Thermocouple/Thermowell on E61 Group

Mike and I have been working on a few additional upgrades to our espresso machine. The first is a thermocouple / thermowell on the e61 group. The hot water hits the thermocouple just before hitting the basket, giving us very accurate temp readings. I also bought a temperature datalogger that displays and saves the temp readings as we brew a shot of espresso. You can see it in the upper right hand corner of this picture.

A water filtration and softening system is also almost ready. We sill have to mount it under the sink and plumb all the hoses. The valves will allow us to get a selection of city, filtered, or softened water to the sink tap. We can also have filtered or softened water to our small drinking water tap, and softened water to our espresso machine. The variety of different water treatments from the sink tap will be usefull when brewing beer. Softer water allows us to get a smoother hops profile for some types of beer.

View the Coffee > Equipment > Expobar Brewtus II folder...

I just finished insulating our Expobar Brewtus II. I made sure to keep the steam boiler OPV and brew head return pipe un-insulated. I also added a little insulation around the pump, hoping to quiet it down a bit. It must have worked, because the pump has woken us up at 5:30am since we got the Brewtus (we have it on a timer), and since insulating it, we sleep right through the startup. I expect the water reservoir will stay a little cooler now too - it used to get quite warm. After the first shot, I also changed the temp offset from -7 to -6.

You can see the process of adding insulation material in the Coffee > Equipment > Expobar Brewtus II > 20060105 - Insulating the Expobar Brewtus II folder...

The Coffee > Equipment > Expobar Brewtus II > 20051230 - Expobar Bewtus II and Mazzer Mini E-B folder shows our Expobar Brewtus II and Mazzer Mini E-B in their natural milieu...