{"id":961,"date":"2016-06-03T16:17:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-03T16:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomblog.firstsolo.net\/?p=961"},"modified":"2016-06-03T19:22:35","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T19:22:35","slug":"improving-gaggia-brew-head-temperature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomblog.firstsolo.net\/index.php\/improving-gaggia-brew-head-temperature\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Gaggia brew head temperature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over recent weeks, I have wasted<\/del> invested a lot of time investigating the\u00a0Gaggia boiler thermodynamics. (All part of my master plan to have the entire machine at a stable temperature inside 2 minutes from power on.) A major obstacle to getting a stable temperature quickly is that the brew head takes for ever to warm up. Whilst thinking about this, I hit on an idea for improving the heat transfer from the aluminium boiler shell to the brew head: put heat-sink compound in the join between the shell and the brew head.<\/p>\n

Here it is, the white grease around the outside of the gasket groove:\"brewheadwithheatsinkcompound\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does it make a difference? Why, I’m, glad you asked. As it happens, I had the presence of mind to measure and plot before and after curves. Pictured below is the temperature response (in \u00b0C) to 60s of full power, followed by 420s of zero power.\"brewheadbeforeafter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A clear improvement – nearly 10% faster heating1<\/sup><\/a>Which, for those of us who love to optimise systems, is a result!<\/span><\/span>