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Permalink Reply by Ian McCarthy on February 4, 2009 at 10:04am

Recently got a 2 group Linea in the roasting facility. I have been thinking the same thing, but haven't spoken up about it. The GB-5 I had been working on had a 4 or 5 second delay between pump engage and first drops. I was playing around with the Aurelias at MRBC, good shots on those machines would appear after 8 or 9 seconds, (Gianni said this had to do with a double preinfusion system), It seems with the Linea that those first drops do not come out so thick and dark as on the GB-5. Its been a struggle to get the chewy, bottom end of the spro. I will see the first sign of extraction after as little as one second, often.

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Permalink Reply by elvin on February 4, 2009 at 11:26am

Lucky---

Linaes do not have Pre-Infusion. When you hit the extract button the pump is turned on so that the coffee in the porta-filter is hit with the 9 bars of pressure right off the bat.

If you have a high flow rate of water coming out of the group head, as it seems to be on your machine, it is the size of your giggler at the end of Tube 28 (Marzocco Parts Diagram). Most of the older Lineas have a much bigger giggler in them than the GB5 machines.

Smaller giggler, slower flow rate, slower saturation of the puck of coffee, 4-7 second drip instead of the 2-3 seconds that you are seeing now.

You can replace a giggler on an EE machine by disconnecting Tube 28 (the one on the left) from the group, unscrew the old giggler and screw in the new.

AV models do not not have a giggler in them stock, the flow meter acts as a giggler. On an AV machine you can put a giggler in at the Tube 28 (the one on the right) / Banjo Tube juncture... you can screw in the giggler there and then you will need to file down the hex top until round so that it fits into the Banjo tube with ease. kind of a weird work around but it will work.

If any of you out there have a better way, I'd love to hear from you.

Hope this helps.

---michael

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Permalink Reply by Ian McCarthy on February 4, 2009 at 12:14pm

Michael,

I have an AV model, (10/04). Where would I find a giggler, and perhaps some diagrams of a modified group head?

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Permalink Reply by elvin on February 4, 2009 at 1:15pm

Lucky---

another thought:

24-30 seconds is not too fast to be filling a 12 oz. cup straight from the group head with out the porta-filter.

---michael

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Permalink Reply by elvin on February 4, 2009 at 1:47pm

Ian McCarthy said:

Michael,
I have an AV model, (10/04). Where would I find a giggler, and perhaps some diagrams of a modified group head?

Ian---

So... to be clear... I work at Espresso Parts.

Devon, our parts Master here at EP can help you out with this project (parts, diagrams, and the likes).

I'm sure you can find these parts elsewhere, so don't feel obligated to call us here.

---michael

oh... and it turns out that some Tube 28's do not come threaded to fit the gigglers... Devon says you can just jam the giggler in there, or thread it with a tap. You'd have to put it off your machine to see which you have.

---m

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Permalink Reply by lucky on February 25, 2009 at 5:04pm

thanks elvin, Ive got the marzzoco book right in front of me, ill be checking out EP for the smaller giggler. this is an older machine. Its all clear in the dome now. thanks for your help.

elvin said:

Ian McCarthy said:

Michael,
I have an AV model, (10/04). Where would I find a giggler, and perhaps some diagrams of a modified group head?

Ian---

So... to be clear... I work at Espresso Parts.

Devon, our parts Master here at EP can help you out with this project (parts, diagrams, and the likes).

I'm sure you can find these parts elsewhere, so don't feel obligated to call us here.

---michael

oh... and it turns out that some Tube 28's do not come threaded to fit the gigglers... Devon says you can just jam the giggler in there, or thread it with a tap. You'd have to put it off your machine to see which you have.

---m

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Permalink Reply by Bill Warnock on February 26, 2009 at 8:32pm

i thought that the linea's had a "semi-preinfusion" where the pump kicks on pulses water then off and on to brew(no line pressure preinfuse) this all of course depends on how new the cpu"brain" is(dont believe the old one does this). also the only way id see a flow meter having anything to do with a preinfuse was if the cpu was measuring impulses to know how long to preinfuse but i'd think they'd do it by time not sure though. if you had a flowmeter error it would blink one of the lights provided you used the button pad and not just the brew switch, this indicates all flowmeter issues usually.

28-30 seconds to fill a cup is verrrryyyy quick thats an issue for sure, check pump pressure(might be off a bit but dont bet it all on this) then get thinking about the flow restrictor(giggler)
also did you have screens and screws in cause i guess it could do it with no screens and screws?

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Permalink Reply by Jason Haeger on February 26, 2009 at 10:58pm

Right.. "giggler" is spelled gicleur.

Smaller gicleur will slow the flow. Of course, this is not always desirable.

BTW, the flow meter indeed plays no role in pre-infusion.

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Permalink Reply by u30jxwipu1i1 on February 27, 2009 at 8:05am

Well since "gicleur" is French for jet and giggler is the term we use around the shop, lets just call it a jet, since that is what is really is, and get on with the facts.

A flow meter on an AV, WILL act as a jet simply due to the fact that the incoming port is a very small orifice, somewhere in the size of between .06 - .09 . Preinfusion of LM Lineas is programmable on /off on AV machines, and this is addressed in the orange book, as well as LM training documents.

28-30 seconds is not a quick flow rate with out the portafilter in place, but does lead to the idea that you might want to try a group jet. Pump pressure will play little difference in this situation however you may see a slight increase /. decrease.

There was a specific question that was asked and somehow this thread became a challenge of knowledge. Lets just keep to the facts and learn from each other. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Jason Haeger on February 27, 2009 at 8:08am

I know that "gicleur" is often referred to as a "giggler", but the word hadn't been mentioned in this thread, and the word "giggler" won't appear in the manual, so I mentioned it. :)

Terry Z said:

Well since "gicleur" is French for jet and giggler is the term we use around the shop, lets just call it a jet, since that is what is really is, and get on with the facts.

A flow meter on an AV, WILL act as a jet simply due to the fact that the incoming port is a very small orifice, somewhere in the size of between .06 - .09 . Preinfusion of LM Lineas is programmable on /off on AV machines, and this is addressed in the orange book, as well as LM training documents.

28-30 seconds is not a quick flow rate with out the portafilter in place, but does lead to the idea that you might want to try a group jet. Pump pressure will play little difference in this situation however you may see a slight increase /. decrease.

There was a specific question that was asked and somehow this thread became a challenge of knowledge. Lets just keep to the facts and learn from each other. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Curtis on June 17, 2009 at 6:32pm

Bump:

I read somewhere that Four Barrel Coffee had experimented with installing the giggler/gicleur into the top dispersion screw for the Linea.

Has anyone tried this?

I am going to do one screw at least when my taps arrive, but am curious if anyone knows what the differences are between the dispersion screw method and the traditional banjo tube method...

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