These things got me thinking.
I guess I could be considered on the "techy" side, what with modding popcorn machines, putting a PID on the Silvia, and also recently measuring brew temp with a thermocouple in the puck.
You could say that this was totaly over anal, and there is a lot of this about, especially it seems on alt.coffee.
However, looking at this a different way:
I cannot afford a commercial style machine. The Silvia is well known for having a very stable brew temp (for a home machine) during a shot, but that the actual temp can vary a lot due to the wide hysteresis thermostat. Solution, fit a PID controller. Yes it's techy, but suddenl you have not onlt stable "in shot" temp, but always the same brew temp. Yes you can get more "techy" and adjust temp for beans, but I'm with Joey here, very little difference to my taste.
I did the thermocouple in the puck measurement for one reason only, having changed the way the machine worked with the PID, I had no way of accurately measuring the brew temp. Having done it once, I have no need again.
In closing, whilst I think there is a lot of nonsense going on, and getting too technical, particularly about espresso, there is, sometimes, a place for it. Sometimes with a small outlay, you can make something work so much better. I'm not talking about major surgery here, just correcting or improving minor engineering details, often left out for small cost savings by the manufacturer, which can have a huge impact on the abilities of your equipment. A god example is heat control of a popper, a simple alteration that makes a massive difference in the equipment's abilities.
Waffle over
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