# Grace vs Anna PID for a novice



## sebna

Hi All,

My first post so hello everyone.

I am looking to move from my beans to cup setup to some manual goodness and I am trying to decide between Anna PID and Grace and have few questions (the grinder I am aiming for is Eureka Mignon Silenzio or Manuale).

1. Do I need a tamper or will it come with either?

Why I like Anna PID:

1. Easy access to pressure valve adjustment
2. PID shows live reading of temperature
3. Can I simulate pre-infusion with dropping the pressure with steam wand?

Why I like Grace:

1. Does it have faster start than Anna?
2. Do I need LCC - what are the benefits other than pre-infusion and things like timer for shot length?
3. 50ml bigger boiler?

One of the other questions I have would you prefer correctly set extraction pressure (easy to do on Anna PID) or the extra features coming from LCC and pre-infusion of Grace?

Is Grace worth €100 over Anna?

Is there anything else I am not thinking about in relation to those two machines?
Would you choose one over other for any other reasons?

Thanks

EDIT: Just to add. Machine will be used to make 6-8 shots a day (2 coffees at each time) from single origin beans. Some shots will be made into cappuccinos some into americanos. Mostly it will be paired with medium / light roast beans.


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## Coffeelon

Not sure how active the Lelit forum is here, and I don't have either machine, but I have done extensive research on these and higher in the lineup.

My conclusion seems to be the Grace is better built (and less plastic areas like on the drip tray), so is probably always better to go for the best you can afford. That said I don't see much value in the LCC at the level of the Grace/Victoria - it really only seems to come into its own on the v3 Elizabeth where they've added a lot of features. The LCC on Grace/Victoria is very basic and hasn't been updated in years even for known issues....

What I really wanted was the Victoria with the features of the Elizabeth. I prefer the size/proportions of Victoria, and am happy with the compromise of single boiler and am OK with lesser build quality, but not with the under-utilised LCC.


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## sebna

Coffeelon said:


> Not sure how active the Lelit forum is here, and I don't have either machine, but I have done extensive research on these and higher in the lineup.
> 
> My conclusion seems to be the Grace is better built (and less plastic areas like on the drip tray), so is probably always better to go for the best you can afford. That said I don't see much value in the LCC at the level of the Grace/Victoria - it really only seems to come into its own on the v3 Elizabeth where they've added a lot of features. The LCC on Grace/Victoria is very basic and hasn't been updated in years even for known issues....
> 
> What I really wanted was the Victoria with the features of the Elizabeth. I prefer the size/proportions of Victoria, and am happy with the compromise of single boiler and am OK with lesser build quality, but not with the under-utilised LCC.


That is what I did my friend . Ordered few hours ago. In the end the price difference was negligible €60-80 and I also managed to find answers to some of my questions:

1. Both have same the 250ml boiler size
2. Both have the same heat-up time
3. Actually LCC has some nice features that will come handy, like: pull timer, pre-infusion which can be controlled to some extent with wand nozzle
4. Even tough Grace's OPV is harder to get to for permanent brewing pressure adjustment it can be controlled on the fly with wand nozzle (



) to effectively allow for variable extraction pressure (forgot the correct term for it).
5. Better build quality and smaller footprint (?) of Grace

I was leaning towards Anna at the beginning of my research process as I wanted to be able to easily adjust OPV valve but as it is not critical to be done on day one due to steam nozzle workaround it was an easy choice to go for Grace.

The tamper which comes with either is a plastic one.

So I ended up buying also a tamper, bottomless portafilter, some espresso cleaner for backwashing and coffee grinder.

EDIT: I would also prefer Victoria but could not justify extra cost for my use case.


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## Coffeelon

Please report back once you’ve had a chance to use it. Would be great to hear the feedback.


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## sebna

Will do. Might take a while but will try to make 1st impressions followed by a longer experience. 

By looking at selection of precision filters I now understand why everybody recommends going for Victoria etc. 

Still there is some choice available in 57 size.


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## sebna

Coffeelon said:


> Please report back once you’ve had a chance to use it. Would be great to hear the feedback.


1st impressions:

I just pulled my 3rd shot leading to my first cappuccino using my brand new Lelit Grace. I have moved from De'Longhi BTC machine which I have used for few years, and this Lelit is my first manual espresso machine. 1st real coffee today with the new setup and already better tasting than my BTC machine which is a great start. I need to optimize my workflow as it took me forever to prepare to back to back cappuccinos this morning. Enjoyable forever but still a bit too long.

I paired it with Mignon grinder which I have set to +1.5 on the dial from contact point and I am pulling, number wise, text book espresso shots. 15g in 30-34g out (light roast) in 25-30sec @9bar or thereabout. I will not comment on the taste of those espresso shots as I am not experienced enough and I need a bit more time to see what I like and what not but they certainly taste miles better than from my BTC machine. I can comment on my cappuccino which on 1st attempt was already considerably much better than my BTC version and I guess becouse of the dilution even small improvements are welcomed and those are already more than small.

My main reason to switch to manual setup was to correctly utilize quality of soo tasty beans I am using. Even tough I have no comparison to other gear I knew how little justice my BTC machine was doing to them even by simple fact of how inconsistent drinks were and how badly (visually) extracted pucks were. My BTC was not able to grind fine enough and also about 20% of puk was not touched by water at all... it still tasted good as I could taste the fabulous taste of those beans but I knew it can be done better hence my move to manual machine.

I am happy to report that even my first cappuccino has already shown that it was worth it from taste in the cup perspective.

It remains to be seen if I can get in the grove of the whole procedure sufficiently enough to keep at it (took me about 20 min to make 2 back to back cappuccino cups this morning  with cleaning).

The two back to back shots and 200ml of steamed milk caused the pump to kick in mid through the steaming so going double boiler is a nice luxury to have. Also Elizabeth has programmable per-infusion and shot timer shutdown both nice features which Grace is missing.

I can confirm that by opening steam valve while pulling the shot allows to control extraction pressure however I will open up mu Grace to do a permanent OPV adjustment. On factory seatings it pulls shots 10.5 - 11 bars (which I am bringing down to 9 or thereabouts with opening of the steam valve).

So far from my very limited observation of the bottomless pulls it looks like I am doing quite ok. No obvious channeling I think.

This is how it looks on the counter:









I am debating if not to get DF64 grinder to compare to Mignon as I like the idea of SD workflow.

I will write more in few weeks unless anybody has any questions in the meantime.

Cheers


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## sebna

Two extra notes:

Steam performance which was the 2nd reason I wanted to move to a new gear is a huge step-up from my BTC machine. 

It is so much powerful and faster that I have actually very little time to dial in my results. But on 2nd attempt I was already able to get reasonable results so there is certainly potential. 

Does even more powerful wands offer faster times or also a better froth and microfoam? 

It is only first impressions from first cup of cappuccino but it is not all better. This new setup offers higher resolution of taste but at the cost of less body and mouth feel in compare to my BTC. I am pretty sure I will be able to dial in a lot going forward but those are the notes on day one, drink one


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