I use a Bezerra Strega, which is a much newer design but not radically fancier than this machine (pre upgrades).
The Strega has more reproducible brew group temperatures because the group is more separated from the boiler, to the point where the group needs electrical heaters to maintain its temperature. Those heaters use a basic thermostat rather than a PID, though the high mass of the group seems to do OK at keeping things stable.
It’s interesting to see how little differentiates these machines, and how one of the biggest differences isn’t in any fancy features but just in having a few more decades to iterate on the engineering and end up with a still-unfancy-but-better way of controlling temperature.
_FormerFarmer
“Espresso is about..gear acquisition…for those of us that are broken in a specific way”
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I use a Bezerra Strega, which is a much newer design but not radically fancier than this machine (pre upgrades).
The Strega has more reproducible brew group temperatures because the group is more separated from the boiler, to the point where the group needs electrical heaters to maintain its temperature. Those heaters use a basic thermostat rather than a PID, though the high mass of the group seems to do OK at keeping things stable.
It’s interesting to see how little differentiates these machines, and how one of the biggest differences isn’t in any fancy features but just in having a few more decades to iterate on the engineering and end up with a still-unfancy-but-better way of controlling temperature.
“Espresso is about..gear acquisition…for those of us that are broken in a specific way”
Got me!