Day three and it’s looking like day one was an outlier.
And I may have isolated the variable that caused that.
The only big difference between day one and the other two days is that for the last two days I let the machines heat up for over an hour.
On day one I did the pours almost as soon as the boiler was up to 93 degrees (15 - 20 minutes after turning them on) and flushed the group heads to get their temperature up.
I suspect that meant far less temperature stability in the group heads and hence the wider variances in pour temperatures between the two machines.
Today, other than the LHS jumping to full temperature a fraction faster (around the 5 second mark) than the RHS, all temperatures were within my tolerance of under one second.
Feeling a lot happier now that I have achieved my target tolerance of less than one degree, provided I allow the group heads enough time to reach temperature stability. I’ll hopefully make it third time lucky tomorrow.
The temperature probe on the right hand machine turned itself off at the 26 second mark, hence the log ends at 25 seconds even though the pour was 30 seconds odd.
Used just the one grinder today.
I guess that there is a lesson here for all E61 owners: flushing the group head just after the boiler is up to heat may increase the temperature in the group head but you need to let it sit for a while until the group head reaches temperature stability.
@DavecUK or other experts, any guesses as too how long the group head would take to reach that magic temperature stable mark? (FWIW, my guess would be an hour to be safe.)
Last point: I deliberately left the espresso machines on for close to three hours prior to use for this third day. And I notice that the average temperatures during the pour were 2 degrees higher than day two where (from memory) the machines would have been on for around 75 minutes prior to the pour.
I guess that is accounted for simply because the machine was on for longer? If so, it sounds like the Puristikas, if not all E61s, may have a sweet spot in terms of delivering water through the group head at the target temperature. Intersted in opinions on that because I’m aware from previous threads that we have several Puristika owners here.
PS for my purposes, the Geisinger temperature gauges are a Godsend. Worth every cent.
