holdstein Senior Member Joined: 3 Oct 2003 Posts: 4 Location: SF Bay Area Expertise: I live coffee
Posted Sat Mar 22, 2008, 5:01pm Subject: Re: New GS/3 owners thread
I'm thinking about springing for the GA/3 but although it is clear that it makes great espresso, I'm wondering about steaming. A few posts have mentioned problems making good microfoam. What's your learning curve been like? What did you learn?
roblumba Senior Member Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Posts: 349 Location: San Jose Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Sat Mar 22, 2008, 7:32pm Subject: Re: New GS/3 owners thread
holdstein Said:
I'm thinking about springing for the GA/3 but although it is clear that it makes great espresso, I'm wondering about steaming. A few posts have mentioned problems making good microfoam. What's your learning curve been like? What did you learn?
I've been consistently making latte art. Rosetta's, Hearts. The microfoam is silky smooth. It's fast and powerful. Today I hosted coffee for a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. Within minutes I had a house full of guests and was serving coffee one after the other. I had no idea how many latte's I served that day until I counted the discarded pucks. A total of 18 double shots, of which 4 were double shots that I served after the hunt. But the other 14 all went into Latte's and Cappucino's that were served in a 20 minute period. It was seriously back to back to back to back drinks. My wife tells me later that everyone who had coffee was complimenting on it, with some saying that it was the best coffee they ever had. My neighbor across the street was wanting to convince his wife and had failed until his wife tried a latte. Now she's a believer! She told my wife that she has a $4000 slush fund that she is ready to put down on it. We'll see if her faith lasts more than a day. ;) She was also telling her neighbor that it was the best coffee she's ever had.
Funny thing is, I started out serving Ecco Reserve because I had some left. I switched to Barefoot Kneebuckler part way through. I hate switching beans in the middle of serving guests like that. But I didn't want to waste the Ecco Reserve and it was already dialed in and making excellent shots. That was the one that converted my neighbors wife.
However, I didn't actually taste test it but just visually judged the grind, etc. It wasn't until I pulled the double shots later that I realized that it was actually pulling a little sour. This was further complicated by the fact that Barefoot's ran out of some of the beans that previously went into that blend. The change of the blend resulted in quite a bit more sour of a shot at 201.5F, So I brought the temperature up around 203F and it was much better. I actually served one guests the two double shots back to back and let him taste the difference. He was quite surprised at the difference from 1.5F degrees.
Steaming was incredible. I steamed many 12 ounce lattes and the milk was silky smooth and I was pouring latte art in many of the drinks. I couldn't be more satisfied with the steaming capability of the GS3. The semi-automatic feature helps in making good microfoam when building a drink. I just push the button let the GS3 stop at 1.75 or 2 ounces. I programmed the double ristretto button to make 1.75 ounces and I programed the double long button to make 2 ounces. Usually, for a 12 ounce latte, I'll do a 2 ounce double shot. A pair of single cappa's will get a 1.75 ounce double shot split into two 4.75 ounce IPA cappuccino cups. So I just hit the button and move to steaming and concentrating on making good microfoam. This seems to be working for me at the moment.
The GS3 I tried did steam powerfully, but the steam was quite wet. Others have made similar observations, so I wonder if your steam is dry or if your machine is set up differently (lower level sensor position in steam boiler maybe?).
Because the steam was wet, I was not able to make silky microfoam on the GS3 like I do at home (or on the Linea or GB5 machines I have used).
roblumba Said:
Today I hosted coffee for a neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt. Within minutes I had a house full of guests....
My goodness! So your latte has 2 ounces of espresso and 10 ounces of milk? That's different from my preference.
I don't generally use cups that big, so maybe our different steaming experiences with the GS3 relates with volume. I generally steam somewhere between 4 to 6 ounces of milk depending on the drink I'm making. I serve my biggest latte drinks in an 8 ounce cup not quite full up, and most often I serve traditional cappucino at 5-6 ounces.
Posted Wed Mar 26, 2008, 9:48am Subject: Re: New GS/3 owners thread
JimWright Said:
Question for the North American owners on the install - is this mandatory per Franke, or optional? That is to say, if you buy from a dealer who is not local to you, do you get the training and installation, and if so, how does this work? Thanks!
My dealer is about a four hour drive from my home. For $500 off the list price I drove up to their place and spent 3 hours with my machine, my grinder, my beans, and the 2007 Ultimate Barista Challenge Latte Art Champion. He walked me through the settings, maintenance, latte art, etc. We pulled shots side by side with a GB80, had a lot of fun. A few days later they brought the machine to my house and installed the water filter system and the GS/3. They threw in a container of cleaner, an extra screen and gasket, but I didn't get a pound of their espresso beans (really liked it, ordered some online).
