = 778 W/l
- Bianca double boiler, brew boiler capacity 0.8 l, 1000 W element = 1250 W/l
Very interesting. On a side point, there might be a distinction to be made between machines that overheat and then need to cool to settle in the correct temperature (such as the Lelits) and machines that just heat up.
A few minutes prior to being ready, the former will be too hot, so potentially could be cooled down with a flush and used sooner, while the latter would be too cold and nothing could be done about that. I have not done this much, but I do remember an occasion that I had to go out and wanted to pull a shot on Mara X a few minutes before the full 24 minute heat-up cycle and the machine settling on the ready-to-brew pressure/temp. I did a quick flush and the shot came out just fine as far as I remember.
Here is a reminder of how the head-up cycle works on Mara X in a short time-lapse video (unfortunately I didn’t include a watch, but my experience is that it indeed takes 24 minutes to complete the cycle):
