Five Senses Coffee Blog

Opening shots

Project X

This project is really coming together. For the benefit  of anyone visiting for the first time, I am nearing the end of the construction phase,  combining the complete front boiler assembly from the world’s best commercial coffee machine into the chassis of an Isomac La Mondiale. The result will be an unassumingly compact dual boiler home espresso machine that can boast specifications only found in top of the range commercial machines.  So, after wiring up the Solid State Relays (SSR’s) that will power the brew and steam elements, there is nothing preventing me switching on and pulling some test shots.

The Hybrid Coffee Machine from Five Senses Coffee on Vimeo.

These first shots were excellent. To be honest, I was quite surprised with the stability the low cost PID controller is achieving, with only a small amount of tuning. There is no pre-heating of the brew water, the steam boiler is not insulated and the covers are off.  Initial observations are that there is no more that a deviation (drop) of 1 degree Fahrenheit over the duration of the shot (+/- 1 digit). The PID display only allows a minimum resolution of 1 deg, including whilst adjusting the offsets, a significant weakness.

There is a lot of work ahead perfecting and fine tuning the machine yet.  A pre-infusion timer, a better quality PID and a pre-heating system (low power thermoblock????) are all on my to-do list.

It would also be nice to have a name for it…

~richard