And again..... Decided this morning and for the greater good, to time the warm up of my own machine. Current machine: a BFC Unico Splendor, with 1.3 litre boiler and 1300 element. Time from cold start to reaching the set boiler pressure = <4 minutes Time to when the group temp is hot enough to make the first coffee < 15 minutes although, you could at that point purge some water through the group to add that little extra heat.....this purge can run through the empty group handle and into a couple of cups, to make sure all is good and ready to brew coffee. At which point, at somewhere between 15 and 20 minites, you could be running off the first coffee, which means you've also started running the grinder at that point...... Suggest you run a similar test with your own machine to see what kind of real time warm up you can actually work with, instead of running with the kind of warm up times we often read about in the forums, which are over the top and result in people switching on their machines way earlier than necessary. It will of course differ a little with each different brand/model machine. The cuppas I ran off my Splendor at around the 20 minute mark, were spot on as far as my palate is concerned! I feel this is well related to the issue of "vibe pump kickstart" in your instance, and I hope that helps. Attilio very first Crema site sponsor.
