# Using an E61 Brew Thermometer - HX Machine



## itguy (Jun 26, 2015)

Hi Everyone

Thanks to a great fellow coffee forum member I am now in possession of a nice new EricS E61 Brew Thermometer.

I have installed this on my Izzo Alex II HX Machine.

A few questions are emerging now about how best to use it and what I am seeing.

1) My machine seems really slow to warm up. When the boiler is at the correct pressure from cold, the E61 temp is reading only about 120-130f, then it will very slowly climb up to 214f. When I say slow, I am talk 30-45 mins from cold. Is this normal?

2) What is the best method to get the right brew temp for a shot? I have tried flushing down to 206f but find that the temp just keeps on dropping down, down, down after this while I prep the basket etc. It can be down at 195f when I start to pull, then it drops even lower!! Bad!!

3) I have noticed after this, it then takes AGES again to get the E61 temp back up to 205+f. 15 mins plus. I thought it was supposed to bounce back really quick?

Do I just need to be quicker or is there something not quite right with my machine? (boiler water level, pressure etc?). Pressure is set at 1.25 bar max.

Thanks


----------



## El carajillo (Mar 16, 2013)

What pressure is the boiler set to, the temperature is affected by the pressure. Does it need descaling ? Is the pressure stat sticking?

Just noticed pressure 1.25 bar. I believe you only need 1.1 bar for domestic use so not a pressure problem.


----------



## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

This is not especially unusual and reflects roughly what I see on my machine.

The temperature of the shot is a result of the water temp in the HX pipes hitting the thermal mass of the group and then 'levelling out'. So you aren't really aiming for Eric's to read the correct temp for a shot after your flush, you just want it to be the right temperature to even out the water coming from the HX pipes.

What you are doing is flushing the HX until cold water is running through, once Eric's starts reading 206 the whole HX is full of cold water and this then cycles through the group cooling the whole lot down even further. The machine is designed to bounce back quickly from pulling a coffee or two, not from flushing the entire HX with cold water.

The temp on the Eric's is only really important during the extraction it is *not* a guide for how hot your group should be prior to extraction.

I think you need to do a much smaller flush. Just flush until the water stops hissing, and then a bit more and stop the flush. Wait for the new water in the HX to mix with the existing water (a few secs) and then pull a shot.

Was your extraction running too hot? Make your flush longer

Was it too cold? Make your flush shorter

The Eric's can actually be a good indicator of when to stop flushing... it might be just as the temp on the Eric's starts to drop, or it might be when it hits something like 208. If so then this is a useful measure of how long your flush should be, but otherwise do it by time.


----------



## Benjijames28 (Mar 29, 2017)

Dylan said:


> This is not especially unusual and reflects roughly what I see on my machine.
> 
> The temperature of the shot is a result of the water temp in the HX pipes hitting the thermal mass of the group and then 'levelling out'. So you aren't really aiming for Eric's to read the correct temp for a shot after your flush, you just want it to be the right temperature to even out the water coming from the HX pipes.
> 
> ...


Golden info right here.


----------



## kennyboy993 (Jan 23, 2017)

Take a look at this, it's what I used for a little while:

http://nielssonne.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/eliminating-guesswork-when-flushing-e61.html?m=1


----------



## Alan Kilroy (Dec 22, 2017)

Just read that......needs reading a couple of times to put it mildly......??


----------

