@Chriss29
Having declared that the Decent displays the temperature of the ‘metal’, I thought I better check exactly what ‘metal’ means. I’ve posted a note to John Buckman to find out and I’ll let you know his response.
In the meantime, I took a temperature reading of the bottom of the basket once the temperature of the metal had hit it’s goal of 93c as displayed on the tablet.
The temperature on the bottom of the basked was a measly 27c at that point.
One flush and it was up to 41c and with a second flush it was up to a more acceptable 65c.
Note that this was after turning the Decent on first thing in the morning and the portafilter basket would likely have gotten up to temperature, given enough time. But I don’t want to wait for potentially 20 minutes for that to happen so the bottom line is that there is a great deal of benefit in flushing the group head to bring the basket (if not the group head) up to a more acceptable temperature. Pushing 93c water though a basket that’s 27c is going to dramaticlly drop the brew temperature well below where I want it to be and the result will be an under extracted, thinner and probably a slightly sour espresso..
In the process of this checking all of this (thanks @Chriss29 for triggering this exploration) I was reminded of the fact that the Decent displays a reading of the water temperate as it hits the puck in real time. View the video below and you’ll see that the temperature reading for ‘metal’ changes to a temperature reading for ‘coffee’ once the pour starts.
Note that I have not tested the accuracy of the water temperature but I seem to recall that John Buckman and others have confirmed with a Scace device that the readings are accurate. Being able to see the actual temperature of the water as it hits the puck, in real time, is a feature I really like.
I’m wondering if there are other machines out there that do something similar. My guess is that someone else must have built this feature into their espresso machine, given the shift towards computer chips in machines and apps that measure and display what’s happing in real time. Does anyone know of other machines that have this feature?
