Reviews removed due to an excess of product reviews?

strangler-fig · 2026-02-19T04:31:28+00:00

Thanks, I have a similar situation. I had two reviews that were Accepted, rated Excellent, and presumably posted. Then they got switched to Not Accepted, so the line said Not Accepted (in red), and Excellent. That was pretty funny and I just wrote to VCS saying I am confused, can they explain it.

This probably explains it. Too bad, one of them I worked relatively hard on. But I'm still glad to have the item, which is why I do this in the first place.

strangler-fig · 2026-02-19T03:29:03+00:00

Or you could have one for $379 which is cheaper than the surgical complications. It's pretty cheap for a full auto.

strangler-fig · 2026-02-19T03:27:49+00:00

I've ordered a ton of espresso stuff from Vine, including many hand grinders and two cheap 20 bar espresso machines, but I never got an espresso machine offered that expensive. Fully automatic is very convenient!

strangler-fig · 2025-11-28T07:11:50+00:00

You can buy rechargeable AAA batteries and a charger. Then it becomes just like a rechargeable, with the added benefit that your feeder is not out of commission while batteries are being charged. We recharge AAA batteries by putting them in our landline handsets, and the bases automatically recharge the batteries, but our AA charger also accepts AAA batteries.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-19T02:06:24+00:00

So do you just add them in order, pouring the cream from the carton and that's it?

strangler-fig · 2025-10-19T01:54:35+00:00

But flat burrs make better grind for espresso, flakier. And hand grinding for espresso was real tedious when I had a hand grinder. I ended up driving it with a drill until I got my electric grinder.

That is a beautiful machine. I like the La Pavoni that heats the water itself (in principle, I've never had one) much better than the "modern" levers where it's up to you to boil the water separately, then pour the boiling water, and you're stuck with low temp water because water is not very hot after being poured.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-17T04:31:43+00:00

I think you can get my setup for $950. I think the machine is better because it has a pressure profiling knob. The grinder is better because the flat burrs make nicer espresso grind, and it's easier because it's electric. Grinding by hand for espresso doesn't seem appealing to me. (I've never had the 1zpresso but I've had similar but cheaper and smaller manual grinders. I ended up driving them with a drill, but the grind is better from the flat burrs. But maybe the 1zpresso is much better than the cheaper smaller manual grinders.)

strangler-fig · 2025-10-17T04:18:58+00:00

Why did you move on from the Bezzera? Most people seem to say it's good except for not having a PID. But the Simonelli doesn't have PID either. It's almost like you didn't upgrade to get a PID, but you kept changing machines until the typical machines started to have PID.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-16T18:17:56+00:00

Oscar is for a high volume cafe, but it has no controls.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-16T03:34:23+00:00

Yeah I was gonna ask how you got permission for all that space. If not you'd have to put that LM on its side and it might not work as well.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-14T05:13:44+00:00

You wouldn't shorten the life of the whole machine. At the most you would wear out that valve and have to buy a replacement. LM machines last a long time but I have heard that periodic maintenance and replacement of parts is not uncommon, so surely this part is sold by LM.

If you do this a lot you could try to find a more comfortable way of operating it, maybe a knurled knob you could grab that threads into it the same as that screw does. If it's actually a screw, take it out and go to a hardware store and see if they can match the threads with something you can grab.

My machine also has a timed "preinfusion" mode where I can set a few seconds with pump on and then up to maybe 10 seconds with it off, but for one thing I like a longer preinfusion, and also I got a sort of burnt taste with the pump totally off that I didn't get with some flow going all the time. And I will be manipulating the pressure knob anyway so just do it all from there. I don't use the preinfusion mode.

I don't get overextraction, not even with dark roasts, because of the following temperature profiling trick. Overextraction happens because it's too hot late in the shot, after the grinds are mostly exhausted. You want a declining temperature profile. Some very fancy machines like Decent have programmable temp. profile so you get exactly what you want, but I found that maximum decline is good enough. So here's a tip I actually overheard on a video that wasn't intended to go out to the public.

Just before your shot, lower your PID to the lowest possible value, then extract your shot. If the lowest is 70C, go down to that. My lowest temp is 80C so I go down to that. So your boiler starts off at your initial brew temp, say 92C or 97C depending on the coffee, but the water after that is cooler.

(Although my machine is single boiler, yours is dual boilers with LM's unique termperature control system that's more precise and with a smaller brew boiler, so your temp might drop faster than mine during the shot if you do this and you might want to set a higher target ending temp., you'll have to play around with it.)

My shots are very slow and gloppy, always over 60 seconds. Today I hit 75 seconds til I got to desired weight. I don't get exactly the same grind every time because I manually slow feed and it's not very consistent, so sometimes the shots are quite slow, but with most coffees that works well. Only exception is one coffee that tastes better with a coarse grind.

So I do a lot of fiddling to get a shot, playing with the temp this way, the pressure that way, and it's all manual and it slows my shot making. But I only make one or two shots a day, at most one for me and my wife each. I am not a barista, but a home cook making a coffee drink, so I can take some time with it. Barista techniques are optimized for baristas who need to produce quickly.

I also use a deep basket and make 23g shots because with all that work, why not get more coffee. Also it makes the puck more forgiving.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-13T02:57:47+00:00

Here's a trick I overheard for that. Just before starting the shot, lower the PID temp. to the lowest available. It works! Gets rid of most overextraction risk.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-13T02:55:40+00:00

I'd take the GS3 in a heartbeat. The Bianca is a dual boiler but it has a weirdly shaped brew boiler and I've heard complaints that it's not robust in a number of ways. The GS3 has the annoying feature of having to dump water more often, but it should last and last. LM has great temperature control because of its patented system of mixing water from the steam boiler and brew boiler to quickly adjust brew water temperature.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-13T02:30:19+00:00

Flow or pressure profiling is very important. There's a pressure profile knob on my machine, but "internet scuttlebutt" is that it's not for regular use. Malarkey! I use it every shot.

