The Systemic Kid

Better late than never, Boots. You do realise overdue babies grow up and are always perennially late. I should know.

@Northern_Monkey what you do with your business cards is entirely your business, sniff.

@skylark @DavecUK has some advice here. "For drinking, tea hot water, add nothing. For an espresso machine take a business card, cut a strip 5mm wide. Bend the last 5mm at 90 degrees to make a little scoop, add 1 scoop of bicarb every 2 litres if you want. This tiny amount, can for some, improve extraction and taste. It also eliminates any minor aggressiveness to copper boilers. I don't bother much nowadays."

@PJCT @hirsty - go to PM to sort payment and collection details. Moved to sold.

A legend inside her own pressurised portafilter.

Is that with EK43s or EKS's? Boots? @rob177palmer's and mine are pretty close vis a vis settings as was another EKS I checked belonging to another forum member.

Max volume in LR chamber is about 60ml so allowing for loss to puck saturation, you aren't going to get more than 50ml-ish out depending on the bean.

When aligning an EKS, Mahlkonig recommend the following. After refitting the front plate and tightening the burr adjustment screw to the point where burrs start to make contact, back off no more than 10 degrees which is next to nothing and then tighten the lock nuts. Then put some beans through, and with the motor still running, repeat the alignment process, i.e. unlock the nuts on the dial back off the central adjustment screw and then re-align the burrs as above.

Am fortunate to have a refractometer so can check EY. Pulling at 1:2 pushes it to 22-23% for the above set up. Yours will be in the same ballpark for extractions in the 30-40sec range.

What dose weight are you using? For lighter roasts on my set up using an L R, am using an 18grm VST, and dose between 18-19grms and run 1:2 or slightly higher. Have found that I can run pre-infusion as high as 15 secs but more in region of 10-12 secs and complete the shot in around 30-35 secs. My L R doesn't have the digital upgrade by the way. Checked alignment on my EKS when I got it - didn't need any work. Not long back, fitted a Titus augur/burr carrier to address any run out on the rotating burr. Burrs are SSP Silver Knights. For the lighter roasts I use for ekspresso, I am setting

Been watching a 200 yd stretch of sloes ripening nicely for last few weeks only to find the other day farmer has taken his hedge cutter and shredded the lot.

Pleased it's sold @Bigal go to PM to sort payment and delivery.

AO are listing them as are Argos. At £239 though, that's a lot of dosh.

True sourdough takes many hours to complete start to finish. How does the Panasonic deal with this - am intrigued.

Another wonderful GM anecdote. George, as part of Cool Britannia, was invited to Downing St just after Blair won his first landslide election victory in 1997. At the time, Blair walked on water. Interviewed after the No 10 bash, George was asked what he thought of Bair. His reply; 'not the sharpest knife in the box'. For George to suss that out when all and sundry were fawning over Blair is testament to his independence of thought and opinion. A troubled genius sorely missed.