# Temperature



## 2971 (May 7, 2012)

I'm using a Cremina. Lots of control is available to me, especially brew pressure, but not much facility for measuring statistics or repeatability, which affords me the opportunity to mess it all up in different ways every time. One parameter, however, which is harder to change is the temperature. Of course, I can temperature surf by heating up the group or cooling it down with a cloth, but I have to take the top part of the casing off to get to the pressurestat adjustment. This is fine, and in general I don't adjust the temperature/pressure much. I've been running the machine for several months with the pressure going between 0.75 and 0.9 bar, and I pull my shot at the 0.9 bar point.

I had some La Ilusion as part of IMM, enjoyed it, and fancied having a little stock of this to play with over Xmas. The second batch of IMM arrived on Dec 22nd and I've been drinking it for a few days now. I've been enjoying it much less, and finally went back to first principles. I realised that the crema is much lighter than it usually is (and much lighter than from the previous batch). So I've taken the lid off the Cremina and bumped it up so it goes between 0.9 and 1.05 bar boiler pressure now.

Instantly the crema colour changed to a much darker brown, and the taste is much more balanced (although needs some fine tuning).

Compared to my Coffee Compass beans, the Hasbean stuff always looks lighter to me, and is much harder to grind (HG One, so you really feel it). I guess this is a lighter roast, and therefore a bit higher temperature may suit it.

It got me thinking, though. Are you guys much more in control of your temperature than me? Are there machines which let you set the desired brew temperature? Are you changing temperature every time you change beans?


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

I can change the temp on my machine, in general i dont very often.

If an espresso is unbalanced in taste then i try to change that through grind size and brew ratio first , these have a more immediate and significant impact than temp ( IMHO )

If this fails to achieve what I'm looking for in the cup then ill start looking at temp too.....

Plus by the time I've changed temp on the machine I'm still waiting for it to filter through the the group head .....


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

wintoid said:


> Are you guys much more in control of your temperature than me? Are there machines which let you set the desired brew temperature? Are you changing temperature every time you change beans?


Yes. I change temp to suit the bean and usually end up between 92-94c

I have a PID and can change down to 1f increments

Some beans have required a low temp (90.5c) whereas the hottest I have gone in the past year is about 94.5

Each bean will vary. In some cases the change in temp brings out different flavours


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## jjprestidge (Oct 11, 2012)

I don't use any roasters that produce coffees that require the temperature to be dropped. Most speciality shops are the same; even when you've got the ability to set different groupheads at different temperatures, most don't do this.

Some on here have a strange penchant for darker roasts, but use lighter roasts as well, so the ability to change temperature can help when switching coffees.

JP


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