Video Overview | Astoria Plus 4 You Automatic Espresso Machine
Astoria's Plus 4 You is an automatic commercial espresso machine with energy saving technology, fabulous temperature stability, and a nifty digital display that lets you view and adjust performance with ease. In Astoria's line-up, the Plus 4 You is the first in the "Green Line", as it reduces energy consumption by a up to 47%! To learn more about the Plus 4 You, watch along as Caleb takes a look at this sleek machine from Astoria.
Transcript
Hey, friends. Caleb here with Prima Coffee. Today we're going to be taking a look at the Plus 4 You. It's an automatic, volumetric espresso machine from Astoria. The Plus 4 You comes in a two-group option or a three-group option, and it's a part of Astoria's Green Line. What that means is that it has built-in energy-saving technology, so you're able to adjust manually when you want your espresso machine to kind of go into standby mode for different days or different times of the day. There's also an auto-standby mode that you're able to...or that the machine kind of learns when to power down, or use a little less energy throughout times of the day. And if you have an issue with that, you're able to kind of get out of that standby mode in about a minute. So that's pretty, pretty cool.
Astoria Plus 4 You Automatic Espresso Machine | 2 or 3 Groups
Electronic temperature control of boilers and groupheads
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The other unique thing about the Plus 4 You is that it is a multi-boiler system. So we have a dedicated steam boiler and we have independent brew boilers for each group head. So for the 2-group, we have an 8-liter steam boiler. For the 3-group it's a 13-liter steam boiler, and then we have 1-liter brew boilers for each group head, whether that's 2 or 3. It's a 220 volt machine. It has quite a powerful heating element. So the 2-group has a 3000 watt heating element, while the 3-group has a 4000 watt. And then for each independent brew boiler, we have a 1000-watt heating element. So now that we've kind of talked about some of these internals, let's go ahead and move outward. So, first up we'll take a look at the control panel. Here we have the digital display, and then we have these controlling buttons down here. Just when it's usually standing here alone, we have indication of the steam boiler pressure, then we have just the ambient water or the pump pressure on the right.
We have the time, the date. We have the ambient humidity of the room, and then we have a percentage over here on the right that indicates how much energy the machine is using currently. You can dive into some much more in-depth programming in this control panel. You have to use the included USB key for that. You can adjust the energy-saving technology stuff, and then you can also adjust the temperature for the brew boilers and then the pressure for the steam boiler. You're also able to do this kind of a flow delivery test, is what they call it. And so, what that means is the machine's able to tell you when your shot has changed by 20%, and then it tells you to grind coarser or to grind finer. So, there's a lot of options within that programming, but that's just a small taste of it. So as we move outward, you can see that there are eight buttons for each group head. We have six programmable volumetric buttons, and then we also have a hot water dispensing button, and then a program stop button.
So this program stop button, it functions as a semi-automatic button, or it allows you to program these volumetric buttons. You just hold it down until it starts flashing, and then you can adjust each one. It also functions as a stop button, so you're able to stop a brew midway, you know, if you're having a really poor shot or something. As we move over, we have this steam knob here. Able to turn your steam on, and then we have, below that is the steam wand. It's just a single-walled, stainless-steel steam wand, though you can upgrade it to a cool-touch steam wand as well. Moving over, we have a hot water dispense with a cool water mixing valve, so you're able to have water that's, you know, you're not going to be serving tea that's boiling water. As we move over, we have your group head and your portafilters. The group head is Astoria's upgraded group head, and then, so below that, we have the raised groups.
So what that means is you're able to place a 16-ounce cup directly on here. If you have a bottomless portafilter, you can use a 20-ounce cup. So that's super nice if you have drive through operations. Able to crank through those rushes with ease. Another nice thing about the Plus 4 You is we have these extendable trays. So if you want to pull directly into a shot glass or something, you won't have, you know, as much of a splatter coming out of it as if it were, you know, so down low. Let's go ahead and pull a shot and see how this thing works. So, for this shot we're going to be doing 19 grams in, and 40 grams out. We've already pre-programmed this volumetric button to dose 40 grams. If you look over here to the left you'll see that it has a shot timer, and that's able to do for each group, which is especially nice.
We've gone over some really great features, from volumetrics to this eco-friendly energy-saving modes. And then we also have the multi-boiler system. So there's some really great features built in. We would suggest the two-group machine for kind of low to mid range volume caf�s, while the three-group would be more for high volume caf�s. There's, you know, some very in-depth programmability that you can do, so I mean, this is going to be for people with more experience, but you can also get those things set and just use these volumetrics for baristas with less experience. So anyway, that is the Plus 4 You. Thanks for watching.
