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ECM Mechanika V Slim

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  • #61
    Originally posted by doobs View Post
    I'll probably leave some stuff out, but here's my user review.

    I had previously owned a BES900 DB, and have used a couple of commercial machines so will make a little comparison against that knowledge and experience. It’s teamed with a M4D.

    Alright, I’ve had the machine for a week and a bit. Out of the box it’s a beautiful machine with single and double spout portafilters, stainless blind, single and double baskets, a grinds brush, plastic tamper and a silicon tube for use with an in-tank water filter. The build quality is excellent.
    While it is slim on the bench it is a bit deeper compared to the BES it is replacing. Shiny stainless trumps silver plastic. From some angles it almost disappears because of the reflection of the surrounding surfaces.

    The internal water tank is easy to fill by just lifting the cup warmer which also exposes the brew pressure adjustment screw. This makes it really easy to adjust for brew pressure profiling.

    After my initial issue, as documented earlier it works a treat, although I have to use a lot more coffee dialling it in daily, and it’s exposing my roasting inconsistencies a lot more than the BES did.

    Although it doesn’t get to temp as quickly as the BES, it is up to pressure after about 10-12 minutes which I think is pretty quick. I purge a little when it’s at pressure as per the manual and I’ve found that it probably does run a bit hot and I do need to flush a bit prior to extraction. It seems to be boiling (or close to it) at the head without a purge if it’s been sitting for 5 -10 minutes after it’s ready to go.
    I’m a flat white drinker so the steam wand gets a workout. The steam wand needs to be purged of water more so than the DB but I’d do it anyway so no biggie, and the steam it produces is a really nice volume with a little more gusto than the DB and does a great job of texturing the milk. I thought the rotary knobs might be a little problematic but they work like a dream.

    I haven’t found the move from the DB to the HX machine to be difficult at all and the only difficulties I’m having are grind and timer related. I consider them to be user errors or problems. I need to work on my system because I don’t have an automatic shot timer anymore and I feel like I’m scrambling. I still don’t think I’ve managed to pull a decent shot and the only extraction I thought was going to be a beauty, I got distracted by a magpie outside and let it run over to about 50 seconds. Man, I was dirty at my own stupidity.

    I'm very happy I bought this machine, and with a bit more practice hope to be pulling shots worthy of it.
    Pleased to hear your getting on well with the machine Doobs.

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    • #62
      Hi all,

      I am having some issues with this machine. Not sure if it's me or the machine. This is my first 'real' coffee machine, so I am just working the ins and outs of it all. Any advice would be grand

      My issue is that there is no crema on the coffee and its very black.

      In the troubleshooting guide, it suggests that it could be the brewing pressure. It says this should be sitting around 8-12 bar.

      With mine sitting around 2 bar, I used the instructions to alter this and increase it (to 10 bar).

      I am not sure why this would suddenly drop so low, if this is the symptom of an issue or something that just happens with these kinds of machines and you need to do this from time to time.

      Anyway, I adjusted it and made another coffee. For some reason, it appears to have dropped right back down to 2 bar (on idle).

      Any help here would be great!

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      • #63
        The brew pressure gauge will idle anywhere between 2-10 bar when idling, the only time to pay attention to the reading is when you are making a shot of coffee - then it should read around 9 bar . If it isn't - it's usually due to one of two things;

        - Coffee is not freshly roasted (within 1-6 weeks from roast date approx)
        - Coffee is not ground at correct setting

        Let us know what grinder you have and the beans you are using

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        • #64
          Adding some detail, if you were following section 6.2 of the manual to adjust brew pressure, you will have noted that it is done with the blind filter in place. There is no expectation that it will show the full reading without that or not pulling a shot.

          adding: I just warmed up my Mechanika. With steam pressure up, the brew gauge is sitting on zero. It will be right when I pull a shot. Follow the manual to re-adjust yours so it is around 9-9.5 with the lever open and blind filter in place, then ignore everything else. You need to get your machine back to a reasonable setting.

          As for your lack of crema, first see kofekitt's queries above.
          Last edited by beensean; 17 November 2018, 10:04 AM. Reason: more

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          • #65
            Thank you for your responses. Its Saturday morning and I have 2 kids under 5... this is an emergency! lol

            The idle pressure is around 1.9bar - is this okay?

            The coffee is fresh, roasted 10 days ago.

            Based on this, should I just play with the grind settings? Or do I need to make some further machine adjustments?

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            • #66
              further note:

              1. I just check again with the blind filter and it's at 11 bar.
              2. I adjusted the grind setting to a little more course
              3. I pulled a shot and it seems a litter better, at around 3bar pressure during extraction.
              Last edited by jonedwards80; 17 November 2018, 10:10 AM. Reason: added info

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              • #67
                Keep adjusting it finer until you get around 9 bar during extraction . Don't worry about the idle pressure, it's irrelevant

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                • #68
                  Okay great tip! Thanks so much, I can see improvements already.

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                  • #69
                    Originally posted by jonedwards80 View Post
                    Okay great tip! Thanks so much, I can see improvements already.
                    Some reading here that may help https://coffeesnobs.com.au/general-coffee-related/50565-clive-coffees-most-read-articles-2018-a.html particularly top ten mistakes.

                    Good luck.

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by jonedwards80 View Post
                      further note:

                      1. I just check again with the blind filter and it's at 11 bar.
                      2. I adjusted the grind setting to a little more course
                      3. I pulled a shot and it seems a litter better, at around 3bar pressure during extraction.
                      11 is too high. It should be 9 or a bit over. If it is dropping to 3 during a shot then your grind seems way too coarse, or too small a dose or untamped. Fixing this (or these) should also solve your crema problem.

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                      • #71
                        Tamping won't have that much of an effect, assuming everything else is alright. Tamping will affect the time to the first drop and the next couple of seconds. Not much else.

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                        • #72
                          Hi there.
                          I have a problem with a customer from CA that owns this machine and maybe you could help me with some info.
                          The screw inside the grouphead is different from all other machines? It's not with a M6 thread ? Or the lenght of the inside thread is way smaller or something like that?
                          The thing is that my E61 Universal adapter doesn't seem to fit inside...
                          Thanks.

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