Comments on: The new La Marzocco

By: Tim Wendelboe » Blog Archive » La Marzocco Strada in our shop

Tim Wendelboe » Blog Archive » La Marzocco Strada in our shop — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:13:44 +0000

[...] Strada is the result of the prototype machine we tested in Atlanta 2009 and was finally launched in London during the 2010 WBC and after Kent [...]

By: Aleksi Kallio

Aleksi Kallio — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:33:11 +0000

As an amateur I’m not qualified to comment directly on the Slayer vs. LM debate. However as a software engineer who does a fair bit of usability stuff I really think that the way of thinking pressure and temperature as plotted against time is just too complicated. There is too much information for the barista to handle. I would be amazed if coffee of identical quality can not be achieved by carefully condensing all this into a couple of controls that are easy to work with and understand. I would consider fully profiling machine more of a laboratory instrument than a quality coffee maker.

By: Tim Wendelboe

Tim Wendelboe — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:55:50 +0000

Word..

By: Jeff

Jeff — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 01:22:10 +0000

I’m guessing that the new LaMarzocco machine will probably put Slayer Espresso quickly out of business after its debut. Because of Slayer’s much hyped development process for their machine and touting “pressure profiling” throughout all of it, in the end the Slayer turns out to not differ a whole lot from one of its closest competitors – the Synesso Cyncra. Let’s see, you have “off”, “pre-infuse”, and “full-on pump” pressure… that hardly lives up to all the hype put forth on it during the much blogged about development phase.
Very nice and beautifully engineered machine the Slayer is, I just feel that they could have gone about marketing it a little differently as the whole “pressure profiling” thing surrounding it has most certainly blown up in their face.
Guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the initial entry fee for LM’s new machine will be in order to determine just who this top-tier segment of the market will ultimately be going to!

By: So! …What’s the best espresso machine? « The Bean Vagrant

So! …What’s the best espresso machine? « The Bean Vagrant — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:21:07 +0000

[...] There’s THIS on the way..! Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Special Spaziale Session.…Sweet [...]

By: Tim Wendelboe

Tim Wendelboe — Fri, 01 May 2009 07:57:00 +0000

Thank you for the insight Jason.
The Slayer seems like a great machine too.

By: Neue "high-end" La Marzocco? - Kaffee-Netz - Die Community rund ums Thema Kaffee

Fri, 01 May 2009 01:46:57 +0000

[...] "high-end" La Marzocco? Hab im folgenden Blog Tim Wendelboe Blog Archive The new La Marzocco etwas von einer neuen La Marzocco gelesen. 1. One boiler per group. PID controlled. More accurate [...]

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:31:32 +0000

There are 3 brew actuator positions: 1=pump off, 2=pre-infusion pressure, 3=full pressure.

You can set pre-infusion pressure anywhere from 0 to pump pressure on each group. These are easily adjustable, however you are not adjusting pre-infusion pressure ‘on the fly’ on each shot. When prototyping, we discovered that pre-brew pressures under 2 bar are simply too slow – no one is going to wait 30 seconds for this phase to pass. Anything above 4 or 5 bars and you loose the benefits of the low pressure pre-brewing cycle. Therefore an ideal working range is 2-5 bars.

One thing to keep in mind. There is really no comparison between “pre-infusion” and what we’re calling “pre-brewing”. Pre-infusion is a pre-wetting of the coffee grounds to prepare them for extraction. This is done with a pulse of the pump (GS3) or various other methods. There are a lot of mixed feelings on whether ‘pre-infusion’ actually makes any difference in the cup. I tend to agree. This is probably also why people who own Synesso’s typically just slap the actuator to full pressure.

If you’ve used an old Lever machine, you were likely taught that you pulled the lever down and waited till coffee started pouring from the PF at which time you let the lever go. This first stage of the lever extraction is happening at the pressure of the steam boiler (say 1.5 bar) then the spring pressure kicked in somewhere around 12 to 14 bars and declined over the shot. This is where we got the pre-brewing concept for Slayer. However, we found that increasing this pressure to say 3 bars allowed us to use much finer coffee than you would on a lever machine and this finer ground coffee results in more colloids & oils to be extracted into the shot (TDS & refractometer measurements are identical to regular espresso shots) . This then results in an espresso that has a much silkier mouth feel, more sweetness, less bitterness, etc. This has been experienced by hundreds of people now and they’ll confirm that there IS a difference in the cup. Even Kyle Glanville talks about this here: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-intelligentsia29-2009apr29,0,7990950.story

We began with the quality of the cup and engineered backwards till we had the Slayer – then we refined & simplified it to what was shown at SCAA. Believe me, if we felt that we needed 50 pumps to properly pull the perfect shot…thats what would be on the machine. However, they’re not needed. With the Slayer system we could easily replicate most pressure brew curves (which we talked about on our blog). The Slayer system doesn’t need computers/laptops and any skilled barista will grasp the concept of how to use the machine within 2 – 3 shots. We had many pro baristas compliment us on how easy it was to replicate shot profiles on the machine. Keep in mind, coffee extraction is constantly changing through out the day…barista to barista…group to group. How often are you adjusting the grind, dose, tamp, temperature, etc due to changes in humidity, Air Conditioning, Grinder Temp, etc. When you use the Slayer, the barista is watching their shots form and will kick in the second phase of extraction WHEN the shot is ready…NOT based on time within a computer. When you’re running a fine ground coffee and you kick the high pressure phase too quickly, you’ll lock the puck up and extraction will take forever. Remember, the most intelligent computer is a human being.
Slayer wants to empower the barista…not dehumanize them ;-)

However our nature is to constantly be developing new things and when we come up with an intuitive, infinitely variable mechanical pressure system…it’ll be backwards compatible with the Slayer you buy today.

Thanks

Jason

By: Tim Wendelboe

Tim Wendelboe — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:13:17 +0000

Thank you JAson.
But from what I undersand there is no way of playing precisely with the pressure on the Slayer yet. There is only 2 settings on the pump right? Like half pressure and full pressure. If I am wrong, then how do you adjust the pump pressure during brewing. It seemed on the SCAA show that the paddle on the group only had 2 settings with the pump activated.

The marzocco can also be programmed to do whatever pump pressure profile we desire. Can or will the Slayer do that?

By: Jason

Jason — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:47:35 +0000

Hi, just to clarify

Slayer has one boiler per group, PID controlled + a dedicated pre-heat boiler (vs the HX pre-heat system that Synesso & LM use). Pre-infusion pressure is adjustable (per group) from 0 to 9 bar (or whatever you have the pump set to) and can operate independently, unlike the Synesso. Slayer only uses one pump per machine.

One last thing…Slayer is available now vs a year from now on the LM ;-)

But ultimately – its all good. Competition breeds innovation & better coffee for everyone!

Cheers

Jason