Luke recently bought himself a flash new La Marzocco GS3 coffee machine to use at home & in this video he takes us through the experience of unboxing the GS3 and some of it's features. The GS3 features the thermal stability system used in the commercial La Marzocco Strada, including a preheating system, digital PID controller, a saturated group, a dual-boiler system, and digital display. Luke has previously used a Linea Mini at home so moving up to the GS3 is really stepping it up another level. The first half of the video is shot here at the roastery where Luke unboxes the machine and the second half is shot a few days later with the machine in at home in Lukes kitchen after he's had a chance to test it out.
Video Transcript (auto generated)
g'day everyone i'm really excited i've
just taken delivery of my new
la marzocco gs3 this is the manual paddle
version
um so it's got some really cool stuff
it's the new model with the iot
which is the ability to play with the
new app that they have
and i just want to share with you the
unboxing and we're going to make a
coffee on it
[Applause]
[Music]
so
[Music]
so we've got it out of the box and we
pop it up on the bench here
and the first thing you want to check
when you get your new machine home is is
there any damage
so we've had a quick look around there's
no marks no scrapes this is a beautiful
machine
it's got everything we need as well it
comes with a full accessories box there
and just a little card here which talks
about the lumozako home app
and that allows you to connect via your
phone to
the actual gs3 it's new in the whole
range of mini
and the gs3 and you can change things
like your rear boiler temperatures your
front boiler temps
you can turn it on and off as well and i
think you can have multiple machines
connected at one time as well so
pretty cool little uh app um so look
forward to
giving a bit more information about that
when i get a bit of play with it you've
got a qr code there
so that you can scan it and know where
to get the app from
so i wanted to start by filling this up
and while it heats up we'll run through
a few more of the the features of the
machine
and then we'll make a copy out of it so
we'll just start by taking the
little signs off it saying it's all
quality tested which is great
and another one there
which is in italian but if you flick it
around it says accomplish more with the
hands from songwa so this is a
relationship that lamazocko have
with with farmers in tanzania so they
are collaborating with them and i
believe that they you know send some
money out there and support them so
there's some real positive things coming
between lamazoko and the coffee industry
as well so they know you know what feeds
their industry and they're looking after
them so that's really great
so i've got it plugged in and turned on
and we're going to fill up with water
first
so to do that there's a couple little
latches underneath here
which just allow you to take that front
drip tray out
it's a nice big size drip tray as well
pull your water reservoir forward
and fill filler up
so it's got to be nice filtered water
you'd only be having a nice machine like
this
and just using good old tap water
so get a good filter carbon block style
filter under your sink
or you can buy pure water if you want as
well
so that's in now on the back left hand
corner here is a main power switch which
we're going to turn on
and you can see that's just starting at
software now
first installation press enter to
confirm
[Music]
the head was left on so it started to
pump out a bit of water there
and we're going to hit the enter button
here
there we go and starting to heat up now
so it's going to take a few minutes
that's only
um got a couple of lights there which
i'd say are
solid and that means that the front and
the rear boilers are actually starting
to heat up
um so that's a good little indicator to
know what's happening and i think you'll
find once it's up and running they'll
just flash
so it's nothing to worry about that
would be indicating that they're just
checking to make sure that they're at
the right temperatures
so we'll open up the goodie box and have
a look what's inside
alrighty so we've got um a drain hose
which is really handy
so this actually comes with the plumbing
kit
so you can run this straight off your
mains and they've actually given you
everything that you need which is
amazing so
we've got our little adapter that goes
into the back of the drip tray
your mains water connector
some backwash chemical which is really
essential a lot of people aren't
cleaning their machines
well enough and having a lot of issues
little hose clamp there
and we've got ourself our single and our
double handles which is really nice
these are the stainless steel ones
and they do have those little uh
horseshoes on them
which allow you to sit nice and flat on
the edge of the bench
and that helps because these are the
removable spouts
and if you do try and tamp with them
flat on the bench they will pop off
put those up there for a sec um
and a water test kit so highly recommend
you run through this test so you know
what's happening with the water
in your area and how it's going to
affect your machine so you might have
heaps of lime or calcium or whatever's
in the water but you're gonna
get a good understanding of how you're
gonna wreck a really good machine if you
don't do a water test
little box here let's see what the
goodies are
it's pretty heavy and i would say that
that is
there you go a little zocco tamper there
so nice finishing little
touch there nice go just a bit of a
curved base on that one as well
that helps you with a bit more room when