ChiaroScuro Senior Member Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 7 Location: Pacific NW Expertise: I love coffee
Espresso: La Marzocco GS3 Grinder: Macap M7KR
Posted Wed Mar 26, 2008, 12:57pm Subject: i'm happy with the milk steaming capabilities of the GS3
JonR10 Said:
... My goodness! So your latte has 2 ounces of espresso and 10 ounces of milk? That's different from my preference.
I don't generally use cups that big, so maybe our different steaming experiences with the GS3 relates with volume. I generally steam somewhere between 4 to 6 ounces of milk depending on the drink I'm making. I serve my biggest latte drinks in an 8 ounce cup not quite full up, and most often I serve traditional cappucino at 5-6 ounces.
i'm at the opposite end of the spectrum - very short drinks. initially, i had trouble with the GS3, but i think it was mostly because i was rusty. i went back and watched the schomer latte art video, and experimented around a bit, and i'm now making very fine, sweet, wet microfoam.
i put about 3 oz of milk into a 35 cl pitcher, stretch with occasional short hisses, then roll the milk to temp. this happens very quickly with the power of the GS3 and a very small amount of milk. you've got to be very careful to position the tip for just a few short hisses. i put a spoon over the spout and pour off an ounce or so of liquid milk, then swish around the remainder in the pitcher and pour about 1.5 oz of milk and foam, to produce a macchiato that's about 3 oz in volume. i'm not very skilled at latte art, but the milk i'm making is perfect for latte art.
Posted Thu Mar 27, 2008, 12:03am Subject: Re: i'm happy with the milk steaming capabilities of the GS3
I still have serious problems to get acceptable micro foam, the steam is too wet. According to some rumours, Marzocco will address this issue by replacing the flexible silicone pipe and inset a solid one. No idea when this will happen. Isolating the flexible pipe doesn't improve the steaming performance noticeably. Compared to my old Linea AV1 steam performance is very poor, but I assume this is caused by relatively long way the steam has to go through and associated with that it gets too cold. Every time I activate the steam knob lot's of condensed water appears.
The problem isn't that obvious when using a small pitcher (35cl) with a small amount of milk.
roblumba Senior Member Joined: 30 Jan 2006 Posts: 349 Location: San Jose Expertise: I love coffee
Posted Thu Mar 27, 2008, 5:57am Subject: Re: i'm happy with the milk steaming capabilities of the GS3
the_deal_maker Said:
I still have serious problems to get acceptable micro foam, the steam is too wet. According to some rumours, Marzocco will address this issue by replacing the flexible silicone pipe and inset a solid one. No idea when this will happen.
Any improvements would definetly be nice. I'm not a pro so I don't know what I'm missing if this microfoam is still not good. I do perform a decent purge of the wand prior to steaming. Usually purge for around 5-7 seconds, just prior to grind, distribute and tamping. Then during extraction, I'm steaming, so the steam wand doesn't sit for too long, but it also gives the steam boiler a chance to recover from the purge.
pburbridge Senior Member Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 298 Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: La Marzocco GS3 Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly Drip: Kalita pour over brewer Roaster: I-roast 2
Posted Thu Mar 27, 2008, 6:46am Subject: Re: i'm happy with the milk steaming capabilities of the GS3
The steam is quite wet on mine as well, but after a week or so I was producing microfoam as good as I could produce on the Linea I use to work on (although not quite as easily as with the linea you need to pay more attention I find) I can pour consistent latte art every time (well at least the milk is good even if my latte art skills fail me from time to time). I was wondering if anyone has recieved the new water resevior I got my replacement yesterday and I went to install it, but could not get the metal tube (the one that connects to the plastic hose running to the pump) into the new resevoir. It was a little difficult to get out of the old resevior, but impossible to get into the new one. I contacted my dealer and he is looking into it, just wondering if anyone else encountered this problem. The new resevior looks way better than the old one I must say, and I would like to be able to install it.
I'm not aware of a new reservoir. Are you talking about the clear reservoirs that should have already came with the GS3's that were released in the US this year?
pburbridge Senior Member Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 298 Location: Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada Expertise: Pro Barista
Espresso: La Marzocco GS3 Grinder: Mazzer Super Jolly Drip: Kalita pour over brewer Roaster: I-roast 2
Posted Thu Mar 27, 2008, 3:41pm Subject: Re: i'm happy with the milk steaming capabilities of the GS3
Right, I got mine in Canada in August and it was before the new reservoir was released. Given the new price point I'm pretty happy to have gotten mine so early and only paid $6000 taxes in (after a $500 dealer rebate for having several technical problems to start with).
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