Most of us would surely like a commercial espresso machine at home. And that’s for a number of reasons. When it comes to practicality though, the main reason is making 6 cups of coffee without spending 20 minutes doing this: the ability to pull shot after shot. Of course you have your routine finely tuned and maybe you know a few tricks to cope with entertaining five or six friends but in the end you are technologically limited by the espresso machine you have, be it a Silvia or the cheapest thing money could buy. Sorry for taking a long way round in coming to the point. I’m going to present a trick that you may want to try the next time you’re faced with a fine gathering of friends.
The main problem in that situation is the heatup time that your machine needs in between the shots and your aim is to minimize that as much as possible. You can reduce this time by landing a hand to your overwhelmed espresso machine, using a simple kettle to preheat the water that goes in your tank. Don’t overdo it! You don’t want boiling water to liquefy your rubber tubing. Instead think that every little extra helps. By fiddling around with various temperatures you will be able to get a feeling for the temperature of the water that should go in your tank.
Bottom line: you can reduce the time that your boiler takes to come to temperature in between shots by prewarming the water in your tank. That’s it, no heat exchanger, no thounsands of euros blown on a commercial machine.
Enjoy!