you're
tamping
and then there's a goodie bag of all the
baskets here
so you've got your blind for your
cleaning
and there's a little single basket which
some of you may use but i know that we
don't use those very often
and then there's a whole set here three
different baskets
oh three different baskets here
which are all the straight wall baskets
and they're ranging from
that's a 17 gram
that's the 14 gram
and the 21 gram so commercially we use a
21 gram basket
i know it is a lot of coffee to use at
home but it does make a beautiful cup of
coffee so
if you're finding that you're you know
got one of these machines you're not
getting enough
flavor out there or you don't think it's
the same as a cafe this machine can
definitely do it
and that is probably because they're
using that basket and
there's heaps of info about how to do
brew recipes on our channel as well
and also if you're going to do the
plumbing kit that is referenced as well
with a linear mini so
you can teach you how to do that one if
you need to
and there's three copper washers and an
allen key
which i'm really not sure what they are
for the moment but i'm sure we'll find
out and i'll let you know later
while it's still heating up we're up to
41 degrees
we've got our little cover there covered
in the plastic wrap
so bear with me while i give this a go
so still waiting for it to heat up um
it's probably going to take another five
minutes
but just give you a couple of specs on
the machine the gs3 is a double boiler
machine
this machine is fitted as i said with
the new iot technology
which is the integrated app via
bluetooth so
really cool looking forward to having to
play with that you just got your hot
water tap
this does have the new cool touch steam
wand so the previous ones didn't have it
these are pretty pretty nifty they're
actually a double
skinned stainless steel with an
insulator in between the two so
it doesn't have the inner plastic tube
like you find on some of the
the cheaper models out there so that's a
really nice touch
we've just got our two gauges here which
is our steam pressure
and we're going to have our pump
pressure and this is the on off switch
to activate the steam and then we've got
our
bar pressure which is on the top of our
brew head
so this is a manual lever the manual
pedal version you can get in the av
which is automatic volumetric machines
if you want to
i want a bit of a play so this allows me
to
activate and deactivate the
the water as it's coming into the coffee
now
a lot of people think this is a pressure
profiling style machine
it does have that kind of concept but
it's a little bit different
what they do have is a conical conical
valve
inside this head and as you're providing
that pressure
you're actually diverting the nine bar
pressure
back into the drip tray through an
exhaust valve
so it does give you that kind of
pressure profiling i guess because you
can run it down to about three bar or
four or five if you like
but it's not a as stay specific
as you might have in a strata from
lumozako which is a very
pressure profiled and graft style
concept so
really cool though being able to adjust
those so
i'm looking forward to having a few
pre-infusions on around three bar just
gently soaking that coffee and then
ramping it up and giving it a full nine
bar pressure and then finishing it off
at about three bar so
to me that that's really good for a
beautiful single origin
so one common thing that we want to let
people know about is
when a machine is manufactured it does
get tested and they run a bit of water
through it
but it can take a bit of time for that
taste of manufacturing to actually come
out of a machine
we can find in a commercial machine up
to 20 or 30 kilos of coffee before
that's going to be
you know really flushing through and
getting rid of any sort of little burr
taste from a cut pipe or something like
that or metal that's coming through
so i advise don't judge a machine on
your first couple of
brews that you make you know definitely
try and flush as much water through them
as you can and
and you can season your head as well by
you know back flushing a bit of water
through it
and a chemical clean will also help as
well a machine is going to taste so much
nicer
after quite a few kilos have been run
through it so
so this machine um we are going to make
a few little coffees on it and have a
bit of a play just to
you know start seasoning it a little bit
um we will
get this out to my place and we're going
to definitely get a bit more um
coffee run through it and and yeah then
we'll do a really good review
on the actual machine this machine is
destined to have all the black taken off
it and i'm gonna do some custom mods
so there are some really cool guys out
there doing amazing stuff where you can
really make a nice
timber look or brass or whatever you
want to do
i'm going to put my own little touches
on it and i do want to make this all
myself so
stay tuned and i'll do a video on that
down the track
so just going to run some water through
it and some coffee and give it a bit of
a season
they're going to take it to my place and
we'll make a few coffees on it so we'll
catch you there
[Music]
so i've got the gs3 at home now i've had
it for a few days
making a few coffees and some of the
things i've noticed
is that it's just a little bit wider
which has just made a little bit
of my area a bit harder to make a few
coffees
but i really love the fact that it is
lower so it's not
dominating as much height in my coffee
area here
in my kitchen the top drip tray i really
love it to be honest the
mini does vibrate a fair bit and i found
the gs3 not to make as much noise
