KS came over this morning. I introduced Anita to him, and after checking out the way she looks, KS is just so eager to try her out. His girlfriend, Dawn is perfectly fine about it. Hey, I don’t mind as long as I know Anita is in good hands.

Anita looks so fine, except she had all these spritzes around her body, thanks to me and my inconsistent dosing and tamping. We — KS and I took turns pulling shots from her. From this meetup, we made a few discoveries about Anita.

We kept looking for the screw depression on the puck, but couldn’t find any, so we just kept dosing more. Then I realized the blunder after a while. Anita has no screw on her shower screen!

The beans for today were Zambia, Ecafe Shilcho Sidamo, and KS Blend. KS managed to hit on an ideal grind setting on the Compak K6 after a while, which produced a beautiful 25 second pour. Still a bit bright though. But the best pour of the day was 45 seconds long. In spite of the very very slow pour, and the expected over-extracted bitterness, it was the best espresso we have tasted for the day. It was neither bright nor bitter. The beans were KS Blend of Zambia Harrar Brazil Sumatra. Although this grind setting may have been ideal for KS, it may not work for me as I DLT differently. The Compak K6 was easy to clean, especially after the mods.

We unloaded the portafilter after pulling a shot each time, and noted that the pucks were still wet, despite the OPV (Over Pressure Valve). When we finally reached the ideal grind setting though, the puck was dry. Also, the dosing was correct, as you can see a slight indentation from the rim of the shower screen.

One minus point about Anita is after using the steam and hot water wands, even with the rubberized grips, the wands are still too hot to handle. I plan to add clips to the wands.

Some points observed about Quickmill Anita are:

1) The boiler is well-insulated, thereby conserving energy. The sides do not run too hot to touch.

2) The hot water wand may be in the way of the brew lever. You may want to swivel it away before turning on the brew.

3) The 3 litre reservoir is more than sufficient. We made about 6 drinks, performing water dances prior to each drink, also to heat up the glasses, backflushing about 4 times for about 5 seconds each time. But by the time we were done, the drip tray was full to the brim.

4) The HX maintained a steady temperature. Even when the red light (boiler) comes on after the portafilter was locked and loaded, it takes at most 5 to 7 seconds before the boiler switches off.

5) The extra portafilter included with Quickmill Anita comes in handy, as you can fit a blank in one of them to backflush. In ordering the naked portafilter from Chris, I now have a triple basket, in addition to the single and double baskets from Anita.

Future posts include frothing milk, and dissecting Anita.