Coffee Appreciation

^ First photo needs to be reposted in the Hidden faces thread...

Hah. It looks like it’s screaming and it sounded like it was screaming after the gears went.

Seems right and proper to have a cup of tea while you do it.

Yep! Had the same on mine, on the plus side it was a pretty simple swap!

Though a few weeks after that there seems to have been an issue on the power board, so mine has been sat on a shelf for the past year or so.

...

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What about the Hario Switch?
That comes in glass

But in their defence, 45quid maintenance every 3-4 years is not exactly a large amount of expenditure for the quality you get in the cup. Was pretty painless all in all for me and it was almost like an upgrade from the previous burrset.

On the one hand it was easy for me to do as I have the tools and am happy working around appliances. It also cost me nothing - other than time / hassle - because they give the assemblies out free because they know they fucked up with them.

On the other, it's a bit shit because ours wasn't even used daily until the pandemic (but I guess that's now most of its service life).

Maybe for the money we can't expect an all-metal drive assembly that lasts for a decade, but I don't think an all plastic assembly that fails so predictably is a good price / quality compromise.

I actually had to pay for the assembly for mine because it was long out of warranty - how did you manage to get it free? Also I just think of it as a machine that has a 45 quid consumable every 4 years; if you save 240 over a niche zero for similar quality (and arguably better workflow since you grind right into the portafilter) you buy the assembly twice, it lasts a decade, and you've still saved 150... Also given how they've upgraded the burrs, who's to say if they manage to find a different composition of plastic tough enough for the job.

Presumably mine was still under warranty (approaching five years old) but they know the OTB assembly isn't fit for purpose so if you contact their support and kick up a fuss they will probably just send one out.

Thoughts on the Kuku?

Now I've solved the grinder issue (for now at least), this morning I noticed algae/mildew in the water tank of my coffee machine.

Spent fucking ages with Milton steriliser tablets, descaler, and puly caff cleaning it. Must have run about 12L of water through it over the course of the day.

Read about it a bit online and looks like people recommend making sure the sun never reaches it, which is a bit difficult for me. Might cover it with a tea towel or something equally weird.

I do clean it regularly but it's hard to clean the water tank properly because it's not removable. Going to have sterilising the water tank part of my cleaning regime I think.

my Brita water filter has a bit of algae in it - i don't worry about it much and even less so in an espresso machine as that water is gonna be heated to 90+deg.

mebbe i'll die from blue green algae poisoning but it hasn't happened yet.

It’s a constant battle with my Gaggia too. I don’t use the filling point on the top of my machine, I pull the water tank out and put about 2 days worth in, then rinse it out and repeat every other day. Even then, the inside of the water tank starts to feel a bit greasy after a few weeks and leave it any longer and I start to get globs of algae forming.

Regular cleaning is all you can do, but you can’t stop it completely. I always wanted to plumb my machine into the mains, but it’s the algae buildup that has put me off.

Interesting, I'm unsurprised that I've spent all day overthinking this...

👀

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Haha, bit too late with that. Just seen hatbread's post. 😋

Reeeeee :)

Steaming the fucker in the microwave sorts this

Back to last week's La Pavoni chat. Added a few mods to the Europiccola I scored from @Kalkhoff : pressure gauge, Teflon Isolator, and digital GH Thermometer. Very pleased, especially with the didge display- I went for temp strips originally but my ageing eyes could barely register the colour changes.

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Amazing! Looking good 😍 is that a bottomless portafilter too?

How's the gh thermometer? Keep eyeing them up myself.

Teflon Isolator

Is that the blue gasket between the group head and boiler?

Moar pavoni chat.

My lever arm is loose af. It's not broken, so much as poorly designed - it looks like it's a swage joint, and it's coming apart.

I'm considering taking it to a local blacksmith and getting it welded (and maybe rechromed, who knows).

They're about £20 new if that helps. Know what you mean though, poor design!

So this is a thing now...

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