and vibrate which is candy in the
morning when i'm making the first cup of
coffee
so one thing with the setup on the gs3
was the iot software
it's the new app that allows you to
control
the on and off of your machine the rear
temperature of the boiler
or the front boiler as well it gives you
a bit of a status of the machine as well
how many coffees you've brewed
and there's some really cool how to brew
coffee guides in there as well
so it's got a bit of information i'm
sure they're going to use this as an
upgrade or a new platform
possibly across all of their gear moving
forward
i have found though it was a bit tricky
when you're trying to connect to your
wi-fi
it does say it only works on the 2.4 gig
network
specifically so if you've got one of the
5g backups on your modems you have to
turn that off
and that'll allow you to connect so
right now i'm not connected
because an internet is affecting our
microphones
so i can't take it through the app but
it's a pretty cool little app
and it's a good add-on for someone who
wants to know more about their machine
or be able to change that brew
temperature which i've already done
i do really love the new steam wand this
is just
amazing the double line stainless steel
just
it's so cold and it is very responsive
so it'll turn on and turn off given such
a long
volume of actual steam it doesn't have a
lot of lag when you're frothing
so i'm really enjoying that the tip is
still hot so be careful
the drip tray it's huge the hot water
tap
is very stiff to be honest i think it's
a little bit stiff for my liking i feel
like i'm going to break it
we do use that a lot and it was also set
a bit cool when we got the machine
so you do need to take this side panel
on the right off
and then use the adjusting knob to
increase the amount of
hot water coming from the boiler rather
than pushing
the cold water through from the pump but
you can adjust that to the exact
temperature you like
so it was pretty easy to do yeah
by taking the panels off it is very easy
to change the look of your machine so
it's just a couple of um polish knobs
there and then another little screw
underneath and it's it's really easy to
dismantle and get inside the machine for
servicing so
really happy about that overall
loving the big drip tray loving the brew
head
the ability to change those pressures um
i'm really
playing with three bar going up to six
bar then coming back to three bar in my
brew pressure
for me i'm really enjoying that if you
wanted that
three all the way it's really cool to
get a really nice single origin and
highlight some of the flavors that
that's going to give you if you want
your straight 9 bar just bring
it across and it's ready to go so if you
don't want to play
it's not a big difference in what you're
doing
to make that coffee i will show you in
here just quickly
what's happening when you do not take
all the pressure
so this is the conical bypass valve that
we were speaking about
so i'll just quickly load up a shot
[Music]
okay this is the best way that i can
show you how this technology works
now i'm not too worried about this
extraction i just want to provide some
back pressure
so you load up your handle the pump is
going to generate
nine bar pressure and if you have a look
at your gauge here
as i start to brew the pump kicks in
and i can adjust this so i can go all
the way up to nine
okay and it comes out the head if i
reduce this if you come down and have a
look in the
in the bottom of the drip tray down to
three you'll see down here
the back pressure coming off so you've
got extraction of three bar
and the back pressure of six being
diverted if i go back up to nine
you can see that we get nine bar of
pressure to the coffee
and nothing to the expansion valve so
it's just a bypass valve it's a conical
valve
and that's pretty cool way of them
giving you that technology
and flexibility the only problem is when
you do play with this a lot
this drip tray fills up pretty quick so
if you can imagine doing a lot of three
bar extractions
you've got six bar of water pressure
just filling up this drip tray so
keep an eye on it or use the manual
hose that can go down to your drain so
plum it in this machine isn't water
plumbed yet i'm still running
off the inbuilt tank so
yeah definitely get that happening if
you're going to be playing with a lot of
three bar it'll
it'll save you a big mess through your
kitchen so let's make a coffee
i'm gonna do this as a three bar
extraction all the way
and just show you how you can achieve
getting three bar
from the start it's quite a finesse
movement i might say so i'll show you
what we've got to do
so in the handle i've got the 21 gram
lumizoco
and in our dosing pot we're going to be
running 22 and a half grams of coffee
so this grinder is a little bit um
out of whack sometimes so i've just got
to get my weight right
cool 22.5
better clean my handle from the one
before
having that deeper drip tray does help
when you wash your handles i do like it
that there is a bit of room there to
make a bit of a splash some of the
smaller machines have a small drip tray
and you tend to make a lot more mess
so we've got our coffee
now i should have taken the water out of
that handle to be honest
after washing it so i'm sure you're
going to pick me up on that one
all right so lock it in
grab our cup i've worked out this little
circle here is right where i want to go
to so i'm just going to sneak around and
it's just
on the inside edge
to get the three bar extraction we'll
run that all the way through
we've got a shot timer up there so i'm
just watching that at the moment
and i'm going to stop that right on at
28.
