Ditching Flow Control on an E61

My E-61 flow control kit bores me. I make better espresso without it. I'll show you my technique for manual pressure profiling on a stock E61, and explain why it's better than the modification.

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Setup for all shots:
18 g dose
Preinf: ~10 - 15 sec (1 g out)
IMS B702TF-h21-5BB ridgeless, straight, flat basket
IMS E61 200 IM shower screen
Pump set to 10 bar
Flow rate fixed at 7 ml / sec

#e61 #espresso #coffee

Audio capture: Zoom H-5
Audio edited with WaveLab Elements 10.0.70
Video Capture: Panasonic HC-X920
Video edited with DaVinci Resolve 18.0.3
Still images edited with Gimp 2.10.240

Production Assistant: Leo Greene

Music:
Kalimba Relaxation Music by Kevin MacLeod

[wiredgourmet]

I hope this answers your questions about flow control kits. While you're here, kindly check out the "Community" page and contribute to the poll there. I'd like your advice about future content!

[WillardTurner]

Thanks for your willingness to go against the grain and always rigorously testing your results. I learn a lot from your channel, even if I don't always agree with your conclusions.

[Navigator-apex]

I have been making my coffee on for 25 years using my VBM Domobar Super and I only have to use one control - the lever. I don't need anymore complications and added maintenance on the machine, my coffee tastes just fine. Thank you for sharing your experience.

[fretworka]

I've been looking at a flow control kit for my E61 HX recently, and wondering whether I should start with a group pressure gauge, because I've been playing around with varying the pre-infusion, but without a gauge, I'm merely guessing. This video and the one where you installed the kit provided a REALLY good explanation. Thank you!

[gabrielesaviolli]

Interesting. What about system wear with repetitive on/off in short time?

[skatcat]

I have some disagreements in content and theories and correlations in this video, but I do agree with the point. There are many ways to acheive great tasting coffee. None of them are any better than the other. Pressure profiling. Pump profiling. Flow profiling. Temperature profiling. Basket profiling. None of it matters if it is not making coffee an enjoyable experience from prep to drink and you can enjoy it with none of that.

So small disagreements with some content and theories but no disagreement on message.

You should only be looking at any of those controls if and only if you want to. Otherwise just make good coffee you like. Be happy.

Flow control only matters if you are playing with it or are a scientist. Otherwise it doesnt make a difference in your ability to enjoy coffee. Know that if you buy into any espresso control its you buying into it not for coffee you enjoy but for playing around for coffee you enjoy as a home barista.

I doubt anyone is seriously trying to solve all the internal mechanisms or doing something so mind blowing unique that you couldnt make a coffee for people to enoy without flow profiling.

If youre making bad coffee its probably something else and not profiling that can make coffee you do enjoy. Profiling it just one way to try to make it something you can enjoy

As someone with flow profiling, pressure profiling, and an automated espresso system coming I can genuinely say I can also make good espresso without any of it. I like my shiny toys though and know that that is exactly what they are.

[Peterdeskater]

I have a Bezzera machine and have bought the Bezzera kit. It is super smooth and therefore very easy to use. I really love it. I only use it to do longer pre infusion to control acidity and ramp down to prevent over extraction and it has helped me in getting much smoother shots. Can highly recommend the Bezzera kit if it works on your system

[tootoobean]

ever since i watched this channel i've been using this throttling technique with repeatable success. i don't have a group head gauge so iv had to rely on look and sound but its fine and its saved me a few hundred dollars. Thanks!

[cmscss]

Not sure if your machine uses a vibe pump but I found flow control on vibe pump machines to be a frustrating, unpredictable mess! The pressure jumps around and gets wildly out of control, especially at the start of the shot. But I’ve just installed it on a rotary pump machine and changing flow is predictable, intuitive and repeatable. No matter what, 9bar is always in the same position (I calibrated it to 3 o’clock) and if I park the flow at 11 o’clock, I always see a slow pressure ramp down. I use the following recipe for every shot now: Start the shot at 3 o’clock (9bar), shut off the flow at first drip (about 5sec), then after 10sec, back to 9bar, then at 15sec, park the flow at 11 o’clock to get a slow pressure ramp-down for the rest of the shot. The only thing I’ve noticed is that lighter roasts prefer parking at 10 o’clock for the ramp down. I also had to grind finer as the shots would be around 5sec too fast (for me). If you have a vibe pump machine, avoid flow control! YMMV.

[aramse]

Great video! We've been working on our review of the Profitec Pro 700 and haven't been able to get our hands on the flow control kit and funnily ended up doing this exact thing with cycling the pump to try and mimic pre-infusion. Works pretty well and with a little practice one can be very precise with it.

[IanLandesman]

I understand now your gripe with the flow control. My knob is NOT finicky like yours, but I completely agree the function is counterintuitive and rubs me the wrong way too. After talking to more experienced folks, and getting a better idea of how it works and taking advantage instead of trying to make it work the way I think it should work, I really enjoy the extended pre-infusion. I find I've reached a limit where I can pre-infuse for too long and start to get unbalanced taste - from a disrupted puck perhaps... Thanks for the video!

