The Systemic Kid

True but rather harsh😀

Are you doing home delivery, Aaron??

Are you opening a pop up bakery, Aaron? You would be very popuar.

Using medium to medium dark roasts, no way do you want to be running long pre-infusions to pull semi ristretto shots. They should be in the 5-6 sec range give or take to saturate the puck before releasing the lever.

First drop in the cup would appear after 3-5 secs with full extraction complete in 25-30 secs.

Think it was an oversight, Reiss didn't ship LIs with a radiatior bleed key - would have been much simpler. To purge the air lock, you have to pull the lever several times and run quite a bit of water out of the group. Opening the hot water tap and letting that run too will help get rid of the air lock. Between each lever pull, wait until the operating temp is back to normal before pulling more water.

@Deirdre Reiss's recommendation for pre-infusing for 3-5 secs goes way back to the beginning of the L1 project. This was optimised for medium plus roasts with a dose of 15 grms. Reiss's business was originally a roastery and, at that time, was roasting slightly darker than medium. I used to get my beans from Reiss and stuck with the 3-5 sec pre-infusion and 15 grm doses getting pukka espresso. Since then, things have moved along and lighter roasts have gained a strong following. Problem with making espresso from lighter roasts is that it will test the capabilities of the grinder used. Flat burrs are best for lighter roasts and the bigger the better to ensure good extraction in order to avoid sour tasting shots (under-extraction). As lighter roasts don't give up their soluble coffee solids as easily as darker roasts, the solution is to up the dose to 17-18grms. Wouldn't go higher with the original L1, say to 20grms. You still want to grind as fine as you can without resorting to uber long pre-infusion. Taste is the guide here. You want to unlock the beans sweetness to counteract the acidity characteristic of lighter roasts. Regarding your question 'where does the air bubble go'? Purging the system will get rid of it but it can be a pain if you are having to do this on a regular basis. The principal of a syphon hot water system is gravity. Hot water is lighter and rises, as it cools it sinks. In a closed system, this principal can be harnessed to create a self sustaining cycle but it's super sensitive, in the case of the Londinium, to air getting into it and causing the cycling to stall. As mentioned earlier, adjust your grind to bring down pre-infusion time to, ideally, not above 12 secs or whatever time causes the syphon to stall. Regard that as a given. To achieve good extraction, run the shot long - 1:2 or even a tad higher. So, for 18grms that would be 36 grms or 38grms out.

@Deidre As DFK and Stevebee say, when you cock the lever, 60ml of water is drawn into the chamber. It doesn't make contact with the puck until you release the lever at which point the syphon is vulnerable to air getting in via the small hole in the group chamber. When you say you are doing lengthy pre-infusions - how long? In the early days of L1, Reiss got a lot of hassle from one or two owners saying the group temperature wasn't stable, i.e. maintaining 93c. Turned out these owners were running way too long pre-infusions and stalling the syphon. Recommend you adjust your method and not exceed 10-12secs max pre-infusion time - that is - timing from the moment you release the lever. If you continue to experience syphon stall, bring your max pre-infusion time down even further. Long pre-infusions don't automatically mean better extractions, i.e. better tasting coffee. They can lead to unpleasant over extraction where bitter notes are accentuated.

Nothing wrong with that

Lovely Spring evening - fired up the Uuni - simple Margarita with olives - glass of Amarone - bliss

Don't know but Germany has set aside €1trillion to protect its industries tearing up EU state aid rules in the process - surprise, surprise. Worryingly, the north/south economic imbalance within the EU is only going to get worse unless the richer northern states bite the bullet and recognise the Euro can only survive if they, in effect, subsidise the poorer southern members. Problem here, such action is not permitted under German federal law.

Rightly, the focus is and should be on dealing with the pandemic crisis but, behind all this, is the impact on the economy. There is, inevitably, going to be an economic downturn after the crisis has passed. How big, we have yet to see. The chancellor has thrown an economic bazooka at the crisis and has won praise for it - even from Bernie Sanders.

For those of you who don't pick up accents, this guy is a Mancunian or Manc as we say locally. Not actually sure he's joking.

In some ways, perhaps. But the British don't do states of emergency and we don't have paramilitary units/riot police independent of the police force like they do in some European countries. So the government, for now, is relying on the public's cooperation to comply with its measures.