all right so there's our extraction at 3
bar
you can see there's a little bit of that
paleness coming through
and if we have a look at our extraction
the puck afterwards
it's well extracted there's no holes
it's just a little bit spongy there
i would like to go a little bit finer on
the grind i'll do that one now as well
for you so
that's a typical extraction three bar
nice and softly brewed you generally
won't go
much finer on your grind as you would if
you're going nine
because you've got to compensate for
that pressure that's coming through
and obviously we'll extract the coffee
differently and taste differently
generally you won't get that darker
richer color in your crema as well
so there's a few variables but it's very
fun to play with
okay so i'm on a finer grind now i've
cleared that chamber
in the grinder to ensure that we've got
the right amount of
clearance of the old grind coming
through to make the new one come through
and now because i've gone fine i
actually need more time i didn't have
enough
time to get my 22 and a half grams
so i've had to grind out a little bit
more
there you go
i don't have an ocd here but i would
recommend using an ocd
if you're going to be playing with
pressure profiling and temperatures
you've got to make sure that puck is
spot on
all right so we're gonna do another
three
okay so at 14 seconds and you can see
that extraction was very drippy
a lot slower to come through a much
longer pre-infusion
we're up to 23 seconds now so i'm
actually going to stop that
a lot earlier and get a really
nice short espresso out of it stop that
at 34.
so you can see the yield is far less
so a lot less volume coming out of that
under a lot less pressure but using the
same amount of coffee
so just to give you an idea of what that
weight is
indifference we'll quickly tear these
cups out
so the first extraction
got us 40.5 grams so nearly the two to
one ratio just a little bit short
and in the second one
we're nearly one to one so just one
almost under 1.8 of a gram
under a one to one so
two totally different extractions
happening there one the first being
a double two to one ratio with a faster
extraction on time
run at three bar then go into a finer
grind
and then running the time a lot longer
out to 34 seconds
so a much bigger pre-infusion allowing
that lighter pressure to
infuse and expand the coffee as well so
they will taste very differently
obviously in the brew ratio
but also just really two good examples
of how you can
adjust and play with a machine like this
i will just show you that park as well
so very evenly extracted probably a
little bit better than the last one
still spongy there's no air holes or you
know
anything going through there but it does
look far nicer and more evenly extracted
getting that finer grind
i think that's about it some milk maybe
it was a lot of milk i need the milk
steam is really powerful
just a bit more purging is needed i
think just to clear this sometimes
especially if it hasn't been used for a
while
generally pointing this steam wand a lot
further down and
once it's on it spins beautifully
it's really quick
two hands helps get in the right spot
rest your milk obviously clean it up
a little bit more love needed on that
larger steam wand
in the pool
cool so there you go there is the
intro and what i think about the gs3
i think it's making beautiful coffee
there's so much flexibility to change
obviously the temperature
the pressure in your extractions as well
coupled with amazing steam
it's just an all-around amazing package
um look i'd love to hear your comments
have you
got a gs3 or are you looking to upgrade
have you got a linear mini and you want
to know
some more information between the
specifics as why you would spend
a couple extra thousand dollars on a gs3
hey shoot us a question
i'd love to help you with that one until
then hope you enjoy the coffee guys
cheers
pretty tasty
