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LUCCA A53: Programming Pre-Infusion

Learn how to setup and fine tune the pre-infusion feature on the Direct Plumb LUCCA A53 Dual Boiler Espresso Machine by La Spaziale. By automating pre-infusion you can lock down one more variable in your espresso routine.

What is Pre-infusion?

Pre-infusion is the low-pressure soaking of the coffee bed before an espresso machine builds to its full 9 bar brew pressure. This settles the coffee puck, which can minimize channeling and improve shot consistency.

Pre-infusion on the Direct Plumb A53

The A53 is a direct plumb only machine, which means it uses the passive pressure of the water line to accomplish pre-infusion. It simply opens the path to the group head by opening a solenoid. The exciting part is that it can be programmed to automatically pre-infuse for one to eight seconds. When you use either of the machine’s brew buttons this pre-infusion step will automatically occur, making consistent pre-infusion easy.

Programming pre-infusion on the A53:

Let’s go ahead and program this machine to do 4 seconds of pre-infusion. First, we’ll enter the setting menu by pressing and holding the power button for about 10 seconds. To change the pre-infusion setting we’ll now press and hold the boiler button for about 5 seconds. Now you can see that all the numbered lights on the face of the machine have gone dark. This indicates that pre-infusion is set to “off.” By pressing the hot water button we can increase the duration of the pre-infusion by one second at a time. I’ll press it 4 times to set a 4-second pre-infusion. By pressing the power button again, we’ll save and exit the settings mode.

Now let’s pull a shot. As you can see, when I press the shot button we get a slow trickle of water for 4 seconds and then we hear the pump kick in.

Just for fun, we pulled shots with zero, three, five, and eight seconds of pre-infusion to give you a visual for how that impacts extraction. Around here, we generally use about 5 seconds of pre-infusion. It’s enough to ensure even extractions without having too much impact on the yield you’ll have when you stop your shot.

The convenience of being able to pull a shot with automated pre-infusion which stops at a specified volume is why this is our go-to recommendation for offices and small shops – and why it’s the machine we use in our offices!

NOTE: It's important to remember that pressing and holding the power button while the machine is on can cause the machine to inadvertently enter this programming mode, resulting in your settings being changed unintentionally.