I've been looking at a flow control addition to my ECM but have baulked because it would mean giving up my grouphead thermometer. (Coffee Sensor Pro). The price at $400 is also a bit of a blockage.
I assume there is no elegant way to have both the thermometer and the pressure gauge?
As an alternative I have been playing with the brew valve lever. I know with the E61 you get some preinfusion flow and pressure ramp-up as the chamber fills, but I have been trying returning the lever to the halfway mark when my shot hits about 20gms and then shutting all the way down when I hit 30gms.
My thinking is this turns off the pump, but keeps pressure in the coffee chamber. (The cam has closed the brew valve, opened the preinfusion valve, but has not opened the drain valve.) So no more water is entering the chamber but the existing pressure still forces some water through the puck as it scales down. So I think I am getting a gradual ramp-down of pressure and flow, which I gather is roughly what you are looking for in a flow control valve.
It is probably all in the mind, but it seems to taste better.
How deluded am I?
I assume there is no elegant way to have both the thermometer and the pressure gauge?
As an alternative I have been playing with the brew valve lever. I know with the E61 you get some preinfusion flow and pressure ramp-up as the chamber fills, but I have been trying returning the lever to the halfway mark when my shot hits about 20gms and then shutting all the way down when I hit 30gms.
My thinking is this turns off the pump, but keeps pressure in the coffee chamber. (The cam has closed the brew valve, opened the preinfusion valve, but has not opened the drain valve.) So no more water is entering the chamber but the existing pressure still forces some water through the puck as it scales down. So I think I am getting a gradual ramp-down of pressure and flow, which I gather is roughly what you are looking for in a flow control valve.
It is probably all in the mind, but it seems to taste better.
How deluded am I?

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