[AT]

Can I just say that you are one of my favourite coffee YouTubers. I’ve watched all of your videos multiple times - dosing based on volume and not just arbitrary weight was a game changer for me in improving consistency.

You remind me of ThisOldTony - also one of my favourite YouTubers.

Please release more videos! Best, Adam

[raphaelanjos]

The video description says that the pre-infusion took ~10 - 15 seconds, but when timing the video, it looks like it took 20 to 25 seconds. Which one is correct?

[jeef]

great video! been loving your content, very in depth, and explained accurately and clearly. Lance hedrik did a great video recently on flow control as well, and I noticed the same conclusions you guys had after I modded my gaggia classic's pump with a dimmer. pressure and flow is always going to be dictated by the last valve in a system, which is the coffee puck obviously. it was a better pre-infusion control rather than a pressure control, but it was useful to slow down the flow of water as the puck broke down. the reduction of pressure is just a broad-handed flow control, and I noticed that the flow was a lot more responsive to the machine's inputs as the coffee puck became less resistant, which lines up with logic. I noticed that if I wasn't paying attention, the flow could run away from me and "ruin the ideal timing" so reducing the pump to half power halfway through the shot was a good way to finish off.

I upgraded to the gagguino kit recently and integrated scales into it (gutted a $10 scale, wired in a single hx711 board in place of the fancy drip tray system). I mostly got the kit because it provides better temp control than a basic PID (and is way less annoying to program) and reduces noise and vibration significantly by only running the pump to keep the designated pressure/flow maintained instead of wasting energy into the OPV. Especially since I installed a copper preheating coil into the boiler, reducing vibration helped with noise a ton. the integrated scales was definitely the missing piece of the flow control puzzle since it gives you a useful readout about what happens in the cup that the machine can actually see and use. I still find those fancy pressure profiles to be over the top and the one I always lean towards is a basic 9-bar to 6-bar progression, which can make best use of maintaining the flow control more precisely always since the puck causes lag. the main benefit of the flow control is not setting a standard ml/s flow, but just telling the machine that I want 36g in X seconds starting at 9-bar.

[Rick]

Enjoyed listening to your take on these devices added to E61 groupheads. I believe just adding a geouphead pressure guage will give me enough info to get the nice rampdown I want.

I moved on to a Decent Espresso three years ago and all my coffee experimenting is over. Pretty much settled on using coffee blends with different lever profiles.

[Miss.Parker]

Thank you for this video. I'm trying to decide if I want Flow Control installed on my ECM Synchronka. I don't drink straight espresso, mainly Americano and milk-based drinks. So I'm wondering if it's even worth it.

[PedroJohnston]

I feel like yes, if you're only messing with a simple preinfusion and a set max pressure, sure, pump cycling works. But those shot profiles that you show in the video aren't realistically achievable with that trick. For example, the blooming allonge that you hovered over, isn't doing any "flourishes and pirouettes", it's a short low pressure preinfusion, and then (and here is the crux of the pump cycling trick) a very long low pressure low flow extraction. So allonges, filter 2.0s are off the table, and turbos are a little more finnicky.
Now this is mere speculation, but reaching a higher peak pressure on the puck may create irreversible channeling which isn't perceivable in the output flow. Thoughts on that?

[SantiagogranadosR]

Hi, great video, as always! I do respect very much your knowledge, obviously from a broad experience. This time I’ allow myself to give my bit. I have a flow control machine, a Dalla Corte Mina, and I from what I have experienced, flow profiling changes a lot the results of coffee. In fact it changes so much that sometimes it’s even overwhelming. The combination of coffee, temperature, profile, grind size and time can be too much, but with time and some advices I do my best. Anyway, that was it. Thank you! Enjoy the summer!

[raphaelanjos]

I have a very simple machine, single boiler, originally 15 bars. I recently installed a dimmer and a pressure gauge to control the pressure and make better extractions. I will try to start at 6 bar until 9, go down to 6 again (10-15 seconds) and then extract at 9-10 bar. I believe the dimmer should allow me to do this without turning the machine off and on.

[adamstone]

The Synchronika flow control valve is just designed wrong. The internal seal goes in and out of the seal bore as you open and close it... Which continuously tears pieces of the seal off. The filter screen that's inside that valve also gets mashed to and fro because it's not sized correctly. When both of those things happen, you'll see inconsistency in flow and you'll see an inability to control flow. Choose a different flow control valve and it will be fine.

I sent ECM some information on the topic-- not sure if they fixed it or not. They really didn't give me any insights there, said they'd pass it along to their team.

The hypersensitivity mentioned is onlyy because you have seals jammed into the needle, periodically they shoft as you move the knob and pressure jumps. Move to a different brand flow control valve (needle valve) and you'll find that it works perfectly fine.