Kostverlorenvaart

Caught a clear example of a very logical TS flow direction switch on the L1. The pipe that's designed to be the cooler one of the two is physically, when connecting to the brew group, lower and thus closer to the boiler. At warmup in the morning, it therefore heats up a tiny bit quicker than the upper pipe and for a few minutes it takes the lead with a flow from the lower pipe into the group and out of it through the upper pipe back into the heat exchanger. During a short 200ml open port flush at minute 10, the upper pipe heats more from water flowing out of the HX pipe going through the boiler, the lower pipe cools a bit and then they both are at the ideal start position for the regular flow, heating up the brew group further. Scace sitting next to the machine at 28ºC ambient temp.

Here's another phenomenon which may be observed in some users' Londinium I machines when they do measurements and see a dip in group temp. For quite a while I've been convinced there must have been air in the TS then, by pushback or any other way like insufficient greasing or just taking apart the hot group to check the lube situation. A flush of a 'nut bleed' helps get rid of air and when this indeed helped cure the 'dip', I assumed my assumption was right. Over time I've noticed a different pattern though. My machine, when idling an extended time, can tend to 'dip' in group temp if I pull a shot and then do nothing. There's a certain stiffness in the system. The flow of the TS is there but as everything was hot enough, rather than overheat, the TS slowed down more and more and after the pull it needs some time to speed up again. Any of 3 possible solutions work here: 1) pull another one 2) do a short flush (as if you need to quic...

The Thermosiphon pipes of my Londinium I sometimes (when an espresso is made, or a flush done, effectively closing the pipe communication and letting them start over) reverse their roles, one heating the group, the other brining back the somewhat colder water towards the heat exchanger inside the boiler. I find it interesting that it's able to do that and be just as effective. On second thought, it's not really a miracle. If you place a kid on a swing and give it a push, it doesn't really matter which way you call "forward" or "backward."  And every time you take the kid off the swing and ask it to climb back on for the next push, it doesn't matter if it faces you or not. The espresso was great anyway. I also took some measurements using a so called 'SCACE device', basically a standardized plastic 'puck' replacing the coffee grinds and a restrictor for the hot water to flow out more or less at the speed and dose of a 're...

'Frank Zappa made the best fucking coffee I've ever tasted in my life. I've never before or since tasted coffee as good as I had at Frank's house. I asked him about it and he said it was some European blend that he had picked up. It was great! He'd say "I'm gonna go build a pot of coffee." He had the best coffee and we sure drank a lot of it.'   Arthur Barrow interviewed (3/2/2002) by Tom Brown, reprinted in Tom Brown's new Book "Confessions of a Zappa Fanatic"    http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Of-A-ZAPPA-Fanatic/dp/1481122118  ________________  A friend comments: "Arthur implies this was happening around the time they were replacing the original bass parts on the Money album, after the new studio was built so in the early 1980's (CD was released by Rhino in 1986, studio was built 80-82 I think). So this was long after the log cabin days with the old pot on the stove being heated and reheated. We are finally clos...

The guys at http:// www.aluminium-centrum.nl/ made me a fun mod, replacing the plastic hopper with something more industrial looking. The hopper is replaced by an aluminum tube in a ring, actually cut from one solid block of aluminum. The first idea was to fit a tube in a flat ring with a hole in it but the way it is now is way more solid. The measuring cup slides on top of the hopper to close it off and prevent any beans popping out of the tube, also preventing anything to fall down into the hopper that's not a coffee bean. Roemer Overdiep and I got permissioon to look around in the factory:  30 seconds cutting the edge snapshot from Roemer Overdiep on Vimeo . https://vimeo.com/67715176  The picture below is by Roemer Overdiep:  The amazing picture below is also by Roemer Overdiep -- masterful!! Now there's a table that won't topple over quickly. Starting price for these is 5.500 Euro's and not one is the same as another. ...

Over the past weeks, Willi Egger has been building and finishing a travel chest made out of elm wood which he designed for my HG One grinder. No nail has been used, all wood-on-wood connections, just a few screws for the piano hinge of the front which has magnetic locks. One of the details I am very impressed with is the handle which is strong enough to carry the 10 kg of the grinder and the chest itself and yet it does not look crude, hiding inside the chest when resting. Willi Egger is the versatile typesetter and book binder from http://www.boede.nl who has previously prepared the 2006 edition of "Het voorbeeldige boek" by Johan Polak for Balans publishers in Amsterdam. He also hand bound two copies of this book (as featured on  http://www.kostverlorenvaart.nl/voorbeeldig/ ). Recently he has adapted software to typeset himself a very complicated English book of math for a publisher in the UK. And a few years back he was on the team of experts who did technical research...

De probe die met z'n vinger in het koffiefilter zit tijdens het koffiezetten is stuk en het was lastig er een vervanger voor te vinden. Idealiter is het maar een kort staafje, maar liever geen draad omdat die weer kwetsbaar is en altijd net weer iets anders kan staan waardoor je ook wat anders meet, het hete water boven de koffie, de gezellige warmte midden in de koffieprut... en de meeste zijn er g lang, ontworpen om ergens in te steken, een stuk vlees in de oven, een lang meetinstrument, een ventiel tussen twee ruimtes. Gelukkig vond ik er een en die heeft nog een pracht naam ook. "Miniatuur Autoklaven Voeler." Autoklaven. Ik wist niet dat die bestonden, maar het is wel goed er een te hebben. Als je eenmaal een autoklaaf hebt, kun je al snel niet meer zonder. Bietjes heb je zo gaar.