ellen's disorganized thoughts

I’ve grown a bit tired of the temperature variation displayed by my pre-millenium La Pavoni. It makes it really difficult to pull a good shot without babysitting it for a while to get everything to the right temperature. I’ve thought about a few different solutions, including upgrading to machines clocking in north of 1000 USD. Ultimately I decided that the repairability and simplicity of the Europicolla isn’t something I’m willing to give up. I don’t drink or steam milk, so maintaining the single boiler at a reasonable temperature is all I need.

I ended up buying a very convenient bang-bang temperature controller (ITC-608T) by Inkbird for greenhouses and homebrewing. It comes with a thermocouple probe that I covered in thermal paste and taped to the side of the boiler with some polyimide tape. I’ve found that regardless of boiler temperature, my machine in thermal equilibrium will either have insufficient steam pressure or produce burnt-tasting espresso. My quest continues. I may try to add some heatsinks to the grouphead next.