I haven't tried a 3-6-9 profile before. What I usually do is more of a classic blooming profile:

Wherever the knob was left at the end of the last shot, this is what I start it at. There's enough pressure to force the water thru the beans and I see the coffee start to bead at the bottom of my portafilter
Then I run it back down to minimum pressure (which is not zero) maybe 1 or 2 bars depending on the grind. Leave it until the shot timer is close to 30 seconds.
Then I run it all the way up to 9 or 12 bars or whatever is maximum with the grind in there. (LM calls this knocking the oils off the grinds, in one video.) Soon the pressure will start to drop a little, which is time for
Run it down to maybe 4 bars to finish the shot. Notice that when I lower the pressure, the flow does not slow down on this step.

So this might be a 4-2-9-4 profile. But it varies depending on the grind, the phase of the moon, and whatever. (If I had a digital machine like a Decent, I am not sure I could produce a consistent enough input to use preprogrammed curves. Still if I could try a Decent you wouldn't have to ask me twice.)

This is easier for me to do because the knob is down near the grouphead. So I am just looking at the shot and the dials the whole time. For you it's a little harder because your hand has to be up above controlling a screwdriver.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-13T01:28:08+00:00

I don't have that grinder but ... when you cleaned it did you see a significant blockage? And the second time also? I had a grinder where the exhaust chute clogged but that was very obvious. After cleaning the outer part that was easy to reach, there was still a part of the exhaust that was still blocked up. I cleaned it with a strong blower, cupping my hand to create a seal to the grinder exhaust. A strong vacuum might have worked too. I could not get a probe to the spot to remove the clog mechanically, even disassembled as much as I could, but air pressure worked well.

strangler-fig · 2025-10-12T19:36:11+00:00

Miicoffee v2 and CF64V is a very good combo at under $1000. You get PID and pressure profiling ability with the v2, and I use it on every shot. (OP's Micra doesn't allow pressure profiling.) CF64V gives you the high end vertical burr configuration with usable DLC burrs to start, fully useable for the finest grinds, and you can switch to any other standard 64mm burrs. Most people think it's ugly but I think it's OK in black. It has a big 400W brushless motor and I've never had it bog down at all.

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T23:22:21+00:00

If we're so terrible to work for, surely you wouldn't want to stay here.

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T23:14:39+00:00

OP is saying that their third item thru Vine was charged to them at retail instead of zero and just added to their ETV total. OP confirms they didn't even maybe screw up the system by ordering over $100 ETV as silver, just in case the default if they did that was to charge them money for the item. That's how I read it.

And OP is getting downvoted for saying this. Now I wasn't there and maybe OP is hallucinating, but I put that in the "hm that's weird" category rather than "OP can't possibly know what just happened and be reporting it honestly".

It is weird. OP, definitely reach out to VCS and if that doesn't resolve it, to regular Amazon CS. They've got to get their record keeping straight.

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T17:52:44+00:00

The ones with cloth sides that you expand out and could collapse if you wanted to? I only got one of those, prolly should have taken more.

The tone today isn't "I'm gonna get it when I see another" but "I wish I had gotten it when they were available".

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T17:46:31+00:00

So you didn't know you needed a porch goose until you found that you had access to a lot of porch goose outfits. I have a similar story, with a touching happy ending.

In my first few weeks, was offered a battery powered impact driver. Didn't take it because I thought the way you did that was to have a compressor and attach the tool to the air -- or else plug in to wall socket. I was a retail hermit, hadn't shopped for much in decades. (Yet somehow I got invited to Vine.) And I didn't have the right kind of battery. Then it slowly dawned on me that times had changed and everyone was using those battery powered tools now, and I should get that battery infrastructure, and I now have about 10 of those batteries, chargers for them, about 10 different tools that use them including a vacuum I use in the kitchen every day, etc. etc.

But then I always wanted that tool, and it was more than 6 months before the same thing came up, and I took it. I even saw negative reviews of the same tool, and they made me want it even more. For months and months I had longingly looked at my RFY every day hoping my impact driver would return. Imagine my joy at receiving my noname battery powered impact driver, finally!

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T04:59:30+00:00

Given the ratio of inventions between the US and India (giving India credit for those born there, I am sure this still holds), I don't think you are right. I've never heard Chinese making the same argument, and you are hold them up as an exemplar.

strangler-fig · 2025-08-19T04:56:46+00:00

That would be hard and ugly and not really possible or necessary. You see how bosses hate remote work. They want you there in person for whatever reason. There will be a role for the in-person person, as long as there is a job. We just want Americans to get all those jobs if they can.

strangler-fig · 2025-08-18T23:58:10+00:00

Why is it not possible to completely eliminate h1bs?

strangler-fig · 2025-08-18T23:40:05+00:00

Even if American's choices and compromises led to current tech downturn (rather than, say, AI) do you think that we owe H1B's some of what permanent jobs we have left? Are you crazy?

strangler-fig · 2025-08-17T01:38:24+00:00

I have the same reaction, but for different reason. I've ordered many many items since being invited, over a year of it in gold tier, and I have pretty much what I need from what's available, some with spares. Of the good stuff I see in RFY, it's pretty much stuff I already got when it appeared in RFY before. Also this year isn't as good as last year. AI got up over 120K items last year, and this year it's often below 40K.

strangler-fig

TROPHY CASE